So lost
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Thread Starter
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Toledo, OH
Posts: 5
So lost
I'm sorry in advance for the lengthy post...I just dont know where to turn or who to talk to.
My name is Kaitlyn and I'm 25. I'm one of 3 children and am the only one in my immediate family that is not an addict. My parents have both been alcoholics as well as abusers of opiates for my entire life.When I was 15 my parents separated and i lived with my mom since I had always been the closest with her. When I was 18 I was living on my own when my mothers siblings coerced her into a 90 day rehab for woman hours away from me. She was sober for 5 years and I was so proud of what an amazing person she was. Within the past 6 months my mother has relapsed. First with pain killers and now with alcohol. After being confronted she moved clear across the country near two of her sisters where I believe she thought she could escape her problems. Shes only been there for 4 months and has managed to have a complete break down...hiding her relapse...lost her job and isolating herself from everyone. I knew she was spiraling downward a while ago so I did the only thing I knew I could and that was to inform our family and lots of prayer. She's going to lose her apartment and all of her belongings and shes so depressed and strung out that she doesnt care at all. She wont talk to me and is even seeming to be angry with me for no reason. She has relayed to my sister who is also an addict that the only person she wants to talk to is my father(the man she has despised for the past 10 years unless she needs money). The night he found out about her breakdown due to a hysteric phone call from her he booked an immediate flight to see her. He has been there for 2 days now and no one will answer my calls. I just know that even though he is pretending to "save her" that he really wants to watch her crash and burn. I have a feeling that he's providing her with more pills and alcohol. I know there's nothing I can do about that because she is the only person that can make decisions for herself. Every moment I'm awake I'm suffering with such sever worry and panic. I'm so sad, disappointed and am growing inside with RAGE. I'm to the point where I've convinced myself that I dont want anything to do with my parents anymore. Apparently my mom might move back home when my dad comes back and she's asked my sister if she can stay with her. This makes me so angry as well. It's so hard to make this a short story and to also describe my feelings. My mother is and has been my rock...I feel that I still need her but I'm so mad! I dont have anyone around me with a voice of reason to talk to and its driving me mad building it all up inside. someone please help.
My name is Kaitlyn and I'm 25. I'm one of 3 children and am the only one in my immediate family that is not an addict. My parents have both been alcoholics as well as abusers of opiates for my entire life.When I was 15 my parents separated and i lived with my mom since I had always been the closest with her. When I was 18 I was living on my own when my mothers siblings coerced her into a 90 day rehab for woman hours away from me. She was sober for 5 years and I was so proud of what an amazing person she was. Within the past 6 months my mother has relapsed. First with pain killers and now with alcohol. After being confronted she moved clear across the country near two of her sisters where I believe she thought she could escape her problems. Shes only been there for 4 months and has managed to have a complete break down...hiding her relapse...lost her job and isolating herself from everyone. I knew she was spiraling downward a while ago so I did the only thing I knew I could and that was to inform our family and lots of prayer. She's going to lose her apartment and all of her belongings and shes so depressed and strung out that she doesnt care at all. She wont talk to me and is even seeming to be angry with me for no reason. She has relayed to my sister who is also an addict that the only person she wants to talk to is my father(the man she has despised for the past 10 years unless she needs money). The night he found out about her breakdown due to a hysteric phone call from her he booked an immediate flight to see her. He has been there for 2 days now and no one will answer my calls. I just know that even though he is pretending to "save her" that he really wants to watch her crash and burn. I have a feeling that he's providing her with more pills and alcohol. I know there's nothing I can do about that because she is the only person that can make decisions for herself. Every moment I'm awake I'm suffering with such sever worry and panic. I'm so sad, disappointed and am growing inside with RAGE. I'm to the point where I've convinced myself that I dont want anything to do with my parents anymore. Apparently my mom might move back home when my dad comes back and she's asked my sister if she can stay with her. This makes me so angry as well. It's so hard to make this a short story and to also describe my feelings. My mother is and has been my rock...I feel that I still need her but I'm so mad! I dont have anyone around me with a voice of reason to talk to and its driving me mad building it all up inside. someone please help.
Member
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: New York
Posts: 877
Kaitpalen, I'm so sorry you are in so much pain. IMO, you really need to shift your focus onto yourself for a while, and do what it takes to take care of you. You can take a break from the madness with your family for a couple of days; it will still be there if you decide you want to contact them again. My family is a mess too. I think of them as a sinking ship. And I decided I wanted to get off rather than go down with it. Hugs to you.
Member
Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 1,452
Oh, Kaitpalen, I am so very very sorry for what you are going through. You have shown so much courage and determination to choose a healthy life when all around you people are crashing and burning with addiction. You don't deserve all the pain and grief that surrounds living with people with addiction problems.
Your thinking seems so clear. Many people, when surrounded by addiction, even if they don't become addicts themselves, give in emotionally and become emotionally bound to their alcoholic dysfunctional families, unable to live a normal life themselves. So, give yourself a lot of credit for that.
My story is similar, though I am now 62 years old, and have played out much of the future already. I remember taking my two young children to a family reunion over 25 years ago for my maternal grandmother's 100th birthday. I stood at the edge of the dining room and looked around, and of my grandmother's 4 children, 3 were either alcoholics or married to alcoholics and the 4th had alcoholic children. Of their children, my cousins, all of the 10 guys were alcoholics, drug addicts or both. Of those, many are now dead from overdoses and only one is a truly recovered alcoholic. A few of the girls escaped, but most married addicts. My father was also an alcoholic, as was his sister and my brother.
As I looked at that array of damaged, dysfunctional people, I vowed to break the cycle and raise my children to be healthy and addiction free. And I did. They are happy productive adults who rarely drink and don't abuse anything.
However, I took a personal detour down the road. My first husband was clean. My second husband, who I am divorcing after 20 years, became an abusive alcoholic and I fled from him last July. I couldn't see the signs, and I stayed in that marriage and almost lost myself -- the creeping dysfunction seemed so usual me that I didn't recognize what was happening to me until it was almost too late. Now, after almost a year away, the divorce papers are signed and I am happier than I have ever been.
I'm telling you this because I wish that I had had the clarity I do now when I was 25. You have the wisdom already to see the destruction from addiction all around you, and you are resisting being drawn into it.
If I were 25 again, I would join Alanon to find out how to strengthen my ability to deal with family members who are dysfunctional because of addiction. I would get intensive personal therapy so that I could form better models of what happy functional behavior is than what my family showed me. I got out on guts alone, but it came round to catch me in my second marriage. (You can read my story in a post on the first sticky on the Friends and Families main page "What abuse is".)
Your life is ahead of you, and these are pivotal moments, pivotal choices.
I had to renounce my family of origin and had nothing to do with them for years. Otherwise, they wanted to entice me into their chaos, often forming "triangles" where two of them would join together and see me as the bad guy and try to shame me into their net. It was kind of like walking into a sticky spider web.
There is health, deep health, joy, and a productive rewarding life ahead of you. You didn't cause any of this addiction, you can't control it, and you can't cure it. You can choose a healthy path for yourself, even if you have to leave your family behind to do so.
I am so sorry the loss of your mother's sobriety is so painful, especially after you had some real parenting from her for 5 years. It is truly a loss, and you are going through the stages of grief, from disbelief to rage now. It is probably time to reach outside your family circle for mentors and models and deep friendships with others who have more to give. Many of us eventually choose our own new family.
Keep coming back and posting here and you will find an on-line community that is loving, compassionate, tough and honest when they need to be, full of wisdom, and here for you whenever you need us.
ShootingStar1
Your thinking seems so clear. Many people, when surrounded by addiction, even if they don't become addicts themselves, give in emotionally and become emotionally bound to their alcoholic dysfunctional families, unable to live a normal life themselves. So, give yourself a lot of credit for that.
My story is similar, though I am now 62 years old, and have played out much of the future already. I remember taking my two young children to a family reunion over 25 years ago for my maternal grandmother's 100th birthday. I stood at the edge of the dining room and looked around, and of my grandmother's 4 children, 3 were either alcoholics or married to alcoholics and the 4th had alcoholic children. Of their children, my cousins, all of the 10 guys were alcoholics, drug addicts or both. Of those, many are now dead from overdoses and only one is a truly recovered alcoholic. A few of the girls escaped, but most married addicts. My father was also an alcoholic, as was his sister and my brother.
As I looked at that array of damaged, dysfunctional people, I vowed to break the cycle and raise my children to be healthy and addiction free. And I did. They are happy productive adults who rarely drink and don't abuse anything.
However, I took a personal detour down the road. My first husband was clean. My second husband, who I am divorcing after 20 years, became an abusive alcoholic and I fled from him last July. I couldn't see the signs, and I stayed in that marriage and almost lost myself -- the creeping dysfunction seemed so usual me that I didn't recognize what was happening to me until it was almost too late. Now, after almost a year away, the divorce papers are signed and I am happier than I have ever been.
I'm telling you this because I wish that I had had the clarity I do now when I was 25. You have the wisdom already to see the destruction from addiction all around you, and you are resisting being drawn into it.
If I were 25 again, I would join Alanon to find out how to strengthen my ability to deal with family members who are dysfunctional because of addiction. I would get intensive personal therapy so that I could form better models of what happy functional behavior is than what my family showed me. I got out on guts alone, but it came round to catch me in my second marriage. (You can read my story in a post on the first sticky on the Friends and Families main page "What abuse is".)
Your life is ahead of you, and these are pivotal moments, pivotal choices.
I had to renounce my family of origin and had nothing to do with them for years. Otherwise, they wanted to entice me into their chaos, often forming "triangles" where two of them would join together and see me as the bad guy and try to shame me into their net. It was kind of like walking into a sticky spider web.
There is health, deep health, joy, and a productive rewarding life ahead of you. You didn't cause any of this addiction, you can't control it, and you can't cure it. You can choose a healthy path for yourself, even if you have to leave your family behind to do so.
I am so sorry the loss of your mother's sobriety is so painful, especially after you had some real parenting from her for 5 years. It is truly a loss, and you are going through the stages of grief, from disbelief to rage now. It is probably time to reach outside your family circle for mentors and models and deep friendships with others who have more to give. Many of us eventually choose our own new family.
Keep coming back and posting here and you will find an on-line community that is loving, compassionate, tough and honest when they need to be, full of wisdom, and here for you whenever you need us.
ShootingStar1
Member
Join Date: Jul 2012
Posts: 654
I'm so sorry for the pain you are going through, I am about your age (23) and I have enough trouble dealing with all my own things such as school, paying bills, being in a relationship, being an adult etc. I can not imagine having to keep my life all together plus worry about parents who are both addicted and going down hill fast.
The best advice I can think to give you is to go no contact and focus on your own needs and your own goals. Your mom is not ready to be in recovery, she has moved away to escape anyone that loves her and wants to see her get better. She is trying to sick her head in the sand and disappear from everyone's view and she wants to use use use. She has had recovery for 5 years, so she knows how good sobriety can be but she is just not willing to do the work that it takes to get back there. As much as we hate to see our loved ones make the decision to keep using and drinking, they are adults and it is their decision to make.
Do you go to counseling/have you considered going to counseling? It seems like you have been dealing with this from a very young age and stress and chaos builds and builds like layers in our mind and sometimes it affects us in ways we don't even realize until we sit down with a therapist and really look at everything. It might also help to reach out to support groups because although this site has been a life savor for many of us, sometimes face to face meetings add an element that the internet can't. It also might help to have some friends that understand what you are going with.
One thing I have taken away from SR that has really helped me with going no contact is that you can love someone without having a front seat to their addiction and self destruction. You have overcome so much and you are obviously such an intelligent, strong, motivated, mature individual and you need to keep making sure that you put yourself first and don't get lost in your family's addiction.
The best advice I can think to give you is to go no contact and focus on your own needs and your own goals. Your mom is not ready to be in recovery, she has moved away to escape anyone that loves her and wants to see her get better. She is trying to sick her head in the sand and disappear from everyone's view and she wants to use use use. She has had recovery for 5 years, so she knows how good sobriety can be but she is just not willing to do the work that it takes to get back there. As much as we hate to see our loved ones make the decision to keep using and drinking, they are adults and it is their decision to make.
Do you go to counseling/have you considered going to counseling? It seems like you have been dealing with this from a very young age and stress and chaos builds and builds like layers in our mind and sometimes it affects us in ways we don't even realize until we sit down with a therapist and really look at everything. It might also help to reach out to support groups because although this site has been a life savor for many of us, sometimes face to face meetings add an element that the internet can't. It also might help to have some friends that understand what you are going with.
One thing I have taken away from SR that has really helped me with going no contact is that you can love someone without having a front seat to their addiction and self destruction. You have overcome so much and you are obviously such an intelligent, strong, motivated, mature individual and you need to keep making sure that you put yourself first and don't get lost in your family's addiction.
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