Hi everyone. I've been reading all your posts for the last few days, it is always so remarkable to me how similar our feelings. our challenges, our pain, our angers, our issues are........... what a gift it is to know you are all 'out there.'
My daughter is staying with us now, as I mentioned. She has been doing her very best to honor our boundaries. I am unclear as to where we are going exactly, I am giving this one week at a time. The nurturing mother in me wants to give her a chance to decompress, calm down and feel safe after her ordeal in jail and her homelessness previous to that. She is responding to everything I ask of her without the drama and intensity. She is still who she is, but it's ratcheted down quite a bit. I've been learning a lot in my codependency therapy group about detaching, boundary setting, not asking questions, minding my own business, etc. all the stuff you guys know about. It's hard and can be grueling because I am spring loaded to go down a certain path, trying to control, being an enabler, getting so angry at her, not accepting her for who she is. We have a long history of this cemented behavior and it's tough to break it, but I see us both really trying. I've gotten good at setting boundaries, saying no, and as you know, throwing her out, not posting her bail, detaching. I think we're both critically aware that this is her only option and if we can negotiate this territory we may be able to accomplish some level of healing. I am not in denial, I am aware that this may not work, she may go back to being her old self making horrible choices, living in her car, all of it. But, maybe not.
I had a long talk with my 15 year old granddaughter (who I am raising) this morning, I told her how this was for me, that I felt I needed to give her mother one more chance and that there were indicators that her mom was able now to take real responsibility for some of her actions (telling me last week that in the last 15 years when she was faced with a choice, she made the wrong choice every time.) As a 15 year old, she is embarrassed because her friends are asking "why is your mom here?" Plus, when I asked my daughter to remove the cat from the bathroom because my fiancee was wheezing with his asthma from the cat, she got a big tent and put it on the porch right outside our living room. So this big green tent is right out the sliding glass doors going out of our living room. My daughter then decided to stay in the tent with her old cat. My granddaughter said, "how do you explain your mother living in a tent outside your grandmothers house?" I told her I knew that was pretty weird, and I could understand how that would be embarrassing and truthfully I had no adult wisdom about how to explain that to her friends. Fortunately, we could laugh about how that really looks, how weird that really is. My fiancee and I went to the beach today and on our way there we really cracked up about how strange that really is! We got out of town and had a nice day. But, the truth is that my daughter is keeping herself contained out there away from the rest of us, respecting the boundary I set when I asked her to please keep her drama, her intensity, whatever would impact our peaceful and calm household, out of our home. She is safe and yet independent, and it seems to be working, odd as it is. I am doing all of this one moment at a time. My daughter has not lived with me since she was 19, (20 years ago) when it seems to me, she really began her strange behavior. I don't know what will happen, how this will go, but what is happening now feels very important and necessary, for me, as well as for my daughter, should she take the opportunity to in some manner change her life. I am not attached to what she does, I am simply willing to give her a chance. It's up to her to use it in a healthy way.
All of your stories of courage, healing, amazing strength and resilience, love and warrior ways have helped me enormously to be able to make this journey with my daughter, now, at this time. Thank you!
My daughter is staying with us now, as I mentioned. She has been doing her very best to honor our boundaries. I am unclear as to where we are going exactly, I am giving this one week at a time. The nurturing mother in me wants to give her a chance to decompress, calm down and feel safe after her ordeal in jail and her homelessness previous to that. She is responding to everything I ask of her without the drama and intensity. She is still who she is, but it's ratcheted down quite a bit. I've been learning a lot in my codependency therapy group about detaching, boundary setting, not asking questions, minding my own business, etc. all the stuff you guys know about. It's hard and can be grueling because I am spring loaded to go down a certain path, trying to control, being an enabler, getting so angry at her, not accepting her for who she is. We have a long history of this cemented behavior and it's tough to break it, but I see us both really trying. I've gotten good at setting boundaries, saying no, and as you know, throwing her out, not posting her bail, detaching. I think we're both critically aware that this is her only option and if we can negotiate this territory we may be able to accomplish some level of healing. I am not in denial, I am aware that this may not work, she may go back to being her old self making horrible choices, living in her car, all of it. But, maybe not.
I had a long talk with my 15 year old granddaughter (who I am raising) this morning, I told her how this was for me, that I felt I needed to give her mother one more chance and that there were indicators that her mom was able now to take real responsibility for some of her actions (telling me last week that in the last 15 years when she was faced with a choice, she made the wrong choice every time.) As a 15 year old, she is embarrassed because her friends are asking "why is your mom here?" Plus, when I asked my daughter to remove the cat from the bathroom because my fiancee was wheezing with his asthma from the cat, she got a big tent and put it on the porch right outside our living room. So this big green tent is right out the sliding glass doors going out of our living room. My daughter then decided to stay in the tent with her old cat. My granddaughter said, "how do you explain your mother living in a tent outside your grandmothers house?" I told her I knew that was pretty weird, and I could understand how that would be embarrassing and truthfully I had no adult wisdom about how to explain that to her friends. Fortunately, we could laugh about how that really looks, how weird that really is. My fiancee and I went to the beach today and on our way there we really cracked up about how strange that really is! We got out of town and had a nice day. But, the truth is that my daughter is keeping herself contained out there away from the rest of us, respecting the boundary I set when I asked her to please keep her drama, her intensity, whatever would impact our peaceful and calm household, out of our home. She is safe and yet independent, and it seems to be working, odd as it is. I am doing all of this one moment at a time. My daughter has not lived with me since she was 19, (20 years ago) when it seems to me, she really began her strange behavior. I don't know what will happen, how this will go, but what is happening now feels very important and necessary, for me, as well as for my daughter, should she take the opportunity to in some manner change her life. I am not attached to what she does, I am simply willing to give her a chance. It's up to her to use it in a healthy way.
All of your stories of courage, healing, amazing strength and resilience, love and warrior ways have helped me enormously to be able to make this journey with my daughter, now, at this time. Thank you!
