March 22, 2013;

Whoever said that you are done with parenting when the children turn 18, or 25 or even 30 lied.  Having three daughters has been the most difficult thing I have ever experienced and no, it has not been the most rewarding, my grandchldren are but my daughters have almost killed me on several occasions with the decisions they insist on making.

Today, my oldest, who works fulltime in a doctor's office, got into a verbal argument with my youngest over the phone because she couldn't get ahold of her at all yesterday.  Mind you, she lives with her, sat with her last night and smoked a cigarette, got up and spoke with her this morning, but somehow explained to me that she hadn't seen her at all, couldn't get her bank card from her and now some of her pain pills were missing.  Well that makes perfect sense, IF YOU"RE INSANE! 

So her solution is to call me and explain that her younger sister had gone down to the doctor's office and said that the oldest was a pill poppin addict and that she had accused her of using her medi-cal to get her pills and that she was out of her mind, and now (as she's telling me this) her boss was ready to walk her out of the office and fire her.  So.......she wanted me to call her and kick her out of the house, she didn't want her there anymore.

Ok, there's a couple of things wrong with this whole thing.  1) its my house and you want to me to kick her out of my house because you don't want her there anymore (I see).  2) Her sister hadn't been down there, and 3) I'm at work don't call me, I don't care.

So I call the youngest who explained that she hadn't been down there, that she had not stolen any of her medications and that her sister should quit asking her to go into her meds and dish them out to her, oh and by the way her bank card is on her dresser. 

What I find interesting about all of this is none of it would have occurred if the oldest would take control over her own life, take her own pills, pay her own bills and leave people alone.  The other side of this is if the youngest would learn to say no, it still would not have happened. 

The thing that bothers me the most is the age of the oldest, there is no learning disability or mental abnormality, however, there is a serious co-dependent problem and the need to make someone else responsible for her problems.  She spent sixteen years married to a drug addict where she got to yell and scream, make run errands and make any demands on him she wanted because afterall, he was a screw up and didn't deserve to be treated any better than that since he was a drug addict who took money out of the checking account.  Now she knew he took money, and yet she never tried to hide it, she just let him, afterall, if she let him then he was a screw up that did drugs and she got to order him around and treat him like a loser.

Interesting.  Unfortunately, this type of treatment doesn't ordinarily work on sober people.  You can try it, they might help you for a while, you might even get to throw a couple of trantrums before they finally blow up on you.  However, there is no guilt, there's no way to continue extorting the desired behavior, which in this case is slavery because the person isn't doing anything wrong that allows you to do it.  So you look for small stuff i.e., you didn't give me back my card, I tried to get it from you and you didn't do it,  or you used all the gas in the car (now she got the money back but not directly from her little sister) now it's empty and it's your fault. 

How did this warped behavior come into fruition?  Well, she was married to a drug addict and at first it's pretty horrible, and you can't make him quit so if he's not gonna quit, you adapt.  Hmm, he seems to have a guilt complex so....you learn to work it.  You're still not happy, you still have all the other characteristics of a co-dependent, but you've made it work for you, nice.

So at least you get something out of it afterall, you are paying for it. 

It didn't last, you treat someone like that that way long enough and they will turn on you, and he did.