October 29, 2009

Stumbling in the Dark--Friday Flash 55


She tried not to make a sound after hearing the crash.  Slowly she made her way in the dark out of the bedroom towards the kitchen.  Unable to breathe she quickly moved around the corner of the kitchen doorway and turned on the light.  There he was, her husband, eating all of the Halloween candy!

Every Friday write a poem, story or limerick of 55 words, no more, no less, and then report to the G-man!!

October 28, 2009

The Calm Before The Storm


You know that feeling, when your addicted adult child has been off running around, not really checking in, kind of MIA but you know they are around.  Well that has been this past week and a half for me.  My step-son is in town and leaving tomorrow and my son has been hanging with him at their friends' houses (I use the term friend loosley here).  Anyways, I am pretty sure my son hasn't attended his college courses for the past two weeks as he was sick last week, and pretty sure he hasn't gone this week.  He was excused from his probation drug classes last week, but not this week and he had a probation meeting he was supposed to go to today.  I have no idea if he has done any of the things he is supposed to do and made no effort to call and remind him or take any action.  As a matter of fact it has been pretty peaceful at my home and to be honest I really don't want him to come home.  I know he will be popping in tonight and if not, tomorrow for sure.  I am just dreading it and feeling bad that I am put in the position to have to feel that way.  I am getting pretty worn down with all the addiction drama, really.  I am making no plan right now and am just going to try and stay present and let whatever is going to happen come about.  I just feel a storm brewing though....

BTW, I don't see spell check when I go to post anymore??

October 25, 2009

Taste of my own medicine



Well today I got a taste of my own medicine.  I have a niece that I am very close to, pretty much was a surrogate mom to her growing up.  She is older now and has a son that is almost two.  He is the only little one around at the moment and we love him.  To make a long story shorter, my niece moved about 15 minutes from our town.  I work daily and as of late been pretty busy, and when I am not, I have been depressed and just wanting to hide away. 


I offered to watch my little great nephew yesterday, but that fell through on my niece's end so I told her last night that I would come and get them, take them to the pumpkin patch and maybe we could carve pumpkins.  My niece's car isn't working right now and she is certainly struggling financially.  I woke up not feeling well today and called her to cancel.  She started going off on me, telling me she feels like she doesn't have any family, we never go see her, we never watch the boy, I am always sick, etc.  I stood my ground and told her the road works both ways.  Basically, she had some pretty high expectations of me right now, not even considering what the rest of my life on a daily basis looks like. 


I stewed over it for a bit and tried to just let it go.  I realized that I do this same type of thing, expectation placing, on my son and others that I love, including myself.  Expectations that are not even remotely reasonable for the person I place them on, again including myself.


I called her back late today and offered to watch him next Saturday as I really wanted to, not because she expected me to.  I really had to put some thought into this one and boy do I have some work to keep doing on the expectation rollercoaster!  Maybe because I was on the receiving end in the past couple of days (had an experience with my boss also on Friday), I will look at it differently the next time I start to place them on others.  It felt crappy having someone expecting something of me that was just not reasonable today and on Friday with the boss.  Good lesson.

October 23, 2009

Do you know what I mean...Friday Flash 55


The room smelled of lavender and the lights were low.  She gave an example and followed with "do you know what I mean?"  I nodded that I did know what she meant.  The next visit there was another example again followed by "do you know what I mean?"  She didn't ask if I could see.

Every Friday write a poem, story or limerick of 55 words, no more, no lessAnd then report to the G-man!!

October 21, 2009

The meaness of it all

Tonight my son called me. He left yesterday from the house when I was at work and didn't come home last night or today. When he called tonight he sounded loaded (slow speech, heavy voice, some slight slurring, etc). I told him he sounded high and that I didn't want him at the house. He said he was just tired and still sick and I repeated myself. He said he didn't have a place to stay and he was sick. I told him again he could not come to my house in that shape and said goodbye. I know I sounded mean and mad but I just felt like taking care of myself tonight, didn't want to watch him or hear his voice be loaded. I know it was the right thing to do for me, but it still feels so heartless and mean as a mother.

October 20, 2009

Stuck

Feeling a bit stuck right now. Just numb to it all really. Not really working my own program or taking good care of myself physically. Overeating to numb my feelings of frustration, anger and sadness. Keeping my mouth shut and biting my tongue so much that resentment is building. My son is sick, they think swine flu. He is starting to feel better and has been staying at our house. Last night I snapped at him for going to the kitchen to get something to eat for Pete's sake. I have been letting go, just not with love, that is for sure. I have no interest in anything and am actually at work doing this right now. Can't focus and basically all I want to do is take my husband and run away. Go travel (can't right now due to work) or just simply go have fun, get our house back which I haven't built up the strength to do either. I just feel so lazy and I know it is probably depression. I know, don't beat myself up, but I need some motivation to pull me out of this place I am stuck in right now? I used to have goals, be energetic, ate well and had a physical activity schedule. I went to Weight Watchers, had friends, etc. I just feel lost, like who the heck am I? I am just writing now, letting the fingers do the walking so to speak. I apologize for the nonsensical ramblings. This is my place to get things out and so that is what this is.



October 18, 2009

Act II




Well here is the second installment on my story. Again, not sure what the length of this post will be but apologize for any rambling that may occur.

My son and I lived alone in our new little house that I helped build for several years. He was six when we moved in and his father started stalking me about that time. I was always torn, felt like his father should be there for him, even though he had told me if he couldn't have me, he didn't want his son in his life either. Just the thought of that makes me ill to this day. So basically for two solid years my ex would make calls to my house, leaving messages calling me awful names, telling me he had AIDS and that would mean I did also, etc. He would drive by my house and follow my movements in town...for two years. Meanwhile, he showed little love for our son who was still wearing the brace for his hip problem and struggling with all the adjustments; me working, school, his father not giving a shit, living in a new house alone with me, etc.

About this time, I got a job as a legal secretary and needed daycare. My mom usually watched my son but she had gone back to working also and was not able to do it. I turned to his other grandparents on the paternal side. This was a HUGE mistake but I had no crystal ball to foresee that. His grandfather got him involved in sports and took him to all his practices, etc. He was a pretty solid influence, but the grandmother and his father were not. His grandmother over the years would do his homework for him without my knowledge. She would pack him enough lunch for two people, enough to where the teacher called me to tell her to stop it. I spoke with her about it but she ignored it, so I started making his lunch, but she still sent one with him also. They spoke very evil of me to my son, which of course I thought there would be some of that, but not the degree I would find out about years later after the damage had been done. I tried very hard to never say negative things about my ex to my son, taking the high road I thought.

I met my husband when my son was around eight. He was a single father and owned a local business. He was loving, supportive, nurturing, all the things I was so unfamiliar with in my previous relationships with men. I actually resisted him at first, finding it all too "boring". I am so glad I hung in there, don't know what I would do without that man in my life, he was a pure Godsend. We were married five years after meeting and finally moved in together then. Our boys were close in age, mine being three years younger than my step-son. They got along pretty well and to this day stay very close.

When my son was about 13 years old is when the trouble really started. I suspected that he was having some problems as his grades were faltering and his general energy level was just different. I suspected he was smoking pot along with my step-son. I made them both go to some drug and alcohol meetings and we drug tested them on a regular basis. They did pretty well for a bit of time. My son got into trouble at age 15 for selling pot and having opiates on him at school (his grandma gave him vicoden for headaches). He received three year's probation and was put in a special school for 6 months that dealt with drug issues, etc. Around the age of 17 my son was drinking heavily and had left my home for his grandparents/father's house. His father still lived at home with his parents, never lived on his own. After a short while, my son was working and paying rent for an apartment that we owned for about 9 months, but still drinking very heavily. He passed his probation and moved to another town about 40 minutes away with friends. This is when his usage became severe. He started using Oxy, steroids, coke, etc. His father and grandparents enabled him. He ended up getting two DUI's and to this day still owes fines on this and does not have a license.

He moved back to town around the age of 20. He lived with his Dad and grandma (grandpa had moved out). They were both getting MANY prescription pain pills and allowing him to sell some of them so they could have extra money. Of course I had no idea any of this was going on at the time, no clue. His grandmother overdosed in April of 06 and his father followed one month to the day in May. My son was living at the house with them, had found his grandmother and his father. He also lost his dog about the same time. I would go over to that house (his grandfather let him live there after the deaths) and he would be so high that I couldn't even get him awake sometimes. He has driven himself or someone taken him to the hospital at least 5 times that I know of and given charcoal. I have watched this on at least 4 of the 5 times. No mother should ever have to experience that kind of scene, so painful and you feel so useless.

This all went on for awhile as I had my head in the sand a bit, didn't know what to do so just pretended it wasn't happening, it was just too painful. My husband and I took my son to our doctor and got all the meds to detox him, took time off from work and took him out of town. This didn't work. Sent him to Rehab but he relapsed as soon as he got to town. He lived with his grandfather after rehab for a bit, but stole some checks from him. His grandfather turned him in to the police and he ran to the Bay Area. Shortly after he came back to town and couch surfed for a few months. When I did see him or hear from him, he was always just loaded.

During this time my mom had become ill. I had always been afraid of my mom's death, probably because she was an "older"mom while I was growing up. She ended up moving in with my husband and I in 2006 and lived with us for a couple of years until her death in November 07. My mom was the backbone of our extended family. She had stopped drinking many years before and was a very loving person. She had a great bond with the Lord and her faith in God was so strong it was amazing to see. When she passed it devastated me and the rest of the family. Within six months my sister was diagnosed with Stage IV stomach cancer and after moving her back here from Washington with her husband, she passed in February 09. My son stole some of her morphine from her house about 2 weeks before she died. I prayed to God for an intervention for him as I knew he was going to kill himself. Ten minutes after my prayer I received a call from an officer that he had been arrested. Power of prayer...answered in many forms.

My son was released in May of 09. My brother was also released at the same time. My son came home to live with us and is still doing so. My brother has had our assistance also. My son's behavior has been much improved from three years ago, BUT I know he is not really working a program. Sure, he passes his probation drug tests because he brings in some product that makes that happen. As of late, I have tried to set boundaries but having trouble following through at times. It is frustrating and makes me feel weak, but I am still learning and have come a long way. I know I have a ways to go to find my peace in this life. This blog has been a huge help to me and all the bloggers who read my blog and comment. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for helping me to grow, giving me support and just helping me feel stronger when I need it. I hope you all have a better feel for who I am and what I am about. Also a feel for my son and his story. We all have a story and as important as it is to tell it, it is also important not to stay stuck in it. I hope with each day I get closer to getting off the hamster wheel of co-dependency.

Renee

October 16, 2009

Act I



I was raised in pure chaos. A life long friend of mine once told me that my family reminded her of the Adams family on Acid. My mom had 6 kids, 5 with one husband and then me with my dad at the age of 42 (she must have had a little screw loose:) My father was an alcoholic as was my mom's previous husband. My mom was a binge drinker and there were many physical altercations between my mother and father when I was younger. My dad was full Canadian and came to the US and taught himself to speak English (too bad he stopped teaching me French at age 2). He was a Chef and he and my mother opened three successful restaurants at different times. Each time he would sell them somehow behind my mom's back, take the money to Reno, gamble it all and fly back to Montreal. This happened at least twice that I remember leaving my mother often with no car or money. We would then have to apply for welfare and my mother would find work in the restaurant industry. She often walked back and forth to work, but always found work and worked hard...when she wasn't on a binge. I remember wishing on falling stars when I was young, blowing three kisses and wishing my mom wouldn't drink that night and thought it worked. She didn't start drinking alcohol until the age of 38 when a doctor told her to sip wine for her stress. Wow, little did he know what that would lead to! She was the type of drinker that could go months without a drop and then go on a week binge with complete blackouts at the end of the night. Sometimes she would only go a couple of weeks in between, no steady pattern so nothing was even remotely predictable. She would often buy soda and chips, cookies, etc., and I always knew that was her payoff for us because she was gonna drink her bottle of Seagram's straight from the bottle with a water chaser until she passed out. She was a MEAN drunk, awful with the tongue. When she was sober she was the sweetest woman on earth, many referred to her as Mrs. Clause:)

My father was in and out of my life until the age of 15 when he was dying from cirrhosis of the liver. The doctor told him he would recover completely if he just wouldn't touch alcohol again. Dad was a beer drinker (case a day sometimes). You couldn't tell when he was drunk because he stayed that way all day. It was not a sloppy obvious drunk, just a regular guy who drank lots of beer to the outside eye. He chose to leave the hospital, get on a plane to Montreal and died two weeks later in his homeland. I remember crying very little, didn't even go to the hospital as I was by then dating a 21 year old drug addict. My mom and dad both tried calling the cops to stop my relationship with this older man child but to no avail. Back then if a girl was willing or they didn't catch you in the act, nothing they could do...sure wish it would have been different it would have saved me years of heartache.

Growing up with my half-siblings was a huge chaos fest. My oldest brother was 26 years older than I and then on down. I have 4 nieces and nephews that are at least 6-10 years older than me. My oldest brother died of alcohol at age 59. He was clean for at least 15 years, had a good job, lived on a river and fished daily (his passion). He relapsed, lost everything and died several years later after much struggle.

My second oldest brother died 4 days before he got out of prison for stealing a car when he was drunk (they said heart attack, but mom always swore he was offed). This about killed my mom and the entire family. His name was Larry and he was born with mental and physical disabilities. He was a sweet soul and very funny, but again an alcoholic.

My next brother, Joe, has used every drug and drink possibly known by mankind. I once saw him melt down Actifed and shoot it in his arm. He has been beaten almost to death, lived in and out of prison for years, had two strokes, homeless for years and is now in a shared living home that provides him assistance. He once stole all our living room furniture for heroin. He is doing better than he has in many years but at a huge cost to his health and mind. He did well for about 12 years raising his twin boys and other son until he relapsed.

My sister died in February of this year after being diagnosed with Stage 4 stomach cancer only 6 months before. She also struggled with drug addiction and alcohol. She gave her son up for adoption to his paternal grandpa and his wife when he was 6 and never got over it. She has two girls that now each have a child but always had a strained relationship with them. She was often abused by men and drunk a lot of the time. She moved from California to Washington, met a nice man and married. She was on prescription pills (way too many including morphine) for fybromyalga when she was diagnosed. We threw a fund raiser and got her and her husband moved into a small house where we live in California. It was the worst death I have ever witnessed nor care to.

My last sibling, brother Dan, is the one I have brought up in my posts often. He has never lived on his own, is bipolar and that went undiagnosed for years. We all thought his actions (talking to himself or traffic, anger outbursts, sleeping jags, etc.) were from drugs. His preferred drug is Meth and I have been told by his psychiatrist that he uses that because it actually calms him and the disease for short periods. That is why they call it self-medicating sometimes. But he is truly an addict and is institutionalized from being thrown in prison for violating parole for using. That is what he has spent the majority of his time in prison for. Such a shame the mentally ill have to be shoved in prison when they aren't hurting anyone but themselves.

There was a lot of fighting and verbal abuse. I became the "fixer" of the family, calling in sick for my mom's work at age 10 when she was drunk, getting in the car with her driving drunk (and in wrong lane) thinking if I was with her she would be safe, always trying to make things go smooth so she wouldn't want to drink, etc. It was a lonely life for me at such a young age and I made a lot of fun of myself and made jokes to try and help me get through. I didn't have any self-esteem and still struggle with that to this day.

My mom enabled my other brothers (never the girls) so bad. Mom always taught us it was Christian to help others, even to the point of giving them the shirt off your back. She often took in stray friends that were on the streets, fed them, gave them shelter. I always admired her for the love she showed to everyone that came her way, but now see that sometimes she could have shown it less and in a different way.

I did drugs in my youth. I smoked pot from the age of 14 until I was 18 years old. I did Meth on a steady basis (daily almost) for two years, maybe three when I was in my early 20s. I had severe panic disorder and was agoraphobic. I had situational attacks in the stores, etc. I wouldn't go back to those stores out of panic. I became pretty much home bound and still using Meth!!! My ex (my son's dad) said we were going to stop using as he was supplying it all. I stopped, he didn't.

I started going to junior college and got my AA degree as a legal secretary so I could try and support my son. I built my own home, and neighborhood, through the CHIP program for lower income families and it was a nice little home. I finally was able to move out of my mom's home when I was 26 years old. I lived with her until then for financial reasons for both her and I. By then my son was 6 years old. At age 5, his father and I split up, or I guess I should say I kicked his father out. He was a full blown Meth user along with other drugs including opiates. He stalked me for over two years. I always felt that my son should have his father in his life (probably because mine wasn't around much). This was a mistake of a young girl who tried her best at the time and I forgive myself now for it, but it took a long time. My son had necrosis of the hip at age 4/5 and had to wear a brace that made him walk funny. All the kids teased him and I tried to protect him, even putting him in play therapy hoping that would help him. He overcame it and can walk fine and has no pain. Shriner's are a blessing on a side note!!

Please see Act II for a the rest of the story.

Renee

October 13, 2009

Homeless


Last night my brother called because he wanted to see if I could round up a sleeping bag for him. For those not up to date he is dual diagnosis (not sure if he is bi-polar or schizophrenic). He has been incarcerated for years off and on for violation of parole due to drug use. Anyways, he was staying with us as our mom passed away a little over a year ago and he was doing quite well. He slipped up and my husband said he had enough. My husband was his payee for a couple of years off and on. He is having to reapply for Social Security and is getting temporary checks. Of course he takes the checks, buys a few nights of a motel room and spends the rest on drugs, etc. He has no concept of money, whatsoever. Anyways, he is a sweet soul and I love him very much despite the crap he has put me through and himself through. I took him a sleeping bag and bought him some hot food, gave him a coat, cried a lot. He came by my work today at lunch and I gave him a sandwhich and chips. It is raining and windy, terrible weather suddenly here. I took him to mental health and they directed us to some other angency and I had to drop him off, it is quite a ways from town. No housing available, no shelter here. Please blogger friends, pray that the Lord will provide the right people in my brother's path. I am struggling so much with this and I know he is so scared. I know he has made poor choices and lots of times I use the mental illness to excuse him. I just love him and want him to have shelter.

October 11, 2009

Stuck on Grateful

Hi to all of my blogger friends, I have missed you and thank you so much for your thoughts and prayers during the passing of my mother-in-law. I am not officially back from our little getaway at the ocean but felt the urge to write a gratitude list today. I will be writing a couple of posts soon about some history of my life and my son's as I thought it might shed more light on who I am as a person and how I got to blogland. For now, I am just grateful for today and so here is my list:

1. Grateful for all sunny days on the ocean;
2. Grateful for my loving husband and our wonderful relationship;
3. Grateful I have a job;
4. Grateful we have a couple of little places to getaway to when needed, and vacation time to do it with;
5. Grateful for the pain of the passing of my mother, sister, aunt and mother-in-law to show me how strong I can be and how precious life is;
6. Grateful for a reliable vehicle;
7. Grateful the water where I live tastes so great out the tap;
8. Grateful for the health that I do have;
9. Grateful for my family and friends;
10. Grateful for all my senses and the ability to stop and be aware of my surroundings; and
11. Last but not least, grateful for my blog friends who support me in ways only they can understand.

I hope you are all doing well, I will be trying to catch up on my blog readings as well as posting soon.

Renee

October 2, 2009

R.I.P.

Just a quick post as I may be preoccupied for a bit. My mother-in-law passed away yesterday so we will be busy planning services, etc. I hope all my blogger friends are doing well! God Bless, Renee