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In which wayward eldest daughter gets caught

kactus

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image description: a very pretty girl with an L.A. cap, a pierced nose, a black tank top, luminous hazel eyes, and lots of freckles, is looking straight at the camera. Behind her are various people on the Venice boardwalk, including a couple of women with a child in a stroller. This is Wayward Eldest Daughter Kat.

She calls me collect from jail, freaking out, saying, “now, mama! Get me out now! Get me out of here! NOW!”

Mind you, she is in Santa Monica. I am in Wisconsin.

In the almost three years I’ve been blogging Kat has taken on mythic stature, this oldest child of mine who spent her teenage years in a fury of slammed doors, bad behavior, and heart-ache. I often have to search just to find something good to say about her, some piece of goodness that allows me to sleep at night, like the way she once kept a job for three whole months, or the time she didn’t do any drugs for a whole week.

And so it goes. She’s under observation, detoxing in jail, calling collect, making promises, going into angry tangents, scared, withdrawing, not knowing what the fuck is going to happen to her next.

She’ll see the judge on Thursday. She’s a cute girl who looks pitiful when she cries–that might still work in her favor.

My new year’s resolution: keep being honest about how truly weird life gets. And if she gets out, and you’re ever on the boardwalk in Venice, or at the drum circle, or by the graffiti wall, and you see her, tell her that her mama loves her. And the rest is up to her.

26 thoughts on In which wayward eldest daughter gets caught

  1. That is so hard. I don’t know how old she is, but she looks so young in that pic – I hope things get better for her and for you.

  2. I have a huge problem with drug laws as they are currently enforced. Getting caught with a small amount of ecstasy or mushrooms is enough to destroy somebody’s life. And why? Because we don’t want people seeing the leaves grow on trees or seeing the sky smile. It freaks me out that I could get caught, and then I would be in jail, having to bat my eyes at some judge in order to get some semblance of my life back.

    Before you all start with the assuming, I’m a graduate student in electrical engineering who’s about to start working as a rocket engineer in half a year.

  3. My heart goes out to you, kactus, and I hope things improve for you and Kat in the coming year. (I have a Wayward Younger Brother who has his share of problems with various substances, and I’m constantly worried about him. This is not to say that you and I have exactly the same issues, but I’m somewhat familiar with the havoc wreaked by the people whom one loves and still struggles with, or worries about, or loses sleep over.)

  4. We have one of those. He’s back on his meds right now (as of last word).
    I touched wood when I said he was back on his meds, and noticed later that what I had touched was the coffee table he made for us in high school (one of several excellent pieces he made for us, some on special orders from us and for which we paid cash).

  5. The one plus to her being in Santa Monica is that California is now big on steering people into drug courts — even if she has multiple offenses, she’s likely to be diverted to one of them (which is basically rehab with consequences for not finishing) and not just be thrown in jail. You have to be involved with some pretty high-level dealing to go straight to jail.

    Of course, there’s always the question of is my family member going to finally take rehab seriously this time? Always a fun one …

  6. I’m sending good thoughts. I can’t imagine the heartbreak of losing a child to drugs. This was a beautiful post. Thank you for having the courage to share it. With a parent that cares so deeply, this girl has a lot working in her favor.

    All the best. I’ll be praying…

  7. Sorry, should have linked you directly to the drug courts page and not just the general Collaborative Justice page.

    If you want her to be able to get clean and not have much on her record, there are far worse states to end up in than California.

  9. These our are children. Hearts breaking and minds hoping that something that we put inside of them, when they were tiny and smiling at us, when our love was enough, will push itself to the surface. Strong, we want them to be strong. May your daughter find her way.

  12. Another former Wayward Daughter here. I don’t think I’ve ever commented on one of your posts before, here or at Superbabymama, but my heart always clutches a little when I read your posts about Kat. It sounds like our stories are pretty different– if only in that I had a lot of privilege to keep me out of trouble while I was in it, and the luck of getting sober really young (‘luck’ may not be the best word for it, but I certainly feel lucky) — but I still relate. I still have a few dear friends in the throws of it all, and I can only imagine how much harder that is to witness as a mom.

    Anyway, I’m rambling, and not that you need affirmation in this, but, sometimes the most loving thing you can do is let them deal with their own consequences. I hope it turns out okay for both of you.

  13. I don’t know if it will bring you any consolation, but you are describing a mother-daughter relationship that sounds exactly like the one that the mom/daughter (Constance Curry and Kristina Wandzilak ) describe in the video “The Lost Years.” You should check it out. The daughter eventually got herself clean of drugs, and the mom and daughter reconciled and seem to have a happy relationship now.

  14. She is such a pretty girl- poor Kat; she is making a difficult way for herself and all who love her. I hope Mnemosyne’s read of the court system is right and that she gets the professional help she needs.

    I know your story of Matthew as well; both stories have made me cry. I lost my sister to drugs last December- technically she died in a housefire, but her life had spiralled out and I’m not sure it was accidental. She had been addicted to Rx pain meds for almost 20 years, hiding it and creating multiple layers of lies and new lives from one end of the country to the other. We had no idea of this until about 6 months before her death, when she reconnected for the first time in a decade. So many details came out about her life as people connected on a blog I set up in her memory; she was a tortured soul whom none of us could help. So many loved her and she refused us all.

    Blogging helps, even if it’s a diary no one but you can read. Focusing on the present/every day good in your life helps, too. Many, many positive thoughts and virtual hugs to you and Ashanti…

  15. I’m going through some of this with my sixteen year old son. It hurts, it infuriates, and oh, the constant worry. He is just now becoming openly defiant, which I suppose is right on time at this age. I’m convinced that a big part of it is brain development–he certainly hasn’t developed judgment and impulse control, yet he’s full of hormones and thinks he’s an adult making good decisions. Even when those decisions are clearly hurting him and others. Anyway, whenever I think and hope and pray for my son, I’ll add you and Kat to the list.

  16. Perhaps this will give her life new direction.

    A co-worker kept doing DUI until jail intervened. He’s been straight for ten years now.

    Good luck

  17. Hugs to you, Kactus. I think Mnemosyne’s view of CA makes sense from what I’ve heard. A friend of ours was picked up for attempting to buy heroin and never did jail time. He was very quiet about the whole thing, so I don’t have much detail, but I do know he never went to jail.

    Many wayward daughters (like some of the ones here) turn things around. My sister was a wayward daughter in a couple of different ways, one of which was drugs — dealing and doing. Now she’s a straight and narrow mom of three.

    I hope Kat accepts the help she needs. I know of some good programs in CA, let me know offline if I can be of any help here.

  18. Sympathy hugs. I had my wayward period (of a different sort), and I think waywardness is a product of hopelessness. Which is why I agree with everyone here that our classist, racist war on drugs doesn’t do a damn thing to help the problem. It just increases the hopelessness out there, and therefore the waywardness.

  21. My job has a big Drug Court program. We also do residential treatment and more standard outpatient treatment (along with perinatal outpatient treatment and sober living homes). I don’t know if we extend all the way over to Santa Monica, but we’re close enough that if she decides to check into a program (or gets ordered to do so), we’d probably be on her list. I can send you more information about the programs available down here (in CA generally, and our facility in particular) if you want.

    Good luck with your daughter. I suspect my family regards me as the Wayward one, but I don’t think I really have any experiences that would resonate.

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  23. Kactus: I am writing through more tears than I have shed since my parents died. You have no idea how hard that post hit me. I have a dear friend named Phyllis – known her for years. When first we met she was a type A personality – managed a 4 star restaurant in Baltimore, married, had a son, owned a home, two cars, etc.
    Today due to a series of events completely beyond her control (and which no person should ever have to go through) she is a crack-addicted street walker. I spent the better part of two weeks with her in shock trauma and the psych ward at the University of Maryland Medical Center in late Nov. early December after her 4th suicide attempt (hanging, no drop, just slow strangulation – death with punishment for sins real and imagined) landed her there.
    She calls literally a dozen times a day. I won’t answer my own phone unless I know who it is calling because she tries to trick me by calling from different numbers. Always the same – bail me out, let me stay at your place, give me some money.
    I help as much as I can but goddamn this is the most emotionally draining experience I’ve ever dealt with. I can only handle so much, even though it breaks my heart anew every day to realize what this poor, beautiful, sad, tormented woman has gone through and what it has done to her.
    And why did your post hit me like a blast of crack hits her? She doesn’t go by her birth name on the streets of Baltimore. She calls herself Kat.
    My prayers are with and your beautiful daughter. I pray she finds her way.
    Bob

  24. Kactus I’m so sorry. I find jail stories particularly hard to read at the moment. It must be so much harder from this distance, and with so many more fundamental problems than jail. Much love

  25. I was a Wayward Daughter of epic proportions – I even made my stoic macho Scottish father cry in public. And yet, I turned out OK in the end. Having parents who love you really helps, even when you’re frantically kicking against them. As rough as things may be now, the fact that Kat knows you love her will make a difference.

  26. I’m really sorry you’re both going through this. I didn’t even know about the new drug program here in California but I hope that does help.

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