Hi Nessie, I am sorry for all you have gone through with your son. I also want to apologize for addressing Trying in my first response, and neglecting to add your name! I don’t know how I missed that, I am sorry.
How well do I understand the polar opposite devastation/relief.
Sometimes I feel as if I have lived several lives in this one shot world.
My daughter is in jail, waiting trial. I won’t bail her out. She is not happy, to say the least. She has been calling her sisters, but....... a. they don’t have the money and b. If they did have the money they wouldn’t bail her out as well.
We are all hoping that she will detox and become clearheaded enough to find her way back to herself. We haven’t seen the real her in such a long time. So far, she is still in the realm of everything is the fault of others, especially.......me. I am long past owning that, but still working through the “what if’s” at times when I am faltering between the edge of the rabbit hole and hope for change. I know I cannot change her life, choices and consequences, so I have to work hard at shifting focus to what I can change, that’s me.
So I have to keep busy, too. Have been several times through the years clearing out rooms. Rearranging stuff as I process the circumstances and reality that life happens and kids grow up to make their own way. Some, choose the hard road. Two of mine have.
I know the feeling that they have wasted so much precious time drifting from one chaotic mess to the next.
We know all to well how short life is. Do they? I don’t think so.
The thing is, I am trying to focus on the positive, that I know where my daughter is, she has a roof over her head, there are outreach programs in jail, she has plenty of time to avail herself of them. Maybe, just maybe this will be a turning point for her.
If not, it has to be another one for me. Another adjustment to the Jerry Springer outcome that I had never imagined while raising her.
I am not so sure about familiarizing myself with the prison system. She is raging and desperate to get out. Belligerent in her one minute phone call and insistent it was not her doing that got her there. Demanding I bail her out and put it on my credit card. Swearing when I said no. All of this in one minute. She went no contact and now blames me for not looking for her. Huh. It is an entirely different world she lives in, certainly not the values we tried to teach her. Delusioned by pot and partying which eventually led to crack and then meth. I am sure she is detoxing and miserable. That phone call set me back for a bit and I prayed hard to get a handle on my myself. I started to fret and worry over detox, thought about worst case scenarios, but I have to stop taking trips into catastrophic land. Nothing good comes of it.
Nessie, you write you have three children, how are your other two doing? I have five, the eldest and third are my “waywards” the others are doing well. They help to keep my sanity, often are able to snap me back to understanding that their siblings have chosen this path and are reaping the seeds they have sown.
So, I pray my daughter gets her head clear. I am in the fence about contact for now, because of the recent call from her.
I am thinking now that I will sit with my feelings and wait. If she changes her tune, I may consider visiting, but not until then. It has been years of this for us, and I will not put myself in a position to be manipulated and maligned.
I hope you are doing okay, that time and work on self care will help you through this journey. I have come to think that the very thing I wish most for my two, I must do for myself. In that way I am modeling the change I wish for them. That is that they choose a good life, take care of their physical and mental health, focus on well being. It is not always easy, or a straight path, but I figure my going by the wayside does not help them one bit, and is a waste of my own life, as they drift along. I don’t want to spend the short years I have left on this planet lost in the sadness of their choices.
Please be very kind to yourself, honor and process your feelings. You matter, Nessie.
I hope you are feeling better today. Please take care.
(((Hugs)))
Leafy
