[Cherry73]

I have been in recovery since 11/21/2005 and it took me an extremely long time to get to that point. In 07 I had my first child and my second in 09 and since the birth of my children the cravings had pretty much ceased. Being a single mom of two kids I really have little time to crave drugs until recently anyway. The kids and I had been doing ok until my health issues starting getting worse. My parents offered to open their house to us so we could live there and my dad paid off all my debt, minus student loan of course. My parents said come stay with them and I could have all the surgeries I need and be able to recover and my parents would help take care of all of us and we could all stay together. Well once we got here things changed. My parents informed me that when they made that offer they didn't realize the kids had so many issues and they can't handle it and for me to not ask them to babysit and if they want to they will offer. I need to have both my knees replaced, hip replaced, and a three level spine surgery with 3 screws to stabilize the joints. Spine surgery I am not really in any hurry to do because while the joint certainly would be more stable I could still have all the pain and possibly more and I for one do not want to take that chance.
My kids do have some special needs. My gorgeous girl who is 6 has been diagnosed with a specific learning disability, ADHD, ODD, and generalized anxiety disorder. I was shot down by the school 3 separate times trying to get her help through the school and an IEP and it wasn't until Kennedy Krieger got involved that they agreed to start helping her. Next week I have the next IEP meeting to discuss what accommodations they are willing to implement so that she has a chance to succeed in school. i have also been very lucky that her therapist comes with me and is part of her treatment team at school as well. My super smart 4 year old son has been diagnosed with ADHD, generalized anxiety disorder, sleep disturbance and at the moment CNS disorder NOS but that last one is in process of being changed to high functioning autism. He is currently being evaluated at Kennedy Krieger centers for autism related disorders. He has had some of the testing completed and more is to come and in september we reconvene for final diagnosis and treatment plan.
So now we are at the present time and the kids and I have been at the parents now a year and I am reminded daily at how this is a temporary situation which of course I already now in fact how the hell could I forgot. I am disabled and since my physical conditions have gotten worse there really is no way I can work. I am on the government HUD lists of which the state list I an number 872 and city wide I am further along on the list.
My home life is miserable and if it wasn't for the fact that is benefits my children greatly I would have left long ago. I already am stressed to the breaking point because my kids don't really care for the living situation much either even though I remind them of how much better they have it here. My daughter plays soccer, basketball, lacrosse, and field hockey and is extremely good at sports which really builds her self esteem and if we didn't live here she wouldn't be doing any of it because I could not afford it. The kids also get to go to bible school which they love and my daughter is also a girl scout. I tell my children on a daily basis to be grateful and thankful for all the things they have and can do since we came here. Even with all this going on my mother finds the time usually first thing in the morning while I am trying to make coffee to lecture me about all the things I have ever done wrong. Yes I was an heroin addict for a lot of years and did a lot of horrible things for which I am so very sorry for and have apologized over and over and over again and she says everything is forgiven but still has to point it all out almost on a daily basis. She also doesn't seem to really understand about my children's special needs and think that more strict discipline and spanking will fix it everytime. Little does she know if you try to spank an autistic child in the middle of a meltdown all you will succeed in doing is escalating the situation for the worse.
It just i am getting to my breaking point. There are daily defiant battles with my daughter along with multiple meltdowns from my son and then my mom telling me everything I am doing wrong along with recapping all the things I have ever done wrong. I just wish I could escape all this frustration and pressure even for just a little while but that isn't possible because there is no one to watch my children. In the 13 months we have been have I have not gotten one break. i have not gone and done one single thing that I have wanted to do without the children and there is no end in sight. I feel like I am reaching my breaking point. I have been able to say with complete certainty that if there was heroin on the table in front of me I could care less but at this point in time I no longer feel that and I keep thinking about how nice it would be to just get high and forget about all this crap at least for a few hours.