I wanted to thank you for this very candid blog. I am the stepmother of a wonderful little girl that I love to death! My husband and I have full custody of her now, but when she was young we shared custody with her mother. Her mother was and still is an addict to a number of drugs. We knew what was going on by the stories our three year old would come home with after her stay with Mom. She would come home usually in the same clothes we sent her in three days before, cold, and sniffling. We filed for custody, but it was a very long battle. For three years we had no choice but to send her as we were required to by law. I could not believe that the legal system was allowing this to happen to this precious child. We thought we had won when late one night her mother was pulled over. My stapdaughter was in the car where the police officer found a collection of used needles thrown about, but they fought for her parental rights...so we had to keep sending her to a place we knew she was not safe. This happened for three years. For three years I held her in the night when she had a nightmares of being locked in the closet while Mom had "friends" over or seeing a man hold a gun to her Mom's head. I would just hold her and cry with her. Finally we did get custody...at four years old she was found alone in a hotel room with drugs all over the place. i am glad that we can give her a good home, but I worry so much about her. She still has nightmares from time to time which she no longer realizes are memories not just dreams. It is difficult for her to understand her life situation. She of course loves her Mom and cannot always understand why she cannot see her. She is 10 now and realizes more about what happened but desperately wants to believe that her Mom is better now. if this were the case i would galdly let her see her, but it is not. She has spend the last 10 years in and out of rehab and jail...she is not better. What pains me too is that my daughter has 6 brothers and sister that she has never met who have been adopted by other families. i don't know how I even begin to help her work through such a mess. She is only 10 and has seen more pain than some people ever do. I wanted to thank you for giving me a look at a daughter's perspective."
Anonymous, I'm a nanny and I've been working with kids for a long time. This was extremely hard for me, because I love children- they're so amazing, and I do not know how someone could do such terrible things to something/someone so innocent. I plan on having a big family, and I hope I can be a great mom like you.
The truth is the woman has a severe problem, and she is missing out on seven extraordinary lives. You are such a courageous person, and I admire everything you have done for your little girl. I'm sure it wasn't easy, but because of you she now has an amazing mother. You are so lucky to have someone so amazing in your life, and she is truly blessed to have you. I'm sure times are hard, but I'm so thankful that there are people out there who are as strong as you-and really want to help.
My Aunt and Uncle adopted me when I was 16, and it was really hard because I was so old! I grew up with my mom, and felt as though I was already grown up when I moved in with them (because of all of the things I had witnessed with my mom). At times I was so angry with them, but they were helping me tremendously. I've realized that I was just angry with my mom, and couldn't actually acknowledge all of the amazing things my family was doing for me, until after I moved out. My Aunt is now like a mother to me, I love my mom and my aunt so much-and could not possibly be where I am today without the help of both of them.
I'm sure there are going to be times where your daughter misses her mom, but because of you she is going to have a great life. I hope the best for her biological mom-but I'm really having a hard time empathizing with her and her actions. She is missing out on seven amazing lives, and she's really going to regret that unless she changes.
Thank you so much for sharing your story with all of us, people like you and your daughter are the reason for my blog. I hope that you will be able to share more stories with all of us, and I hope that talking about your situation makes it a little less difficult.
Bailie,
ReplyDeleteWhat you're doing is helping more people- and in bigger ways- than you can even imagine. I've passed the URL on to some important people in my life. I hope they can start to share, too! Everyone has a story, and your blog is so unique in that it gives a forum for people to share, to care, and to be cared about, with the comfort of anonymity. Thank you taking the bold steps to provide us with such a strong support network!
My last relationship lasted two years and was with the sweetest boy I had ever met; unfortunately, beyond being sweet he was also an addict- something I didn't know when we started dating. His drugs of choice were OxyContin and Xanax. I have lots of stories that I can share about this chapter in my life. After reading Anonymous' courageous post about the effect of another parent's drug use on their child, though, all I can think about is how drug use affects family, and one particular story I have about that, from a slightly different point of view.
Last year, I took a semester off of college and moved back home to work and be near my boyfriend. We loved each other very much and would often talk about settling down together after college and starting a family. Our relationship was lovely, aside from his addiction. In fact, his addiction sometimes didn't even seem like a problem because he was so well off financially with a steady supply of drugs that he always had pills and therefore rarely experienced withdrawals. I guess the addiction related depression was the worst- he was depressed with the drugs but would be depressed AND sick without him, so he was literally high 100% of the time. During the semester that I was home, I got pregnant. Since we'd talked about having a family together before, the idea of having the baby and giving it up for adoption- or maybe keeping it- was a real possibility for us. One day, we sat down to make a plan. I asked him, very clearly, if he could be clean for the entire time I would be pregnant. His reply? "I don't know if I can do that." In retrospect, I'm so glad that he was able to be honest with me- and himself! I had to put my self in the shoes of a mother of a child whose father was an addict. I knew that I couldn't do that to a beautiful, innocent baby, so I made an appointment at Planned Parenthood and asked him to come with me, under the condition that he had to be sober on the day. He told me that he didn't know if he could do that, either. He was crying and crying and saying he felt like a horrible person. I remember this so vividly- the memory is burnt forever into my mind. I knew he wanted nothing more than to support me, but couldn't because of his awful addiction. He had been relying on drugs to get him through any tough situation for so many years, that he literally couldn't handle tension without drugs. He was so unable to deal with reality that he booked a plane ticket and got high on a beach in the Caribbean for a whole week, while I endured the most painful, most emotionally devastating event of my life to date.
I'll never forget being in Planned Parenthood alone, pregnant with the baby of an addict who loved a drug more than me, and more than unborn his child. Every day I wonder about my decision. What if one of us becomes infertile? What if one of us was born infertile and that was a fluke- our one chance at having a baby? Anonymous, your post gave me some perspective on my decision. I know that your shoes are the hardest to walk in, and I doubt that I could be as strong as you are in them. I feel confident now that I made the right decision. Thank you so much for sharing!!!
Bailie,
ReplyDeleteThank you for saying that you felt angry when reading this. I have so much anger toward my daughter's biological mother. But it is hard because I don't want to show this to my daughter. I would never tell her some of the things I think about her mother because I don't want to hurt her. I try to be really understanding that this woman is her mother and that she loves her despite what I might feel toward her. I also find it very difficult to empathize with her...especially after watching her hurt the lives of so many, including her children and our family as a whole. There was a time I tired to be understanding and help her, but wound up seeing that drugs can make a person very manipulative. I quickly learned that I could not help someone who didn't really want to get better. Her actions were very selfish.
We are not in contact with most of my daughters siblings. She has written one back and forth a few times, but it always seems to bring her more pain than comfort. The others we do not have contact information for. I have not sought this out as my daughter has not expressed a desire to do this. I really try to let her decide what is comfortable for her. She is a very hard child to read though. Communicating her feelings is very difficult for her. I take whatever she will give me :) It is not often that she wants to talk about this subject. The times she does are usually very scary. Her feelings always come out in an explosion. She holds everything in until she can't anymore and it comes at the strangest times. One night she was helping me cook dinner when she started shaking. She tightened her fists and her face turned red. When I asked what was wrong she yelled, "I am just so mad at her! Doesn't she even care about me. What kind of Mom does that?" She went on like this for over an hour. I tried to calm her...we sat down and talked. Then her feelings quickly shifted to tremendous pain. Her body heaved as she lay on my lap crying. All I know to do is tell her that I am here for her and I know this is painful and unfair to her.
I really appreciate you saying how much you appreciated your aunt for helping you through this period of your life. That is comforting to know. There are days I feel more like the enemy than a friend. I know your situation differs in that you were much older than my daughter is, but I wonder if her emmotional reponse is normal. Did you find that you had trouble with feelings? The biggest reason I worry is that I never know what's going on in her head. I wish she felt more comfortable to deal with her pain...I know that is probably difficult for anyone at age 10 but she is so closed off.
Anonymous,
I just wanted to take a moment to tell you what an incredibly brave woman you are. I cannot imagine the pain you went through in having to make such a huge decision with no supports from the person you loved. I admire you for your bravery and thank you for your compassionate understanding of my story as well.
Man I need to stop crying- but it's so hard. YES it was very hard for me to communicate my feelings. I was so angry inside, and when I moved into my Aunt and Uncle's house I felt the need to hide those feelings; when I lived in Connecticut people knew I was angry, I could punch things, or yell, or break things, or fights with people-and I thought this was the only way I could deal with my anger. I also didn't cry for about two whole years, and if I did cry it was the same exact way as what you described about your daughter. It would come out of nowhere, and it was like my whole entire body was falling apart. It generally happened before bed (I've got some OCD tendencies I will talk about later-that happen to result in Anxiety which sometimes lead to tears) then I would wake up with huge swollen eyes, and attempt to hide it from my Aunt, Uncle, and my little baby cousins.
ReplyDeleteI would highly recommend therapy, there are all sorts of great therapeutic groups for kids! I'll try to look into it more for you if you are interested, I'm also a Communications class at the moment, and I would highly recommend the book we needed to buy for class! It is called Reflect and Relate by Steven McCornack, and I think you can buy it online.
Sorry this is so short, but I need to run to class! If you have ANY other questions please feel free to ask me anything. How does your daughter to with friends, and other kids? Do you have any other children? Take care.
I would really appreciate input on therapy for her. She had some therapy when she was younger which was provided by the state because at the time we were still dealing with custody and a guardian at litem was assing what situation would be best for her. Unfortunetely after we won custody we did not recieve much support to continue to help her with what will surely be life long battles.
ReplyDeleteI will also look into the book. Is that an interpersonal communication class?
As far as friends...my daughter has a couple of friends she has been friends with for a long time, but her relationships are strange. Sometimes when she has a friend over they end up in seperate rooms. But most of the friends she made in her early years of elementary school are no longer her friends. She doesn't have very many close girl friends which worries me a bit sometimes and has developed this obsession with sexual attention from boys...I am not sure where this is coming from and as a mother it is very scary as she is only 10.
We do have two other children ages 6 and 7. And she is usually a very sweet big sister. She doesn't always seem to know how to connect with her sisters, but tries very hard.
Thank you for the feedback. I appreciate your taking the time to answer my questions, especially during finals week :)
I'm so sorry it's taken me so long to reply! It is interpesonal communications, an absolutely amazing class with an amazing instructor (I assume you know her)!
ReplyDeleteI would say definitely put her in therapy, and see if there are any group therapies she can go to with children in her position. I'm sure she is a great girl, and she deserves to live a healthy happy life!
Sexual attention, and having trouble developing friendships are probably because of the way she is feeling inside (my own personal opinion), I went through similar feelings, but of course I was a little older.
I lost my virginity at a young age, and will talk about it in detail when I'm ready to post about it, but it is something I honestly think about often-and I think with the help of therapy early on I would have waited.
I'm not sure if you are in my area-but if you are I would love to help you, and even hang out with your daughter if you think she needs someone to talk to! If you're on facebook please find me, this way we can talk about it privately. Also my email address is bailiesaltzman@yahoo.com, and I would be more than happy to help you in any way that I can.
Take care, and again I'm so sorry it took me so long to write back. The semester is over and I'm on a break until the 18th!