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Seeing the Paths of our Difficult Children in a Positive Light
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<blockquote data-quote="New Leaf" data-source="post: 672999" data-attributes="member: 19522"><p>Hi Copa, Cedar</p><p>Thank you for your interest.</p><p>I remember now, the question, if my girls were together, if I could tell you about them.</p><p>I think it was in FOO, because I was writing there, and then I got <em>that </em>phone call about the neighbor dropping my eldest off. I shall call her Rain.</p><p></p><p>"I just dropped Rain off in front of your house, she is in pretty bad shape......"</p><p></p><p>I am not trying to evade the question. I haven't been well for the past few days and honestly, Copa, I cannot go there right now.</p><p></p><p>I have been working so hard these past few months<em> not</em> to view my two as children. I have entered another point of struggle in my feeling ill, and so, I will answer the questions when I am stronger.</p><p></p><p>How were my daughters when they were younger, what was the point that I think they started to spiral?</p><p></p><p>To write now, of my girls as children,</p><p>I will go back to mourning the loss.</p><p>Again.</p><p>For the thousandth time.</p><p>I will revisit guilts door.</p><p>Was it something I had done?</p><p></p><p>When I am able to write of my two as such, you will know that I am at a better point, feeling more stable.</p><p>I am sorry.</p><p>It is too painful right now.</p><p></p><p>I was tonight watching tv and dozing off, then waking up to the same program, but several minutes had passed. Over and over, till I woke completely.</p><p>Slowly, I shook off the confusion of my sleep roused brain, to figure out where I was, what time it was, what I was watching. Why was I sleeping so early, then my head throbbed again and I remembered I was not feeling well.</p><p></p><p>It hit me. This is how it feels to be in the deepy dark of the swirly whirly of my d cs depth of desperation in their drug use. <em>Entangled, enmeshed.</em></p><p></p><p>This I can write of, it keeps me in the reality of our situation.</p><p></p><p>One minute, just floating along, as if in a peaceful sleep, the next, waking up to confusion and watching things unfold in front of me that I never imagined I would be viewing. Not being able to place myself, in time, or even how, or why I was feeling what I was feeling.</p><p></p><p>I was dreaming that I could fix them Copa, each and every time, I took them back in, I was thinking, "This is going to be it. Things will be better this time. They really want to change. We can fix this."</p><p></p><p>[MEDIA=youtube]pY9b6jgbNyc[/MEDIA]</p><p></p><p>I would rearrange my home, to house my daughter and three grands, and excitedly envision the change. I helped my daughter enroll them in school, get a TRO against her boyfriend. I would take my grands to the beach.</p><p>I foresaw in my minds eye, my daughter getting stronger and growing.</p><p>It was all an illusion.</p><p></p><p>Then the eldest would appear.</p><p>There, watching. Knowing.</p><p></p><p>They both knew, what the other was doing, but still kept it from us,</p><p>the secret code of addicts, <em>don't tell</em>.</p><p>Keep it hidden.</p><p></p><p>It was if a macabre dance was going on, between the two, the grands, us.</p><p></p><p>Then</p><p>it</p><p>would</p><p>all</p><p>come</p><p>tumbling</p><p>down.</p><p>The illusion turned into the horror.</p><p></p><p>I will start by telling you of my daughters and what the reality is.</p><p>This is what keeps me knowing<em> that I cannot fix them</em>.</p><p></p><p>Tornado and Rain have been home and gone,</p><p>back and forth for years.</p><p>They had not been steadily living with me.</p><p>It was a series of comings and goings.</p><p>Then things would become so obviously out of control,</p><p>there was nothing I could do but tell them to leave.</p><p></p><p>It didn't happen overnight.</p><p>The downward fall.</p><p>Slowly,</p><p>like a</p><p>fragile leaf drifting</p><p>from a tree top</p><p>on a still day,</p><p>till it lands</p><p>on the ground.</p><p></p><p>Our grandchildren so confused and lost.</p><p>We wanted to save them.</p><p></p><p>Their mother, father and aunty going round about in this dark world of theirs.</p><p>Hiding it from us.</p><p></p><p>We tried everything.</p><p></p><p>We had our grands home, so beautiful my brown skinned three.</p><p>So mixed up from their short life experience, of turmoil.</p><p>We had them for awhile through CPS, but the goal was to reunite them with the parents,</p><p>and that is what happened.</p><p></p><p>Volcano, the father, was the first to get treatment (required by court), and was coming out of rehab back then. Tornado and the grands were with us. She called Volcano to come over to watch the kids, then she started to disappear, more and more. Her behavior was erratic and wild. She claimed she was fine, tired from working and caring for her three kids. "HE is their father, mom, he can watch them , too."</p><p></p><p>The truth was, we often took care of them, while she slept (she worked graveyard).</p><p>Then, Volcano was over more and more, Tornado, less and less.</p><p>When she was home, she was angry, moody, slap happy with the kids.</p><p></p><p>Volcano was the opposite, he took care of their needs, did homework with them, read to them. Became a parent to them. He was over the house, often, being a father, my daughter, less, <em>not</em> being a mother.</p><p>She was out of control.</p><p>Spiraling down a dark chasm.</p><p></p><p>Volcano came to me and said "I cannot keep this from you anymore, it has become dangerous for the kids, Tornado is like this, because she is on crack."</p><p>The word echoed in my head. Crack,<span style="font-size: 12px"> crack</span>,<span style="font-size: 10px"> crack</span>, <span style="font-size: 9px">crack</span>, like a broken record.</p><p></p><p>I talked with my niece, they were once best friends, and she said,</p><p>"Aunty, that is why I do not hang out with her anymore. It is true, she mixes it with pot"</p><p></p><p>I was in shock. Crack? Really, isn't that the drug we learned of in the late 80's- highly addictive, first time users hooked.</p><p>I confronted Tornado, she denied it, "I only smoke pot." shifting focus towards her sister, "Did you know Rain is using <em>METH </em>mom? <em><strong>Meth!" </strong></em>The words echoed in my head, meth,<span style="font-size: 12px">meth</span>,<span style="font-size: 10px">meth</span>,<span style="font-size: 9px">meth</span>, like a broken record.</p><p></p><p>Shock, dismay, the reality of it, the evidence through behavior, the guilt.</p><p></p><p>My daughters, my grandchildren.</p><p></p><p>At the same time all of this was happening at home, an ocean and a continent away, my father was in hospice, dying.</p><p></p><p>Deep feelings of loss enveloped me.</p><p>Two months later, my mom was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer.</p><p>More loss.</p><p>It was unbearable.</p><p>I had to carry on somehow, through all of this.</p><p></p><p>With the knowledge that Tornado was on crack, the choice was inevitable.</p><p>The grandchildren needed a stable parent.</p><p></p><p>We allowed Volcano to stay, while he found housing, and we asked Tornado to leave.</p><p>This must have been the<em> ultimate betrayal for her</em>.</p><p>We chose her rocky, sometimes violent, boyfriend, over her.</p><p></p><p>He had made a transformation, and was caring for his children, she was not.</p><p></p><p>My hubs then became ill.</p><p>Hospitalized, near death. </p><p>Thankfully, he recovered.</p><p></p><p>I told Volcano he needed to ramp up his efforts to find a place. He did. Working with social services, he found a temporary solution.</p><p></p><p>My husband convalesced at home, things became peaceful once more.</p><p></p><p>There was still, that emptiness of not knowing of my two.</p><p></p><p>A year passed.</p><p>My hubs became ill again.</p><p></p><p>Tornado reunited with her kids.</p><p>It seemed things were going well.</p><p>It fell apart between her and Volcano </p><p></p><p>Then they were back again.</p><p></p><p>The macabre dance started all over.</p><p>That was the last time we had them home.</p><p></p><p>Four months ago. It has been four months since I have seen them. In my search for answers, for meaning in all of this, I found Cd.</p><p></p><p>In these four months of posting, reviewing my past, viewing others stories, encouraging and gaining courage, I have come to the point where I know I cannot fix my two. It is not up to me, it is up to them.</p><p></p><p>When I wrote this thread, I was trying to work through my mind, a better way to grasp what is happening to my beloved daughters. I was enthralled by Frankls idealism, how simple. A way to envision a better future for my girls, and rebuild the joy in my life. </p><p>We have all suffered enough. I am not deluding myself in this, it is what it is.</p><p>I do believe there is hope for everyone.</p><p></p><p>One reply mentioned "those of<em> us </em>in SA"</p><p>I was a bit taken aback by it, it felt kind of exclusionary.</p><p>I am sorry, for my honesty in writing of this, it may be my rawness, in the throes of it all.</p><p></p><p>I have been posting in PE, that is where I began.</p><p></p><p>Truly, I too, am "<em>us"</em> in substance abuse.</p><p>As far as I know, my two are still in drugs grasp.</p><p>My children, on meth, crack, weed.</p><p></p><p>I did not mean to offend anyone by the notion of finding something positive, with the paths of our d cs, on drugs.</p><p>I would like to think, even in this, even though they are actively using, there is hope. That they will be able to become clean.</p><p></p><p>One of our cousins children, on and off meth for ages, has been clean for four years now, and is a rehab counselor. She came to me one day and said "Aunty I just wanted to apologize, if during my drug days I did anything to hurt you. I am clean now, and I know I was not in my right mind using."</p><p>I thanked her and we chatted awhile about what she was doing and where she had come from in the dark depths of drug addiction.</p><p></p><p>We spoke of my daughters. She said "I wouldn't be here, if my parents did not make me leave. I did not wake up, until I knew that I could not go home. Still I recovered and stumbled a few times. But I am clean now and hope to stay clean. There is always hope."</p><p></p><p>No Copa, Cedar, I cannot tell you of my girls growing up, not yet. That is the past. I need to focus on the present, and look towards the future.</p><p></p><p> I will tell you, I am hard at work thinking on Frankl's theory. Striving to see a bright future for my girls and myself. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Amen</p><p>Thank you</p><p>leafy</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="New Leaf, post: 672999, member: 19522"] Hi Copa, Cedar Thank you for your interest. I remember now, the question, if my girls were together, if I could tell you about them. I think it was in FOO, because I was writing there, and then I got [I]that [/I]phone call about the neighbor dropping my eldest off. I shall call her Rain. "I just dropped Rain off in front of your house, she is in pretty bad shape......" I am not trying to evade the question. I haven't been well for the past few days and honestly, Copa, I cannot go there right now. I have been working so hard these past few months[I] not[/I] to view my two as children. I have entered another point of struggle in my feeling ill, and so, I will answer the questions when I am stronger. How were my daughters when they were younger, what was the point that I think they started to spiral? To write now, of my girls as children, I will go back to mourning the loss. Again. For the thousandth time. I will revisit guilts door. Was it something I had done? When I am able to write of my two as such, you will know that I am at a better point, feeling more stable. I am sorry. It is too painful right now. I was tonight watching tv and dozing off, then waking up to the same program, but several minutes had passed. Over and over, till I woke completely. Slowly, I shook off the confusion of my sleep roused brain, to figure out where I was, what time it was, what I was watching. Why was I sleeping so early, then my head throbbed again and I remembered I was not feeling well. It hit me. This is how it feels to be in the deepy dark of the swirly whirly of my d cs depth of desperation in their drug use. [I]Entangled, enmeshed.[/I] This I can write of, it keeps me in the reality of our situation. One minute, just floating along, as if in a peaceful sleep, the next, waking up to confusion and watching things unfold in front of me that I never imagined I would be viewing. Not being able to place myself, in time, or even how, or why I was feeling what I was feeling. I was dreaming that I could fix them Copa, each and every time, I took them back in, I was thinking, "This is going to be it. Things will be better this time. They really want to change. We can fix this." [MEDIA=youtube]pY9b6jgbNyc[/MEDIA] I would rearrange my home, to house my daughter and three grands, and excitedly envision the change. I helped my daughter enroll them in school, get a TRO against her boyfriend. I would take my grands to the beach. I foresaw in my minds eye, my daughter getting stronger and growing. It was all an illusion. Then the eldest would appear. There, watching. Knowing. They both knew, what the other was doing, but still kept it from us, the secret code of addicts, [I]don't tell[/I]. Keep it hidden. It was if a macabre dance was going on, between the two, the grands, us. Then it would all come tumbling down. The illusion turned into the horror. I will start by telling you of my daughters and what the reality is. This is what keeps me knowing[I] that I cannot fix them[/I]. Tornado and Rain have been home and gone, back and forth for years. They had not been steadily living with me. It was a series of comings and goings. Then things would become so obviously out of control, there was nothing I could do but tell them to leave. It didn't happen overnight. The downward fall. Slowly, like a fragile leaf drifting from a tree top on a still day, till it lands on the ground. Our grandchildren so confused and lost. We wanted to save them. Their mother, father and aunty going round about in this dark world of theirs. Hiding it from us. We tried everything. We had our grands home, so beautiful my brown skinned three. So mixed up from their short life experience, of turmoil. We had them for awhile through CPS, but the goal was to reunite them with the parents, and that is what happened. Volcano, the father, was the first to get treatment (required by court), and was coming out of rehab back then. Tornado and the grands were with us. She called Volcano to come over to watch the kids, then she started to disappear, more and more. Her behavior was erratic and wild. She claimed she was fine, tired from working and caring for her three kids. "HE is their father, mom, he can watch them , too." The truth was, we often took care of them, while she slept (she worked graveyard). Then, Volcano was over more and more, Tornado, less and less. When she was home, she was angry, moody, slap happy with the kids. Volcano was the opposite, he took care of their needs, did homework with them, read to them. Became a parent to them. He was over the house, often, being a father, my daughter, less, [I]not[/I] being a mother. She was out of control. Spiraling down a dark chasm. Volcano came to me and said "I cannot keep this from you anymore, it has become dangerous for the kids, Tornado is like this, because she is on crack." The word echoed in my head. Crack,[SIZE=3] crack[/SIZE],[SIZE=2] crack[/SIZE], [SIZE=1]crack[/SIZE], like a broken record. I talked with my niece, they were once best friends, and she said, "Aunty, that is why I do not hang out with her anymore. It is true, she mixes it with pot" I was in shock. Crack? Really, isn't that the drug we learned of in the late 80's- highly addictive, first time users hooked. I confronted Tornado, she denied it, "I only smoke pot." shifting focus towards her sister, "Did you know Rain is using [I]METH [/I]mom? [I][B]Meth!" [/B][/I]The words echoed in my head, meth,[SIZE=3]meth[/SIZE],[SIZE=2]meth[/SIZE],[SIZE=1]meth[/SIZE], like a broken record. Shock, dismay, the reality of it, the evidence through behavior, the guilt. My daughters, my grandchildren. At the same time all of this was happening at home, an ocean and a continent away, my father was in hospice, dying. Deep feelings of loss enveloped me. Two months later, my mom was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. More loss. It was unbearable. I had to carry on somehow, through all of this. With the knowledge that Tornado was on crack, the choice was inevitable. The grandchildren needed a stable parent. We allowed Volcano to stay, while he found housing, and we asked Tornado to leave. This must have been the[I] ultimate betrayal for her[/I]. We chose her rocky, sometimes violent, boyfriend, over her. He had made a transformation, and was caring for his children, she was not. My hubs then became ill. Hospitalized, near death. Thankfully, he recovered. I told Volcano he needed to ramp up his efforts to find a place. He did. Working with social services, he found a temporary solution. My husband convalesced at home, things became peaceful once more. There was still, that emptiness of not knowing of my two. A year passed. My hubs became ill again. Tornado reunited with her kids. It seemed things were going well. It fell apart between her and Volcano Then they were back again. The macabre dance started all over. That was the last time we had them home. Four months ago. It has been four months since I have seen them. In my search for answers, for meaning in all of this, I found Cd. In these four months of posting, reviewing my past, viewing others stories, encouraging and gaining courage, I have come to the point where I know I cannot fix my two. It is not up to me, it is up to them. When I wrote this thread, I was trying to work through my mind, a better way to grasp what is happening to my beloved daughters. I was enthralled by Frankls idealism, how simple. A way to envision a better future for my girls, and rebuild the joy in my life. We have all suffered enough. I am not deluding myself in this, it is what it is. I do believe there is hope for everyone. One reply mentioned "those of[I] us [/I]in SA" I was a bit taken aback by it, it felt kind of exclusionary. I am sorry, for my honesty in writing of this, it may be my rawness, in the throes of it all. I have been posting in PE, that is where I began. Truly, I too, am "[I]us"[/I] in substance abuse. As far as I know, my two are still in drugs grasp. My children, on meth, crack, weed. I did not mean to offend anyone by the notion of finding something positive, with the paths of our d cs, on drugs. I would like to think, even in this, even though they are actively using, there is hope. That they will be able to become clean. One of our cousins children, on and off meth for ages, has been clean for four years now, and is a rehab counselor. She came to me one day and said "Aunty I just wanted to apologize, if during my drug days I did anything to hurt you. I am clean now, and I know I was not in my right mind using." I thanked her and we chatted awhile about what she was doing and where she had come from in the dark depths of drug addiction. We spoke of my daughters. She said "I wouldn't be here, if my parents did not make me leave. I did not wake up, until I knew that I could not go home. Still I recovered and stumbled a few times. But I am clean now and hope to stay clean. There is always hope." No Copa, Cedar, I cannot tell you of my girls growing up, not yet. That is the past. I need to focus on the present, and look towards the future. I will tell you, I am hard at work thinking on Frankl's theory. Striving to see a bright future for my girls and myself. Amen Thank you leafy [/QUOTE]
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