My son called about 5 pm on Christmas. It was good to hear his voice and wish him Merry Christmas. He is finally working full time in security! It seems that when his parents moved to FL the employer finally took him seriously as a young man paying his own way.
We said we loved each other and he started backing away from the stance that he will never ever visit Fl. He said that he will visit in the summer when he can put some vacation time together. Baby steps to an adult relationship is what we hope for. DS has severe learning disabilities. He thinks in black and white and has no recollection of his childhood due to a brain injury incurred in the 7th grade.
I think it must be harder for him to feel close to us when he can not remember the sweeter times of his younger years. I plan to start sending him some cards with pictures from those times. maybe one picture with a paragraph attached at a time.
I hope to take it easy till New Years. I am on antibiotics with a serious sinus infection. Thank God and science for antibiotics.
We said we loved each other and he started backing away from the stance that he will never ever visit Fl. He said that he will visit in the summer when he can put some vacation time together. Baby steps to an adult relationship is what we hope for. DS has severe learning disabilities. He thinks in black and white and has no recollection of his childhood due to a brain injury incurred in the 7th grade.
I think it must be harder for him to feel close to us when he can not remember the sweeter times of his younger years. I plan to start sending him some cards with pictures from those times. maybe one picture with a paragraph attached at a time.
I hope to take it easy till New Years. I am on antibiotics with a serious sinus infection. Thank God and science for antibiotics.
I love your idea of sending cards with photographs. What a gentle, loving way to help rebuild what has been lost.
ReplyDeleteI just found your blog and I’m weeping through every post. I have isolated so much because I don’t know anyone who has experienced things like these. 10 years of anguish from my daughter’s trauma and addictions. I have only recently cut contact with her as I was being put at risk and exploited daily. My heart has been shattered again and again and again and again. This is the first time I didn’t call her back. It hurts like literal hell but my whole body is telling me I cannot continue as before.
ReplyDeleteI am still standing. I have to let her go. She is not my daughter, she is not the sweet girl I watched grow up. That girl had a heart of love, compassion, and empathy. And so much talent, charm, and personality. Smart as a whip. I could not have been a prouder mom.
I had elementary school teachers stop me in the hall to tell me how much they loved having my daughters in their classes. A teacher of the gifted program begged us to get her tested again; she was convinced she belonged in her class. And she passed the test and joined the class and did so well.
The drugs have altered her into someone who looks and sounds like my daughter, but she is not in there. The person who lives in her body knows how to work me, how to appeal to my tender heart, how to exploit the profound love I have for my children. This person’s heart is black. She will lie, cheat, steal from me, trick me, neglect our dogs, destroy my home, bring strangers into my home while I’m at work. People from Craigslist that she knows nothing about. We could have easily both been murdered many times over. This person wears my daughter’s face like a stolen mask.
I have held on as long as I could. I never thought I could let go. I never thought I could feel this way about her. But she has shown me who she really is, what she has become, and I have to believe it. The love I have for that face does not belong to that heart. She is a soulless shell. The drugs have eaten holes in her brain. How and why this can even be possible, or could happen to us I will never understand. I am not sure I would have survived if I didn’t have another child. I could never add to the pain and torture her sister has experienced already. So I stand. I stand alone.
My youngest got married this year, and somehow god granted me the grace to be fully present in that day and enjoy every single moment of it. I didn’t know it was possible. It was a beautiful wedding, and a magical day. She married a good man. I felt the joy. I had forgotten what joy feels like. I have been in survival mode for so long. Somehow that experience taught me to hope again. I didn’t believe I could still experience happiness in the midst of so much pain. On her sister’s wedding day, she had been missing for 8-10 weeks. She had sent a couple of random emails saying she was alive. I knew full well what kind of seedy and dangerous circumstances she was likely in. I had to force myself not to allow myself to think about her. I had heard too many stories from past experiences, stories no mother should ever have to hear about their daughter. I didn’t know I could live through that but I did. I am still standing and somehow I will keep standing.
I hope you will post an update; I would like to know if you’re ok.
Thanks for sharing this is so sad I understand as a parent your children should have not suffered to get the help that you thought you were getting I was referred to this program.
ReplyDeleteHow long does alcohol stay in your system
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