I'm fucking stressed. It's 4:30 in the morning and I can't sleep. My sleep schedule is all messed up and has been for a couple of weeks now. 

Debbie is so hard. She makes life so freaking hard. I don't even know what to do anymore. I worry deeply for her safety, but I don't even know what to do. I have tried to put up boundaries because she sends drunk and high texts all the time that are super passive aggressive. So I decided I wasn't going to respond to them anymore. And Shanea and Kelly don't respond either. She thinks we have all gotten together and decided to shun her. And like, kick her out of our lives. Which is not true at all. But I just don't want the drama any more. 

The whole reason I am awake right now is because I woke up to Brad snoring, and went to turn on my noise on my phone and saw that she had texted. She said that she had sent Jill some songs that are pretty much blaming her for Kade's suicide and that she is not okay, but Jill needs to know. Jill doesn't need to know, and it isn't Jill's fault. Yeah, Jill was a shitty wife. She didn't treat Kade right, and she made major mistakes that impacted Kade greatly. But so did other people, and Kade had major mental health issues. He was so depressed and had bi-polar and there was so much more to it than just Jill. It just drives me crazy that she can blame just Jill. Especially when she can't even see her part in mom being dead now too. I'm not blaming Debbie, but she was treating mom very badly the week that mom died, and I am sure that it affected my mom's decision to end her life. Ugh. It is so much to unpack. I feel like Shanea  and I talk about it endlessly, but it all just goes in circles. Kevin's behavior directly impacted Mom and Kade so much too. 

Anyway, it's like... Debbie has so much rage and anger, she just explodes on us. And it is often over text message, and it is hard to interpret. So now if we don't engage, she feels ignored, which she hates even more. But she literally doesn't know what she wants. It's like, you give her an inch and she will take a mile. And now she has talked about suicide for the 3rd time and told Shanea that she went and fucking bought anti-freeze. What in the actual hell???? She needs professional help. She told Shanea she was going to therapy, but we called Brooke to check up on her and Brooke said she definitely was not in therapy. I never know if she is lying. I want to have a normal relationship with her, but I can't. And she can't see it. She cannot take ownership of any of the wrong doing. Or take any acknowledgement of her mistakes. She just gets angry and sends these unwarranted texts.... It's over the top. 

I just feel like she is so toxic, to me and our family, and to herself. And I don't want it to be my problem anymore. I sometimes just wish she would move to California to be near her boys and they could be her support system that is nearby. 

Whenever she talks about Mom being gone. She only talks about what Mom did for her. Like, how Mom would stop by her house, or visit her, or give her things. Never about what she could do for mom. It just all comes across as so selfish. So narcissistic. And it makes me angry, it makes me feel like she is just so pathetic. She cannot see beyond herself. I'm just over it. 

The rest of the family, we are all trying to band together. We are trying to make a new normal. Plan new things. Have dinners together. Plan new trips. The grandkids are even planning one last sleepover in Mom's house before it is closed on at the end of the month. (Which just breaks my heart). They are all going to go over and sleep in the empty house and eat Little Caesars and popsicles and watch movies in an empty basement. The house is going to be gone. And I am going to miss it. 

Never seeing the places Kade and my Mom and Dad lived is going to hurt. Kade laying on the loveseat, "Hey, What's Up? What's New?" 

Walking in as I'm yelling, "Knock, Knock", Mom: "Hey! What are you doing here?" 

Hurts my heart. God, it hurts. 

And as I write this, I realize maybe I abandoned my mom to Debbie. Maybe, she didn't feel like she could come to me. Or felt like I was too busy, because I was. I was so fucking busy. And I was so fucking sad about Kade... I was just trying to survive, and so was she. And she couldn't. She couldn't do it. I hate that. I hate it so so much. I hate feeling like I failed her, like I failed Kade, and yet, it's like I don't have the energy to do Debbie. It's the same. It's like no matter what we will fail her too. Because it seems like the individual is the only one that can really help themself. I know that we can help them situationally, but in the grand scheme, they have to take long hard looks at themselves and take steps to change. And I feel like my mom and Kade both did that to a degree. But I don't feel like Debbie every will. She doesn't take action like that. It's all denial denial denial. So at what point do you stop feeling guilty and just throw in the towel? I don't know. I just don't. 

Dealing with my Mom's Addiction Part 3

     The next time my mom ended up in drug rehab I was in 9^th grade. She had been struggling for who knows how long. I remember her thinking she was being so sneaky by hiding her pills, but I followed her around and knew many of her hiding spots. Once I remember her being downstairs in what was Shanea’s old room. She had the vacuum down there and was unzipping it where you put the bag in and she was stashing her pill bottles. I found out she would buy bottles of vanilla extract and drink it on the driveway. Once I saw her drinking beer over by the trailer. Every little thing was a major offence in my eyes. I didn’t know that people could drink a beer and be fine because my mom couldn’t. My brother Kevin would bounce back and forth from living with us and moving out, and he was an alcoholic and a major pot smoker. He was always kind and kept it pretty well under wraps. I know that he would hid his bottles though. Our laundry room didn’t have a finished ceiling and he would tuck his bottles up in the nooks and crannies. In the junk room there was always bottles in the vents. I often wondered how many of those bottles were his vs. my mom’s.

               It was the week before Memorial Day. We were getting ready to go on our annual family camping trip to Moab. It was my favorite trip every year! All of my siblings had trailers or tents, we would caravan down to south-east Utah and hike the Fiery Furnace (The Devil’s Onion), Arches, swim in the pool, walk around to all of the quirky shops. Kevin had lived in Moab so he could always take us to new places that we didn’t know about. We were packing up the trailer and the cordless phone rang. I cannot remember if I answered it or if my dad did. But my mom had been arrested for driving under the influence. She was in Centerville and was so smashed that when we got out of the car to get arrested she fell on her face and chipped her two front teeth. I remember running through the front yard, past the pine tree and away from my friends. I think we were all together just messing around skateboarding and talking. I took my boyfriend Tyler aside and told him what was happening. He was so kind to me. I’m sure he hadn’t any experience dealing with a situation like that. It was so devastating and embarrassing. That night I had a nightmare. I dreamed my mom was the wicked witch of the west, had a green face and chipped teeth. It terrified me.

Tyler was coming on the trip to Moab with us. His mom wasn’t overly happy about it, but she let him come. I didn’t even see my mom before we left. My dad must have got her checked into rehab, we decided not to cancel our trip and stay home. I remember Shirley being especially kind to me on that trip. I had never thought that she liked me that much, I am sure now it was less of that and more of her being busy with her own kids. She offered me bottled water, and it was back before it was common place to have cases of water. It really made me feel like she cared. My dad drove us down, Tyler and I rode in the back of the truck and pretty much kissed the entire way down. My poor dad! I’m sure he know exactly what was going on. We had a great trip! It was awesome to get away and not think about it all for a while. When we got back and my mom got out of rehab, she had bought me flowers. They were on the kitchen counter. She was so happy to see me and I was so fucking angry. I had always been easy to win over with gifts and my mom knew it. I walked right past those flowers as she was trying to reach for me and retreated to my bedroom. I had never been disrespectful like that, and I was sure that I was going to be in trouble. I wasn’t. I think finally everyone understood that I wasn’t a tiny child that could be bribed and told it wasn’t ever going to happen again. I knew it was. I wanted to believe her. I still do. But things don’t seem to change. It was then that my perception began to change. I had the utmost faith that she would stop, but deep down I think I knew that this addiction was not going away.

Dealing with my Mom's Addiction Part 2

     The second memory that comes to my mind when I think about my mom’s addiction and how it affected my life, is when she went to rehab. I have several memories about this, but the first one I am going to write about is the first one that made me feel shame. My mom made the decision to go to rehab. She was going to be gone for three weeks at a center called Charter in North Salt Lake. I spent every waking moment with my mom, so I was a little afraid of being without her, but I wanted her to stop using drugs so much that I was actually thrilled. 

    I was in fourth grade. My parents weren’t the type that went to parent teacher conferences, or volunteered at the school, so my teacher was oblivious to what was going on. It must have been a Monday, because the teacher asked if anyone had any good news or had something to share about the weekend. I raised my hand high above my head and hoped she would call on me. She did! I was so excited to tell this adult, who was so much a part of my life my good news. I excitedly said, “My mom went to rehab this weekend! She is going to stop using drugs!” I was bursting with excitement, and hope. As soon as the words came out of my mouth, my teachers face dropped. She was mortified. I knew immediately that I had made a mistake. She tried to make light, tried to recover, but it was too late. I knew that my pride shouldn’t have been pride, that it should have been shame. But how could it be? I was maybe 9 or 10 years old, and I just wanted my mom back. I was filled with optimism, anticipation and faith! I knew she was going to do this and it would never be a problem again. I was very wrong.

Now as an adult, looking back on this, I can see what a struggle it would have been for my dad. He would have had to use his vacation time to stay home and care for me during this stint. He still had hope. He drove me to school every day and bought me a tape of The Bodyguard soundtrack. We sang Whitney Houston and he drank coffee and I got candy. I loved spending time with him. Those weeks that my mom was gone, really made us depend on one another. We had always been close, I knew he worshipped me. But now we were partners with a common vice. We went through it together because we were the only ones in the family home now. Everyone else had moved out. We wrote letters to Kade, babysat Shanea’s kids, and called Debbie every week. But we were the ones dealing with the day to day of addiction.