Burnt out

"We did what we had to because we were afraid not to. We knew that our literal survival depended completely upon avoiding her wrath. Maybe that was more of a gift than I realized."

No it wasn't. Living in fear is the wrong choice. IMO because of your experience with your mother you might have been a bit to shy with restrictions. So, if you want to blame someone blame your mom... Serious, you do what you can to help her out of that shit. But she has to make the steps all of her own in the end. It is her decision and she has to bear the consequences. It may make your motherheart break, but it doesn't help, I'm sorry. Vibing you and her for a better future!

obviously, you can speak to your own motivation for staying out of trouble better than i can. but i can tell you as a child of absentee parents, none of the kids in my family pulled that shit either. plus, i do have friends with controlling, violent parents who absolutely did get into trouble with the law and drugs and pregnancy. as well as kids of caring, attentive parents who got them into therapy at the first sign of trouble. it happens. you did what you thought was best, and she has to know that despite everything.

i'm sorry you're feeling like your heart is not in it. i read your posts, frankly, with dread at what's to come with my kid's teenage years. i hope that i've given her the foundation not to be troublesome or, more importantly, to be hurting to the point of acting out, but i have no way of knowing at this stage if what i'm doing and what i've done "worked."

the longer i live the more i believe that people just are who they are and no matter what we try to do to influence it, they still just do what they want. these kids i hung out with, the ones who had such overbearing and controlling parents, they still did whatever they wanted, they just felt lost and rejected and unloved as they did so. and, they had NO sense of self-moderation. they were the ones who kept drinking when everyone else fell asleep, the ones who took the fight to the next level of bloodshed. whereas their friends did the same shit and hid it from their parents, or felt like they always had a home to fall back on.

don't know what to tell you. but i really don't think violence toward children is ever a gift. and i don't think people ever stay out of trouble for that reason. i think people who want to be controlled are controlled, and those who do not, are not. if you have the personality type to submit to authority, you'll respond to control. if you have a brain and think for yourself, you won't, and that's pretty much established by age 3.

you did what you thought was best.

That despite your best efforts your kid is going through a rough, really rough patch. And it sounds like you are desperately trying to find a *reason* for WHY. And, because your mother had such a different parenting style and because you and your sisters aren't criminals it must be BECAUSE of the parenting style. But I really don't think so. Partly I think this because I am outside of your situation and am not crushed - emotionally - by the actions of your daughter and her choices.

But honestly, maybe you weren't perfect. God knows, none of us are as humans or as parents. But being like your mom - not a solution. Not something to be think even for a moment that you should have been like. Your kids might have their problems but it sounds like among them are not abject fear of a parent.

I'm vibing you to get through this time. It's possible that it's not a forever thing, the life of crime. Likely it's not. Give yourself a break for not having your heart in it right this second, you are under a lot of stress. Look forward to a time when your heart is in it. We all know that parenting is hardest when the shit is all over the place but that those are the times when heart trumps everything. If High Schooler knows you are there for her now, it's worth more than you and I or even she knows.

And she does have your heart, for all your exclamations otherwise. I know you say that you're trying to care but that you don't. It's completely obvious to me that you DO care. Otherwise, you would never have asked if they could do the intake somewhere else. If you didn't care, you wouldn't be writing these many diaries. You'd be out on the back steps telling her to go fuck herself and live on the streets or something like that. You may not be living up to your own standards of caring, or how much you think you "should" care ... but that doesn't mean you don't care. You do. Don't let yourself convince you otherwise.

Hope you take all our comments in the spirit that they are meant. At least for me, and I think all the other mamas here, we are reflecting back what we are hearing from you, what is unwritten, or between the lines.

Vibes, mama. Keep writing, keep working it out.

Hi Glamorous,

"We knew that our literal survival depended completely upon avoiding her wrath. Maybe that was more of a gift than I realized."

Your gift, it seems, is more in your survival than in your mother's treatment of you. It's in the knowledge you formed, the strategies you came up with to avoid her wrath - not in her wrath. Would you have those minus the mother that you do have? Maybe, maybe not. But don't give her those gifts. You did that. You gave them to you.

Likewise your daughter - she's got her own stuff to sort out and you have raised a young woman who is fiercely independent, fiesty, vulnerable and all sorts of shit. You did that. On your own.

No matter the parenting style at some time we all have to learn that our successes and failures etc cannot all be laid at our parents feet (cos at some stage, assuming we survive, we begin to act upon the world and are therefore responsible). She's got to do that, too, and it's hard on you and it's dangerous for her...and it always was, wasn't it? Remember when she was learning to walk and run and getting up on high surfaces and running out in public and you probably had worries about cars and strangers and all that....?

I don't know if any of this is helpful. And maybe I'm misunderstanding more than I'm giving back, in which case I'm sorry. But I'm thinking of you and hoping you keep finding those reservoirs of strength and compassion (for yourself!! Sounds like she's getting a lot from ya).

~c

I know Glamorous that it feels like the world has become very small. But I remember your posts from 6 months ago, of sweet times w/ your little family, and highschooler doing a good job with the baby, and there being at times a sense of love an reverence in your home. All of your lives have been REALLY hard, especially yours. But you are all dealing with a lot of pain, lack of support. I do hope you and Highschooler can do some family therapy together. Not as a cure-all, but she is not fundamentally "a bad seed" or a bad person, and neither are you. She may need a lot of help, but instilling terror in her of the one person who has stood by her is NOT the answer, and I think in your bones you know that. You've raised these kids on your own with SO little support after an upbringing w/ a mother who from the sounds of it was completely lacking in compassion or patience. YOU are not lacking in those things, but you don't have anyone helping you. SO PLEASE PLEASE go and find someone, a therapist at a free or low cost clinic to sit with you and work on how to build a bridge back to your kid, but first and foremost to be THERE FOR YOU. Boundaries are also hard to make if you grew up in a militant family- your mom likely did not teach you where to draw the line, where to lean in and wear to step back, she only knew how to control by instilling fear, which may result in compliance but not understanding of one's own boundaries, flexibilities and limits. I know from your writing that you have a tremendous capacity for pathos, love, reverence. You are just used up, burnt out, YOU need to be held emotionally. Vibing you big. Maybe think back to when Highschooler was a baby, to times you felt close to her, to her sweet smile. I dunno. But mostly feel your own bruised heart and I hope you can find some real support.