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Just the crap I've been up to - LOL

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Hopalong:
I am so sorry. I understand how heartrending this is.
Addiction is just defeating thinking and NO amount of reason cures it.
It includes self pity, arrested development, and neglect of family.
And some people do let themselves die. It is very tragic and you are RIGHT
to accept the detachment you're forced to adopt to not drown along with her.

It's not exactly parallel but our wakes do cross in this.

Strange as it sounds, my efforts to emotionally survive in the six years
since my D "vaporized" me from her life, well into poorly managed bipolar...
those efforts did finally get me to a place of peace.

Now I am living my own life, and though she comes into my thoughts and
sometimes there is pain...generally I accept that she is gone.

Anything different would be a new relationship, and I would be a different
woman/mother. And I'm not expecting it nor even hoping for it at this point.

Now and then my sorrow for her rolls over me but I let it go through and
beyond. She truly is beyond my reach.

I almost think it's harder for you because you do still have contact, even
if mostly through Hol.

I'm so sorry.

love
Hops

Twoapenny:
That does sound so hard, Skep, you never stop being a mum, do you?  Which is why it's hard when your grown up kids keep making crap decisions and you can't do anything about it.  I wish things had turned out a bit better.  You are right to say that you and H should keep reminding yourselves not to feel guilty.  No-one can make people change paths if that person is really resistant to doing it for themselves (or if they do change it's only for a short time before they go back to the way they were).  I can only hope A does see there's a different way at some point xx

sKePTiKal:
Thanks. It's a weird place to be in. To be past the sadness, grief, and the urge "to do something to help". I struggle with the idea that I'm abandoning her - but it's not true. I'm still here should she find her way back. Genuinely.

Hops, yes the wakes cross. Yes, one clings to merest whiff of hope - even when rationally one knows it's not likely that real change will occur. In my case, there have been so many times that she's seemed to get it, understand, and promised to take herself in hand... and it was just the addiction using my inexhaustible hope for it's own purposes. That's a level of anger perhaps only you would understand. A foreign, unusual type... and it doesn't even lash out anymore.

I've even given her my penultimate "secret formula" - that you have to matter to YOU - to no avail. And she's made it clear how little other people matter to her. Or maybe that's the addiction and she's being held hostage by it... somewhere, way inside.

I guess it's come up for me again, because Hol thinks the spiral is escalating... and she is trying to find a way to deal with it herself. She knows and understands where I'm at with it... but she feels a bit differently. Which is OK. They are sisters, despite how much mothering Hol has done of her sister. And Hol looks way further forward trying to anticipate and ready herself for things she thinks are inevitable. I've learned to just take it as comes, because the feelings to specific things simply can't be predicted ahead of time. And whatever they turn out to be - they are bearable. I no longer fear soul-wrenching grief as much practice as I've had... and no matter how non-fuctional I am dealing with it. And I'll still go out of my way to head it off or avoid it... until I just cave and give in.

But this is different somehow. Being resigned to whatever fate has in store and since I'm not permitted to "fix it"... and all attempts have been thrown back to me as total failure, with anger and hostility on top... it's really hard to let myself care. Defensive shield, I guess. It's certainly not the same as releasing the outcome. She doesn't care that I care, when the addiction is in control.

SIGH. So it is what it is. And not a damn thing I can do about it, except take care of myself, and the rest of the family.

Twoapenny:
I think it's how we protect ourselves, Skep, we do care but we know if we acknowledge that or keep putting it out there it's just something that gets thrown back at us and hurts us more.  So we bury it down deeper and get on with what we need to do.  I think the litmus test of whether you care or not is whether if that person reached out to you, genuinely wanting help to change and fix their own problems - not for you to fix them, but to help them fix themselves - would you help?  And I think the answer for all of us is yes.  Funnily enough I was thinking about my mum again today, and the sisters I no longer have contact with.  If any of them reached out with a view to having a relationship but acknowledging it couldn't be the way it used to be (with me taking x, y and z amounts of crap and just absorbing it all) then I'd say yes in a heart beat.  They can't, so I don't - but the care is still in there somewhere, deep down, and I expect it is with you as well.  It's hard.  Holly seems to have her head screwed on for the both of them :)  I'll keep hoping A sees a chink of light somewhere and asks someone to help her change direction at some point xx

Hopalong:
Oh yes, Tupp. In a heartbeat.
The heart-space is there for her absolutely. Always will be. It's why I'm leaving her a house.
It's just a still, peaceful space that doesn't need me marching in and out, cleaning and keening.

If the host of this heart is to survive--meaning me--I can't do that. Have to close the
door (it's not locked) into that space and just rest in faith that I'd be able to enter it again
if she came knocking (appointment slip to family counselor in hand).

She and that heart-space will always be part of me.

Hugs
Hops

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