“Could It Be A Faded Rose From Days Gone By?” Helen Reddy

The past 5 months have been the most exhausting months I’ve ever had in all of these years due to cancelled event’s in 2020 merging with scheduled event’s in 2021. I haven’t had a day off and don’t anticipate having one for at least a year with waiting lists now in Texas and other states.

Prior to May I didn’t have waiting lists in Texas but I’ve been focused on getting everyone cancelled at 24 Units & 7 venues as a matter of priority. I’m averaging 20-30 weddings a month with new requests rolling in daily and have been since June for TDCJ weddings which is why I have had to stop new bookings and bring my son on board to help address TDCJ weddings because I can’t be everywhere.

For clients “who only want me to perform their ceremony,” the waiting list grows and grows.

Cindy called me today to ask “how I’m doing?” The truth is that with my niece back in Texas after leaving California for treatment in May then Illinois in late September and showing up dancing in the street leading up to my driveway out of her mind on drugs yet again about a month ago has brought me much anxiety. The “cyclone of Stephaney’s chaos” continues in Fort Worth.

I cannot control my niece. My husbands birthday was today and yet again Stephaney borrows a phone to call me screaming “go find my phone I left it at a bus station!” I’m not even in Texas and if I was I wouldn’t go searching for a cell phone my niece yet again lost. When she does call from that phone it’s never good. “I want this” or “do that” because my niece is a self involved narcissist who only cares about herself. She doesn’t care what she has done to our family the past 18 years or how her choices and addiction have consistently upset our entire family.

For 17 years we’ve been raising her twin daughters WHILE dealing with the often unpredictable behavior of an addict.

I’m done trying to save Stephaney. Cindy is done. The rest of our family was done years ago. After “thinking” I had her straightened out in May and helping her buy a car because TDCJ reopened, Steph was back on meth in less than an hour. The job I found for her knew she was “on something” and let her go. She destroyed everything I had worked so hard to create by finding a job she could support herself at to any hope I had of getting her stable. AGAIN.

I don’t know how anyone goes through the raw hell of having an addict in their family. I can’t take it anymore. Neither can my sister.

Looking normal for my clients has become a face I literally put on everyday to mask the stress of Steph in my rear view mirror.

I’m all over the place and drive or fly thousands of miles a week. My body is exhausted from the stress of more “Stephaney surprises” day after day but my role is to appear worry free on location which I do. I don’t take crazy calls from my niece going to an event. I don’t answer texts either. I need to focus on not thinking about her.

She’s currently running wild in Fort Worth. My husband is upset about our inability to control Stephaney. We have no control. She doesn’t care or accept responsibility for 18 years of torture and drama. I haven’t had a normal holiday in 18 years. I do all the right things. I decorate. I buy the groceries. I cook the holiday meal and Stephaney has successfully screwed up every holiday for 18 years.

It’s October. We are rolling into the holidays and next month Cindy and my own birthdays which usually kick off the drama. Stephaney doesn’t care. She never will. I often wonder if prison would change her but I have no idea. Nothing Cindy and I have done from treatment to replacing everything she loses including her cell phone over and over and over again has helped.

Three weeks ago I found a job for Stephaney at a restaurant working the midnight shift. Last weekend I noticed she was raising her voice and behaving erratically yet again. Last night she didn’t take a Lyft home from work and I’m pretty certain she’s been fired yet again.

This morning I had a call to “pick me up at Walmart I know you are scheduled at Fort Worth FMC so come get me right now!” She was wearing an outrageous outfit AND behaving erratically talking to herself. I gripped my steering wheel and drove past her as I was on a call with a client on my bluetooth and didn’t want to be embarrassed.

Stephaney isn’t allowed to be in my vehicles alone because I never know if she’s carrying or not. I shake her down myself before I let her in too. My vehicles go into prisons and I will not allow her to get inside any of my vehicles without a shakedown and search of her purse first. I don’t trust her.

I needed to buy my grandniece, Maddy a birthday gift because I didn’t have time yesterday. I was at 4 county Units wondering why I hadn’t heard from her as I usually do. When I don’t hear from her it’s generally because she’s picked up the pipe again.

I rolled up to find her behaving irrationally in the parking lot. Her behavior in Walmart had security following us around. I’m so angry and frustrated about why she continues to go back to drugs I cannot even put my feelings into words. I’m beside myself with anger, worry and fear she will flatline for a 3rd time because she doesn’t care who her choices hurt.

Our mother was the exact same narcissistic sociopath who could care less about anything than getting high.

While driving her to the places she wanted to go and getting angrier by the second at her snappy behavior in one of my vehicles, I turned and stated “you are using again. I’m sure you were fired yet again because you think no one can tell. Everyone can tell.” This resulted in a screaming match and me nearly wrecking my suv. I finally made it back to the group home to drop her off. My head is pounding. This will go downhill quickly. It always does.

My nieces contact information in my phone is “last cell phone I’m buying Steph.” The phone is how she consistently robs Cindy and I of any peace. This is going to be another stressful week of “Stephaney sucker punches” and I don’t see it ending well…