Formerly cute young woman. Got involved with meth. I took her child two years ago, placed the child with a grandparent. Made all the usual recommendations. Rehab. Counseling. Parenting classes. Must be employed, obtain & maintain suitable housing. Etc. Put this girl through the wringer, but she was making it. Rehabilitated herself to the point that I was prepared to return her child this morning.
Except that the stupid little girl picked up a fucking pipe again two weeks ago. Wiped out all she’d accomplished over the last two years. Showed her ass in court. Told the judge that if she’d gotten the child back at the last hearing, she wouldn’t have relapsed. And that it was really the grandparent’s fault for never being on drugs, just to make her look bad. (Yeah, meth destroys logic along with health and teeth). Unsurprisingly, this novel legal position did not impress the judge.
I recommended permanent custody to the grandmother today, and I expect that I’ll be recommending termination of parental rights and adoption in a few more months.
This child is lucky. He has a grandparent that cares, and will raise him properly. So many kids don’t.
My ex’s ancient history included some meth use. But that was many years ago. Once she went to visit her old friend in Georgia. Her dad came by knocking on my door Sunday morning saying that she called and had got in an argument with her friend, got kicked out and needed me to come pick her up.
The truth that I learned later was that she went down there to fuck her friend and her old man. But on the ride home did she ever tell me a story. They were gonna rape her, they made her smoke meth, they were checking her call logs so she couldn’t call the cops, and I couldn’t call the cops either because her friend had biker gang associates and it wasn’t safe even though we lived in another state. yadda yadda yadda.
Anyway she had only been down there doing meth a couple nights but it was enough. I had to stay up all night with her, working her through her paranoia, seeing shadows, cars in the driveway. It was like on TV.
It was an awful experience.
There’s like a meth sweat that smells like ammonia and she got in the tub and you could see it as it wash off just like a thin layer of cloudy dirty sweat dissipating into the water.
That whole time in my life included an uncomfortable proximity to meth users.
I feel sorry for her. She’s lost everything, right down to her own child.
I’m no social worker or psychologist, but my experience of heavy drug users and drinkers (and I wish I had a lot less of it) is that most of them are using whatever they’re using just to feel normal.
I used to be all about better living through chemistry. I had a good balance between work, home responsibilities and recreation, until I met meth. During the year I was using daily, I almost lost everything. Once I saw what was happening, I gave it up. Giving it up was one of the hardest things I ever had to do, but I was able to do it by making some really hard choices.
During that time, my life sucked, so I tried chemical enhancements to make me feel better. Didn’t work very well, but I was too high to care because I felt good! I lost a very good friend over it, didn’t care/notice at the time. Missed work meetings because I was waiting for “someone” and got wrote up. Let a cat get out and hit by a car.
It shouldn’t have taken a dead cat to get me to stop, and I will always hate myself for that.
Damn, I understand what you mean, Oakminister, and I wish I didn’t. I may be kind of cavalier about some drugs, but the stimulants were a problem for a lot of people I know. My sister ruined about 18 years or so of her life and made the last 13 of our mother’s life an on and off nightmare with her meth habit.
She seems to have finally kicked it, but I’m the only family member who has enough contact to even notice, and there’s enough bad feelings that it’s rare for me to contact her. She’s still my sister, and I love her, but I can’t look past everything between us.
In my attempts to expand my reading last year, I read Beautiful Boy. Horrific journey through addiction to meth and lies and stealing. I never want to read it again.
didn’t say it cancels out her humanity, I just don’t care about her. A choice?, as opposed to someone forcing the drugs into her and getting her hooked against her will. I’ve got two relatives living on the streets due to meth it is all they care about. We’ve tried to help, they only want the drugs. I understand how it works as well as any non addict can.
I am probably closer to this feeling when it comes to “but what can we do about it options” but I still feel a little sorry for anyone who would lose a child over dumb fucking choices.
I mean my thought process starts out that way and then I think, they don’t knowingly know that are going to lose said child but in this particular case, she DID know ….
