The week that was

Since the 4th of July I have been easily agitated and felt like impending doom, as of mid-last week I found out why. It started by me received a letter from my granddaughter’s mother (or my ex-daughter-in-law). The letter stated that she wanted me to terminate her parental rights and adopt my granddaughter or she is going to petition the courts for parenting time and I needed to contact her immediately with a decision with in 2 days of receiving her letter. Now I have been her legal guardian since she was 18 months old and have had sole custody of my granddaughter since she was about 2 1/2 years old. I have heard absolutely nothing from her in at least 6 years, so I talked to my granddaughter who is now 12. I explained to her that I got the letter from her mother and what it said. She started out very upset telling me she wasn’t going to call her Mom. After talking about all the options we decided that if the court gives her parenting time it might not be a bad idea for her to see her. My granddaughter has a lot of questions and as long as her Mother (and I use the term loosely) is straight and my granddaughter is not in any danger she should talk to her Mother. As of yet we haven’t heard anything and maybe we won’t, but if we do we both know what direction to go in.

A few days after receiving the letter I received an email from a friend of my son’s (my granddaughter’s father). The email started out by saying that he was doing wonderful, buying a house and he wanted me to get a hold of him. I answered that I was glad he was doing so well and that he had a friend, but to be careful. I also told his friend that he knows how to get a hold of me, but I refused to talk to him unless he was clean and sober. I guess telling her that gave her permission to tell me everything he has told her in the last 10 years and that he really wasn’t doing so well he had lost his job because he was caught drinking on the job, he was still drinking everyday, was still doing drugs and my 35 year old son was living with a 19 year old girl. This I didn’t share with my granddaughter.

When I get troubled I clean right now even though it is 90+ degrees and I don’t have air, my house and yard are spotless and yet I am still angry!

On Friday we found out that my Step Father, who is 79, has had 2 open-heart surgeries is going to have his 3rd on August 5th. His health is needless to say not very good, but I’m worried about my Mom if he doesn’t make it through the surgery I don’t think she’s is ready to be alone again.

Yesterday was the topper I found out that my nephew that has been doing so well with his addiction to heroin, has been selling weed, hasn’t been going to meetings and chances are he is using again. He was promoted to phase II in drug court last week and I think he may have been sent to jail this week.

Emotionally I’m a wreck and feel like everything is again falling apart I guess that’s what I get for thinking things were finally looking up.

It's a horrible responsibility to put on yourself

Most of my life I have played the role of “Super Mom” or so I thought, everything was doable and as my youngest approaches her teen years I wonder what kind of warped sense of life did I give my children. Then I look at my grown children and wonder if their mates are a reflection of who I was when they were the most impressionable. So then that would make me very delusional.

My oldest son who unfortunately is a crack addict, has been married twice that I know of and the women that he has chosen in my opinion are not a reflection of me. As I search my life I don't think that I was ever as self absorbed as the women in his life have been, but then I have never been an addict.

My view of myself is that after the age of 25, was and am a mother first, not saying that I didn't get overwhelmed or selfish from time to time. Then I think back to going to school and working as many as 3 jobs and still not making ends meet and out of the 36 years of being a parent, being a single parent for 18 years with little to no support from the other party I really wonder what impressions I did leave with my kids.

I see a lot of myself in my second son, though he tends to have some control issues, I think our basic views are similar. Yet I look at the person he is with and wonder what happened. She is an addict, in my view extremely selfish, is always claiming she is sick and expects everyone to raise her children. Her answer to child rearing is to ignore them. Her children are complete monsters without manners and if there is ever a problem it's everyone other than her children's fault.

Then I see my oldest daughter who is still at home and going to college and I watch her make the same mistakes I made in relationships, always trying to make things better and taking the full blame for everything that goes wrong.

So at this point in time my oldest son has signed off on all his children, my second son is a wonder father and parent, my oldest daughter loves kids (dating people with children) will be a great mother, and my youngest loves little ones. It looks like in the parenting department they are all with of course one exception pretty much like I am. As I look at what I have written I guess we are all pretty much attracted to the same kind of jerks too!

It's a horrible responsibility to put on yourself! LOL

Another Week of Challenges

Things seem to be going pretty well with my nephew. He is still straight 97 days today and starting to enjoy life. He stays very very busy, he is still going to 6 meetings per week working 2 jobs, yet he is still staying in contact with me and having fun once a week he and my daughter do something this week it was beach volley ball. I am very proud of him.

The girl and her 5 kids that is living with me is starting to look for apartments or a house for rent FIA is going to help her with the security deposit and first months rent.

Now for added excitement I just heard from my granddaughter’s (the one that I am raising) mother. It has been 10 ½ years since my granddaughter has lived with her and well over 6 years since she has had any contact with her and that contact wasn’t her mother’s choice, has decided she is going to petition the court for parenting time. Yet there was a twist in the letter I received. I have the choice to adopt my granddaughter and terminate her Mother’s (and I use that term loosely) parental rights or she is going to petition the court. Now mind you I have custody of my granddaughter until she is 18 with no visitation from her parents. However, since I am receiving assistance from the state for my granddaughter, her mother is required to pay child support. The last 3 months I have been receiving child support. I am pretty sure she is expecting me to adopt my granddaughter. I look at it this way she lives 100 miles away, not to mention that if she still is working, weekends are her drug and sex time. How many times do you think she is going to make the trip, my guess is not many. Oh yes, I got letter on June 30th and I have until July 4th to make up my mind and answer her.

I love the fact that not to do anything is a choice, and that is the choice I am making. I heard from her about 2 years ago I had received child support for a month or two and she wanted me to terminate her parental rights, the reason for that was she loved my granddaughter very much but child support was too expensive.

We will have to wait to see where this one goes. I just hope my granddaughter doesn’t end up the loser.

Update

Life seems to be slowing down a bit. My nephew as of today he is 82 days clean and sober. As of last week because my schedule was so busy with my daughter and granddaughter he took his entire check and got himself and his vehicle legal and is now on the road. Although I am very worried about him and I pray for him continually, it's time to let him fly on his own, I am very proud of him.

The girl and her 5 children that moved in with me to escape domestic violence is a the right track. She has a job and has applied to live in housing based on her income. However, CPS is coming to my house in the morning to make sure her living conditions are okay (it's funny that the person that inflects violence calls CPS). I'm hoping everything will go well we are all doing our extra cleaning tonight.

My oldest daughter isn't doing so well she is still staying with an abusive jerk, she is still taking the blame for it every time it happens and she is still telling me I don't understand. The sad part is that she watched me go through the abuse and the recovery and there isn't anything holding her there. She isn't married to him, she doesn't have any children, most of her things are still at home, but she loves him. Love was never an issue with me, I always felt trapped, I never thought I could make it on my own. Stranger things have happened I did make it and I am making it not without a lot of help, but I am doing it.

Then I have my 12 year old that I'm not sure what to do with her. I have never seen a kid with less ambition or energy she does absolutely nothing. She got out of school yesterday. Her mission for the day was to pick up her room so that I could wash it down after I worked for 5 hours. She had people in the house, she didn't do anything in her room and since everyone has been escorted out she has been laying on her bed. This one is going to take a lot of patience!

Domestic Violence

Though I’m a survivor of domestic violence I find myself in awe that my daughter is comfortable in an abusive relationship and keeps going back for more. It saddens me to think that somewhere along the line I must have taught her that it was okay to allow abusive. I wonder what it’s going take for her to say this situation is NOT okay.

I picked up a flyer entitled "empowering women" put out by the YMCA that describes one form domestic violence is:

**There are times when you are or have been afraid of or felt threatened, by your partner.

**Your partner calls you bad names or makes you feel bad about yourself

**You feel like you have to “walk on eggshells” around your partner, or your partner seems like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – you never know when they are going to be angry or happy, peaceful or abusive.

***You don’t have access to income, are given an “allowance” or are required to ask you partner for money

These are things “we” in an abusive relationship don’t even think of as being part of the abuse we seem to be grateful for not being hit or pushed around. I also found another statistic that we as women being nurtures and wanting to please if we are in an abusive relationship that we will stay in the relationship as long as we are happy between 10 and 15% of the time. How sad are we to settle for being unhappy between 85 and 90% of the time.

Then we are so good at blaming ourselves for all the abusive, giving them every excuse to think it was okay. It happened because they are so stressed at work, they were having a bad day because of an ex, and we should have been more sensitive to the situation and not made waves.

What we forget is that legally we have the right to vote therefore; we legally have the right to an opinion. We are also protected under the constitutional amendment of freedom of speech.

So what happens when we finally find the strength to leave as a survivor of domestic violence? We have to put the earplugs in our head and continually tell ourselves that we are not bad people and we are stronger for what we have been through. Who knows you could end up like me, I decided that I’m very happy being me after I found out who I was. I have been single now for 10 years and sometimes I think I would like to date and I try and decide I like being me without restriction. I have even known some of us that have met wonderful men that thank god for bring one of us to them.

I am not a victim. There are no lost causes. ""I've been there, done that, and know suffering -- but it's all good."" I'm still standing. ""Can't touch this."" Self-pity is an excuse to do nothing. To appeal to sympathy for pity's sake is to seek affirmation of the choice to do nothing. I am empowered by the spirit and support of meaningful experience and I transform with silent resilience."

Domestic Violence Sourcebook, The

40 Days

We are currently on day 40 of being clean and sober. I am very proud of my nephew he has had to work very hard to get here and the fact he refuses to go through these 40 days again makes me incredibly happy.

My 20 year old daughter on the other hand although she is no longer drinking daily, she is still drinking and in a very bad relationship that gives her all the excuses to drink. I look at the people my children are attracted and I realize what a huge role my attitudes towards relationships have had on the partners my children are choosing. I was always the peace make trying not to make waves while my partners did everything they could to create chaos. As I watch my children they are attracted to the same chaotic relationships, continually trying to keep the peace and no peace can be found.

My Quest

My quest for helping my nephew to kick the drug habit is well underway he has now reached 34 days of being clean, he received his key chain for being clean for 30 days and I don’t think I have ever seen him as proud of something. He really wants this, I am so proud of him and his head is in such a good place! He has always had such a great sense of humor and when his therapist asked why he thought he was going to make it this time why his attitude was so much better he laughingly said, “My aunt would kill me she has just as many hours into my clean time as I do.” Yes, that is the truth while he has slept on one couch, I sleep on the love seat, I know everything he is doing and not doing and it is paying off and I now have a new form of entertainment, sitting in parking lots for hours.

Thank God for this large favor, he has been with me the every step of the way and hopefully will continue to be with US next week. I start a new job through it’s part-time it’s still 3 days a week that we have to work around and I pray that it will go as smoothly as these last 34 days have gone. I’m not saying they have been a piece of cake by any means but they could have been a whole lot worse.

Hope and Love

Since the last entry my nephew has been clean for 27 days and his head still seems to be in the right place, even though when he attended an AA meeting and an ignorant man told him he didn’t belong at that meeting it was the wrong 12 step program for him. I am still with him 24/7, hang on to all his money, and the urges are starting to lessen. We still have a long way to go, but he is starting to feel better about himself. It has been rather humorous he is required to drop 2 to 3 times a week and each time it comes up clean a little faster. After dropping the test showed that he was clean before he even got out of the bathroom he got into the car and said “They have to know when you’ve been using even if you test clean because I used to have to wait about 5 minutes for it to show I was clean.” He really thought he was getting around the system.

Then we attended a vigil for Dominick the four years old that was beaten and tortured for 4 days by his mother’s boyfriend. This year was more a celebration of his life and the warmth of knowing hundreds of people helping to make others aware of child abuse. There was a short time when a local girl sang “Concrete Angel” that the pictures of the day Dominick died went threw my head. That little body so badly broken, burned, bruised and a stocking cap that covered his protruding brain where his skull had been removed to allow the swelling as we all put our hands on him and prayed as the life support equipment was unplugged and he went to our lord.

In memory of Dominick the blue ribbon of pinwheels to remind us that we can help prevent child abuse.

My New Project - Hopefully Save a life

This week I have taken on a new project. As I have written earlier heroin has become very prevalent in our middle class society. My family and myself are volunteering our time and energy to try to help a young man escape from its clutches. As it is known I have been raising my Granddaughter for the last 10½ years, because my son and his wife are crack addicts. This had to be a family decision, because it would affect all of us. Luckily everyone agreed that it would be worth the effort.

My nephew who is 24 years old and my sister’s only child is facing twenty years in prison if he doesn’t kick the habit. For an addict that doesn’t seem to be enough incentive, he has not been able to stay away from heroin for a two-week time frame. So the offer I made was to be his shadow for a six week time period to start with and to go from there.

These are the rules that have been agreed to:
He had to move out of my sister’s 4400 square foot house and move in with us an 800 square foot house. No more privacy. He sleeps on my couch in the living room and I sleep on the love seat.
He had to give up all driving privileges I would be taking him everywhere he went, therefore he would never be alone.

Thankfully he agreed to it. We are only into our first week and not even into the hard part yet, but I take him to all his court appointments, probation meetings, AA or NA meetings, Doctor appointments and watch him go in and sit in the parking lot until he comes out. Sleeping on the love seat I know when he gets phone calls, if he gets up and anything else that might enter into the picture. I am thankful that so far he has been very open and honest with me and is accepting me so far as being his shadow. We both know that we will get frustrated with one another and at times he will hate me but that’s okay if he can live a life a better life.

Heroin

It seems as of late that every time I turn around another kid is dieing from a heroin overdose or as it is called on the street a “hot pack” (cut with another drug usually prescription). My son now 34 still dealing with his demons and drug issues, his drug of choice was crack. (I’m saying was because I am raising his daughter. When she came into my home 10 years ago I couldn’t allow him to be a part of our lives until he was straight. He still isn’t straight and the last information I got which is about a year old is that he was arrested in Mississippi for operating a Meth Lab. I’m assuming his drug of choice changed.) Now it’s my nephew, he is a heroin addict and is fighting the battle to get clean. It seems that 2 weeks is the maximum he is able to stay straight. He is currently in Drug Court, which is an alternative to prison, and is battling for his life. His last relapse was on Monday and I feel he was reaching out to me and I let him down. He told me he thought that it was a good night for a dirt nap that all anyone would have to fight about is his clothes and bed. I told him laughingly that he wasn’t going to leave me to work alone and let it go.

I know I can’t blame myself and that I have to detach from the situation just like I had to with my own son. It’s not easy you or I always feel that I could have done more to help. This is my sister’s only child; if anything happens to him she will be destroyed. I remember that every time my son was in jail it was a relief that he had a roof over his head, food and was straight.

I don’t know how we can help our children find a better life. I have a 20-year-old daughter that lives at home, works and goes to school in the last month she has lost 6 acquaintances to heroin. This is white middle-class families it is affecting.

Unemployment

50 Best Jobs for Your PersonalityI am 55 years old and have been actively looking for a job for 3 years. I find myself is a very difficult situation. I am a single parent still raising my granddaughter who is 11 and my 20 year old daughter in college. Being low income (very low I work one day a week as a bookkeeper) has an advantage when it comes to my daughter's education, she more than qualifies for a grant and my granddaughter has state health insurance which is the best.

The company I where I worked for 13 years like so many went out of business and being over 50 makes the competitions very stiff. On an average I send out 10 resumes per week and apply personally for 3 to 5 jobs per week. Generally speaking I am over qualified for the job at hand. My second problem in my job search is that I have to make money enough to take over the programs that we qualify as a low income family.

Last fall I decided I would check to see if I qualified for a grant to go back to school, I am eligable for a student loan. Now I'm faced with what happens if I go to school and still can't get a job how do I pay the loan back.

At a younger age I would just go for it, now I'm not sure how to approach it. I do have to make a living and not making a living certainly doesn't do anything for the self esteem. So to date I am still filling out applications, sending resumes and praying alot.

MADD MOTHERS WHAT MESSAGE ARE YOU SENDING

I have a now 20 year old daughter, and let's face it teenagers don't always make wise decisions. Recently my daughter went to a "barn party" where aproximately 20 under-age drinkers attended. She had been there about a half-hour and had drank a half beer, when another girl had an allergic reaction to something she tried at the party, broke in hives and dropped to the ground unable to breathe. The ambulance was called and the kids scattered, all but my daughter and her friend. My daughter and her friend stayed with girl keeping ice on her face and neck, and staying on the phone with 911 giving directions. The ambulance and police got there the girl was rushed to the hospital, EMTs told my daughter another 10 minutes and there wouldn't have been anything they could have done. My daughter and her friend were arrested for "minors in possion" PBTs were given and they blew .015 and .019 respectively. Now .020 is eating a piece of "Little Ceasers Pizza" or using mouthwash and let's not forget in D.A.R.E. they tell you "do the right thing nothing will happen to you". They went to court they both received $325 fines, 40 hours community service, 3 months probation, random pbt testing 3-5 times a week at $10 each time, and random drug testing at $12 each time. Pretty stiff penality for doing the right thing. At least she received a "thank you" card from the girl's parents.

Do you think that anyone from that party will stay and help anyone else? My guess would be no. So, now we are just going to let kids die due to the ignorance of our judicial system? MADD MOTHERS have done some very good things, but in these situations I find it very difficult to say this is right. The organization was founded in effort to save lives, are we that willing to let our young people be left to die due to the enforcement of drinking of a minor.