Hi to all the wonderful warrior parents here. I first came to this board in 1998 when my daughter was 7 and I was desperately looking for help. This board saved my sanity many times, kept me company late into the night as I waited for my daughter to come home, and gave me friendship, comfort and understanding in my darkest hours. I was being nostalgic and decided it was time for an update.
For those of you who remember me (and I see many familiar names ) I adopted my daughter at birth and she was a challenge for sure, from the time she could walk and talk. Looking back now it was as if she was rejecting us at every turn before we could reject her. We went thru temper tantrums, school behavior problems including almost weekly calls or notes from the school, escalating misbehavior as she got older, violent outbursts, seeking out friends who matched her behavior in negative ways, lying, stealing, running away from home and using alcohol and pot starting at age 14. All of this culminated with her spending a weekend in juvie and eventually getting kicked out of college in her first semester and entering a drug/alcohol treatment center for two months. That led to us finally making the almost impossible decision of asking her to leave our house, calling the police and her living in the basement at a friends house whose parents didn’t care their son was using drugs.
After years of trying everything in our power to help our daughter we decided she needed to make it on her own and from age 19 on she lived with friends, in sober living homes, and on her own in apartments she could afford on her jobs that she was unable to maintain without being fired. We spent many anxious and sleepless nights….years, but for all of our sakes we needed to detach.
I am extremely happy to report that our daughter is now married to a good man who has a very good job, a 12 year old darling daughter, a nice home and loves her with all her baggage. She became a dog groomer, has four dogs of her own, and has more business than she can handle out of her home business. So much so that I had to take my dog to an outside groomer because she couldn’t fit me in. Our relationship today is very good, better than very good. We have had many talks about the past and she acknowledges al the pain she has caused us. Together with her husband we even laugh at many of her shenanigans.
Just recently she found her birth father. He lives on the west coast and she visited him. She got many of the answers she was looking for and for awhile she was very excited about her new extended relatives. That didn’t last long as she realized she had no history with them and they were very different than she had become. Shortly after she found her birth mother. She has only communicated through a third person and has decided there is nothing there with which to form a relationship. She told us this Christmas that she hit the jackpot with us and is so happy that we are her parents and realizes how different her life would have been if we had not adopted her.
I know so many of you are still struggling and I’m not going to tell you every situation will end up as happy as ours because I know it won’t. There were times that we were broken and nearly destroyed in the past. The one thing I did learn through all of this is that you have to take care of yourself and be at peace with what may be. The day I was able to come to terms with perhaps our daughter dying or being sent to jail was the day I felt free to live my life and not living to save her.
I’ve often thought of so many of you here on this board and those who would come in the future. Thank goodness you have each other.
For those of you who remember me (and I see many familiar names ) I adopted my daughter at birth and she was a challenge for sure, from the time she could walk and talk. Looking back now it was as if she was rejecting us at every turn before we could reject her. We went thru temper tantrums, school behavior problems including almost weekly calls or notes from the school, escalating misbehavior as she got older, violent outbursts, seeking out friends who matched her behavior in negative ways, lying, stealing, running away from home and using alcohol and pot starting at age 14. All of this culminated with her spending a weekend in juvie and eventually getting kicked out of college in her first semester and entering a drug/alcohol treatment center for two months. That led to us finally making the almost impossible decision of asking her to leave our house, calling the police and her living in the basement at a friends house whose parents didn’t care their son was using drugs.
After years of trying everything in our power to help our daughter we decided she needed to make it on her own and from age 19 on she lived with friends, in sober living homes, and on her own in apartments she could afford on her jobs that she was unable to maintain without being fired. We spent many anxious and sleepless nights….years, but for all of our sakes we needed to detach.
I am extremely happy to report that our daughter is now married to a good man who has a very good job, a 12 year old darling daughter, a nice home and loves her with all her baggage. She became a dog groomer, has four dogs of her own, and has more business than she can handle out of her home business. So much so that I had to take my dog to an outside groomer because she couldn’t fit me in. Our relationship today is very good, better than very good. We have had many talks about the past and she acknowledges al the pain she has caused us. Together with her husband we even laugh at many of her shenanigans.
Just recently she found her birth father. He lives on the west coast and she visited him. She got many of the answers she was looking for and for awhile she was very excited about her new extended relatives. That didn’t last long as she realized she had no history with them and they were very different than she had become. Shortly after she found her birth mother. She has only communicated through a third person and has decided there is nothing there with which to form a relationship. She told us this Christmas that she hit the jackpot with us and is so happy that we are her parents and realizes how different her life would have been if we had not adopted her.
I know so many of you are still struggling and I’m not going to tell you every situation will end up as happy as ours because I know it won’t. There were times that we were broken and nearly destroyed in the past. The one thing I did learn through all of this is that you have to take care of yourself and be at peace with what may be. The day I was able to come to terms with perhaps our daughter dying or being sent to jail was the day I felt free to live my life and not living to save her.
I’ve often thought of so many of you here on this board and those who would come in the future. Thank goodness you have each other.