My Deal with Elliana

Elliana made a comment about wishing she had packed differently in case she went to inpatient treatment. I spent as much time as I could letting her know that I love that change in her attitude. As we talked more about it, she feels that she has nothing but clothes that are hers. She also said that she knows that when she completes treatment, she will just be handed around to anybody who will take her until she is old enough to dump on the streets.

That is some tremendous weight to carry. However, it is a weight that she carries because of her behavior.

I hope she understands that behavior is measured by decisions and not words. It is a good thing that Elliana talked about inpatient treatment, but those are words. However, I acknowledge that one of her problems is that she does not have a place that she can call hers and where she can put what she owns. Resolving that problem will consequently resolve the problem of having nowhere to go when she completes inpatient treatment.

I cannot do this by myself. Everyone who says they love her can help. Their help can be conditioned upon her getting treatment, but their help cannot be forced upon her. She will reject forced decisions no matter how good the intentions are. Candace and Javier know this. I think her grandmother also knows this but is hoping that a miracle will happen that will save Elliana.

What Elliana needs to know is that I will write my promise to her so that she can hold me accountable. 

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Here is my promise to you, Elliana. I will keep my promise to you if you keep your promise to me: 

I will buy you a trailer to store all of your possessions in, and for you to live in, next Wednesday if you meet these conditions that will prove you are keeping your promise to me:

1. You need to cooperate with everyone over the weekend so that you do not put stress on your grandmother that she cannot handle. 

Help her help you by knowing that she loves you more than anything else in the world. It is fine to take advantage of her love for you to stay indoors for a short time, but it is not okay to abuse her love for you.

Don't make demands on us. We love you. We all want you to get the help you need. 

I cannot help you over the weekend. I need that time to do some healing for myself. Let the family help. 

Just breathe and let us help. 

Appreciate what your mother does to help you. Appreciate what your father does to help you. Most of all, appreciate what your grandmother is doing to help you, and help her help you by doing what you can to keep the stress off of her.

2. On Monday, we will begin getting everything together for inpatient treatment. 

You cannot stay with Gramma Rae during the day while your grandmother is at work, dear, and you cannot be dropped off here to get ready. 

If you are serious about this, you will make the decision to be ready to get the second part started in time to get everything done.  

I will begin devoting some of my time to help you get places you need to go to get what you need to get, but I cannot rescue you. You must make the decision to rescue yourself.

We will hang out with each other until your grandmother gets off work on Monday and Tuesday to help keep stress off of her during her workdays, but you are no longer allowed to abuse my trust or time. 

We will likely go for one of the drives we love on Monday. We will talk about Tuesday on Monday.

We can spend part of Tuesday looking at ads for trailers that we would be interested in looking at. 

I will buy a trailer for you on Wednesday after you are done with an outpatient treatment that day. The outpatient treatment will prove that you are keeping your promise to get help while getting ready for inpatient treatment.

There are no other conditions that you need to meet for us to get you a place of your own. However, there will be conditions placed on the trailer because it has to be in my name until you are 18 years old. 

We will transfer the title into your name when you turn 18. At that point, it is yours to do with as you please, and we will both be months into recovery for problems that will be with us for the rest of our lives.

I promise that it will be your trailer so that you know that you have your own place when you get out of inpatient care. It cannot be parked on the streets where it will be stolen or for you to be found dead in. We will resolve all the other issues as we need to. It is not a perfect plan, but it will improve everyone's current situation and give you something that you need to feel better about making good decisions.

You will be able to sleep in it starting on Wednesday night at Gramma Rae's where we will first park it, but first you must get through the weekend by making good decisions.

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Please, my love, make good decisions that can be seen through changes in your behavior. 

We all love you, and your suffering is breaking our hearts. 

If you are serious about wanting us all to heal, let us deal with the real problems we face. We cannot continue dealing with the symptoms of our problems as if those are our problems. 

Your problem is drug addiction and self-destructive behavior; my problem is enabling you through my co-dependency. 

I want to get through to you, my love, that the only thing in my life that is as important for me to save as you are, is myself.

You need to make the decisions necessary to get the help you need and to prove it through your cooperation and behavior. 

We will deal with any issues that will need to be dealt with after Wednesday after Wednesday. As in everything in life, it is one step at a time.

I love you and I hope that we are buying a trailer for you Wednesday afternoon! I love you more than you can possibly know!

Also, I added the pictures to remind you how much we all love you!

Papa Tom