Saturday, November 6, 2010

Calling all Adult Children of Alcoholics! Help me here please!

I feel like I'm really done. I mean it. I'm tired of empty threats from the alcoholic parent. I'm tired of empty threats from myself. I want to be DONE with the drama. She's been bothering me for weeks. I keep stepping back, hoping she's calmed down, and then I pick up the phone and try to reach out to her only to have her go nuts again. She's not that far away right now, less than 20 miles, but I haven't seen her in a while. So at the beginning of the week she left some crazy messages on the answering machine. I waited until tonight to call her back because I didn't want to feed into the insanity. She started right up though. 20 minutes later she's in tears slamming down the phone for the 3rd time and I'm angry that I got sucked into another fight that I wasn't looking for. I want this to END. I know my daughter deserves to have grandparents in her life, but this grandparent doesn't possess the qualities I want her to see. This grandparent is untrustworthy and mean and a huge blackmailer.
So what do I do? How do I make it end? Do I confront her and let her know that I am cutting her off? Do I tell her why (not sure I can explain it anyway, and she's so irrational she won't understand etc)? Or do I just stop returning phone calls and let it "slip away"? My father has been divorced from her since I was less than 2 years old (he says she cheated on him). He says that if I cut her out of my life completely I will regret it later. I don't know. She's been gone from my life before for months at a time (her choice). The difference now is that she is older and not in good health. Well she's never been in good health. That's always been one of her ways of getting at me with her blackmail.. but anyway... I keep asking myself "How much more do I have to take before I am allowed to walk away?" and if I am allowed to choose when to walk away then I want to do it soon and get it done with. There is a CHANCE that she will move away in April or June next year, but it's not a guarantee. So I could wait until then and just let her go but that seems like a long time to wait, especially with the holidays on the horizon.
So if you've got any advice or experience on this, please...!!! I'd love to hear it. I'm exhausted from this roller coaster ride that I've been living on for the last nearly 40 years and I think it's time to get off.






thank you.

1 comment:

  1. I would speak my truth. If being around someone is painful and toxic to my spiritual health, then I have to wonder what the point is. I don't believe in amputating a relationship but simply putting some space between the other person and myself. Detaching with love seems like a good thing here.

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