In a life fraught with troubles, trying to navigate this blog with a smidgen of objectivity is hard. I think in yesterday's post, I inappropriately painted Debbie and Marcia with the same brush.
When Tio was small and she was in his life, Marcia's indiscretions were aimed at her friends, family and partners. She was spiraling with outrageous behavior in ways that judges and objective observers alike agreed were not good environments for children. They needed to be separated from her lifestyle. After the third child was taken from her custody, I think she started to realize this and so began her long climb out.
Debbie, on the other hand, projected an image of outward domestic control that made it harder to observe the trouble beneath. She did, has, and does direct her inappropriate and unacceptable behavior towards the children. Her disappearing act this month is the latest in a long line of wounds she's inflicted on them and pales in comparison to some of the other things she's done. Her immaturity and inability to cope with life beyond herself has boxed her in to a place she may never be able to come out of. Unfortunately, her whole family deals with issues through denial, control, anger and, when all else fails, police intervention. Debbie has run away from home more than once. When she was a teenager it was only a matter between her and her parents. As a parent, she has more than herself to think about - she just doesn't.
Unfortunately, she can't think of more than herself. She never could. She acts like she cares for others to get what she wants or when it suits her and then turns on each and every one of them when times are hard or if she doesn't get things her way. She's wept openly to me about how badly her parents treat her and how they don't spend time with her kids, saying how I'm the only one who really stops everything when they show up to play with them. Then, barely a month later she scooped them up, left Buddy and took them to her parents and wouldn't let any of us see them until the courts intervened. When I tried to make arrangements with her, I was called a bully and her father threatened to have the police come if I stepped on their property again. This is where and how she grew up.
Now she's back to running scared and when she returns, as I expect sometime she will, she'll imagine things returned to so-called normal and act like it was all a big mistake or nothing happened. Until next time, that is. I don't know how many do overs she she thinks she should get but her rewards card has been punched so many times it's vanished into thin air. Her children will not forgive her for this, whatever they may say. They will not recover. Each emotional beating she gives them leaves them with a scar and makes them stay one step further away so that she can't cut so deeply the next time.
This was not Marcia's M.O.. She was a troubled girl who needed to grow up in a world of responsibilities she couldn't handle. She ran to a neutral place to finish growing up, find out who she wanted to be, and has come back to accept what she's done and move on.
Debbie is a child who can't grow up. Something stopped her during that phase of development where the only person in the world is 'me'. Now she's in her 30's and still the world is only populated by one person. Everyone else is someone to feed off. I don't know what it will take to help her unblock and move on. At this point, I don't care. All I want to do is protect the children from getting hurt again and again and again by a little girl who throws a tantrum when she doesn't get what she wants.
