Why would drug addicted, insane relatives think you'd want to drive 500 miles for a visit?

Because she thinks you love her.

Not so sure she thinks that. Haven’t seen her in five years.

Sounds like the ulterior motive is more or less guaranteed. When users and takers contact you out of the blue about warm affections for your company, you can bet your ass that you’re the “prey”.

Because they are “drug addicted, insane relatives”.

Ignore the pleadings unless they get clean and sober and some time (six months minimum) under their belt.

@Aster I agree that sobriety would be the condition for visitation. A good length of time sober. My heart aches for you. And there likely is an ulterior motive.

Um, could it have something to do with drug addiction and insanity? Just guessing here. But no, I would not bother going out of my way just to be abused.
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I heard a story on the radio a couple days ago. This guy’s brother was a drug addict. He was homeless and turned to his brother for help and shelter. The guy lets him in. Gave him food, water, etc. He came home one day to find his brother gone, along with half his belongings and furniture, and almost all his movies and CDs. The brother sold them off for more drugs. He wasn’t even really homeless. If your daughter is trying to get you to drive 500+ miles she could just be looking for a way to manipulate you, considering you’d probably stay in that town or close by for a few days. I wouldn’t drive 500 miles to just turn around again.
My bet is that if you were to go and drive out, she’d try to guilt trip you any way she can. She’d try to get you to take her in so she can auction your stuff off for some drugs, but that’s just a guess.

You have two daughters? You said your perfect child’s (I’m assuming she does everything you think is right and good) “sister” not your daughter. Is this other kid not your daughter?

I know adults make their own decisions, but you chose to have a child, bring a person into the world, and you are responsible for that life. Is this “daughter” a crack whore? A stoner? Does this “daughter” just do things you don’t approve of and because of it she is not your perfect child and you can’t accept it?

I have no patience or sympathy for parents who choose to neglect their children, no matter their age. You birthed her and raised her and you should go to your grave trying to help your “daughter”. You brought her into the world and you should be on her side until the day one of you dies.

I don’t even know why she wants to see you if this is how you think of her. You are her fucking mother. Act like one.

@tinyfaery These are grown adults. No one is responsible to coddle for people who are toxic, and this daughter is toxic.

@tinyfaery‘s advise is cruel. It’s sad there are people who think like this, but I’ve been called heartless and cruel myself because I chose to protect my minor age children from their older brother who was using drugs and doing all kinds of other risky behavior at the time. I told him that if he wanted to continue to live in our home he had to follow the house rules just like everybody else. If he chose not to, he could figure out where to live and go there. And it broke my heart.

All of his friends told me how horrible I was, but I really had no other appropriate action to take. Those were painful days for all of us. Eventually he got tired of living on friends’ couches and having his stuff stolen, going hungry etc. Eventually he joined the military and then when he got out he got a job. He is now married and doing very well.

Kicking him out was very painful but it was the smartest thing I could have done at the time. Later he told me that he never seemed to be able to learn from somebody else’s mistakes; he had to learn from his own. So I let him experience the consequences of his actions.

If I had instead chosen to shelter him and tolerate his abusive ways then I could have gone to jail for allowing it to continue in a home with minor children present.

Your daughter is an adult in every respect. You can love her, but she is not a safe person for you or anybody else, so stay away, talk to her over the phone if she wants, but don’t go there.

@zenvelo don’t forget you’re only getting one side of the story here.

I strongly sense a golden child/scapegoat child dynamic going on in this woman’s relationship to her children.

Whatever you need to tell yourself to make yourself feel better. And I expected that you, @snowberry, would think the same as the OP.

You can help and stand by your child without giving into the disease. People do it ALL THE TIME. Would you put your child out if they had a brain tumor that makes them act out? Even people whose child is in jail for horrible acts can support their children. If you brought this life into the world and raised them then a part of what they do you will always be your responsibility.

Saying, “my child is an adult now” does not mean you get to forget your obvious responsibility.

Just the way she refers to her in the title is revealing. “drug-addled insane relatives?” She’s your fucking daughter. What the fuck.

@cinnamonk

@Aster has asked in the past for guidance on dealing with an abusive drug using daughter and grandson, and it is refreshing that she has actually addressed her codependent instincts to coddle her drug using daughter.

Helping and trying to help only go so far. At a certain point, it’s codependent and enabling.

I have friends that are going through it now. Sons live with them, won’t work, “mom I need gas money,” “dad I need this,” “mom I need that.” At a certain point, a parent who keeps giving is not helping, they’re hurting.

@Aster: If I were you and I visited, I’d stay in a hotel and I’d stand strong and not hand out cash or any other type of assistance.

@zenvelo “to coddle her drug using daughter.” You know something I don’t know. In what way am I coddling her? I’ve blocked six numbers and haven’t seen her in five years. Last time she called and said, “you are a terrible person” I hung up.
Where’s this coddling of which you speak?

@jca. Visiting sounds sweet but remember I have a patient of sorts for a husband and my daughter is 500 miles from here.

@cinnamonk Exactly. She is a drug addicted, abusive, lazy, rude, crude as hell, unemployed, physically healthy daughter who is on a national registry of neglectful parents who is trying her best to get back with a guy who says he’s HIV positive and hits her with spatulas.
How does one put lipstick on that? Tell me so I can clean up her image.

your question’s title made me think you were asking about a grand-niece or a sister-in-law. Not your own flesh and blood daughter. You obviously have a lot of disdain for her and I feel bad for her.

I’ve told this story before. I have an alcoholic friend (she’s dry now) who gets hurt so easily by her mom it’s baffling to me. She was staying with me for a few days on vacation several years ago, and her birthday happen to fall on one of the days. Early evening she called her mom crying, I mean really crying, that her mom hadn’t called her for her birthday yet.

I have other examples like this of various people I know. I don’t know if they just are more emotional from the start, from birth, or what happened that they interpret everything as though they are a picked on child and not loved enough.

My guess is she is always “setting things up” to be disappointed. Not the there is inherently anything wrong with asking you to come visit, that’s a nice thing, but she twists it into how horrible you are as a mother, and can use that to get empathy from people. Screw that. You can’t win. It’s sad. I’m sure you hate seeing her suffer, but I don’t see any way to help people like that, except to say they need to get dry and start hanging around people who think differently and maybe it will rub off.

@cinnamonk how I wish that people who sincerely feel sorry for her would take her into their home. They wouldn’t last an hour. Its nothing like you’ve ever experienced. You think she and her son are all asleep and cozy? Wrong. They’re roaming the house, downing all your Benedryl, looking in your wallet, opening drawers, stealing then denying it all the next day with these tired looking eyes. I witnessed him about to use scissors on my Chippendale linen sofa. I took the scissors away. He sliced it anyway at a later date. He hid six carving knives under my mattress pad. Still want him? Oh, I could go on for another hour. He may end up dangerous. He attacked her boyfriend with a machete and left a gash on the guy’s face. This kid was a jewel for years. But after doing drugs with his mother and learning her unique way of speaking he isn’t the same person anymore. All his talk about “going to college” when I told him I’d pick up the tab and he still won’t enroll. He called me high on meth two nights ago: “how much cash do you have? Just how much in the bank?” I blame her for my three day hospital stay with bleeding ulcers. She calls my room and says, ‘I just want my half.” She had me dead but I got to come home and stay in bed for two weeks.

Oh no, not your sofa. That guy should be killed.~

@Aster I was referring to an old post from years ago where you discussed how they took advantage of you, I was noting you are*no longer* coddling them.

@Aster Gawd. She is not the first adult I know to worry about their inheritance. They are written out of wills, so the fear is real, but basically self inflicted.

@JLeslie. So you think it’s in good taste to call your mother who is on an IV in bed in a hospital nearing a blood transfusion and saying, “I want my half.”
What a strange way of thinking. It was very cold , materialistic and uncaring, her sister was on the phone with her and who in God’s name said I would contribute to the death of my daughter by giving her a windfall of money in which to give to her local drug dealer buddies? Is that good advice? Really?

@Aster No, I think addicts, and people obsessed with being angry at their parents when their parents did nothing horrible are self destructive. I think it’s totally logical that those children are written out of wills or don’t get equal shares. I understand the parents position. Then they children get all angry and more hurt they won’t get equal shares to what their siblings get, if they anything. Then they pressure the sibling to go against the parents’ wishes.

I think she’s awful to worry about her inheritance or say anything like it to you when you were ill.

@tinyfaery Killed? Of course not. I never even mentioned it.
So if you had, and you might, an antique goose down sofa that belonged to your husband’s mother on which he was raised and is covered in linen it would be a small deal to have it sliced by your grandson? These answers are amazing me! Then after the sofa what comes next? He did a lot more than that. Invite him over to your house and, if you have valuables, hand him a carving knife and watch him get to it. Pat him on the head and say, “thanks, son.” This is amusing.

@Aster I’m on your side.

Everybody else would. What’s your problem??? It just takes money!

Everybody else would what?

Wanna drive 500 miles for a visit!

^^Are you being sarcastic?

OH why heck YES! Money grows on trees, ya know…
Or so some people seem to think…

I didn’t realize money was the issue. I must have missed that. I thought the OP is sick and tired and afraid of her daughter. Plus, the OP has a husband at home that has been ill. I wouldn’t want to drive 9 hours to see a daughter who doesn’t want to get better and is scary to be around.

I agree with Asters choice to not see/talk to her daughter, and I don’t feel bad for the daughter at all. If you are going to be abusive or incredibly rude towards other people, you have to deal with the consequences. I also would not stand for anyone destroying my property. No matter who they are. I would have done what I could to get them to pay for it.
You shouldn’t have to feel obligated to drive 500 miles for someone who doesn’t care about you in the slightest when you have a sick husband and possibly a job. I wouldn’t just drop everything for someone who doesn’t care about me and is just going to be abusive. Doesn’t matter who is treating you that way, you don’t deserve it. It’s worse that it’s your daughter in my opinion. No matter what age you should always be treating your parents with respect.
Your daughter has no respect for you whatsoever. She doesn’t seem willing to change or get better. She doesn’t want help. Nothing you can do in situations like that. It’s all up to her what happens in her life. I will pray that your daughter gets better.

If her motives were genuine, maybe she’d be the one to make that 500-mile drive.

I’m on @Aster‘s side as well. Addiction and abuse are relationship breakers, regardless of the relationship. Nobody should ever put up with extreme dysfunction and addiction even if it is your own child.
I have a good friend whose 2 out of 3 adult children treat her like shit and she was a great, loving, caring mom, always went out of her way to help her kids and while they are not drug addicts they do have a sense of entitlement and have treated her very badly.

The adult son borrowed 30k and then refuted their agreement and it took him 3 years to finally pay her back with much disdain and felt he should have just been given the money, he constantly criticizes my friend and seems to think he has a right to tell her how to live her life and how to spend HER money. He is rude, arrogant and disrespectful. Not acceptable.

The 30 something daughter is a histrionic, possible Borderline personality disordered little bitch that has never shown any gratitude for all her mom has done for her. My friend has basically written these two off and just had them removed from the family trust. They’re all about the money and what she can do for them and she has finally had enough. It’s really sad as her 5 yr. old grand daughter is used as a pawn by unstable mommy, all it takes for this woman child to yank the grand daughter or call her mom every name in the book is for my friend to simply say she is busy and can’t babysit today or any, tiny, little response of “no” to set this woman off.

This was a loving, responsible, hardworking mom that was a great parent and these two “adult” offspring are miserable excuses for human beings without any small shred of character. Her youngest daughter who is 23 now is a total sweetheart and she and her mom are very close. The younger sibling completely sees the error of her siblings ways and supports her mothers decisions to not accept their poor treatment.

I am appalled at some of these comments here!
So it’s okay to treat your parents or anyone any way you want, heap on the abuse but somehow that parent is to still be there with open arms?
No, absolutely not!
I’m sorry you have to cope with this Aster, it is very disappointing when your kids turn out to be jerks through no fault of your own and it’s a lot more common than many are aware of.

I would not make that drive either, and I would only consider seeing your daughter after she has demonstrated a major and sustained show of sobriety and respect.

I got in a spat with some relatives not long ago. They couldn’t understand why I charged so much for driving my truck someplace because gas didn’t cost THAT much. I had to explain that there is more to driving a car than just gas. There’s oil, tires, brakes, engine and drivetrain wear, insurance, etc.
Dummies!

I’m on @Aster‘s side as well. When someone is getting high, coming down, jonesing, etc. you can’t reason with them, you can’t be around them, you shouldn’t have children around them and you can’t even sleep when they’re roaming around looking through your shit. Fuck that. Whether it’s her daughter or not her daughter, hell no.

@jca Yes, HELL NO! Sing it sister! lol

@Aster Don’t feel bad about how you feel. Your feelings are your feelings and it sounds like there are very good reasons for them. I haven’t been back to the States to visit any of my family in over 5 years. Some of them are very good people and I miss them and would like to visit, but many of them are emotionally abusive and their passive aggressiveness could power a small city. I have to steer clear. My younger cousins and nieces and nephews I have much more in common with and a couple out of 8 siblings isn’t toxic. I have no plans to get on a plane anytime soon to ‘visit family’ in the States. Next plane I get on is going to be somewhere warm and fun and closer or back to New Zealand, where my I left my life and my heart 14 years ago.

I would make the trip to see her but on my terms. I would make it clear that there would be no handouts as you don’t want to see the daughter you still love being destroyed by drugs. From what you have said staying with her would be a terrible idea and I would book into a hotel somewhere. Your daughter may be beyond help and she will quite possibly be abusive and hateful towards you. If you think you can face this then go to see her for your sake if not for hers. You can at least try to help her. She is your daughter and always will be.

@tinyfaery After our son moved out, we offered to put him through college, but we said he would need to move home (and of course that meant he couldn’t use drugs,etc.) That was the same deal we offered the rest of our kids (who gladly took us up on the offer). He said no, and that was ok with us.

But I suppose I should have coddled him, and stroked his fragile ego instead, huh? Maybe we should have bought him a Ferarri and given him a nice allowance so he could live in the manner to which he would like to have become accustomed. LOL

And then there was the time she abandoned her dog. She left him in her apartment bathroom with the toilet water and bowl of food for two weeks. When she returned she was evicted . Residents said he barked day and night. She had assured me he’d never poop in that bathroom!

Think whatever you wish about your children but bear in mind that you’re the one who shaped them.

@Darth_Algar. thank you. I am so very proud of the “shaping job” we did with her sister. What a great blessing in mine and others’ lives she has always been.

@tinyfaery she was a crack whore at one point, yes. Her son would drag her out of crack houses while she was on the floor. As far as a stoner, she surpassed marijuana a long time ago. That she started at age fifteen.

Yes @Darth_Algar. We shape our kids, we make mistakes, and sometimes bad stuff happens to them that is outside of our control. Eventually when our kids grow up, when they become adults, that’s when they start experiencing the consequences of their behavior.

I owned up to everything I possibly could with my son. I apologized where ever it was appropriate, cleaned up my own behavior etc., but in the end as an adult, my son had to make his own choices and live with the consequences of them.

My son grew up. He is a man in every respect now and I am very proud of him.

@Aster

Which, of course, begs the question about how you raised the other.

The way you raise your children is not guaranteed to work.
You can try as hard as possible to teach your kids to be respectful and hardworking, but when they grow up, they have other influences. When you’re a kid, you typically surround yourself around other kids your age who most likely haven’t done super bad things, such as drugs. When you get to be a teenager, more kids are experimenting with things they shouldn’t be, and peer pressure comes into play. As teenagers, some decide to go against their parents and what not, despite how they were raised. My best friend was raised to be respectful and to always make good choices. Now, she has sex with almost every guy she meets and does drugs. Just because you raise your kids a certain way, doesn’t mean they will follow that way.

I will add that he could have instead chosen the deadbeat lifestyle and had he chosen that I might be in @Aster‘s shoes now.

Astor feels bad enough as it is I would not beat her up because of the life her daughter is choosing to live.

What @snowberry said made me think of something else. Obviously, @Aster is raising her correctly. Her one daughter turned out fine. He other daughter made the choice, on her own, to do what she does. That is not at the parents fault

Peer pressure is a thing, yes, but if a person’s entire adult life becomes shaped by some teenage peer pressure then somewhere along the line the parents failed to establish a solid foundation for that person.

@Darth_Algar ok. We failed to “establish a solid foundation” and it’s our fault. She may die from it.
Not sure what you meant about “how we raised” the other girl. Same parents, same house, different taste in friends. One helped wreck our marriage; the other one was near perfect and on the Student Counsel. Sorry if that sounds dumb. Plus I think I spelled it wrong.

@Darth_Algar No, that is grossly incorrect.
The FACT is that a kids peer group takes over the parental value system at one point or another. This has been proven in Psychology. Most kids will revert to the values of their upbringing after adolescence but not always, and especially if they are addicts or alcoholics.

It is a well known fact that one can parent their children in exactly the same fashion and get vastly different results based on the individual childs personality traits and sensitivities.
My friends story above is testimony to that and most of the time when you ask adult kids about their family experiences you will get diverse answers. It’s all in the perception and peoples perceptions are their base for reality. One kid thinks mom and dad were fair minded and caring, another thinks they were unfair and uncaring.

Perception and reality often don’t square. Bottom line, once a kid gets to a certain age it is up to them to make their own choices and this blame mommy and daddy forever crap is a cop out.

What I am trying to say, is that you truly can’t control what your kids do. You can do everything in your power to try and raise your kids correctly, and that’s all you can do. It’s their choice once to turn 18 to listen to you or not.
That’s why I get so annoyed when people blame the parents when their kids do drugs or something worse. Unless the parents physically abused the kid or trained them to be bad from a young age, it isn’t their fault. And even with years of abuse, a kid can turn out fine (not talking emotionally). Parenting might not always work or change behaviour.

@SergeantQueen Exactly, and…plenty of people have had less than perfect childhoods, crappy parents and have gone on to become stellar adults. I am one of them. I never blamed my mother for anything, she was who she was and it was up to me to be the best I could be and not allow my less than happy childhood to color my adult choices. Parenting influence only goes just so far and once someone is an adult it is up to them to make their own choices.

I think it might be important to say that their father had and has a violent temper and a nasty tongue. He never got mad at our younger one; no reason to. But he almost lost control with the girl in question and was guilty of calling her a “lady of the evening” once or twice when she was seventeen. If you know what I mean. They both witnessed me crying like a stupid wimp on the floor with my arms covering my head literally dozens of times throughout the years. Wouldn’t you know he has a Ph.d in Psychology? The limit of my temper is yelling. I never once called her an obscene name. Another thing he did which I am just now recognizing is he would not let her express herself . That is, he taught her that her feelings were not important. I have no idea why he did this and I didn’t realize at the time he was doing it. Like, she said at sixteen, “why are my friends’ houses quiet? I go over there and they’re so calm and peaceful.” And he said, ‘go live with them, then.” That sort of thing. So now she won’t let her son express his feelings either. When I used to be around him he would marvel that I was listening to him. It was so foreign to him.

When she was fifteen she hinted to him that she was smoking weed. He listened to her, thought a minute, then actually composed a song called, “Doing Drugs” in rock n roll style while he sang it and played his guitar. Not sure he believed her. But he did make a big joke of it.

@Coloma I respected my mother enough also that I never blamed her for my wild and crazy high school days. I grew up in a house with lots of beer drinking and cigarette smoking but I never saw or heard arguments and I was never spanked. But I take total responsibility for anything I did like cutting classes once. The cops picked up Carol and me and we loved riding in that cop car back to school. I joked with them. Times were different; tamer.

I have a good friend whose mother beat her until she would pass out. This continued throughout her childhood. When my friend married she said she never wanted to be like her mother so she looked for another role model. She never yelled at her kids, beat them or neglected them in any way.

My point is it’s possible to grow up under the most horrific conditions and still choose to be a decent caring adult and parent. By the way my friend also never blamed her problems on her mother. But she certainly was glad to get out of that house!

“I think it might be important to say that their father had and has a violent temper and a nasty tongue. He never got mad at our younger one; no reason to. But he almost lost control with the girl in question…”

And there we have it.

So, now, at least according to some it’s all @Aster‘s fault…

Sure!

If you want to take that from “parents” (plural, meaning ether or both) then sure.

@Darth_Algar I had an emotionally abusive and unstable mother and an absentee father and pretty much raised myself. I went on to become the kind of parent I never had and am proof that it is ALL about the adult kid making their own choices. You can choose to blame or you can choose to get on with your life and understand it wasn’t your parents fault, they had their own demons they were coping with. Adult ‘children” are in charge of themselves regardless of their shitty upbringings, period.

@snowberry My precious ex MIL told me she was beaten until she bled by her dad. She also witnessed her father drowning their newborn kittens. She never forgave him but oh, what a fantastic person she was! She never forgave me for ditching her no good son she worshipped (Mr Charm). But even though she was abused by her husband a few times she stayed with him and would drive to the nursing home to put ointment on his lip. He died with Alzheimer’s and she married someone nine years younger three years later. Then she died at ninety six. I cannot stress what a beautiful person she was and how she had such a spoiled brat for a son is beyond me. I was treated like royalty since the first time I met her in 1963. Her daughter, 83, is a wonderful woman also but two of her kids died from a drug overdose. She takes heavy drugs prescribled by a psychiatrist to get through life.

There are people who had terrible upbringings and turn out to be exceptionally wonderful people. There are people who had great upbringings who turn out to be murderers, rapists, drug addicts and awful people.

I too am reluctant to criticize parents on the outcomes with their progeny. There are just too many examples of vastly divergent outcomes for siblings reared side by side in the same household. All of us know horror stories of exemplary parents confronted with willfully self destructive troubled kids. Then there’s the obverse of angels miraculously emerging from decades of submergence in parental hell holes. You do your best, and I absolutely lucked out with both of my kids. But looking over the landscape now, I regard those considering risking the rigors of child rearing as certifiably delusional.

One of the very many repugnant qualities of her personality is, if she can get me to admit I ever did one thing wrong, just one error, the next thing out of her mouth is , ‘I need some money.” It’s always about my checkbook. Almost sociopathic.
If she has such deep seated hatred for me then why would I want to write her a check? Plus, most or all of it would go to some disgusting drug dealer. And no; I have zero regard for drug dealers. If I find one I know sold her a drug she always says, “she’s not a drug dealer.” She has her own definition of many things.

Certainly people make their own choices, but the foundations of who they become are established during those formative years. One cannot completely disassociate themselves from their role in shaping the people their children become.

Ok Darth. You made your point. Many times. You’re beating a dead horse.

So @Aster what are you going to do the next time she contacts you?

@Darth_Algar she had a wonderful life in preschool. When her father would get home from school she’d hold up her arms for her to pick her up and she’d say, Da Moo” meaning, “daddy, take me out and show me the moon.” She would never miss Mr Rogers on tv. Her grandparents doted on her. Oh, how they adored her. They moved , in their sixties, from Texas to northern Colorado just to be near her. She sat on her grandma’s lap on the ferry from Vancouver Washington to Victoria BC.
Looking back it appears her problems might, I say might, have began when her little sister was born. She felt, I think, she had been kicked off the throne. She was not popular in the neighborhood for the most part. Her babysitter told me, “she keeps hitting me to get me to play with her and I won’t do it.” She kept ramming her neighbor’s little car into the wall in their basement. My husband always defended her. Even in junior high if she got into trouble he’d call the principal and sound threatening. I don’t recall any “Marcus Welby” discussions he had with her. He’d just lash out and whomever crossed her. Oh, I’m remembering things now.

@snowberry as usual, I’ll say hi and she’ll imitate how I said it. Then she’ll probably start with the guilt trip comments. She has mastered those. Funny thing she doesn’t do this when she’s with her alleged HIV infected , abusive boyfriend. But when he kicks her out she starts calling me.
I’m not looking forward to it. I need peace. She doesn’t give a flip about my health or how I’m doing. She called me every half hour when I was trying to sleep in the hospital so the nurse showed me how I could keep it from ringing. Her sister was there with me, each day, with enormous flowers . That is, the vase and flowers measured three feet high. lol. The day I was dismissed a male nurse and my daughter stood on each side of me and asked me to stand up . I did and my legs buckled underneath me. So he put this big belt around my waist.
I really have to go do some cleaning up. Thanks, @snowberry. Hugs.

@Aster sometimes it just helps to have something new to say. Try saying, “What have you done lately that inspires you?” She will probably give you a nonanswer. And so you say, “You know what? I want people around me who inspire me. If you want anything from me, figure out how to inspire me, or there’s nothing to talk about.” Then hang up. Let that be a broken record with her.

It will be interesting to see what she does/says, and it will certainly make you feel better.

@Darth_Algar there is more to do with genetic tendencies than what you think. Two boys, same house, one is a caring empathetic man raising his three daughters, the other one can barely look after himself much less the two boys he fathered. Parenting can’t overcome illnesses that are inherited genetically.

@Aster, I come from a highly dysfunctional family and I feel for you. How lucky are the ones on this thread who are so heavily judgemental, that they don’t have to make such a choice.
I can’t offer any advice, but I am so sorry you have to deal with this.

I have some experience with this.

My father’s brother, a longtime drinker, picked up heroin as a tank driver in Korea. A talented jazz pianist, he was in and out of jail and rehab for decades after returning home. As a kid, I spent many nights driving from bar to bar as my dad went looking for him. After another desperate call from my grandmother, we’d stop at the liquor store to load up on nips to coax him home, once we found him. His wife too was long suffering in his absences and eventual health decline. His adopted son joined the marines, partly to get away from it all.

I remember him at Christmases. He taught me how to play drums and introduced me to jazz. My grandmother cried a lot and my father and his sisters argued a lot. It was hell, but he was family and his body gave up before we did when his liver called it quits. He’s buried at the military cemetery on Cape Cod near my father and his wife who died many years after he did. Both of cancer.

I’d like to say this was an anomaly. That he was the one family member we never gave up on, but then I’d be forgetting about my grandfather who gambled away the family business; or my cousin who, in a drunken rage put her fiancé in the hospital at the end of a baseball bat; or her brother who landed in a coma for a year when cocaine, booze, and driving didn’t mix; or my godson’s father who took his life two years ago when he couldn’t hide his alcoholism anymore.

It’s awful and it sucks and it tears you apart and, yes, you have to protect yourself. Set boundaries. Not be taken advantage of certainly. But there’s a chasm of choices between giving up and being present that still allow you to refer to that insane relative as your family.

I do think about the two of them daily and worry a lot . Their circumstances are just terrible. Yes; they have a roof over their heads but no hot water. Some lovely gentleman stole the copper wiring coming off the hot water heater. They have no air conditioning. I bought her one and , as she attempted to install it, it fell and broke to pieces. And this idiot who she paid to fix up her wood burning stove put a vertical pipe on the top so rain and snow falls down it onto the fire. I have never in my life heard of more stupid people than the ones she calls, “friends.” So yeah; I do fell guilty in the winter with my down comforter and central heat. But she has a very long history of destroying or some lowlife stealing anything she is given. And that house she’s living in was a free gift from her dad.

Wanted to check in and say that she did call today. She said she is “going to come to your house and sit on the front step holding a sign that says, ‘These People Do Not Love Their Family.’ Her son was in the background saying his GED is just as good as a HS diploma. I thought GED stood for, “Good Enough Diploma.”
He was a gifted student for years but blew it off.