<p><em>Hugs</em>. We’re here for you. Just keep doing the next best thing. One thing at a time.</p>
<p>What’s in the future is in the future, you can’t plan for it or prevent it… Worrying about the future isn’t going to change it any, it’ll just make you sick and scared.</p>
<p>The best thing is to be very kind to yourself right now. Take care of yourself. Tuck yourself into bed, curl up on a couch with your nearest fuzzy animal or favorite pillow, make a cup of tea, watch a favorite show, slowly eat some crackers… Be gentle to yourself, because this has hurt you and you need some self-kindness to heal.</p>
<p>Sending you a bunch of hugs, and thoughts of peace and calm. Wish I could sit on the living room floor with you and just be a friend for you until your insides quit quivering… I’m there in thought. I know we all are.</p>
<p>This will be worse before it gets better. Try to keep yourself busy with other things. Do your best to ignore the dramatics.</p>
<p>I’ve got in-laws who have a child with mental issues. They always gave into the dramatics and now they have a 49 year old child who never grew up. She doesn’t work, she doesn’t respect boundaries, she does whatever she pleases and everyone else is supposed to take care of her. It’s a terrible situation and I know a big part of it is her mental problems but I can’t help but feel that if her parents had held her to some standards of conduct when she was younger she wouldn’t be so difficult now.</p>
<p>aibarr…I wish you could too. You are one of the sweetest souls and I have never even met you. </p>
<p>I have clients to meet and I feel sick…I could feel sick later but right now I will do what needs to be done right now. I think I will change my mantra to an hour at a time.</p>
<p>From what you’re describing, it sounds like there’s a large chance that your daughter is on drugs. Please change your locks and invest in an alarm system. I suggest that you start participating in a group like Al-Anon or Nar-Anon. You can participate on-line if you don’t want to go to groups in your area. </p>
<p>There are many loving parents who have and have had similar issues with their kids. You can get a lot of advice and support from them. Your daughter doesn’t have to be diagnosed as alcoholic or drug addicted for you to participate in such meetings. You only need to be concerned about her drug or alcohol use.</p>
<p>momma-three, I’m sorry for all you’re going through. I don’t have any advice, I just want you to know I am thinking of you. I can’t even imagine the pain this must be causing you. Please take care of yourself as best you can.</p>
<p>+1 to NSM’s recommendations. And, just in case it’s not obvious, D could have mental illness or a mental disability AND be using drugs. The two are by no means mutually exclusive.</p>
<p>I am so sorry you are going through this. This sounds a lot like my younger sister’s behavior. It hurts to be treated that way, especially when you don’t understand why you are being treated so. I second the suggestion to change the locks, for the safety of yourselves and your home. We actually had to call the police once because of vandalism my older sister and her boyfriend did to the house, and a restraining order had to follow as she made threats of violence on the other children in the house to get back at my parents. At this point, you need to exit mom mode and go into self-preservation mode for yourself and your family.</p>
<p>Hang in there, Momma-three. Take good care of yourself and don’t hesitate to call the police to protect your family and house. I believe your DD will find her way. It might take a while but she will do it.</p>
<p>An hour at a time… a minute at a time… one second at a time. Easy does it. However many small increments you need to subdivide your time so that you can get through it, go for it. Don’t take it as any more than a sequence of events right now, and when you come to a decision, just do the best thing you can do with the information you’ve got at the time.</p>
<p>This too shall pass… One of the most helpful things someone has ever told me is, “You won’t always feel this way.”</p>
<p>Still here for you. Be gentle with yourself.</p>
<p>You are doing very well. Whether or not your daughter is on drugs, Al-anon would be a great place for you to go to find support and people who will anonymously listen and share thier stories with you. It is like the message board, in the sense that nobody will be out in your world telling what you said to your neighbors, confidentiality is strictly adhered to. </p>
<p>I, too, wish I could just sit with you while you grieve and reach acceptance. Doing the right thing doesn’t always feel better. It can be so darn hard. Doing the loving thing in situations like this sometimes feels so impossible, when all we want to do is give in for the sake of the peace.</p>
<p>I hope you will let your sons know they are not responsible for thier sister or her behavior. I hope you and your husband understand that when somebody is not ready to get better, you cannot say anything right and when they are ready to get better, you cannot say anything wrong.</p>
<p>A friend of mine always says, “When one door closes, another door opens, but it is HELL in the hallway!” I"m sorry you are in the hallway right now. Please be gentle and patient with yourself.</p>
<p>Momma_three-hugs are being sent your way.
As many have suggested head to Al Anon. Your D doesn’t have to be an addict or an alcoholic.No one checks your credentials at the door. You will find many other people feeling the same feelings you are. Our lives or problems aren’t always exactly the same but we can all support and help each other. You might also be surprised to find people there who you know. People whose lives you thought were so perfect and wonderful. In many communities you will find a meeting almost every day of the week. The literature is also wonderful to have at home to read daily or to read when you are feeling overwhelmed.
A book that I love is 52 Weeks to Conscious Contact by Melody Beattie. When I was setting boundaries and detaching from my family member this book gave me strength to do the hard things that were necessary. It helped me when I needed to tell my loved one NO.
Also when I would wake up at night in terror I found peace in the Serenity prayer. When my mind would start obsessing I would repeat it over and over again.</p>
<p>God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.</p>
<p>MM3, I have been away for awhile and am now sharing your shock anguish w/r to that which has recently transpired. You know, I am sure, that these are not the responses of a mostly rational being.</p>
<p>You have excellent advice here. Hard as it is, please heed the advice you are receiving. You cannot direct your daughter’s actions, but you can advance your own health and resilience so you can be there for yourself, your husband, your sons, and, eventually your daughter. I do not underestimate the difficulty of the task. But I am sure you can do it. Your strength, resilience, and motivation are evident in your posts.</p>
<p>mafool, I keep telling myself that I am strong and I can do this. The problem is that I am not sure what it is that I am doing. I thought we were heading in the right direction a couple months back and than a couple of incidents led to the big break. Now we are sitting here trying to digest the four weeks to try and figure out how it happened. We just don’t know. I know there are some that think a criminal check on a guy she was seeing was a signal to my over involvement but that would not have caused this. Yes I set curfews but they were reasonable when the family had work the next day. A reasonable young person would understand that.</p>
<p><em>Hug</em>. You did not cause this, you can’t cure this, and you can’t control this. Have faith in that… You did everything you could do, all the best things with the information you had at the time.</p>
<p>Changing how you handle things will not change your daughter… It will change you, though. It will make you healthier. It will empower your daughter to make her own decisions–she will either decide to change, or not to change. It’s not up to you, unfortunately… Wish it were. It’s her choice, though.</p>
<p>But you don’t have to let her drama and her choices poison you or your family. It’s a disease that sets off a chain reaction… break the chain.</p>
<p>I know this is unimaginably horrible right now. I know how surreal it feels… Is this really happening? Is this real, is it the right thing to do? But I also know how the situation feels so out-of-control, like the planet you’re on is tilting on its axis, and you’re holding on for dear life. Thing is, if you have the courage to let go of the planet and work to get out of its orbit, you find… that you’ll float.</p>
<p>Thinking floating thoughts for you. You’ve had so much courage to effect these changes. Keep being kind to yourself… Take it easy, in the truest sense of the phrase. Handle the things you encounter gently right now. Allow yourself the grace of time to think things out before you have to respond to them. Live in the present, the past is done and unjudgeable, and the future is beyond your reach. Be kind and gentle to yourself right now…</p>
<p>Another second to NSM’s post. With young people, in a very high percent of cases (maybe eighty percent?), co-occurring disorders are the norm when it comes to substance abuse. Some kids are born with a propensity for the disease of addiction, and some acquire it because of exposure (using). It certainly sounds like she is at least at high risk for abusing substances. It may not be the case, but there does seem to be cause for concern.</p>
<p>Every Al-Anon directory lists meetings specifically for parents. This is where you will find your tribe, whether or not you have proof that your daughter is using. No one there will judge you if you are not sure, and you do not need to speak or tell your story now or even ever. You can just go and listen, and you will learn so much. A high percent of the parents in the room will have kids with co-occurring disorders. If substance abuse does turn out to be the issue, in the future you probably will want to speak during meetings to put something back in the pot and help others.</p>
<p>Momma-three: Hugs and prayers. Depending on the size and nature of your community, you may wish to talk to someone in your local police station. In a large or impersonal community, this may not be of help since they may require a TRO or be too pressed for personal interaction, but in the smaller community where I lived when my ex- was threatening us, the local police walked through my house with me to advise on security, advised the dispatchers of the potential for problems at our address, and added us to a list of locations for regular drive-bys. The deputy chief was most supportive and explained that the heads-up was to his men’s advantage (safety-wise) since they would have some prior knowledge of the situation if I ever needed to call.</p>