blacksheep77

I've never doubted myself so much as I do today. Sorry if this sounds really complex and confusing, it's hard to describe what's going on in writing.

My daughter, R. is very close to her Grandma and Aunt, both of whom are addicts. This may be a big mistake on my part as a parent, to have allowed my daughter to sleep over at Grandma's house on a regular basis (at times as often as twice a week), or maybe it hasn't been. It's hard to decide, because as a parent I have no frame of reference.

My justification for having allowed R. to develop such a close-knit relationship with the two of them seemed completely rational and reasonable until lately. Here's what's been going on in my mind for the past twelve years of her life.

First off, my mom and sister can be very loving, very giving and to anyone who doesn't know them like I do, they appear very moral, trustworthy, and educated. Well, with a few exceptions this is true. My mom has held the same job for nearly 17 yrs, has a college degree, and loves her grandkids to pieces. Her life is centered around family. Or so she says.
My mom is a high-functioning addict who attends church and plays the viola. My sister J. though a die-hard addict, constantly reminds R. of how drugs have ruined her life. So I thought they couldn't do much harm to my daughter, being that the last thing they want for R. is for the cycle to be perpetuated in another generation. They said so.

My mom has admitted to buying heroin for her daughter, but R. was never around to see it.
My mom is on methadone for life, but she takes it for chronic pain. Oh, she used to threaten suicide on a regular basis if she couldn't get an RX for an opiate painkiller, but this time it's because she really needs it. I've been telling myself this for yrs.
My sister, who has HIV, is in so much pain and her doctors won't help her. So she needs heroin just to cope with with this terrible illness. That's what my mother has told me, and even though it feels SO WRONG in my gut when they say it, I've actually found myself sympathizing with this line of reasoning.

With all these justifications in my mind, I thought I could protect R. while at the same time allowing her to be around Grandma and Aunt J. I could just teach her to know the difference between right and wrong and stay close to her, and it would all work out well.

And it's not like R. has the urge to go out and shoot up simply because her relatives have a problem.

But something happened, and now I feel this almost irrational instinct to keep R. away from the two of them. At least temporarily. The problem I'm having is justifying why to R. Grandma has become such a huge part of her life that it seems a little late for me to be doing what I'm doing. But what happened just made me snap.

My other sister, who also had a brief stint with addiction and who is also on methadone, is somewhat in the loop about J's and Grandma's addiction. They'll be open about their activities with her, because she's 'one of them'. I'm not, and I've been very critical of their actions in the past. Consequently, they keep me in the dark about everything. Everyone, except for sister no. 2, who keeps me informed, at least about some things.

This time, sister no.2 told me that that J. had been busted a second time by the police for heroin, and everyone thinks it was I who turned her in. Granted, I've known, or at least suspected that she's still an active user and that my mom is financing her habit. But I've doubted my own perception for so long that I haven't tried to actively intervene, at least to that extent.

My mom still hasn't confronted me about this issue and pretends that everything's okay. And I'm not supposed to tell my mom that sis no. 2 told me because then she'll get into trouble.

When I found this out, I thought to myself that I need to keep R. away.
But I can't articulate why this is to my daughter, except that they're breaking the law and they're setting a bad example for her.
Today, R. told me that she hated me for what I'm doing. Her anger is justified.

Another issue is that R. isn't as close to her parents as I had hoped she'd be. There's this wedge between us that seems to be pushing us apart. The reason why I feel this way is because she hardly wants to be at home. Spending time with Grandma and J. is of paramount importance to her. When I'd say 'no' to a sleepover, she'd become incredibly sullen and depressed. She'd obsess over it and would try relentlessly to persuade me.
I'm sorry to say that I allowed this behavior to work.
So I own the fact that as a parent, I've screwed up in some ways. But was allowing this relationship one of those screw-ups? Would I do more damage if I were to stop allowing sleepovers, because of the resentment it's caused?
They may have lied to me and hurt me on several occasions, but they've left R. out of it.
Am I hurting her by making her a part of this whole issue?

We found a family counselor who will meet with us this next week. In the meantime, I have R. and my mom, and J. all demanding to know why I'm doing this. To make matters worse, my mom tells me I'm delusional for thinking J. is still using and that she's financing the habit. This, despite her having admitted to me a few mos. ago that both of them have been doing just that. That is, if I remember correctly. I'll be told that I didn't. I'll also be told that sister no. 2 just didn't hear the story correctly and jumped to conclusions and that I should not have believed her. Then the confusion will be worse than ever, and I'll walk away feeling like a horrible, judgmental, cold-hearted mother/sister/daughter.

And the cycle will continue.

rozied

I really don't know what to say. Hopefully there will be others along that will be abel to help you.

lil516

This seems to be a long story with much history
it's hard to sort out the details however let's cut to the present

your daughter is staying overnight in a house where you are fairly certain drugs are present with a person who has been "busted a second time by police for heroin"

that's enough info as far as I can see....

your daughter is 12....she is aware of much more than you probably realize

my advice....stop keeping secrets
explain as much as she can reasonable handle
you have good reason to keep your child away and as a parent you need to step up to the plate and take care of your child first....regardless of whether sis or mom approve

SistersHelp

Something I've learned from dealing with a highly intelligent addict is that they can always spin things to make you seem like you're in the wrong, unreasonably suspicious, and unfair to them. They can lie so believably that you begin to believe them and doubt yourself. You let yourself forget things you know you saw or heard and you let yourself believe things you know don't really add right.

What I'm learning, blacksheep, is that it's best to follow your own guts, your own instincts about things. Even if you're wrong sometimes.

If you make a mistake you will be able to live with it because you made it honestly. And if you're right, then obviously, you know you'll be glad you made the decision you did.

I've been wrong about my sister a few times, disbelieved her when she was telling the truth, and it's never done more harm than believing her when she's been lying has done. It's better to err on the side of caution, I think.

Trust yourself.

SistersHelp

I want to add something, a story, to illustrate my point about how you can be made to believe things that you know aren't so. This story makes me laugh now, but at the time it was downright scary.

I used to share an apartment with my sister at one point, about seven years ago. At that time she was using marijuana several times a day and taking about fifty codeine pills every day. Although these things were fairly blatant, I wasn't really letting myself see them as clearly as I should have.

My sister became ultra-paranoid during this time and began accusing me of stealing things from her. This began shortly after she purchased half a pig from a friend of hers who raised pigs. The animal was butchered and we had all kinds of cuts of meat in the freezer taking up the whole thing. A few weeks after this purchase, my sister angrily accused me of stealing all the bacon, claiming that it was right there in the freezer and now it was gone. Someone had stolen it, she reasoned, and it must have been me.

Shortly after that she told me that all the knives were going missing from the kitchen drawer. She was convinced that I was stealing her knives and hiding them. Her accusations and arguments and retellings of my imagined crimes were so detailed and colourful that it was amazing.

The weird thing about this whole incident is that my sister was so incredibly strident in her accusations that I actually began to question myself. Was it possible I had eaten ten pounds of bacon and couldn't remember it? Had I been hoarding the knives so I'd have something with which to cut my stolen bacon? Was I losing my mind? Was I thief and I just couldn't remember it? Was I stealing from other places too? What was going on???

The entire time I lived with my sister, about a year and a half, nothing in my world made sense. I felt like I didn't know myself. Things I knew were true I began to doubt. Maybe I wasn't who I thought I was. Maybe I was crazy.

And then I finally left.

And suddenly the world made sense again. I wasn't forgetting where I had put things; things were right where I'd left them. I wasn't stealing anything. Everyone else in the world knew me for honest and no one else ever questioned my integrity.

I learned a lot from that whole experience.

I learned that I'm not as strong as I want to be in my convictions. I learned that I can be bullied and harassed into doing or thinking things that aren't right. I learned that even though my instincts tell me what's right, if I don't listen to them, I can be led into being warped.

And so for my self-preservation I need to keep away from people and situations that I know aren't right. I need to keep my distance from the madness and when I'm forced to enter into that world I bring back up. I take my husband with me whenever I have to talk to my sister because I need another pair of ears to hear what she says and to help me untangle it afterward. But most of all, I need to trust my own instincts about things and then stand by them, even at the risk of being wrong.

blacksheep77

Thanks so much for sharing your story; it's so relieving to see that others have been lied too, as well and have felt the same self-doubt as I've been feeling. Sometimes it's obvious when I'm being manipulated, but other times it's as if I've been so inundated by lies and half-truths, I can't figure out what's really going on. There's no really good way to articulate to R. why I feel like we need to step back and take a break, except that Grandma and J. have been repeatedly lying to me for yrs. and by so doing, aren't proving themselves to be very good role-models. If they lie about such big things, who's to say they don't lie about more trivial matters? I grew up around addicts, and as a result I picked up that it's okay to lie if it's 'for the greater good'. R. doesn't need to believe the same thing.

SistersHelp

Yes, that's exactly it. When you get a half-truth, you think to yourself that the other half must be true too... except it's not. That's how the smart ones can make you believe them. It sounds like you're talking about some smart people, just like my sister is smart.

That's exactly what's happened to my niece, my sister's daughter. I'm working hard to try and undo that damage... and keeping your daughter from learning that value system is to your credit too, difficult as it may be to do so.

And... in my opinion, you don't owe it to your mother and sister to explain why you've decided that you and your daughter are taking a break from them. It's your right to decide it and explaining it really just opens up an argument you probably don't want to have. That's yet another thing I'm learning about my sister. I can't spend hours explaining and defending my position because she's a good talker and she can twist anything I say. Instead I just tell her my position and I won't argue about it. If she wants to argue, I tell her she she has ten minutes to talk and I will listen to the whole thing and not interrupt. And then I do listen. And then I say, "Okay, I've heard your opinion and thanks for sharing it with me. And now this is what I'm going to do." Period.

As for explaining it to your daughter, if you think she can handle it, I'd tell her the truth in an age appropriate way. She's probably old enough to hear it. My niece is eleven and she's aware of the fact that her mother has a drug problem. I try not to make judgmental statements to her about her mother, but I do tell her that I disagree with her mother's choices and that I can't willingly let her be a part of the dangerous lifestyle her mother has chosen.

Good luck with the struggle you have ahead of you. I hope things go well and remember to trust yourself. You don't get those warning gut feelings for no reason. People who've lied to you ninety-nine times are probably lying the hundredth time too. And if they aren't, they're just facing the natural consequences of destroying your trust in them. But don't let that destroy your faith in yourself.