No contact-- a life saver
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Join Date: Sep 2011
Posts: 317
StyleandEase
“I just cant bring myself to cut her off. The guilt is killing me...the wondering if she is ok, the worrying about that cop knocking on my door to tell me she is dead, the times she has been beat up, arrested and plain strung out.”
That was me a short time ago. In addition, I was also ready to stop my own recovery from codependency and give up my life (BF of 5 years, happiness, money etc…) to save my son... HA. I felt doomed, and my happiness seemed to revolve around his (thanks room for giving me some tough love about that!)
How can a mother be happy when her son, in your case daughter is addicted, living on the streets, could be arrested, or could die?
I don’t exactly know how, but something snapped inside of me and I let go, I just let go. Yes I still feel sad at times, but it is nothing like it was before. I can do things for myself and enjoy them. I can go out to dinner with my BF and not feel guilty that my poor son is starving somewhere. I go out to eat because I worked for my money and can pay for food. I should not feel bad. I can have a nice relaxing evening without the phone ringing with some drug induced dram at the other end. I think you get my drift.
I have come to except that my happiness should not be depending on his. I cannot prevent him from dying, going to jail, or being addicted.
I know we all do things in our own time, but would hate to see you go through years of this like I did. My son is 26 now, and this started years ago. Nothing I did saved him one bit.
Take care, hugs.
“I just cant bring myself to cut her off. The guilt is killing me...the wondering if she is ok, the worrying about that cop knocking on my door to tell me she is dead, the times she has been beat up, arrested and plain strung out.”
That was me a short time ago. In addition, I was also ready to stop my own recovery from codependency and give up my life (BF of 5 years, happiness, money etc…) to save my son... HA. I felt doomed, and my happiness seemed to revolve around his (thanks room for giving me some tough love about that!)
How can a mother be happy when her son, in your case daughter is addicted, living on the streets, could be arrested, or could die?
I don’t exactly know how, but something snapped inside of me and I let go, I just let go. Yes I still feel sad at times, but it is nothing like it was before. I can do things for myself and enjoy them. I can go out to dinner with my BF and not feel guilty that my poor son is starving somewhere. I go out to eat because I worked for my money and can pay for food. I should not feel bad. I can have a nice relaxing evening without the phone ringing with some drug induced dram at the other end. I think you get my drift.
I have come to except that my happiness should not be depending on his. I cannot prevent him from dying, going to jail, or being addicted.
I know we all do things in our own time, but would hate to see you go through years of this like I did. My son is 26 now, and this started years ago. Nothing I did saved him one bit.
Take care, hugs.
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Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: In the South
Posts: 228
StyleandEase: Welcome to SR. I understand, I really do. The guilt and pain is excruciating. Cutting our children off, kicking them out, goes against the very grain of a mother's nurturing instincts. But the addiction is counting on that. Addiction feeds on us continuing to nurture and care-take long past the time when we need to let go, push them out of the nest.
I went through a long time of insanity myself, trying to care for and love my 26 year old AS out of his addiction. Similar to OTL's post, I felt if I could keep my AS in the house, then no harm would come to him. Then I had to come up with a way to keep others (dealers) away. In my mind, I came up with this plan, see, that if I could somehow construct something like iron bars, a cage sort of, within the walls of his bedroom and window, and of course it would have to extend to the bathroom, then I could keep him prisoner right there at home, feed him through the bars, and eventually he'd overcome his addiction. OMG! Talk about crazy-making, that's nuts! That sounds like material for a Lifetime TV for Women True Story Thursday movie! So I didn't build the cage, but I did continue to try to police him for a few more years, while still providing for his shelter, food, and all other necessities of life. And of course he continued to use, as addicts will. I suffered through many knocks on the door, many phone calls in the middle of the night. And all my guilt, shame, blame, and suffering did not in any way help my AS or stop him from using. I must be a slow learner, but finally (I hope) I've come to see that all I can fix is me. And honestly that's not very pleasant - often it's much easier to try and fix others than to take a deep, hard, and honest look inside ourselves and work on our own behaviors. But I'm still trying, one breath at a time.........
I went through a long time of insanity myself, trying to care for and love my 26 year old AS out of his addiction. Similar to OTL's post, I felt if I could keep my AS in the house, then no harm would come to him. Then I had to come up with a way to keep others (dealers) away. In my mind, I came up with this plan, see, that if I could somehow construct something like iron bars, a cage sort of, within the walls of his bedroom and window, and of course it would have to extend to the bathroom, then I could keep him prisoner right there at home, feed him through the bars, and eventually he'd overcome his addiction. OMG! Talk about crazy-making, that's nuts! That sounds like material for a Lifetime TV for Women True Story Thursday movie! So I didn't build the cage, but I did continue to try to police him for a few more years, while still providing for his shelter, food, and all other necessities of life. And of course he continued to use, as addicts will. I suffered through many knocks on the door, many phone calls in the middle of the night. And all my guilt, shame, blame, and suffering did not in any way help my AS or stop him from using. I must be a slow learner, but finally (I hope) I've come to see that all I can fix is me. And honestly that's not very pleasant - often it's much easier to try and fix others than to take a deep, hard, and honest look inside ourselves and work on our own behaviors. But I'm still trying, one breath at a time.........
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