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Drug and alcohol abuse?

jaal's picture

Up until around April, my DSD's bio mom did ok. Maybe not mom of the year, but certainly as good a parent as most who devotedly cared for her own daughter. The things she put my DH through are reprehensible, but for about a year it seemed like those things were in the past and they were able to be civil with each other. Well, she married a guy over a year ago that seemed like a regular sort of Joe, but at some point late last year something happened and they both started drinking and somehow even that finally turned into drug sometime around February-March. They were able to still be functional for the most part and me and my DH had no clue anything was wrong and whenever DSS would call DH she sounded just fine. Anyway bio mom ODed at their apartment in Oregon and it resulted in my DSS getting taken into protective custody in early May. DSS was actually the one who called 911. She lost custody (naturally) but wasn't really charged with anything serious and has since taken off to Ohio to stay with her family. DSS is temporarily staying with my DH's sister who lives in Kentucky and bio mom lives about an hour away. She has supervised visitation but has made no effort to even visit her own daughter since she moved back to Ohio a month ago. DSS constantly asks to call her and see her and bio mom just blows her off. Before all this went down, she loved her daughter and would have done ANYTHING for her. Now she only calls my DH asking for money since the child support got turned off. Thankfully he's not financially obligated to give her anything, but she's turned into something completely crazy. She won't even acknowledge DSS whenever she calls to harass DH.

I know it crushes DSS (who had behavioral issues before all this went down anyway) and she's been acting out a lot more than ever. My DH's sister is at her wits end. How do you cope with a 9-year-old child who at one point had a great relationship with her mom but then her mom decided to stop being a mom? No one even really knows what to tell her. Everyone is in agreement that even if she was a VERY mature 9 year-old (which she certainly isn't) that the honest truth isn't the best thing. My DH and I don't currently live together because of our job situation but I'll be moving in with him in July and DSS will move in with us just prior to starting school. All I want is for her bio mom to get her stuff together but who knows if and when that will ever happen. I just feel... bad for DSS and DH both for the situation it put everyone in.

simply_monica's picture

That poor kid. I cannot imagine the immense rejection she must feel. I do believe if you had her start a diary or journal, it would help her declog all the emotions, questions, and confusion that must be going on in her mind.
She is obviously pushing to see what it takes to see when to expect someone to abandon her. A lot of times, when someone faces such a grievous rejection they expect it from everyone in their lives. Most common is putting on a emotional armor, hurt them before they hurt me. Moms are the one person in the whole world who are suppose to love you no matter what, even when you have a mom and dad, moms are heaven sent. The safety has been stripped, now it's all about teaching her that not everyone will toss her in gutter and that she needs to learn to control her emotions.

EdgeOfReason's picture

Why didn't her father take her in? Just curious.

Ss dealt with a similar loss, one day his mother was around and then she was not. She went to jail for 90 days for multiple duis.

We told the kid that his mother had some issues she needed to work on and that she is in a place where that can happen. Later we did tell him that she was in prison because it was published in the newspaper.

His mother told him, after 3 months of no contact, that she "was in work release." I guess it's a lie they both could accept. She told my dh that she had cancer and implied she would be gone to deal with that.