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Deb, as I've said, more than once, your grandson should be removed from this violent,explosive, dysfunctional situation...I would be very afraid for HIS physical & emotional well-being! Dang the father and mother, they CHOOSE this way of life, but the child was born into it. With all your sons history, hasn't children services ever stepped in?

20 years ago my 2 grandaughters were in the same situation(only both my son and girlfriend were addiccts) After learning of some horrific things one being the girls were locked in their bedroom while they partied and got high, we will never know for how long, the oldest was 21/2 the other a few months old so facts were scetchy, but she told me one weekend I got to take them. My other 2 sons came over and listened to her. After which they went to thier house and found thier father and mother and several other people all high on coke and whatever else..they gathered up the few things belonging to the girl and brought them to me...They never went back there, even to visit again! I went to court and got custody(judge put in the stipulation, that if one or the other ever got clean the court would possibly return custody) It never happened.

Believe me, I already raised my own children,even though I loved it, I wasn't looking forward to raising my grandaughters It was supposed to be "my time" turned out to be blessings all the way around! My other sons and thier wives helped alot,they were always included in thier vacations, outings and everyday lives. They grew up and both are married, are great moms, and both never turned to booze or alcohol.

I know,in my heart, that if we hadn"t interceded they would be either dead,severly emotionally scarred or addicts themselves!

Debb, I have never been in the situation you're in, so I'm far from qualified to offer advice. Still, as Leprikin says, your grandchild in in peril.

What would concern me most would be that something would occur that would cause Child Protective Services to become involved, and for your grandson to be put into State custody. I'm also concerned that a child who consistently sees that kind of activity in the house cannot help but model it as he grows up -- it's what's normal to him. It's how cycles start.

I really think it'd be a good idea for you to talk with a lawyer about rights and options. Where I live, if grands are raising a child and having a problem financially (and I don't know you are, I'm just sayin') the State will treat the grandson as a foster child, and provide financial support.

You are in my thoughts. You continue to sound in your writing as if you are struggling with depression, and I hope I'm wrong. If I'm not, I'm urging you again to take care of yourself. You won't be much help to your grandson if you fall apart. Sometimes (and this part I DO know something about) the well just runs dry and we need help to fill it up again. It isn't a failure, and it isn't forever -- it's just taking help when it's available and getting back to a place where we're healthy enough and strong enough to climb that next mountain.

I like your metaphor, Sammig. We really do just conquer one mountain before the next one rises up to meet us. Debb, I don't know of anything I can say or add to what has already been said, except that you know we are all in this horrid boat together, and we're here for you and each other. I am finding the holidays especially tough this year. Financially, it's been a rough year for me, but even more devastating is the fact that my son remains estranged from everyone in his family while he revels in his addiction and a new romance with one of the worst tramps in town.

Please feel free to pm me anytime you want to "talk". I'll do my best to befriend you or anyone who is going through this hell.

Hugs and prayers,
Jan

Last nite the outrageous behavior got out of hand, today Tara is moving out. I am advising her to terminate David's parental rights immediately. She has called an agency that will help her find the aid she needs, a home, and whatever else needed to escape the situation. David beat her, burned her with cigarettes and broke everything she owned. While Roman watched. That brave little three year old tried to get between his dad and mom and my darling son told him "I hate you...you are a little faggot and I wish your mother had aborted you." I'm done. He has finally broken the last tie he had to me. I will not stand by and have a child, any child, abused.

I would take Roman in a heartbeat. But I have no legal standing as long as Tara is clean. She is working and providing for Roman. If she does not take him out of that house, I will then hire an attorney. And I am telling her that tonite. She is coming here after work to stay with us for the time being.

Neither Geo or I want them to live with us. She needs to have her own place away from my son. If things go wrong, we will have to sell our home and move away from both David and Tara to keep our lives sane. I would have to give up my entire family. But if it comes to that, I'm ready. I'm just not sure Geo is. Roman is not his grandson, but he does love him. Raising a child at our ages, retired, I'm scared to death to think of how this would affect our marriage and our lives. But I cannot continue to allow this abuse to go on.

You are all right. And I do fight depression on a daily basis. I refuse to go back into that black hole and this anger I'm feeling is doing quite alot to help me climb out of the hole and be ready for the next mountain.

I don't want the police involved because they will take Tara to jail, too. When there is domestic violence and both parties have participated, both go to jail. But she will be told tonite that she can never expose her child to this lunacy or I will go to the authorities. I have told her time and again that she can always come here....day or night....but she chooses to stay.

I'm praying she can find a place quickly and get some help....then we'll work on getting a TRO and having David's parental rights terminated.

One thing at a time. One day at a time.

Hang in. Know that we're here. Let us know what happens tonight; we care.

Please know that others are out there who have been in your place and felt that same heartache and anger. Lase year we made the decdision to bring CPS in and took our grandson away from his mom and forced her into rehab. At the time she really hated us but now she knows that it was the best for her son. After completing treatment and parenting classes she now lives with us and her son and is trying to have a relationshjp with him. There have been some real struggles, a relapse(she is a methamphetamine addict), a boy who is more bonded with my husband and I, and a realization that she has missed a lot of the wonderful things in the last 3 years of her little boys life. But through it all I have remained hopeful and hope all the best for you and your family and will pray for you. Please let us know what happens.

Roman is sleeping soundly in the guest bedroom and Tara is finishing her laundry. For tonight, all is peaceful. I told her that under no circumstances would I allow the situation to continue. If she does not petition for Roman to be separated from David, I will petition for custody of Roman. Although it was very emotional and difficult, she says she understands and will petitiion for a TRO and follow
through with whatever is necessary to protect them from David....

Thank you all, again and again, I know we have all been here but when it's you in the hot seat it feels so very different. My heart is broken. I know this is the best but I so very much wish it was different.

Debb

Debb, there's an old saying that the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know. The easy thing is to stay in the same place, to allow the same thing to happen over and over.

The brave thing is to recognize that there is an elephant in the living room, then get up and get it out the door and tidy up those large, smelly warm piles left behind. One never knows what that darned elephant is going to do, or if one will be able to lift a big enough shovel to get rid of all those messy piles. The brave thing is to protect those who are too young or too old or too infirm to protect themselves.

You all are in my prayers, my friend. Just take one step. When you know the earth under you is solid, go for the next one. You'll be fine.

Dear Friends, I am back. Andrew called last night. It started my frantic chaotic thinking, feeling and eating.

I sat and wrote him the following letter. He wanted us to bring K up to Canada to see him or if he come here to NY to be with K for Christmas. This is my response. Am wondering if to send it or not? What do any of you advise?

Dec. 9th, 2009
Dear Andrew

I am going to lay the cards on the table. Not meant to hurt your feelings or recriminate but in the hope that you can view the situation from our perspective.
We all know what the situation is but we have all tip-toed through to avoid hurting you, making things worse or keeping it secret one from another.
We are not doing that anymore.

This last rift between us was very hard on me. I was constantly obsessing about you, your health, your situation and your drug problem. I decided to seek therapy. I needed help. Your drug use was destroying my peace of mind and my well being from constant worry.

I was very angry and hurt. I knew that I had just given you $2000 to put into your account for room and telephone.
You used it on drugs.

I know about the $300 that you took from Steve and Sofie.
You called me to get you out of that mess with wild IRS stories.
You knew they needed that money but you wanted to get it from the skin of my back.
Made me even more angry.
You used that on drugs too.
Nothing will stop you.

Sofie was angry and hurt too. Betrayal of Trust.
We all have been victims of your drug use and the repercussions of your drug addiction behavior. Yet, we don't give up hope.

We have lived with this sentence around our necks for about twenty years now. Twenty years is a long time for you and us to commit to drug use.
Long Enough.

Don't let K [his 9 year old son] have to commit to it too. He is on his way. This is just another form of child abuse. Emotional and mental.

It seems to me that by now you have seen that this life style has led you on the road to perdition.
Drugs have destroyed your life and on its way to hurting K, his trust and his self esteem.
This is the stigma he has to live with if you don't stop. He needs you.

Your actions have brought you to probration.
I don't know if he knows that you are on probation and cannot go see him.
All he feels is the loss of an absent father, the feelings of abandonment. Perhaps, that he is not good enough. Not worthy enough. He is still a child but he knows more than you think. He understands. He can reason and He adores you.

Last Christmas I found heroin packs right on the ironing board just two feet from where K lay sleeping. I understand that when the need hits you there is only one way to fix it for the moment.

You have lost many good women to drugs: Ana, Heather, Rachel and Debra.
You have lost your credibility also. We always have to be hyper vigiliant in your presence. Tension abounds.

I know that the need for drugs make you lie to me/us/them/ anyone; invent untrue wild stories that could be plausable. Drama, health drama. Stealing [including cash, cds, my mother's jewelry that she left me; Jake's jewelry gifts to me] all gone............ and manipulation to the maximum.

Drugs have made you abandon yourself, your family and your son. K really needs you. He has his Mom but I see him pretty much alone trying to fill his life with external things. He is being past around from baby sitter to baby sitter. He is a latch key kid. Today, K is off from school. Heather took the day off.

I understand heroin has a strong hold on you, that it is almost impossible to kick; but it has been done before.

I understand about the physical pain of withdrawal, the tremors, the shakes, the diarrhea, the vomiting. You got yourself into this and only you can get yourself out. We cannot do it for you. If I could I would have done so already. I am not trying to shame you. But by continuing to provide, put bandaids on your illness I/we keep enabling you. While I miss you and love you and want you in our lives, I/we cannot continue to enable you.

This is the reason I did not send you more money. I needed to stop the chaotic merry-go-round of drug addiction as it affects me. I need to work on me.

You have been in self imposed exile from me and the family for the past six months. Does this work for you? You seem to have managed. I know the only reason you called is because of K. If that is what works for you, I understand. I have to understand that is your choice. It is fine. I can butt out. Give you the space you need and seem to want. But I will no longer assume your responsibilities as a human being and a father. I have retired myself from adult children issues and dependencies as much as I can.

I would love to have you and K for Christmas. I would love to have us all together for Christmas
Being the co-dependent parent that I am/have been [but which I am working on self recovering]
I immediately started to plan the trip for K relieving you of all responsibility for seeing your son.
Why should you change? For the past 4 or 5 years I have delivered K to your doorstep providing all the financial responsibility for tickets, food and even presents for you to give him. And, any other story you made-up, to get money out of me for your drug use.

While whatever money you get from social services goes on drugs.
This was never right for me but much less now. I am not responsible any longer. You are a grown man.

I was turning myself inside out after your phone call. I was turning myself inside out for you to be with K.
Where is your responsibility in this picture?
To pull of this trip off, Jake and I would have to go get K in Ohio, drive him back to NY and from NY to Montreal and get K back to Ohio, all in a week's time. Just thinking about it made me dizzy and it is totally unfair for Jake to do all that driving. 600 miles to Ohio. 400 miles to Canada.

I even started calling airlines.
Airlines don't accept minors when there is a change of planes.
There were no direct flights from Ohio to NY or vice versa.
One fare I saw was for $900+ during holiday season.

I had to STOP myself. I was driving myself crazy trying to fix things, to please you. to please K. I realize that these are NOT MY RESPONSIBILITY. These are things you should be doing; not me. I am only the grandmother. I had called Heather and asked her for dates just in case; as well, told her my struggle with trying to make this happen as regards tickets, food and lodging for all. She said that maybe, it would not be possible after all. I think so too. I am not doing this out of meanness. I just cannot fix everything. If it were meant to happen; it would flow easier. Everyone would be doing their share.

Sofia told me you had used the day she introduced you to Louie. Your eyes were red and you were slurring your words. I know that look. I know how it makes me feel.
That was just last week. The way things are, I would just be setting myself up again.
Another reason why this trip is not a good idea. If you were clean, of course, we would do everything possible as we have done in the past.

I ask you to make an inventory of your life. It is not too late. You are still young.

Maybe, you have not hit rock bottom yet. You have to want to get well. It is your responsibility to put in the work. I have been sending you articles from the on line book I am reading to help you understand why we do the things we do. I send them to you to heal yourself as I am trying to do for myself now. I feel my childhood was more brutal than yours. Dad's harder than mine. Let's spare K. Healing myself is my responsibility. Healing yourself is your responsibility. These articles have given me some insight and insight brings awareness and once you have understanding; healing is something to work towards. We all have to do it for ourselves. We have to put in the time. We have to put in the energy. Son, It does not happen by itself.

Codependency is:

at it's core, a dysfunctional relationship with self. We do not know how to Love our self in healthy ways because our parents did not know how to Love themselves. We were raised in shame-based societies that taught us that there is something wrong with being human. The messages we got often included that there is something wrong: with making mistakes; with not being perfect; with being sexual; with being emotional; with being too fat or too thin or too tall or too short or too whatever. As children we were taught to determine our worth in comparison with others. If we were smarter than, prettier than, better grades than, faster than, etc. - then we were validated and got the message that we had worth.

In a codependent society everyone has to have someone to look down on in order to feel good about themselves. And, conversely, there is always someone we can compare ourselves to that can cause us to not feel good enough.

Codependency could:
more accurately be called outer or external dependence. The condition of codependence is about giving power over our self esteem to outside sources/agencies or external manifestations. We were taught to look outside of our selves to people, places, and things - to money, property and prestige, to determine if we have worth. That causes us to put false gods before us. We make money or achievement or popularity or material possessions or the "right" marriage the Higher Power that determines if we have worth.

We take our self-definition and self-worth from external manifestations of our own being so that looks or talent or intelligence becomes the Higher Power that we look to in determining if we have worth. All outside and external conditions are temporary and could change in a moment. If we make a temporary condition our Higher Power we are setting ourselves up to be a victim - and, in blind devotion to that Higher Power we are pursuing, we often victimize other people on our way to proving we have worth.

(I believe that we are all ONE. That we all have equal worth as Spiritual Beings, as sons and daughters of the God-Force / God Energy / Great Spirit - not because of any external manifestation or outside condition.)

Codependency is:
a particularly vicious form of delayed stress syndrome. Instead of being traumatized in a foreign country against an identified enemy during a war, as soldiers who have delayed stress are - we were traumatized in our sanctuaries by the people we loved the most. Instead of having experienced that trauma for a year or two as a soldier might - we experienced it on a daily basis for 16 or 17 or 18 years. A soldier has to shut down emotionally in order to survive in a war zone. We had to shut down emotionally because we were surrounded by adults who were emotional cripples of one sort or another.

Codependency is
a dysfunctional emotional and behavioral defense system. When a society is emotionally dishonest, the people of that society are set up to be emotionally dysfunctional. In this society being emotional is described as falling apart, losing it, going to pieces, coming unglued, etc. (Other cultures give more permission to be emotional but then the emotions are usually expressed in ways that are out of balance to the extreme of letting the emotions control. The goal is balance between emotional and mental - between the intuitive and the rational.)

Traditionally in this society men have been taught that anger is the only acceptable emotion for a man to express, while women are taught that it is not acceptable for them to be angry. If it is not ok to own all of our emotions then we can not know who we are as emotional beings. [Also traditionally, women are taught to be codependent - take their self-definition (including their names) and self-worth - from their relationships with men, while men are taught to be codependent on their work/career/ability to produce, and from their presumed superiority to women.]

Codependency is:
a disease of lost self. If we are not validated and affirmed for who we are in childhood then we don't believe we are worthy or lovable. [ I am so sorry for this. I apologize from the bottom of my heart. Knowing what I know now, I wish I could do it all over again] I repeat, let's spare K. We know better now] Of course, you were loved and lovable. I just did not know how to show it. I was not shown myself. On some level I knew they loved me in their brutal fashion]. Often we got validated and affirmed by one parent and put down by the other. When the parent who is "loving" does not protect us - or themselves - from the parent that is abusive, it is a betrayal that sets us up to have low self esteem because the affirmation we received was invalidated right in our own homes.

And being affirmed for being who we are is very different than being affirmed for who our parents wanted us to be - if they could not see themselves clearly then they sure could not see us clearly. In order to survive, children adapt whatever behavior will work best in helping them get their survival needs met. We then grow up to be adults who don't know our self and keep dancing the dance we learned as children.

A dysfunctional relationship is one that does not work to make us happy.

Codependency is about having a dysfunctional relationship with self. With our own bodies, minds, emotions, and spirits. With our own gender and sexuality. With being human. Because we have dysfunctional relationships internally we have dysfunctional relationships externally. We try to fill the hole we feel inside of our self with something or someone outside of us - it does not work.
................

As of this writing the trip seems to be unfeasible for many reasons. Perhaps, next summer when K is out of school. When there is more time. Maybe, by then you will be in a better place. Love you always,

Mom

Hope, I can only speak for myself. If I was in your situation, I would do two things:

(a) print out the letter you've written and reread it twice a day.
(b) send your son a letter that says "I'm sorry we won't be able to bring K to visit you. I do hope you can find a way to see your son during the holidays, and wish you only the best. Know that you remain in our prayers and thoughts, love mom"

What you have written will be of far more impact on you than on him, and will, if you send it only disappoint you when he doesn't respond the way you'd like him to respond.

Saying that -- everybody does what they can, in the best way they can. Just remember that you aren't responsible for people, places or things... you're only responsible for your reaction to them.