Reply to Difficult situation - am I doing the right thing?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Serious mental illness vs addiction are two totally separate things.  Yes, a person can be both but don’t approach both the same way. 
I have a very seriously mentally ill SIL.  She’s been committed several times, she’s bipolar with delusions.  As long as she is not a danger to us or abusive, we continue to see her.  My children know she has issues “in her head” and things she may say often don’t make sense or can come across very mean, but we don’t snub her, avoid her or shame her.  T is a good lesson on tolerance, empathy and compassion.

On the other hand, I have a cousin who is THE poster child of life long addiction.  As long as I can remember he’s been high, stealing, in jail, out of work, in court, lying, and charming. The pants off of anyone.  He is so smooth, charismatic, good looking, life of the party, everyone’s favorite person, until you realize your jewelry has disappeared or that someone stole your credit card and ran up a bill. Decades of this cr@p.  He’s been on pot, coke, heroine, crystal meth, opioids he stole from his dying mother in hospice, benzos, crack and is probably back on heroin. He has been in and out of rehab so many times.  CPS took away his kids.  He joined a few cults. I mean you name it.

Do I avoid him?  YES!  I don’t even want him to know where I live or have my phone number.  He will break into my house again and steal anything he can resell. I don’t want anything to do with him.  And that doesn’t make me a bad person or a bad parent.  Unless you have real long term experience with an addict you have no idea the nightmare, scams, headaches and turmoil they inflict on others.  All these suggestions of “be nice” or “teach your kids...” don’t have a clue.  I am sorry OP is going through this.  It really is awful. [/quote]

And you decided that the mentally ill person is to be pitied but the addict has completely control and could stop at any time and is willfully hurting people.  Wow.[/quote]

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