My tragic, homeless adult daughter is stamping around my little rural village shouting and swearing and despairing. She so desperately wants to be loved and cared for, and has been so badly hurt in the past. My problem is that I'm sick of her dramas and hysterics, self justifications and denials. She is ill. She is alcohol dependent. She uses cocaine to excess when she can get hold of it. She is mentally so unwell that one psychologist has told me that he did not think she could endure to understand her true situation. She would not engage with the program and still lacks a diagnosis of her mental health condition. Her refuge in life has been a succession of violently abusive and demeaning men she has chosen to cling on to for love and support.
She has also been dependent on me and any other kindly benefactor she could get hold of for at least a decade. Her 'job' is flirting topless online for money. A job she cannot now do as her last iphone, of many, many iphones, ipads, phones and similar, has been sold for the money. She spends any wages or benefits she gets on extravagant and high-end items. That she will lose or discard within days generally, or weeks at most. She is homeless because she has a dreadful reputation as a tenant, cannot use money responsibly to pay deposits and has just been evicted from a refuge for her behaviour and refusal to engage with them or work towards becoming independent. That she spent much of the time she was supposed to be at the refuge actually staying with a man friend did not help her case.
Her children are now with court appointed guardians. She is full of resentment for the 'lies' that were told about her in court. There were no lies. She was a bad mother. The involvement of Social Services was a fact in the lives of all that family for many years and the final decision of removal was totally justified.
She leads a chaotic life, by choice, and had no wish to 'parent' as she wanted to be her children's best friend. Which she did sometimes, and other times would just leave them on their own for days. Often with no food, no clean clothes and with the instruction to not let people know. She refuses to remember any of this, which is understandable enough. But I have a hard time when she screams at the pain of losing them, because she was given so many, many chances to step up to the mark and be a decent and responsible mum. So I have no sympathy with her fantasy of how she was a brilliant mother and there were no grounds for her beloved children to be taken away. Only resentment because I was drained and used and did all I could to help and to make up for her lifestyle, but lost them too. The court awarded me more visits per year than my daughter, their mother, as I was seen as a good influence.
Of course the contacts are never relaxed and fun, it's never not supervised and it's never just us being ourselves. I feel a bitter loss. And anger, because it was all so unnecessary.
I have a constant headache when she is here, but as the alternative is her sleeping rough I feel I have no choice. She DID sleep rough one night last week. Just the one night, as a man took pity on her and had her stay in his room where he'd have lost his place if anyone had found out. No sex, or any intention of it, just being kind.
And that was enough to break her willingness to have her mental health assessed as she had finally been persuaded to do. The mental health diagnosis that would have had her placed in the 'vulnerable adult' category and therefore more likely to get help, protection, support.
All this is true. And I am so almighty sick of it that if she were to die today I'd be mourning not only the lost and lonely woman she is, but the happy and intelligent child I used to know who seemed to be gone for good some years ago.
There is nothing I can say or do that does not seem to upset her. Earlier she complained so very shrilly and loud that my ear genuinely aches with it still. I did not know this was even possible. I have also learned why the phrase 'a pain in the neck' came about. It's at the base of the skull. Where the tension knots you up and bewilders you with pain and confusion.
She's only been living here just over a day. The trip down was one I'd only wish on my best enemy with the screaming and posturing and carrying on all the three hundred mile odd drive to get here. I don't know how long I can stand this, or where there is left to turn. I can't stand her dramas and the way she is destroying what little peace I had left.
