((Lobo))
When we have them at home, it becomes frustrating to see that they can't control their addiciton, nor can we. The futility of it all produces anxiety that becomes unbearable.
I was right where you are, just two months ago. I realized that my son could not live in my house any longer. It was making me crazy and I couldn't cope with the person I became. As his addiction progressed so did my anxiety.
Regaining our own serenity, stability and normalcy has to take a priority with us.
Focusing on them recovering will drive us crazy. That is for them to focus on when they are capable. Until that time, they have to live the consequences.
It is difficult not to feel bad about this situation, but you can't beat yourself up about it.
It sounds like it is time for you both to move on without sharing a home.
It may well be what is best for her too.

It's that front row seat to the drama that really does us in. We are so close we can feel it but we don't get to write the script or direct the actors and the front row seat is really the worst seat in the house.

Your thoughts are all rational and recovery filled, read what you posted and your doubts may fade.

You want respect and peace in your home...a healthy way to live.

You don't want to watch her destroy herself or make bad choices...we can't control it but we don't have to allow ourselves to be victimized by it either.

You set boundaries and stuck to them...way to go Lobo!!!

What might be anger early in recovery has turned to compassion...another healthy way to live. You know it's the addiction talking badly to you, you can detach with love and care what happens to her...and still let go and let God.

No advice from me today, it sounds like you're on a good track and just a little sad at clearing the debris.

Hugs and prayers for you and extra prayers for your daughter.

"it sounds like you're on a good track and just a little sad at clearing the debris." I like that Ann. It says it all. Hugs, Marle

It's that front row seat to the drama that really does us in. We are so close we can feel it but we don't get to write the script or direct the actors and the front row seat is really the worst seat in the house.

This is such an important statement, Ann. The damage watching a loved one try to self-medicate away their pain or believe they know better than the rest of the entire world will kill your own spirit right along with theirs. The love turns to anger, which is also self-damaging. Just too painful to bear, ultimately. When you give yourself the opportunity to not be that witness by separating physically from your A, the love can return and the compassionate soul can breathe again. It's just so difficult to make that final call as a parent and then stick with it. My prayers are with you this morning, Lobo. I hope you found a moment last night to just breathe.

((Lobo))

You have been through so much. You've not only hurt yourself, but you have hurt for your daughter. You've taken on a load for her. Please don't be hurt by what I'm about to say. It is only what I "see".

You have thrown yourself in front of the train to try to make things easier for her, better for her. Done out of love, but also out of your own feelings of wanting to make up to her for horrible things that happened to her. So you have sacraficed your life, your happiness. She doesn't see it, or appreciate it. She just uses it.

I believe that everything you have gone through with her to this point, was meant to happen just the way it did, for both of you. She needed you and you really needed her to walk through problems beyond addiction. But what needed to be done, has been done, the next step is painfull but it is also a growing step. You both have different paths that you need to follow. She needs to make her mistakes, so she can learn from them first hand, and grow from them. Even without addiction involved, she will never learn by being told, she has to experience it herself. Cutting those apron strings can feel like cutting off your own arms.

You though Lobo, have a life of your own. One that is not based soley on your kids. You have hopes and dreams that you have stuffed down so deep, it is hard to even remember them. But it is time my friend. It is time to start remembering. It is time to start looking at the things in your life that you need. The healing that you need apart from your daughter. The attention that your very own heart and soul needs. Your dreams need to blossom again.

I love you dearly Lobo. I feel a special connection to you and your daughter. I think you deserve a wonderful beautiful colorful life, with laughter and peace. It's time to turn all that sacrafice and attention onto yourself. You deserve it.

Hugs and Prayers
B

Book,
I know we can relate because they seem to be so much alike. Both on lithium, and alcohol. Thank your lucky stars that he doesn't live with you.

Thanks for the love and prayers

Sailor,
Youcan relate because you are where I am right now. It really sucks. And to think there are children involved breaks my heart.

Peace to you.

Spiritual,

I know that her moving out will not make me better but it will make me more comfortable.
I just wish she had a place to go. I still don't know what she is going to do. She doesn't have many friends anymore. Some of the people she hung out with before were no good and she doesn't bother with them anymore. A couple of the good ones have their own lives and she can't live with them. I wish she would go to rehab.

Thank you for your support.

Ann,
You always make so much sense to me and help me to see things the way I should.

Thank you Ann

Peace,
I am killing my spirit. When I tell her that her lifestyle is killing me, she tells me that is my problem. She just doesn't get it and I don't know if she ever will.

Frankly,
I couldn't express myself and what I feel any better than you have. I do feel like I want to be there for her because I wasn't there when she was 13 yrs. old because I didn't know then what I know now. I still think she hates me because I didn't protect her then.

One time Marle told me that they are two separate issues. In spite of what she had been through I still have to treat her addiction as anyone would who had an addicted child. There is the addiction and then there is the sexual abuse. Because of this combination it make it twice as difficult.

I do feel like I am cutting off my arms. I want to let her go, I just don't want her to hurt anymore. I don't want to be the one to hurt her. It is so sad. I can hardly type anymore. It's all starting to surface. The real pain of why our lives have been so destroyed. How much more pain can I take. I just want it to stop. Please God, make it stop. Please let her know that I would have protected her if I would have known.

Gotta go for now Frankly............I love you

"When I tell her that her lifestyle is killing me, she tells me that is my problem." She is right you know and doesn't that just **** you off at some level. My daughter has said the same thing to me and I have fought so hard to not accept that it is the truth. But our children were not put on this earth to make us happy and equally they were not put on this earth to "kill" us. They are responsible to themselves and we are responsible to ourselves. I know this is a hard concept to grasp because I still rail at the injustice of it. I really need this thread because I have forgotten some things that I need to look at again too. Hugs, Marle

[QUOTE=Lobo;1722117] You did protect her. You protected her from what you knew. Would you go to the doctor and get chemo if you did not have cancer? Would you ask for chemo? Maybe after you knew. But you don't give someone chemo is they don't have cancer. I'm saying, you couldn't have protected her if you did not know.
You did the best you could.... If you knew and then did nothing. then that would be not protecting her.


I think so, her abusive tendencies probably have something to do w/the sexual abuse. From what I know, people often take their abuse and turn it inward or outward. Hurt themselves or people around them.
But in the end, still they are the ones who have to confront it, deal with it. They had no choices as a child, but as an adult their are choices.
She may feel like she still has no choices, and to me it sounds like that is what she thinks. You asking her or telling her to leave is going to make her realize, she is no longer helpless, she has choices today that she didn't have back then. She doesn't have to pick up a bottle every time she feels pain. We all have choices, but many people who have abuse histories don'e realize the choices they have.
(JUST MY EXPERIENCE AND WHAT I'VE LEARNED)
She hurts herself. You don't hurt her, and the more she hurts you, the more she hurts herself.
The more she hurts the more self destructive she is going to be.


She will learn/understand this. I think sometimes we need someone to be angry at besides ourselves in order to keep us sane, to save us from ourself. BUT...... That doesn't mean she blames you or thinks it's your fault deep down inside. It's just what her brain is doing. Facing up to what happened is going to take a lot of courage, and strength and it takes time to get there.

I'm not saying to be her punching bad, because the longer you allowe yourself to be, the worse it makes it for you, and the longer it lets her stay sick and in her head.
And it wasn't your fault, just like it wasn't her fault...

The Perps are the very sick people. Their time will come.

This isn't your fault. :Val004:

(((((Lobo)))))

Been here, done this , bought the popcorn....
my AD also has bipolar, and I too was completely intertwined in her life,
actually, no , I was addicted....

I was so angry and felt such frustation, fear and betrayal..we had plenty of ugly scenes when she was living here.She was both physically and verbally abusive

It seems a lifetime ago, but when I read posts like yours my heart aches for you and my gut clenches remembering that hell.
Mine still uses but is slowly moving towards a life...Our relationship since I have changed , and established firm boundaries, has made a complete turnaround.

She still has not gotten help for her addiction but her drinking is much less and she now no longer does drugs, and because we are closer and she has made it clear our relationship is important to her, I have to be extra careful not to be pulled in to far emotionally.

She has many issues besides the addiction that she is dealing with, but I finally figured out what the thing between us is...she has all her life said "I can't" when things have been really challenging..and I have always swooped in...I don't know if it was because of the cancer, because in every other way our relationship and my parenting was healthy....I now see that she for all the hell her life has been , can not bring herself to fix it for herself...I see how "stuck" she is. As we speak she still looks around for me or her friends to fill the void emotionally, to carry her and if no one is around she turns to alcohol. Hates to be alone. She needs to get help and there is AA and a therapist available for her..It is up to her to make the call. I know now that she will eventually get there...

When I realized It wasn't my job to fix her but hers and how powerless I really am over her life and addiction, and that I was doing SO much damage by not getting out of the way and leaving her with the reality of sinking or swiming , I let go.

It was the "I was in the way and preventing her from experiencing her own consequences and learning to stand on her own two feet," that really woke me up.
The words you daughter uttered to you I think are very revealing, as well as hurtful.
I remember how I ran around after my daughter making myself crazy , trying to get her to deal with her life. When she was mean and hurtful it was her addiction, her shame about it and her defense talking most of the time.
I now understand that it is her life and her timetable. It took me a long time to get all that. Only after I stepped away let go and months passed before our relationship changed and she started to shift and that was a bonus and this was after seven years of hell. Now ...I know how to help her and that gives me some peace. Helping her = stepping away and let her figure it out for herself.
You are right , you are killing your spirit ............unless you step away. Its up to her and all our begging an pleading falls on deaf ears. She needs to figure it out on her own and you deserve some peace now. There is so much I could say about the hell that WAS my life and the peace I have now in comparison but i don't want to monopulize(sp?) this thread.
I just want you to know that it will get better, take care of you, you know, let go or be dragged.....have some faith, you said she is doing better, that is good and gives us hope, remember it is her timetable......
pm me sometime if you would like...my love and prayers to you.. Lobo..............grateful

((Lobo))

Hun, what I am gently trying to say, is it seems that you are carrying a huge guilt for something that you could not have prevented, something that isn't yours to carry. You did everything and then some, there was no possible way for you to know. Yet, I think that because of that guilt that you hold on to, it's making it hard on you to stand by your bounderies. It's making it even harder for you to grab on to happiness for YOU.

I was that abused child. At the ripe old age of 6, I told my Dad. I wanted to protect my sister and I didn't want to be hurt any more. It had been going on from my very first memories of about 3. I never blamed my Dad or my Mom. It wasn't their fault. What happened to me after I told my Dad, those are the things I felt he was responsible for. He didn't support me, he wasn't there for me and even abandonded me to more abuse.

You have been a good Mom. But your daughter may be using your self inflicted guilt to manipulate and play you. The best thing in the world for you and your daughter is for you to not let her do it any more.

I don't mean to be trying to tell you what to do, I just don't want you to hurt any more. Your daughter is a survivor, she is going to be alright. You are too Lobo.

Hugs and Prayers
B

You parents have such a difficult road. But, you know, you are soooooo doing the right thing! IMO anyway. I have no children, but if I had parents like you! Actively doing the right thing, or trying to! Oh - you are a gift, she just doesn't know it yet. I just want to hug each and every one of you everytime I read from you!

Married to an A, I think, what if his parents had done something different? What if they had taken the hard road first with him? Maybe - and I know it's a big maybe -but maybe he might have learned before he was 48 and still struggling with acceptance and walking the road he is walking. Now, he is losing his wife, he is isolated from his parents and family, he is walking head on to the headlights and doesn't see it. It's not his parents fault, I know they did the best they could with what they knew. I'm not blaming. Just trying to point out, that you are helping her learn to have a more fulfilling life down the road, but it's still her choice if chooses to accept the assignment!

Big hugs to you! It sounds so difficult, and at the same time your own recovery is a beacon! You're a good mom!

I think you're right. Sometimes, nothing is the hardest thing to do, isn't it? You are a good mom and you are doing a good job! Be gentle on yourself! WE love you!!

Lobo, Google the Karpman Drama Triangle. It shows how we keep putting ourselves into the position of being abused because we think that we can rescue our kids. It was something that really helped me to understand my part in my daughter's drama. A book that also helped me was "Mothers of Difficult Daughters" because even before addiction, my daughter was so needy and fit the description of the "dependant daughter".Hugs, Marle

Done,
You are so wise for your years. Everything you say makes so much sense to me. She did tell me today that she was sorry for talking to me like she did and that she is just so angry and she is taking out on me. I knew that was what she was doing, but it still hurt like hell. I also told her that even though that is the case she cannot disrespect me like that. She did tell me that it hurts her when she does that to me.

I am really listening to you because you know this first hand from experience.

Thanks for being here for me sweetheart...............Lo

Marle,
I glad this thread is helping you to come to terms with some things. Yes I really get ticked off when I tell her her lifestyle is killing me and she says that is my problem. They just don't realize what an negative impact all of this stuff has on mothers. How can it not........can anyone tell me that? I think you'd have to be kind of a zombie for this stuff not to affect you.

I know we are responsible for ourselves the same way they are responsible for theirselves, but really how many of us are not affected in some way?