Tough Love---Teen Girls And Amy Winehouse
Without Prejudice
After their Sister died, two of my remaining girls turned to drugs to help them cope.
I was a Warrior and out of sheer desperation turned to Tough Love to deal with the whole sad and sorry mess. They were at vulnerable ages, 14 and 18 and their whole world had just tilted on its axis and came down again with a shocking thump.
Several of their peer group didn't make it out of the drug nightmare and died.
I had decided that I had lost one and wasn't losing another and it was a battle I was going to win, no matter what lengths I had to go to. Some of those lengths I had to go to were way out of any human beings comfort zone, but do them I did.
Half of the teen girls and boys in Keysborough at that time were into serious drugs. Many turned to prostitution, crime, ( burglary and shoplifting) to fund their habit. Lots of them remain addicted or are dead and that's a shocking statistic but true.
Keysborough had nothing for teens in the eighties. There were no cinemas, bowling alleys, youth groups, good public transport, it was a void for teens and everybody knew it. The only fun to be had was to " hang" at other teens houses and smoke weed or drink. For some the most accessible drugs, weed and alcohol quickly turned to speed, heroin and prescription drugs.
Prescription drugs, Moggies ( Mogadons ) Rowies or Roofies ( Rohypanol) were the easiest to get from Doctors in nearby Springvale. One of my girls Doctor Shopped from Doctor to Doctor and was eventually banned for life. She was 14, 15, 16, 17 and then was finally stopped by her eventual husband.
She went to lock up in Springvale for 4 days and even then I only visited her once to take a book. She said it was the worst four days of her life. No one visited her, no one rescued her.
My other daughter had just had her first baby at 18, when her Sister died two weeks later, in a mysterious drowning tragedy that was to become front page news.
She spiralled out of control into Post Natal Depression, and Anorexia and Speed. She weighed 37 kilos at her worst. One more kilo and she was going to be hospitalised.
The 14 nearly 15 year old wanted to leave school immediately. I said only if she had a job. She advertised herself and had a job at a Convenience Store for a Year. The lady that hired her had kept the ad for months and then rang one day out of the blue.
Her and her baby Sister who had drowned at 12 were closer than Sisters, they were best friends. A. Couldn't handle her grief and it came back to haunt her years later. At 14 she was just trying to have friends and comfort them and not herself, or so she thought.
She thought she could handle it.
All of my remaining girls had emergency grief counselling but were not ready to listen. D. Aged 19, Y., aged 18 and A. at 14, they were too young to realise the impact of what had just happened. The loss of their baby Sister who had never done a wrong thing in her short life was beyond imagining, so they blocked it out, or so they thought.
D beat up her best friend three weeks after her Sister died, blackening her eyes and causing great distress to her friend and herself.
When asked by the Counsellors why she was so angry, she said she was angry at her Father, who acted like life just had to go on. The grief counselling turned into Family Counselling and they counselled me to rid myself of him.
He had already left when our daughter died but had moved back home to be of " Comfort" to the Family. I had been scared of his violent temper for years and had left him many times. I was in that addiction of Domestic Violence. I loathed him but couldn't leave permanently. I thought of the kids, which is terrible, but I stayed.
After five months of Counselling I asked him to leave and he did and I can honest,y say I never missed him for a second.
You can't love someone you fear.
Him being gone meant I could concentrate on my girls. I thought I had it all together. I had no idea how bad things were going to become. ......
To be continued......
After their Sister died, two of my remaining girls turned to drugs to help them cope.
I was a Warrior and out of sheer desperation turned to Tough Love to deal with the whole sad and sorry mess. They were at vulnerable ages, 14 and 18 and their whole world had just tilted on its axis and came down again with a shocking thump.
Several of their peer group didn't make it out of the drug nightmare and died.
I had decided that I had lost one and wasn't losing another and it was a battle I was going to win, no matter what lengths I had to go to. Some of those lengths I had to go to were way out of any human beings comfort zone, but do them I did.
Half of the teen girls and boys in Keysborough at that time were into serious drugs. Many turned to prostitution, crime, ( burglary and shoplifting) to fund their habit. Lots of them remain addicted or are dead and that's a shocking statistic but true.
Keysborough had nothing for teens in the eighties. There were no cinemas, bowling alleys, youth groups, good public transport, it was a void for teens and everybody knew it. The only fun to be had was to " hang" at other teens houses and smoke weed or drink. For some the most accessible drugs, weed and alcohol quickly turned to speed, heroin and prescription drugs.
Prescription drugs, Moggies ( Mogadons ) Rowies or Roofies ( Rohypanol) were the easiest to get from Doctors in nearby Springvale. One of my girls Doctor Shopped from Doctor to Doctor and was eventually banned for life. She was 14, 15, 16, 17 and then was finally stopped by her eventual husband.
She went to lock up in Springvale for 4 days and even then I only visited her once to take a book. She said it was the worst four days of her life. No one visited her, no one rescued her.
My other daughter had just had her first baby at 18, when her Sister died two weeks later, in a mysterious drowning tragedy that was to become front page news.
She spiralled out of control into Post Natal Depression, and Anorexia and Speed. She weighed 37 kilos at her worst. One more kilo and she was going to be hospitalised.
The 14 nearly 15 year old wanted to leave school immediately. I said only if she had a job. She advertised herself and had a job at a Convenience Store for a Year. The lady that hired her had kept the ad for months and then rang one day out of the blue.
Her and her baby Sister who had drowned at 12 were closer than Sisters, they were best friends. A. Couldn't handle her grief and it came back to haunt her years later. At 14 she was just trying to have friends and comfort them and not herself, or so she thought.
She thought she could handle it.
All of my remaining girls had emergency grief counselling but were not ready to listen. D. Aged 19, Y., aged 18 and A. at 14, they were too young to realise the impact of what had just happened. The loss of their baby Sister who had never done a wrong thing in her short life was beyond imagining, so they blocked it out, or so they thought.
D beat up her best friend three weeks after her Sister died, blackening her eyes and causing great distress to her friend and herself.
When asked by the Counsellors why she was so angry, she said she was angry at her Father, who acted like life just had to go on. The grief counselling turned into Family Counselling and they counselled me to rid myself of him.
He had already left when our daughter died but had moved back home to be of " Comfort" to the Family. I had been scared of his violent temper for years and had left him many times. I was in that addiction of Domestic Violence. I loathed him but couldn't leave permanently. I thought of the kids, which is terrible, but I stayed.
After five months of Counselling I asked him to leave and he did and I can honest,y say I never missed him for a second.
You can't love someone you fear.
Him being gone meant I could concentrate on my girls. I thought I had it all together. I had no idea how bad things were going to become. ......
To be continued......
