Wannabefree...guess what I got in the mail today!?!?!?!?

[sumi]

You're doing your best..

 

[frustratedearthmother]

I feel like a huge failure. It's hard to explain..

I don't think this is YOUR failure. In situations like that there is just no 'right' way to handle it. Your sister is an addict and there is no way to deal with her rationally - because she's not rational.

I lost my sister to drugs. She didn't fit he profile of your regular ol' drug abuser. She was a highly respected recovery room nurse. Good at her job and loved doing it. But things started changing. Her son was a very irresponsible young man. Got a girl pregnant and had a gorgeous, innocent daughter. But, he didn't take responsibility and my sister took this child to give her a stable home. Sister was also married to an alcoholic. All that pressure started to take its toll. She started job hopping. She told me she needed a job without so much pressure...she had too much on her plate. She took a night job so she could spend more time with the baby. One morning on the way home from work she ran off the road. She took a few weeks off and then changed jobs again.

My family (mother) has always been all about secrets and appearances. Many years ago I moved away from the family core and was basically out of sight, out of mind - and that was ok with me. But, I was also left out of the family secrets and didn't spend enough time with my sister to really know what was going on.

Turns out there was a reason behind the job hopping, a reason for the wreck, a reason for the 'couple of weeks off' that I never knew about until it was too late. Turns out that my sister had started using drugs...not street drugs...pharmaceuticals that she was pilfering from her jobs. She died at the end of her shift, locked in a staff restroom in the hospital where she worked. They got maintenance to unlock the door and found her dead with a syringe in her arm and her head in a trash can.

My point with all this is that I WISH I had had the opportunity to beat the crap out of my sister! If it would have knocked some sense into her, or have shocked her enough to make some changes I would gladly have done it. I would have done it just like you, just hoping it would steer her in another direction and protect her and those that now live without her.

I feel like a failure because I couldn't make things right. I feel like a failure because I couldn't save her.

You did what you could do at the time. You took a stand.

 

[NH Homesteader]

These is no right answer, really. You are doing the best you can. I believe your niece knows that, and that counts for a lot.

 

[Wannabefree]

FEM, secrets and appearances sure sounds familiar. Smacking her didn't do any good. I only did that in self defense and it was an attempt to deescalate the stupidity. The root of the problems go back 50 years or better. That side of the family that she gets that attitude and mental instability from is notorious for being addicts of various poisons. I fully intend to break the cycle with my niece, because I ended it at myself, and won't see the next generation affected if I have any say. It's just so damn hard and frustrating sometimes I feel like I'm barely treading water. No, not my failure, not my fault, not what I asked for my life to be intertwined with, but neither is it for my niece...and my stupid ass parents allow her mother to come in drinking and acting a fool, and they allowed it to go on for 4 solid hours before either would call the police, and THEN they didn't want her to go to jail...they wanted to allow her husband to pick her up and take her back home. Enablers. I've been fighting it for years. Abusive. Ignorant. Enabling. Condoning. I just don't understand. There is no hope for the level of dysfunction under this roof. I hate it here. I hate I can't take my niece away. This is just scratching the surface of what she has to endure, and I'm sick to death of all of it and my family acting like it's just okay....because "she's sick" and blah blah blah...ingrates...let her be "sick" on her own time, me and my niece have a life to live not surrounded by negativity and stupidity. Kid told me last night she's frustrated and confused...what do you say to that? How do you explain the ugliness of life to a 13 year old? And then have to tell her she has no choice but to live in it?!? This life is beyond asinine. MY life..is apparently never going to level out till I disown the lot of them. Great weekend back from vacation....sorry I'm so pissy, it just gripes my ass the way these people act. Anyway....I'm about to go play in the garden.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Yea - my mother lied all the way through the aftermath of my sister's death -she never wanted anyone to know that she had a drug addict daughter - not even her other children. So they helped her hide it. My dad 'hinted' that something was going on that might have had to do with drugs. First I ever heard of it. My niece was the one that told me she'd never get over hearing that her mother died with her head in a trash can. Give that piece of info to your sister.... let her picture her life ending that way.

Turns out that my parents were enablers too. Education, money in the bank, standing in the community, fancy rehab facilities - none of that matters....drugs don't care - they're an equal opportunity killer.

Hopefully, this will turn your niece away from any such rubbish! I understand parents wanting to "help" their kids - but they're not helping when they don't take a stand, when they help to cover it up, when they won't stop lying and when they let them into their homes while drunk and out of their mind.

I'm so sorry, Sis! This is not easy for grown-ups to grasp - let alone a child.

 

[Wannabefree]

Amen sister! And the lies...good grief....I won't even get into that. She has been to several rehabs over the 20 years she has been using, none have worked. She checks herself out or starts back as soon as she gets out. She has to want it, and she doesn't. This is her chosen lifestyle. She will die from it.

 

[NH Homesteader]

My best friend from college died of an OD. He had just graduated, it was tragic. We hadn't seen each other in 6 months, I didn't know how bad it got so fast. Tragic and infuriating. At least he never had kids.

I feel for your niece.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

NHH - so sorry. It hits everyone somehow...

Niece-y girl is lucky in one aspect - she has WBF on her side! She is in her corner and loves her enough to whup UP on somebody for her!

 

[Wannabefree]

Dern tootin! Lol! I really wish it hadn't come to that. She bad mouthed me enough I already was on edge around her, but I can handle that...just don't touch me. She will have court tomorrow. My parents are hoping she gets out. I hope she doesn't. I'm hoping for another rehab stint, and a long one, court ordered. She had possession of someone else's pills so I'm hoping they throw the book at her and make her go for like a year...I'd like to see my real sister again for a change. That evil heifer the other night wasn't her. I'm not sure she'd be willing to see me, but it'd be nice for my niece to get to know her mother sober and how she can be funny and fun and decent instead of what she sees now. I can't help but think what if this is the last time she ever sees her? What if she gets out and OD's or gets high and wrecks, or kills someone else and she can only ever see her again in an orange jumpsuit??? It drives me crazy. And I can't help but think also...why can't I have kids...people who don't care for them can, why can't I? So, time to shift focus, or I'll be crazy too. I'm soooo ready to go back to work tomorrow just so I can be distracted.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

For the life of me - I've never understood why some people who would make THE BEST mothers - aren't able to conceive. My best girlfriend married an older man. (don't ask me why...geeze) He had kids her age... She always wanted kids...he told her he didn't. Nevertheless, she never took birth control and for years wondered why she didn't get pregnant. Finally, after years with this man one of his adult daughters told her that he'd had a vasectomy years before he married her. WTF!!!!????

Messy divorce and a few years later she marries a new guy. He was "ok" with them having kids but not wild about the idea. She was over 40 by then. They tried everything...fertility treatments...IVF...nothing worked. I felt so bad for her. She was meant to be a mother. Just like you. But, maybe you're supposed to be there for your niece... I dunno.

Enjoy going back to work?!? Sometimes our routines aren't such a terrible thing.