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am missing out on 17 y/o daughter's graduation because I forgot it was today and stayed up all night on stupid bender bender

M

MrsGamp

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Joined
Apr 3, 2020
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... plus to be fair I have been bona fide very sick with some sort of flu ... but if I'd REMEMBERED IT WAS TODAY I could've pulled myself together with some rest, food, and cold and flu tabs.

Anyway, at about 10 am this morning, after a sleepless night at my father's dreadful house, quite a lot of alcohol and I'm coughing and spluttering and not with it ... I get the text msg saying "Hey it's my graduation today and I'll drop off your ticket this afternoon".

I called her up and attempted to sound as sober as possible. All I could think of was: I cannot possibly go. I'm off my face, I'm coughing up phlegm, my nose is streaming, I have nothing to wear, I am dog -tired, I DON"T WANT TO SEE HER FATHER OR STEPMOTHER either, and I was even irate and thinking "why did she not give me more EXPLICIT warning"?

I suppose for a normal person, I'd been given warning enough ...

And then I almost had a FIGHT with her about it because she was so desperate to get me off the phone.

She said, "Mum, you sound really sick, I don't think you should come ...

I said, "well I am so sad" (and I am so sad) "but what about next weekend, we'll get together and do someting really nice?"

Then she tells me she's off to the country for a month on Monday. I had no idea this was in the offing.

I am not sure how guilty I should feel about this.

Guilt aside, it's not doing much to improve my "loser" image.

I will feel so sad while she is away. I have missed her graduation. I have let her down. I am ashamed.
 
Yeah the booze must go. At least. There"s pill issues as well. I don't want to even contemplate life without anything. Piss weak. But that is how it is. But the booze at least must go. It's so chaos-making.
 
I can't help it though, I am pissed off with her. I did remember that yesterday was her last exam ... she'd said maybe she'd come over to visit. So I started tearing the my place to bits as usual to make it look as spotless and perfect as possible. Then I didn't hear from her except a text, so I did call up to congratulate her on having finished her final exam. She picked up, yelled "I'M BUSY," and hung up on me.

I mentioned this to her today - in a jocular way - and she insisted it had never happened.

I HATE THAT KIND OF CRAP. Jeez, maybe SHE was getting drunk ... I didn't mind. It was unnecessary to blatanly lie about it though.

I dunno, maybe a friend of hers picked up the phone. Seems pretty unlikely.

Plus I went to enormous lengths to procure and deliver an obscure CD that she considered "essential" to her final week of study.

Above all she might have mentioned that she's going away for a month on Monday.

I am her mother, after all. She's still under 18.

Her father makes the most obscenely overdone displays of contempt towards me ... I'm a total zero, is what both he and "StepMum" tell her.

It's too long a story to tell, but it isn't fair, and having my only child unjustly estranged from me has caused me so much pain that I've become that Loser, as per Dad's script.

Maybe it's time to just let go and say - okay, it wasn't fair, but her father has pretty much fucked me up with her. And let it go. Just try to disconnect from her emotionally a bit.

Sounds an odd thing for a mother to say. But I'll never be able to be her mother again in the normal Mumsy way so I might as well just fucking accept it and try to look after myself a bit better.
 
My mum is an alcoholic and I have always known she had been drinking from the first word on the phone. Even one drink deep I knew. Your daughter was being polite saying you were sick. She knew you were drunk.

Also, saying you’re pissed off with a 17 year old for being a 17 year old is ridiculous. I’m sorry but you need to realise that most mothers who are involved in their kids lives have to go through a lot worse than that. My 11 year old son does things every day to test me, my niece who’s the same age is already acting like a teen and basically tells me to piss ofwhen I haven’t seen her for forever but it’s called hormones and being a teenager and I still grab that wee brat and hug her and tell her I love her.
Maybe you’ve forgotten that’s how things are with kids.

You’re supposed to be the dependable stable one that your kid can learn from.

Im sorry for the tough truths but you need to sort your drinking before it ruins your relationship with your daughter. I have nothing to do with my mother now. She lives alone, she’s probably lonely and sad but she’s used all her chances and she continually let me down. She’s the reason I’ve had mental health issues and the reason I developed an eating disorder which I still very much have. She won’t ever have a relationship with my son again and he knew from 4 when she was drunk. How sad. I’m just glad he doesn’t remember it.
My mother was toxic, I grieved for her like she had died and moved on and it was the best thing I’ve ever done for myself.
 
It's weird ... am having one of those "moments of clarity" and I hope it lasts into me sobering up ...

I've been hiding my drinking from my daughter for years. And my addiction to pills. I'm like a mouse inside one of those wheels ... gotta keep running round and round going nowhere in order to keep up my act with my little girl - and the rest of the world.

In order to pass as "sober" I actually feel like I must have pills and booze.

I have seen her very seldom in person over last few years. I get so nervous when she's coming to see me. I don't booze around her but it's gotten to the point where I feel I can't do my act any more without at least pep pills.

This is my CHILD and I am frightened of her, almost. I breast fed her for 19 months. I brought her up pretty much entirely alone until she was six ... and after that many years when she was with me 50 percent of the time ...

I want to deal with the wretched booze thing and the wretched pill thing ... it is so scary though, either way.

I am afraid of getting sober. I am afraid of staying shit-faced.

But whether I get sober or not, I'll have to level with her. Not in a frightening way. But she'll have to take me as she finds me at some point. Whether I get better or not.

Oh dear ... the "clarity" is departing. I hope if I read this tomorrow I'll be able to remember a little bit of what I seemed to know only a few minutes ago ....
 
PrincessDiz said:
My mum is an alcoholic and I have always known she had been drinking from the first word on the phone. Even one drink deep I knew. Your daughter was being polite saying you were sick. She knew you were drunk.

Also, saying you’re pissed off with a 17 year old for being a 17 year old is ridiculous. I’m sorry but you need to realise that most mothers who are involved in their kids lives have to go through a lot worse than that. My 11 year old son does things every day to test me, my niece who’s the same age is already acting like a teen and basically tells me to piss ofwhen I haven’t seen her for forever but it’s called hormones and being a teenager and I still grab that wee brat and hug her and tell her I love her.
Maybe you’ve forgotten that’s how things are with kids.

You’re supposed to be the dependable stable one that your kid can learn from.

Im sorry for the tough truths but you need to sort your drinking before it ruins your relationship with your daughter. I have nothing to do with my mother now. She lives alone, she’s probably lonely and sad but she’s used all her chances and she continually let me down. She’s the reason I’ve had mental health issues and the reason I developed an eating disorder which I still very much have. She won’t ever have a relationship with my son again and he knew from 4 when she was drunk. How sad. I’m just glad he doesn’t remember it.
My mother was toxic, I grieved for her like she had died and moved on and it was the best thing I’ve ever done for myself.
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My mother killed herself in 2013, and her depression was triggered by MY custody dispute.

I guess that's pretty fucking toxic, if you want to talk toxic.
 
And don't come the "ooh I'm a proper Mum and you don't know what it's like". Sorry, but shove your cliched tough truths up your arse. You are making a LOT of fucking assumptions about me.

I would gladly lay down my life for my daughter if there was a need to do so. But since there isn't, why must I continue to make myself miserable about this fucking fiasco - her father's incredible abusiveness, the family court nightmare, my own mother dead - Jesus I have had ENOUGH.

I am incredibly grateful that she is hale and hearty. She doesn't NEED me to kill myself with anguish and regrets over all this shit beyond my control, so I am NOT obliged to do it.

I am a human being, not some monster toxic mother from "Toxic Parent" Land.
 
And btw I think a 17 year old is big enough to be told: "you're being an arsehole".

As in, "I love you, but you ARE being an arsehole."

She's never slow to call me an arsehole, after all. It would be different if she were five or even three years younger. But she's 18 in 2 months.
 
Just to say, I never spoke about you other than to say it’s pretty stupid to get mad at a 17 year old. I make no assumptions about what kind of person you are. I told you what happened with my mother who’s an alcoholic.

The tough truth that I was telling was unless you stop your drinking you won’t have a relationship with your daughter.

Maybe you don’t want to hear that. Maybe you’d rather blame everyone else as most alcoholics do but also maybe some part of that will work it’s way into your head and make you think.

Your other responses I won’t bother with. I can make assumptions about you from them but I won’t because this is TDS.
 
Sorry to lose my rag like that, but it's really more complicated than you think.

I'm as toxic as fuck.

But so is her Dad.

If she's going to confide in anyone, it's always me. That is indeed true.
 
I am trying to simplify things.
I can't keep faking everything anymore and it might be inconvenient or depressing for her to know of my problems. But I don't think I have any chance of resolving my problems unless my present "act" comes totally unstuck.

It's the need to keep up this ridiculous "I'm okay" act that is making me die.
 
Oh shit I am so ashamed. I really am.

But I must find something to like about myself or I'll end up killing myself, either slowly or like my own mother.

I cannot get better with nothing but shame to work with. How can I?
 
Tell her the truth, she’s old enough and it’s the lies that are the worst.

The deceit and the lies are what kills relationships when it comes to alcoholics.

Look, I empathise with you in regards to the whole dad and step mom thing, that must suck for you and I know how toxic ex’s can be.

Don’t let her dad be right though, do whatever you can to sort yourself out and let that be a big fuck you to him.
 
Or if I can't find something to like about myself ... what's left? The "disease" model, like in a 12 step program?

I've been to AA before and always hesitated to say "I have a disease" because to me it feels just like weakness and selfishness and shamefully self-indulgent behaviour.

Maybe that in itself is the disease ...?

I'm gonna read the Big Book. While I'm drunk. That's the only time I ever DO read it..,.
 
PrincessDiz said:
Tell her the truth, she’s old enough and it’s the lies that are the worst.

The deceit and the lies are what kills relationships when it comes to alcoholics.

Look, I empathise with you in regards to the whole dad and step mom thing, that must suck for you and I know how toxic ex’s can be.

Don’t let her dad be right though, do whatever you can to sort yourself out and let that be a big fuck you to him.
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Thanks blossom. I'm sorry I was rude. I am just ... ah, you know. Done.

I am glad you agree I should just level with her.

I think I will but not til she comes back from her holiday. In the meantime ... God, I say this now ... will I do it? ....in the meantime, I was about to say, maybe I'll go back to meetings.
 
MrsGamp said:
Thanks blossom. I'm sorry I was rude. I am just ... ah, you know. Done.

I am glad you agree I should just level with her.

I think I will but not til she comes back from her holiday. In the meantime ... God, I say this now ... will I do it? ....in the meantime, I was about to say, maybe I'll go back to meetings.
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I think it’s probably good to go back to meetings. It’s a start and it’s something.
 
PrincessDiz said:
Tell her the truth, she’s old enough and it’s the lies that are the worst.

The deceit and the lies are what kills relationships (FULLSTOP!- my edit)
Click to expand...

Truth

@MrsGamp - it's time to tell her the truth - seriously it's the only chance you have of the relationship developing and healing - she already knows it anyway and will respect you more if you are honest with her and with yourself

Get yourself out of your funk and put yourself in her shoes for a second if you can, she's 17 and to see you in this state is hurting her - I'm sorry <3
 
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