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Showing results for tags 'irresponsibility'.
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I just want to preface this by saying that I'm 29 years old and I still live with my mother. I'm trying to make the freelance art thing work without becoming a starving artist, so, it is easier to pay rent to my mother rather than getting a place on my own. I just started going back to church 6 months ago and I have been trying to help my family, namely, my 3 younger siblings, have some stability and religion in their lives. We have scripture study every night of the week and we just started family home evenings on Mondays. Well, my mother, although somewhat supportive, is a lapsed member. She drinks beer recreationally, used to smoke but now vapes, and has sex outside of marriage. She has divorced my step dad and was dating and engaged to a hunter for about 3 years. He never moved into our house but she would often spend nights over at his house, leaving my 12 and 16, and 17 year old siblings in my care. Well, he dumped her recently, for the better, I thought, because he didn't treat her very nicely 20% of the time. She was so crushed for a while that she had to leave us for a week to go to a friends house several hours away, again, leaving the kids to my care. Now, a month later, she appears happier but invites men over for the weekends while the boys visit their father's house. She's not interested in dating right now but just in having fun and to her that means drinking and having sex with men she barely knows. My sister is going through a rough time right now. 16 years old, she is mentally and emotionally stunted(not diagnosed, she just falls a little behind what you'd expect of someone her age, maturity-wise) and is having hormonal issues. She won't talk to anybody about it, everything is "fine" and yet she gives her teachers depressing notes, wanders out of church and school activities, is curt and short with us as a family, and spends hours in her room doing what, nobody knows. Very bottled up and yet vacant and mercurial when you talk to her. She is on birth control to help even out the testosterone in her body but all it seems to be doing is confusing her emotionally, like the two hormones are warring within her. So, after getting a call from school this past Friday about some of these issues from my sister's counselor, my mother is making plans to go to the doctor and change what he's got her on and get her in to see someone for therapy. I remember being like that as a teenager, having dark thoughts and dark fantasies and being hormonally and emotionally in turmoil. I did some crazy stuff before I was set on a correct path with the help of medication and therapy at the time. My mother just informed me about her secret plans to leave this Friday to fly out west to meet up with a guy she's been talking to for about a month online. She knew him when she was in the service but they started talking again recently, when she and her ex broke up. She'll be gone until Tuesday not this week but next week. She thinks I mean to keep her chained up here by asking that she stay at this time. She knows my sister's issues but says she'll be fine and that there's not much she(my mother) can do while here, minimizing the effect of her presence here as a stabilizing effect on our household. She's not completely wild or off the rails, mind you, her presence here keeping us all grounded and focused. I have a problem with being critical and catastrophizing. I have a problem with being judgemental and projecting. I feel like something bad is going to happen. My normal support system that does not include her is a bit scattered right now so I am the one in charge and responsible while she is away. The boys will be at their dads but my sister will be home with me. And Monday they come home and go to school from here. I just need some support right now. I feel like this is a lot of personal information but I'm a little lost at the moment. I feel like it's not ever going to get better. I try to set an example, I try to do service with love in my heart but I feel like I'm being used. Like I'm a crutch and so long as I'm here, she'll use me as an excuse to go off and have fun and not be here. I feel like I should leave, move out...but then I feel like the children here will suffer because she's not going to do scripture study with them and they love and depend on me so much. I can't say anything because I'm then being judgemental and she'd be resentful and cruel if she were forced to stay, not just this weekend, but to take responsibility for her personal life period. Like most of Heavenly Father's lessons to me, I feel like He puts me in situations and circumstances to change something within me. But I'm struggling against this. I need to remember how to show charity and love, without being critical or judgemental. I just can't wrap my head around this perspective shift. How do I get there? Because to me, love is not letting someone hurt themselves and telling them not to do something that you know will hurt them. I'm trying to trust in Heavenly Father and this burden He has placed upon me and trying to find the lesson in it all. I know I am needed here and I know I'm being selfish making it all about how hard this thing is for ME. I guess, I just wanted to hear someone remind me of that, to tell me about being steadfast, to offer some different perspective on charity and loving a non-member family member even when they do things that are frustrating. Because I love her so much and I know I need to change to love her better and love her more. Just any advice on what I could be doing better, a new way to look at this, some way to feel pumped and motivated about my capabilities as a force for good and a responsible adult, would be much appreciated.
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- non-member
- mother
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