My Junkie Kid

 

An open letter to my daughter the Junkie.

 

I hate you.  I hate you with such a passion that I cannot even describe it.

 

After 8 years, I hate you so much it is consuming me.  I hate your husband who is now back in jail, again.  I hate your boyfriend who is just out of jail this time….for how long, no one knows.

 

I hate your lifestyle.

 

I mostly hate what you have done to your family, and more importantly, your children.

 

You had the perfect life.  You were close to valedictorian of your graduating class.  You had a dual major in college of physics and math.  You were beautiful. Funny, smart and talented.  You had the entire world at your fingertips.

 

You had a family who loved you beyond measure.  Your little brother and sister idolized you.  They wanted to grow up and be like you.

 

You had the wedding of every girl’s dreams.

 

Then, you started on Oxycontin’s.  And moved right along to heroin.  Then you started shooting it up your veins.

 

How fun.

 

You had a nine month old baby daughter who had almost died the night she was born.  Your house was filled with filth.  Your daughter crawled around on the floor which was littered with old McDonald’s and Burger King cups filled with stale pop and cigarette butts.  She drank from one of those cups.

 

You stole money from you sister’s account and forged a check to do it.  You stole innumerable things from us, from our house, from our personal possessions.  You stole your father’s gun that he had been given for his 18th birthday and sold it for drug money.  You stole from my purse, taking money we needed for bills and food.

 

You got pregnant again, and used heroin while you were pregnant.  We paid for rehabs over and over again. We spent money that we didn’t have trying to save your worthless ass.

 

We let you live with us.  You brought drug dealers into our home.  You told us we were not supportive.  We bought you cars, we paid for every single diaper on the babies.

 

I took your three day old heroin addicted daughter down to our bedroom when the Dr. found a cigarette burn on her tiny little arm.  She slept next to my bed in a port a crib while you and your loser husband lived in our attic shooting heroin into your arms.

 

You are the most selfish person on the planet.  You have no compassion or remorse for anything you have done.

 

You pay lip service to it, but you still are the same.

 

Your children suffer every single day.  They suffer emotionally.  Their behavior has a lot of problems. They live with and are being raised by grandparents, which sets them apart from their school chums. They want to be normal. They aren’t.

 

Your oldest daughter sits on the swings at school during recess. She is ashamed of what her parents are, and afraid to let anyone know she is being raised by her grandparents because she is afraid that someone will ask why, and she doesn’t know what to say.  She is afraid to make friends because they will find out her mother is a junkie.

 

Your baby daughter just turned five years old. She has frequent rage attacks.  She doesn’t know why, and doesn’t know how to handle them.  She is so angry and has no where to let the anger out.

 

Your oldest daughter has so much emotional baggage from seeing her father arrested in front of her, and seeing things like her mother falling asleep in the dishwasher because you zoned out while in a heroin zone that your head touched the door of the open dishwasher.

 

At age two, if we asked her what Mommy was doing, she would reply, “Sleep sitting”.  How sad.

 

You put heroin in front of your children.  You were never a good mother.  Good mothers put their children first before anything. You make excuses about it.  You say, “I was a great mother”. You are totally clueless as to what you have done to the babies.  You think because you somehow managed to feed and clothe them, and bought them designer clothing with your drug sale money, that made you a good mother.  It didn’t.

 

Good mothers don’t oversleep over and over when their children are supposed to be put on the bus for school.  Good mothers are not dope sick all the time. Good mothers don’t sell their food stamps for drug money.  Good mothers don’t bring men into the home who can hurt their baby daughters while the mother is in a fucking heroin coma and won’t wake up with a two year old and a five year old in the house.

 

You put your children at risk by your risky behaviors and your heroin habit and the people you hung out with.  Then you got mad at us when we stepped in and took them away from you to save them.  You are angry with us because we love them enough to keep them away from you.  If you were in your right mind, which you aren’t anymore, and you don’t even have enough of a mind left from all the heroin that you can think two thoughts simultaneously, you would not let your children near you.

 

You say you are sorry.  You are in a methadone treatment program and you say you are clean now.  You aren’t.  Methadone is just a crutch to keep you from using heroin.  It keeps you legal.  You are still addicted to heroin, you just don’t have to go out on the street and prostitute yourself for drugs.  You say you never did that, but we know you did.  People talk in a small town.

 

Firstly, I know you have used while on methadone.  You have been in methadone treatment three times now, and have gone back to using.

 

I found you at four months pregnant with your latest baby, shooting heroin. While you were pregnant.  You had no concern whatsoever for the life you had created. I wanted to kill you then.  I called the Doctor, who said I could not make you go cold turkey because it would probably kill you, and more importantly, kill the baby.

 

I called my Priest, who was on vacation, and returned my call from the Pocono’s.  He told me I would have to do whatever it took to keep you from losing the baby.

 

I had to give you money to get heroin so you wouldn’t kill my granddaughter.  I hate you for that.  Once again, I got you into a methadone program which saved your daughter’s life.  She spent three weeks in Neonatal Intensive Care.  She had to be weaned off methadone because she was born addicted.

 

You think that because you take good care of the baby, who is now nine months old, everything is okay.

 

It is SO not okay.  I will see after you are free from methadone if you go back to using, which I think you probably will.  Then, I will take that child from you as well.

 

You do not have the ability to hurt the babies anymore, and for that I am grateful.  I am blessed that the kids could at least come to us, who loves them unconditionally, and takes good care of them.  Who try to understand all the shit you have put them through, who treat them with respect and love.  I take them to a counselor to help them through what you and your husband put them through.  I am supportive.  I hold them when they cry and don’t understand.  I try to explain why Mommy doesn’t live with us.  I try to explain and comfort them when they want to know why Mommy doesn’t call.

 

When the kids visit you, they come home very confused.  You yell at them a lot, because they do act up.  You say mean things to them.  I do not even want them to visit you anymore.

 

You say you are done with drugs.  I do not believe you.  You still have the same behaviors which led you to use in the first place.  You have never dealt with any of the issues that led you to use.  Until such time as you do, nothing will change.

 

Your life is still one crises after another.  You cannot pay rent yet.  You are $1500 behind on your rent.  You cannot feed yourself without help from welfare.  You do not keep promises you make.  You do not arrange your life in an adult manner.  You still whine constantly about how unfair everything is.  You still say how everyone is against you.  You don’t realize that you are against yourself.

 

You take no responsibility for what has happened to you.  You tell people you got addicted to prescription drugs because of having Rheumatoid Arthritis.  That is bullshit.  You got addicted to drugs cause you were looking for a high.  You never went to a doctor and got diagnosed.  You made appointments and didn’t keep them.  It is just an excuse.

 

You have never apologized for what you did.  You do not follow the 12 step program.  You have not ever taken responsibility for screwing up your life, your children’s lives, your brother and sisters lives, stealing or bringing drugs into our home.

 

You have never apologized for what you have done to your own children.  You whine about how you miss your babies.  Really?  Not enough to change though.  No, you living your little lying life is more important to you than your own children.

 

Yet, I don’t say anything bad about you to your children.  I keep all this bottled up inside me and it is killing me slowly.  I now see a shrink to deal with the stress.  You sent us into financial failure because we went broke trying to help you, and it was all for nothing.

 

We struggle every single day raising your children.  They are worth it, and we would not change anything about it. But, we live on a very fixed retirement income and it doesn’t go far.  But, at least we know that the children are loved, safe from harm, safe from drug abusers and people that would hurt them. They go to school every day and wear nice clothes.  They are slowly making friends.  They are so much better off without you in their lives.  They have regular activities that other children have.  They are involved in sports and church.  They get regular doctor appointments, and they get all their shots on time.  When they are sick, they are taken to the doctor and they get their medications immediately.  They are on a schedule. They have fun.  We go places, we do things.

 

You took them on drug runs.

 

There are days I wish you would either just disappear by getting on a bus or getting hit by a bus, and there are days I don’t really care which one happens.

 

I really don’t care that you have a ‘disease’.  I don’t think heroin addiction is a disease. It’s a choice that you made and it’s a bad one.  You aren’t the one who has truly suffered from your so called ‘disease’.  It’s nothing but a cop out.

 

You don’t deserve to have your children.  You think you made a mistake and that you should be forgiven. God can forgive you, I cannot.  I pray daily that I can, but that hasn’t happened yet.  I deal with the fallout a thousand times a day.

 

You cannot be allowed to ruin any other lives.  If I ever catch you using again, I will take the baby from you, and you will be dead to all of us at that point.

 

You think that I am mean.  Probably, I am.  The damage you have caused to so many people by your selfishness is incomparable to anything else.  You even lie to yourself. 

 

Some day, I do hope that you will realize the true impact of your stupid choices.  It’s called consequences.  You lost two of your children because you are a heroin addict and couldn’t stop using heroin and neglected your children’s needs.  You will never get them back. You are living a dream if you think you will.  To have your children back, you need to be clean for two years straight, off methadone and off any other drug.  You need to have a job for two years.  You need to have a house for two years.  You need to own a car for two years.  You need to have health insurance and food in the house.

 

You can’t do any of that.  The most you can do is for a few weeks.

 

You are such a loser.  I don’t have the energy to deal with you anymore, or your lifestyle.  All my energy is taken up raising your two wonderful, beautiful children, who are so precious and deserve the best out of life.  They certainly deserve better than a mother who values heroin more than them.