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I know a young woman, 19 who is slowly killing herself. I only know of her through a distant marriage but my heart goes out to her. She has been in and out of trouble with the law, skipping school, hanging out with a bad crowd and abusing alcohol and drugs since she was a early teen. She has been in and out of programs and has been through counselors and psychologists.
Today she has a severe drinking problem. She was taken by ambulance to the hospital after her boyfriend beat her up a bit and the Doctor asked her if she had been drinking antifreeze. ? She has scars and cuts all over herself and is doing harm to her kidneys. Her shrink stopped her meds because she was mixing them with booze and the combination is destroying her kidneys.
Her father is a dope. Her mother has gone to the court to try and get her into a 30 day program but since she is 19 she can check herself out. The court couldn't do anything because they didn't consider her enough of a danger to herself. The counselor said "give her one more chance" .. She has been getting chance after chance since she was 14.
This girl has mastered the lie and it seems the counselors are useless. They are either over worked or they just do enough to get a paycheck.
She had a part time job at a gas station but I think she lost that. She is out of the boyfriends house because when they responded to the domestic abuse call they found a bunch of drugs and arrested thee guys that were there but not the girl who was sent to the hospital. Her sister picked her up and took her back to her place but she trashed it looking for booze so she got kicked out of there. I don't know where she is living now. Without a jerk of a boyfriend who was buying her booze I suspect she will turn to stealing or prostitution to get it.
We all fear she is going to end up dead from drinking. What can be done for this girl? I think she really has to hit rock bottom before she changes her ways if she lives through the fall.
First, protect yourself by distancing yourself from her.
Then, admit to yourself that there is nothing you can do to "help" her, until SHE admits there is a problem. From the description, she is not at that stage yet, and may never be until it is too late (if it isn't already too late).
Sadly, there are times when it is best for all concerned to just give up and let the chips fall where they may.
This might be one of those times.
Sad. I knew a young man like that in the 1970s. Handsome, talented and intelligent he was terribly emotionally damaged. You'd think that death is the worst thing that could happen but this boy was living under a bridge and one night it was so cold that he froze his legs and they had to be amputated. As if he didn't feel he had anything to live for before, being so physically damaged he returned to that wasted life even more so. I often sometimes wonder what happens to people that they don't find the strength to fight for their lives and find healing. I'm sure that he is long dead now. Frankly I don't think that you can do much if anything for these poor doomed people.
I went to school with a nice-enough guy who later became a homeless drug addict in NYC. Came from a nice family. Had a sister and two brothers, one of whom became a cop, who tried every which way to help him and he rebuffed their efforts. Eventually his decomposing corpse was found in a trash bag in an alley. He had been murdered. It was very sad, but when I think of him, I just remember that smiling kid on the playground at school.
She is severely mentally ill, but not the type family can step in and make decisions for her. She'd likely be diaganosed with borderline personality disorder, and more severe on the spectrum as she isn't really functioning in life at all.
People who are "this far gone" are usually resistant to treatment or any major change. Not all...but I'd wager 99.9% really can't be saved. There is no rock bottom rocky enough. No therapist with enough skills and patience to help (and they already know this, they are just trying to keep her alive). No drug on the market to fix it.
Is there a chance for her? Yes. But it would have to totally come from within. Clearly she has someone(s) willing to get her help if she would take it. But she runs off, manipulates help when offers, doesn't follow doctor directions. She doesn't want help.
So what can you do? You could waste a ton of money, stress out, try to get over involved to help and not get anywhere besides, perhaps, enabling her. What you should do? Nothing. As Redrafen said, let the chips fall where they may.
I know a young woman, 19 who is slowly killing herself. I only know of her through a distant marriage but my heart goes out to her. She has been in and out of trouble with the law, skipping school, hanging out with a bad crowd and abusing alcohol and drugs since she was a early teen.
.
Had she just recently begun a drastic downward cycle, there might have been enough basic organic vigor and order established in her neurology to have something to 'go back to'.
But since she has been doing this since she was a young teen, there is deep rewiring of the brain into the self-destruct cycle.
Short of intense therapeutic intervention, such as a year in a carefully monitored and restricted rehab or halfway house, there is little chance that she will come to a point of having a rigorous enough external support system in place for a long enough time period, to control her behavior while the brain gets rewired into a healthier mode.
As another poster said, protect yourself from her 'wider circle' of destruction. As you know, she trashed her own sister's home.
If you feel yourself deeply concerned about the whole scenario, or compelled to somehow 'do something' -- then it is time to get a handle on your own motivations.
If you find yourself deeply pondering the scenario, or emotionally enmeshed in the idea of it -- Get yourself into Al-Anon. There you will learn what you can and can't do in regards to the situation. Mainly you'll learn that not only can you not fix her, nobody can fix her. You can keep yourself healthy and on an even keel, and be there for others who are likewise impacted by addictive behavior in a loved one.
Primarily, an outsider or person on the far periphery of this sort of scenario (like it sounds like you are) can use it best as a learning experience, and as a learning experience only.
People die of addiction. Frequently. It is part of human life. Observe, educate yourself, keep a safe distance.
The one and only practical thing you could do for anyone close to her is to get them into Al-Anon and/or professional counselling with a therapist skilled in the family dynamic of addiction.
Send her to church. Give her a reason to live if she's killing herself
Or let the ridiculousness of a structured religion be the last straw; to accept the inevitable.
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