I have to ask what does this give to you… the relationship, the chaos...
The sides each just as sick and twisted always wanting the other to get their end, when they don’t even get their own and how they feel and what they want, truly.
I am the wife of a heroin addict among other things who had to make a choice because basically I couldn’t. I didn’t know what to do all this leave, you gotta leave, run, stay, protect yourself, lock things up….OMG it was overwhelming and totally insane. So that choice, what I did, was to stop focusing all my energy on what he was doing and start looking at what I was doing to myself , and how I was behaving.
And in the work I learned a lot about myself, and things became real clear and started to make sense…and no I didn’t leave, I could never find a reason too….addiction wasn’t good enough, and I heroin didn’t deserve that power…oh god the power I gave to it, just the word and the fear it struck in me…
Oh and just to clear things up leaving doesn’t fix them or us ( it might remove danger if one is in danger, it might lessen the chaos, but there is no true peace in just leaving )…again it is that work.
Are you willing to save yourself?
Huge red flag….You took some antidepressant that were hers one day… why … oh and what for????
IF, you aren’t feeling like you, aren’t ok and are constantly worried, constantly obsessing on her, constantly struggling with what to do, not do, forcing yourself through the day while playing scenarios and those what if I do this, will that make her do…this is a huge sign that you aren’t taking care of yourself and are becoming ill in some form, be it mentally, physically or spiritually or all three.
So what can you do for you, knowing or at least trying to believe that she is capable to do for herself?
Understand that this is her process and it won’t make sense at all to you, as it shouldn’t. Yours is different, find your process in the madness, do the work, the options are endless, meetings if you so choose, counseling, places like this to share and learn from, journaling my personal life line to sanity … I have found the words to paper can’t be ignored and when I read back I also found where I was stuck and it forced me to look into why, and what it was about me that kept me stuck….Search on this site posts from cynical one, read about addiction, read about codependency….DO NOT ENABLE HER…And yes it is possible to live with someone and not enable but it takes working on you, not her.
Know that the drug is just a symptom of the disease and just because someone isn’t actively taking a drug that doesn’t mean they aren’t still very much wrapped in additive behaviors. Also know that recovery looks like recovery and using looks like using. It isn’t about what is said, but the actions…her actions will be the only way to know if she is working on her or still deluding herself. Oh and I find what you wrote about her only using this amount as opposed to that very normal...My husband put heroin off limits way before he stopped using other things to see what he could get away with, and what he learned was that he could take no mind altering drugs and it was a good thing to learn for him…again her process, she is running something in her head and can justify using as she is...she is also learning in this, and that learning process is important for her. Never take the learning away! Enabling takes the learning away.
Most important find acceptance, that she is an addict and that it is ok…
Acceptance in that you can’t save her, love her well….she has to find a way to love herself and save herself…and yes she can!
See her as a capable, bright, shining women no matter if she is using or not and treat her as such. Respect her choice to live as she wants, respect her and treat her as you wish to be treated, compassion is huge and this is all totally different than enabling…
Know that as important as it is to allow her to live as she chooses that you have that same option!
We can become so sick…Well if we allow it, and most of what you find families and partners going through is allowed, we are only a victim once after that we are all in the game.
Believe always, love freely without conditions and don’t forget to breathe!