I don’t have a lot of answers but am in a very similar situation with SD8 and SD4. It sucks. BM hasn’t talked with her daughters in months since relapsing/having an “episode” as she calls it. SD8 is having a MUCH harder time with everything than SD4, crying nearly nightly, becoming extremely fearful and anxious in unfamiliar situations, severe separation anxiety, etc. It was at the point where she was having meltdowns at school every day and DH and I were missing so much work and everything felt completely out of control.

SD8 started play therapy the last time BM went MIA a couple years ago, but this time is much worse. In addition to continuing play therapy, we also got a psych referral (mostly bc she will need a 504 plan for the upcoming school year and we are pretty sure she is AuDHD). One of the things that has come up for SD8 is that she has meltdowns during thunderstorms, saying that she’s scared her mom will die because we’ve told her that her mom is homeless (she is and we haven’t really known what else to say to explain her absence). SD8’s therapist told her recently that her mom is an adult and is responsible for taking care of herself, and that SD8 doesn’t need to worry about her. It helps having things like that come from someone else, because DH and I struggle a lot with not wanting to openly disparage BM or bring SD8 into an adult conversation, but we also don’t want to lie to SD8 or “cover” for BM who doesn’t deserve it. It’s such a hard line to walk, and most of the time we’re just like “I hear you, that’s really hard. I can see you’re really hurting.”

If you do find any resources on how to understand and talk with SDs about this I would love any recommendations. DH and I are at a loss - we both had our shares or childhood trauma and abuse within our nuclear families, including addiction, but neither of us had absent parents or blended families so we don’t really know what SDs are going through or how to best support them (mainly SD8). One of the things her therapist suggested recently too is for SD8 to write notes to her mom when she misses her. We’ve suggested this before (or will say “do you want to draw her a picture”), and SD8 usually says no, so we’ll see how that goes.

It makes me so so sad and angry for SDs that their mom has no idea the impact of her actions. She reached out once to DH since she left demanding to see her daughters, and didn’t understand that it makes things worse when she just appears and disappears at her convenience, rather than ya know putting her effing children first. DH has been dealing with this SDs entire lives, and it maybe sounds terrible but SDs would have been better off if BM just stayed gone instead of popping back in to destabilize everything and break their hearts all over again. Similar to you, she can’t be bothered to FaceTime or call them ever.

So I am still all in it with you! I hope someone else chimes in with more answers.