scent of cedar
New Member
There have been some changes (not good ones) over the past week or so. I think I know where I need to stand emotionally to cope, but I need a little strengthening / validation.
Daughter was mandated into a dual diagnostic treatment facility in February. Lithium and Zyprexa were begun. For daughter, this phase of treatment would have continued until mid-April, at which point she would have been assigned a half-way house for three months to a year. Daughter left the facility AMA on Sunday. She is back in the same city, and with the same people, she sought out when all this started. The bright spot here is that the kids are safely away, and are doing well with their father. My area of weakness, now that I am certain she is with the bad people again (one of them answered the phone last night when I called daughter) is going to be staying out of denial.
(Just a funny joke for a minute. You may have already heard it. Here goes: "Denial ain't just a river in Egypt." :O) I think that is so hilarious! I don't remember who said it.)
Ahem.
The thing is that daughter can tell me things that aren't true, and I give her the benefit of the doubt every single time. Even when I know better, I continue to funnel money and time and energy toward her. Not only do I not confront her, but I seem to convince myself that she has made correct judgments about how these people have changed, and how they are like family to her. (Interchangeable ones, so it seems).
What I think I SHOULD do now is call my daughter on what she is doing and convince her to go back into treatment if she can. But, we tried to stop her before she ever left. Telling her to go back now isn't going to make any difference. She will just tell me not to worry about her.
I am calling each evening...but I feel I am being manipulated into position for some plan difficult child has. (It's happened, before. I never even get it that I've been used until the whole thing is over. THEN I get it. I don't even mind, usually. What in the world is the matter with me! I think I need to learn the difference between feeling and acting like a normal mom would, and....
Huh. There's that denial piece, again.
So, that seems to be the problem, here. On some level, I am still refusing to believe what is happening is actually happening, for real.
I am thinking about telling difficult child tonight that her re-involvement with those same people is a deal-breaker for me. *** What I would really like to say, given that we are trying to break through denial here, is that her re-involvement with those people is a freaking betrayal of me, of her father and her children, of everything we've ever done and of every value we hold dear. ***
An amazing amount of anger there, beneath denial.
Now I have to go and think about this for awhile.
Sorry for the babbling and running on. It's so difficult to know what to do, how to think, where to go with all this.
Barbara
Daughter was mandated into a dual diagnostic treatment facility in February. Lithium and Zyprexa were begun. For daughter, this phase of treatment would have continued until mid-April, at which point she would have been assigned a half-way house for three months to a year. Daughter left the facility AMA on Sunday. She is back in the same city, and with the same people, she sought out when all this started. The bright spot here is that the kids are safely away, and are doing well with their father. My area of weakness, now that I am certain she is with the bad people again (one of them answered the phone last night when I called daughter) is going to be staying out of denial.
(Just a funny joke for a minute. You may have already heard it. Here goes: "Denial ain't just a river in Egypt." :O) I think that is so hilarious! I don't remember who said it.)
Ahem.
The thing is that daughter can tell me things that aren't true, and I give her the benefit of the doubt every single time. Even when I know better, I continue to funnel money and time and energy toward her. Not only do I not confront her, but I seem to convince myself that she has made correct judgments about how these people have changed, and how they are like family to her. (Interchangeable ones, so it seems).
What I think I SHOULD do now is call my daughter on what she is doing and convince her to go back into treatment if she can. But, we tried to stop her before she ever left. Telling her to go back now isn't going to make any difference. She will just tell me not to worry about her.
I am calling each evening...but I feel I am being manipulated into position for some plan difficult child has. (It's happened, before. I never even get it that I've been used until the whole thing is over. THEN I get it. I don't even mind, usually. What in the world is the matter with me! I think I need to learn the difference between feeling and acting like a normal mom would, and....
Huh. There's that denial piece, again.
So, that seems to be the problem, here. On some level, I am still refusing to believe what is happening is actually happening, for real.
I am thinking about telling difficult child tonight that her re-involvement with those same people is a deal-breaker for me. *** What I would really like to say, given that we are trying to break through denial here, is that her re-involvement with those people is a freaking betrayal of me, of her father and her children, of everything we've ever done and of every value we hold dear. ***
An amazing amount of anger there, beneath denial.
Now I have to go and think about this for awhile.
Sorry for the babbling and running on. It's so difficult to know what to do, how to think, where to go with all this.
Barbara