Court Today
 

Well today is an arraignment hearing for my XA. Will she show or not? Who knows?? She is out on bail. The court papers came to my house and I returned them to the court telling them she doesn't live with me. They said they have no other address for her. It will be weird to see her if she shows and if she doesn't show I guess there will be another warrant. Ah well. The good news is slowly I'm starting not to care what goes on with her. I just want to follow up with the case because stealing is not cool at all. Truthfully....it does pain me greatly the condition she is in and the depths she has sunken to but whatever. I'm getting better slowly.

Thanks for listening and please keep me in your prayers.

I hope she shows but if she's using then of course she prob. Won't....my abf did attend a ct hearing once though while still using...hiding it from me of course

Whether she shows or not (and I seriously doubt she will) keep the focus on you and your recovery. You're doing the right thing by pressing charges. There was a time when I could have done the same against my sister after she robbed me blind, and at the time I was so mired in "helping" her fix herself I decided not to do so. I regret that decision, and it didn't help her at all, it just allowed her to continue deeper into her addiction without consequence. Once we know better we do better.

After today, whatever the outcome, you can put this whole mess behind you and spend all of the energy that was previously spent worrying about her on caring for yourself. Leave the past in the past where it belongs, and press onward to a brighter tomorrow. You'll be in my thoughts today! :hug:

Interrupted....know I'm new to this but why do u wish ud have pressed charges on ur sister? I can understand only for the reason to help her get clean but when these people steal for their drug they are not in their right mind....its a disease. My adbf did get in trouble for stealing, not from me, and is paying the concequences now....up till now he only got slaps on the wrists which didn't help him out at all.

Don't worry, I'm new, too! :)

By not allowing her to suffer the natural consequences of her actions on numerous occasions, not just this one, I was creating an environment for her that made continuing to use heroin a pretty awesome prospect: she got to break all the laws, and I would clean up the mess. Car got impounded? No problem! Out of money? Just steal something, no problem!

But even more than that, I have wasted years feeling completely awful about myself and the situation. I felt guilty about her choices, like maybe I wasn't doing enough to make her decide not to pick up, I felt like her decision to use was tied to me. While she did take advantage of me, I was a willing victim; I allowed her to use me, and I allowed my family to place responsibility for her actions on me. I was a martyr. I spent life worried about her, wasting away waiting for everyone to recognize my great sacrifice. When they didn't, I spent the rest of my time angry at their oversight. And the whole time I was taking responsibility for her actions my ego was telling me that I and I alone had the power to change my sister. It felt good to believe that I was that smart and powerful, but in reality it was hurting her and it was hurting me.

I wasn't allowing her the dignity to choose her own path, and I was spending all of my time consumed by her chaos as a way of avoiding the obvious flaws in my own character that make me think I have or should have so much control over things that are clearly none of my business.

I'm not a victim anymore. I own all of the decisions that I made both before and during her addiction, but I don't own her decisions, and I don't own her addiction. I can't change what I've done in the past, but I can make different decisions going forward. Nothing changes if nothing changes. She is still in active addiction, but I am no longer carrying that cross, and I'm loving my life outside of the chaos of her addiction. I hope that one day she will decide to choose recovery, but my life and my health and my happiness are not suspended in the interim.

Oh my, I do go on, don't I? :D The short answer is that I got in the way of her taking responsibility for her actions, thereby allowing her to more easily continue to choose both addiction and theft. It wasn't fair to either of us and it didn't help her in the end, so now I'm choosing something different.

I'm choosing to help myself.

Good job Eveewonder! :)

Luckily, I'm not in that spot. I don't know if I would be strong enough to press charges. Another reason to stay away from her...

I'll be reading your update later. The fact that you're detaching is really good reading! I don't wanna think that is what I need to do, but it's looking more and more like the only thing to do.

How did it go yesterday, Evee? I hope everything went smoothly. :hug: