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I'm a tutor and was hired by a mother to help her daughter learn organization skills when I noticed there were signs of abuse in the home. I resigned but told the girl if she needed help to call me. That was just before Christmas 2014. While her parents were gone on vacation, I took her to Adult Protection Services and they listened to her story and then said "get her out of her home" to me. She was 20 at the time. So I packed her things and moved her out of her home before her parents returned. I had her write a note saying this was her decision and that she wanted to be freed from their beatings and other abuse.
I didn't know what I was getting into--I just wanted to help her escape her home and not get injured. While I waited for Adult Services to help somehow I paid hotel fees for about 3 weeks for her to stay. In late Jan. I moved her to a B & B that was less expensive, and then to a small studio apt. My goal was to get her on food stamps and DSHS funds, and then on disability since she can't work very long due to her back problems (she has three disks that were injured after being thrown against the wall or refrigerator by her parents so many times she'd be unconscious).
Since I took her out of her home in late Dec. 2014, I have been paying for food, apt. rent, clothing, and other things a now 21 year old needs. But it was my pleasure. She and I were so much alike that people even thought we looked alike and I started to be known by her as "Mommy Laura" (not my real first name). We did things together that made us laugh until we couldn't laugh anymore; got our nails done together, moved 7 times from place to place, trained her adorable therapy dog, and so many other things that I started to feel like a real mom. (And I chose not to be a mother, but have dogs instead. I'm also nearly 60, but am petite and have long hair so I look and sort of act much younger.) She told me she "couldn't love me more than if I was her birth mother", which was amazing since her birth mother died when she was five and was adopted at age 6 and always wanted a "real" mom. So now it is August, and after she has been through so much with me--nearly died due to an overdose of diet pills, had to go to 3 hospital ERs to get help for an infected tooth, boyfriend problems, court problems to get her adoptive parents to stay away from finding her, food bank problems, and bigtime problems replacing her original passport or proof of citizenship, which her parents would not give up even after a court order--she suddenly met a man who is 45 and started her back taking meth. He sells drugs and gets his money that way. But she fell in love with him and he seemed to truly love her. I always allowed her to make her own decisions because she had to start learning on her own how to live without her parents keeping her in the house. I suggested what she should do when decisions came, but let her make the final decision even if it was not the best.
Then two weeks ago, she exploded and I'd never seen her so mad. She refused to talk to me or see me, and said I had tried to break up her manfriend and her. She started into a rant that I could only explain by thinking it was the meth that caused it. The result was she told me "I want you out of the picture"...."you're done; I want to live with Sam (not his real name) and we don't need your help".
I replied by writing her a letter and saying that she should be able to end our relationship if she wanted, that I would no longer be communicating with her, nor helping her. That was two weeks ago, and today her phone I paid for her will no longer work since I canceled it; her apt. rent will not be paid past Monday; and all the furniture and belongings I gave her will be gone by Monday and I will not know where she will be nor see her again.
I'm trying to keep things together, but my heart is crushed. I think mainly my problem is that I never thought I would be a good mother, and then she came along and by default I had the responsibility of taking care of someone who could easily be my daughter. Then I had fun with our pseudo mother-daughter relationship, and I loved her deeply. We were just about to get court proceedings to keep her parents away from her permanently, when she seemed to panic and said "I can't do this court thing anymore". She made a deal with her dad that they would stay away from her, and he accepted.
Okay....it's only me, my husband, and 3 dogs again, and I'm mourning the loss of what I thought was a really great relationship and one that was helping her make a new start. This weekend, she will pack up and leave, and I'll write the last rent check and close the lease. But I'm sad and seem to keep hoping she will give me some sort of explanation or closure to this. It's been a challenge to enjoy life without her and still tell myself I did something good for her.
Does anyone have any similar experience? What do you think is best for me to do: not try to go talk to her, or try again to talk things through?
