Watching The Houstons: On Our Own was easily one of the top-ten most difficult television watching experiences I have ever endured. It was blatantly obvious that Whitney Houston’s daughter, Bobbi Kristina, was not sober in any way, shape or form, incoherent with eyes-wide-shut for the duration of all three episodes I watched. I could barely get through an episode without asking my television why this show was even green-lighted when this young woman does not belong on any reality series aside from A&E’s Intervention. What frustrated me the most was the absurd amounts of enabling that allowed for Bobbi’s blatant disrespect, lies and victim playing to continue on for an entire series. The same assistant and sister-in-law that allowed the world’s greatest singer to die of an addiction are overseeing another life that could see the same fate. What the family and Bobbi choose to use as a cop-out for these antics is that she just lost her mother. But how long will she continue to play the victim role before she lands herself in a tombstone neighboring her mother’s?

Struggle and trauma are life’s greatest fears realized and an unfortunate common thread amongst us all. We either have or eventually will see a side of life that will be so horrifying that it will shake us to our core. How we cope with these events, triumph over them and use them as motivation to grow or progress forward is up to us. Using these events as an excuse to self-destruct is pathetic and does nothing but stall your personal growth. I am blessed to still have both of my parents and pray for anyone that loses their parents during such a critical point in their lives, but I cannot sympathize with people who shame their losses by using them as a reason to ruin their own lives. It only means that their lives were already heading down this self-destructive path and are using death in the family as a convenient excuse to fall into it deeper. Playing the victim isolates and weakens you.  At some point you have to be held accountable for your actions and stop blaming your struggles for decisions you made.

Bobbi Kristina is an adult now. She makes decisions like an adult, has adult relationships, and should be accountable for those decisions and relationships. Losing her mother in such a public way, with the details of her life exploited by the media, is a sobering circumstance not everyone is equipped to deal with. She was bestowed this fate because God believed she was strong enough to overcome it. Using her mother to excuse her lack of sobriety, lack of respect for authority and complete disregard for the trust people have put in her is shaming her.

The condition she is in throughout the entirety of this show is not how any mother would want to see her child. The sad part about all of this is that there are so many people in this world who excuse their behaviors by way of victim playing. They use their struggles as an excuse to behave in a way that would be inexcusable under any other circumstance. They abuse the trust and kindness of others to manipulate them into allowing their struggles to excuse their behavior.

Call me heartless, but I have not an ounce of sympathy in my heart for Bobbi or anyone that abuses similar situations. You have to want to help yourself and want a better life for yourself in order to grow from traumatic experiences because life will go on with or without you.