- This topic has 5 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 11 years, 3 months ago by truth-be-told.
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12 ਅਗਸਤ 2013 at 11:56 ਪੂਃ ਦੁਃ #1424truth-be-toldParticipant
I’ve never given my mother grief, I’ve always honored and respected whatever she wants, and I help her whenever she asks in any way I can. All she has ever done is hurt me, and when it comes to gambling she will lie to my face and tell me everything is fine, when it is not. I was saving to go to college and had to give her all my money to save the house once, I am not eligible for financial aid because she makes so much money, so now I can not go to college unless I get a job and pay for it myself. I recently had surgery (two weeks ago) (tkr) and the day after I got out of the hospital my mom had to go to court for an eviction letter we received about her not paying her rent in months, even though she has been telling me she has, so now they want us out and we have no where to go. I don’t have any family, my brother and father died when I was younger, and yes she gambled when they were alive, so that is not the cause, she had a bf but he left her because of her gambling. She doesn’t love me anymore, and probably never has, at this moment in time, I am either going to k#l% her or myself, I have been to counseling because of her many times and she makes fun of me for it, so I know she will never seek help herself. She doesn’t think she has a problem, and becomes very hostile and cruel when approached by anyone. She doesn’t care that I am disabled, even though it’s her fault I got hurt, she caused the accident. She leaves me alone to fend for myself and she goes to the casino, we don’t have good insurance and the physical therapy is 20 a visit and she told me she didn’t have the money that I would have to ask the dr for print outs so I could have physical therapy at home, but then I found her bank statement and the very next day she spent 150 dollars at the casino. She’s gambling with my health! I’m in so much pain, over what she has done, I’ve cried, I told her if she didn’t stop damaging our relationship she would loose me forever, she doesn’t care. I can’t even walk and now I’m going to be homeless. She’s going to go stay with her gambling friend she doesn’t care what happens to me. I have read through forums and web sites, making excuses for gamblers, like they have no control over their actions, but this is not true. Gambling is psychologically addicting meaning your addicted in the mind, not physically. She has the power to stop if she wanted to but she is weak, she consciously makes the decision to go gamble and to keep gambling even though she feels it’s wrong. She feels guilty when she gambles, which means she is conscious of what she is doing, by saying people like this can’t control them selves is only allowing them to believe that they are powerless and can not stop without help, and this is not true. If you are a gambler I want you to know how much pain you cause the people around you, your own children suffer because of your selfishness. I don’t have a father and I don’t have a mother either I’m completely alone.
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12 ਅਗਸਤ 2013 at 5:10 ਬਾਃ ਦੁਃ #1425velvetModerator
Dear TbT
I am so glad that you had the strength to write your post. I am aware that it must have taken a lot out of you and I admire you for doing it.
I am not going to try and excuse the addiction to gamble to you. You are the person who is asking for support and you have come to the right place.
I am hoping that Twilight will find you quickly – not only is she the child of CG who is now an adult but she has written a book about being the child of a CG which I found powerful reading. You might like to look at some of her threads.
Not every woman who gives birth comes with the maternal feelings that society thinks they should have and I am not a believer in unconditional love. I understand the strength of your feelings and I cannot judge.
I would love for you to come into a group so that we can talk in real time – the ***** are in the box at the top of the forum page. I cannot ascertain your age from your post and you might not want to give it on an open forum which I understand.
I have to go and see to some commitments in my life but I wanted to welcome you as quickly as possible and to let you know that I will hold your hand for as long as you want me to.
Well done writing – I will write again very soon
Velvet
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12 ਅਗਸਤ 2013 at 9:11 ਬਾਃ ਦੁਃ #1426twilight16Participant
Hi Truth-be-told,
A huge, huge cyber hug to you. Welcome to GT, the place where many have gotten their lives back when all seemed lost. As I read your words I was taken back to when I first started my recovery three yers ago, that I became teary eyed, because it hit me like a gust of wind, how important it was to hang on to my recovery (I’ll explain a little later).
Where you are now, is an awful place to be, feeling incredibly scared, helpless, hurt and let down by your mom. Especially when you have been there for her doing as she asked, bailing her out when ***** were tough; by using your college fund and she repays you by siding with her addiction and behaving like a monster. I was just as angry as you. I said, that I hated my father for what he was putting me through and the life he was living, not caring about anything but his next bet. I was literally a ball of anxiety, fearing for my emotional and finanical health and it didn’t help that I worried that he would get in an accident or that he would get in a fight. Irrational thoughts kept filling my mind worrying about him and when I would share this with him, he didn’t care. He said I was getting worked up over nothing.
Reading posts here and going to group therapy opened a new world to me and I started to see hope in my situation. Everyone here is because of this awful addiction, and after reading their suggestions and insights helped me plot my recovery. Ok, recovery, was not a word I thought I needed. I thought it was my father who needed gambling recovery, but it was the other way around. If we don’t work on our recovery nothing will change. How we react to a cg is what is important and is truly what sets us free from their addiction. We become the ones that call the shots, not the addiction. The roles become reversed.
One thing that has helped me more than anything is the strategy of seperating the addiction from the cg. This was suggested by Velvet, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it wasn’t my father that I hated but the addiction within him. So I set my boundaries with him, just like you should (you don’t even have to tell your mother what the boundaries are). They are yours to stick with. The main one is not to give enablement to the addiction. This basically means you don’t give money to bail them out of their responsibilites and if they don’t have it, they have to figure out how they will or they will go without. Also, you really don’t hate your mother. It is best that you let that anger out because hate is not good to have in our hearts. It will only harm you.
There is no doubt that your mother’s addiction has her pinned down, feeding her line after line, saying her sweet nothings. There is nothing you can do about it and I wouldn’t even pay it any mind. I am not saying that she is not responsible for her actions because she is. She knows what she is doing is wrong but again she is siding with the addiction.
It sounds like you may be around 18, as this is the typical age of an incoming freshman. If you are younger, your mother is responsible for you and your safety and being homeless is not an option. She has to take care of you. If not, I would talk to someone that could help you like a school counselor or teacher. I know this is tough but you are still a child. If you are over 18, do you have any friends you can stay with until you get better. I know there are agencies for disability that you would qualify for.
The key to changing your situation is focusing on you and your recovery. Your mother has got to want her recovery. There may be a time that she may, or she may never want to stop gambling. My father never stopped, yet I am living a very happy and fullfilling life, one very different that I was for decades but I stayed true to my recovery.
During my recovery I wrote a novel, here it is. http://www.amazon.com/Please-Girl-ebook/dp/B009FOGR3Q
Hope you are feeling better knowing there is much support to be gained by being here.
XXXTwilight
"Forget what hurt you but never forget what it taught you."– 8/13/2013 8:09:15 AM: post edited by harry. -
13 ਅਗਸਤ 2013 at 11:07 ਪੂਃ ਦੁਃ #1427velvetModerator
Hi TbT
Now Twilight has found you so I hope you have gained something from this site that you have not had before – complete understanding from someone who has stood in your shoes and who is still standing and willing to help others – her father’s addiction to gamble did not destroy her.
It is very difficult in life to accept hard truths but often by accepting something that is horrible we learn to cope with it in a way we hadn’t thought of before.
Your mother is the loser in your relationship – you are stronger than she is and you have the ability to make something wonderful out of your life. To destroy yourself over somebody else’s addition is a waste of a life, a life in which ‘you’ can make a difference.
You are what matters Truth. Can you talk to your doctor about the physical steps you can take to better yourself without financial backing? Can you work? Do you have friends to support you?
I realise that what I am about to say is easier to write than it is to accept but I hope you will give it some thought. Hating someone hurts you more than them. I appreciate how you feel and I am not going to denigrate your feelings by saying I understand. Your mother addiction hates her – it is destructive to her and all those around her. I know this is difficult but if you allow hate to rule ‘your’ life then the addiction has claimed you as well. Rise above your mother’s addiction – realise how important you are. Don’t let her addiction make a victim of you.
I hope we hear from you again soon. It is important for us that we get feed-back to know if we are helping you or not. It is important for us to know in which direction to offer you the support you need most.
Velvet
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13 ਅਗਸਤ 2013 at 4:33 ਬਾਃ ਦੁਃ #1428moniqueParticipant
Dear Truth-be-told. I want to say my heart went out to you when I read your story. You have come through such a lot that is very, very painful. I am so glad you have had posts from Velvet and Twilight and I hope so much that you will find strength and encouragement from these. I hope you will not feel overwhelmed by the journey ahead, but will instead feel the beginnings of hope, now that you have reached out for help and support. One small step at a time towards a better future. I wish you every good thing. Monique.Keep hope alive.
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13 ਅਗਸਤ 2013 at 8:33 ਬਾਃ ਦੁਃ #1429truth-be-toldParticipant
Thank you for your kind words hearing from all of you does help, my friends do not believe that gambling is an addiction, and when I do tell the one or two people I believe I could trust with this type of stuff, they do show concern for my feelings but have no idea how to help or what to do because it is to unreal for them, and then I feel ashamed because they live some what normal lives. My mother actually has been writing casino checks for 500 dollars a week , which over drafts her bank account (puts it in the negatives) until her paycheck comes in, so she is already in trouble financially she literally has to do this every week or she will owe her bank hundreds of dollars and then she will go to jail for writing bad checks. Usually this would frighten me, but I know longer care what happens to her, only myself. She paid the rent so we wouldn’t get evicted she’s negative 650 in her bank account now and doesn’t have the rent for this month because the rent she paid was for last month. So she has got her self caught up in a very bad cycle, she’s not just gambling with her money, she’s gambling with her life and her well being. I may not be able to go to school now, but I am determined to go. I have this fear in my heart that I will some day end up like her, so I probably will never gamble as long as I live, she has mental problems I understand and it saddens me that I am not enough for her to stop, but I pray that she one day finds the strength within her self to do so. It’s hard hearing your mom beg for money , she often doesn’t have money to get to work and she’s a traveling nurse so she ***** gas money, she’s been fired once for her irresponsible tendencies, calling out because she’s to tired from being at the casino for days and not coming home to sleep, she has even slept in her car at the casino woken up and returned back to gamble. Like I said originally she doesn’t address the fact that she has a problem and that she is hurting anyone, she comes into my room and she pretends as if nothing is the matter and this sickens me. I refuse to call her mom and now address her by her first name. I actually did speak with a school counselor once about her gambling, I didn’t mention how bad it was because until we started getting eviction notices and cut off notices, I didn’t even know she was this deep into it. She always had an excuse why she was so broke and it was never ever because of her gambling, she often blamed it on the fact that she wasn’t married and had no one to help her. I guess she figured her husband would pay all the bills, while she blew her check at the casino, how selfish can you be. I can’t even look at her without wanting to cry. I guess I am grieving the loss of my mother, at first I was in denial and then I was angry and now I am depressed but then comes acceptance and understanding, and by then I will be long gone, I hope . Unfortunately for me I have to get away from her before she can destroy anything else, I am not even going to finish out my last year with my graduating class, I’m moving in with a friend’s family in Florida. I really don’t want to move away from all of the things I have grown to love and probably will resent her for a long time, but she’s in her late 50’s she had me at a very late age and I know her time on earth is limited, I really wanted as much time with her as possible, I wanted some memories of her I could maybe keep with me and pass on to my kids, and I have nothing. I don’t know any of my other family members because she moved us far away from them following one of her friends to pa (born in nj) when I was a baby, and she never bothers to do anything with them or for them, everything is about her. Maybe on day I’ll try and find them but for now it looks like I am on my own. Luckily for me I will be old enough to make decisions for myself soon, if anyone knew what she was doing I would probably be taken to foster care and that’s even worse then being alone in the streets, so I am glad that I am almost of age to be on my own, and who knows maybe some day I can help someone who is going through what I am going through. I just wish I hadn’t had this operation now, I wouldn’t have realized how much she does not care about me because I wouldn’t need her to take care of me, but I surprise myself everyday with all the things I have figured out how to do while temporarily handicap, you just have to be patient and you will find away.
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