Posted by ClearSkies on March 13, 2008, at 18:31:16
In reply to Re: Distressed and depressed on several fronts » ClearSkies, posted by Phillipa on March 13, 2008, at 18:05:54
I don't know how to tell when my step daughter has been honest with us and when she's been fabricating in order to get <money> <attention> <approval> circle which appropriate. The few sessions of therapy she had last summer with my DH she said she knew she was in an abusive relationship, and that she feared for her safety. When she left that time, it was with her tires slashed, and her windshield broken by him in a rage. She later said (in one of her Bad News letters to us) that she had brought this upon herself. This I know is a maladaptive measure that victims of domestic violence use, when they tell themselves that it's actually their own fault that they've been attacked.
And so much has happened since then. She tried to detox herself two months ago, and that's when she admitted to me that she had become addicted. She wasn't able to stay clean long enough to get into a suitable program - there had been a wait of 10 days or so - and at that time, returned again to the abusive man.
So, really, at this point, we've done everything we can to help her - we tell her at every opportunity that we are still prepared to get her to help. But she simply isn't at her own personal bottom; isn't ready to start to turn her life around. Perhaps she never will be ready.
And I think that is where my sorrow lies. That she is OK living the way she does, except for the brief periods when it gets to be too much, and she escapes to the arms of her family. I sense that it's time for the arms of the family to close to her, to force her to face the consequences of her life decisions on her own. And I fear what those consequences will ultimately be.
I just have been carrying this around with me for so long now - since January, really. And I haven't been posting because I've been so very upset by it all. But now it's bubbling over in every waking minute that I spend. I wake up in the morning feeling OK, but after I've been up for an hour or two the depression returns like a brick sitting on my chest. I don't want to do anything, but I'm forcing myself through the days.
CS
poster:ClearSkies
thread:817746
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20080226/msgs/817766.html