Vent

I'm safe venting here, I think...the only family member on that side that might read this, empathizes/feels similarly.....

When you have people addicted to prescription medication in your family, you have 3 choices: enable them, force rehab, or set them free and pray. There really isn't a middle ground, and in some states, the 2nd isn't even an option once the parties in question (PIQs) are over 18. Took me forever to understand why we didn't just Baker Act the PIQs....turns out it was because SC doesn't have anything like that. (Florida does...and if you ask me, it oughta be nationwide.) They don't even do 24-hour holds. When one crisis occurred involving the person being a danger to him/herself, they were released from the hospital in less than 12 hours. Blew. My. Mind. Yes, it could've been a side effect of Lyrica. So not the point.

So the family in question chose option 1 for years. Maybe I'll understand it better when I have my own kids, but I come from more of a tough-love family dynamic, so maybe not. All I know is the situation has been toxic for far too long, and now that Dad's gone, it's going to implode. And I pray that things resolve themselves without my "help," because I'm really done being nice about the whole situation. There's a child in the middle of all of it, and that makes the behavior of the PIQs reprehensible. Yes, I get that I feel it more succinctly because I don't have children of my own. Yes, I fully expect to have that thrown in my face if I stick my nose in. But I'll be able to laugh that off pretty easily, I think, because neither of them are model parents with a leg to stand on.

In Utopia, where I have legal standing to do anything regarding the situation, I'd be putting our entire dining room in storage, moving our niece down with us, and getting her set up in therapy immediately to try and undo some of the emotional damage that her parents have wrought on her. I'd set her up in public school (until we moved to SC at least), and I'd trim my hours by 5, so I could spend more time @ home and still keep health benefits for now. I'd make the necessary sacrifices without thought, because I understand what it means to be a parent. Neither of her actual parents have a fucking clue.

But I know that will never be. And so I keep silent, and ache, and pray for things to become different without any intervention needed on our parts. Mom wants Les up there again for support. I wish they could send me instead, because I'm enough of an outside influence to give them all the perspective they so desperately need for the situation. And if that didn't work, we could abscond the niece and run for the border....just kidding....

Prayers for a resolution.