Fraternal Twin with conduct disorder, just devastated

rebjoh

New Member
New to site. Blessing. To sum up: fraternal twins 16 girls. One with conduct disorder since 5th grade. She hasnt seen her sister in over 2 years. I'm just lost. There was always supposed to be the 2 of them forever together. Police took her in 2013; social services; no jail time. Just residential then 5 foster homes then 2 more residential then at her 6th foster home. Continues to be aggressive, non-compliant, picking fights. Two felony assault charges no time anger management through court. Over a year ago she decided she didn't want to come home and social services agreed saying she needs to continue to work on issues. I stopped phone contact after she called me liar about being molested by my dad. Lied about sending them to school dirty and how she was upset after I got sick with MRSA and that I had asked for a little help around house. Then another time when I was crying over behavior and wondering how she had changed from the happy little girl I had raised she told me to get over it, that little girl was gone said with no tears in a cold flat voice with eyes as dead a s a shark. So this year I signed into her state custody because I was sick and tired of sworkers making home visits to a home she was never going to return to. Also I don/t want to be held liable if she does anything else criminal. Just this past month she friended me on Facebook and I sent her 3 short but heartfelt messages. No reply not even to her sister. I am so scared she is already turning into her biological father who is a sociopath. Police called him sexual predator. Abusive, no remorse, anger, just no heart. I see this in her. The way she has spoken to me and what she has said. She was a mommys girl and loved being with her sister. They spent all their time together. I feel like I'm buried in grief and have lost all confidence in myself as a mother. I've had insomnia for almost a year, on 3 different mental medications, and I just lost an amazing job because of the lack of sleep and stress. I don't even want to leave the house much anymore and I would just rather skip holidays. I'm trying to be their for my other daughter and she knows I love her. She has PTSD and anxiety. I just miss her so much. It hurts all the time. I don't have any support from family or friends. So maybe here that will change. What do I do with the first 13 years of pictures of my 2 precious babies which is such a heartbreaking reminder that she is't here now. Sorry to ramble
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
hon, I am so sorry...cant even put it into words. I wish I had advice beyond going to therapy maybe to help you cope. May I gently ask what happened three years ago? Anything?

it is very important for us to take care of ourselves when bad things happen. You also have an obligation to your other daughter. You can't help your other daughter now or maybe ever, but you can make new memories with your daughter who still lives at home and any other loved ones in your home or heart. And you need to love yourself...you did not cause this. She certainly may have inherited personality traits from your ex...you could not have stopped that.

I had a son me and ex husband adopted at age six. He walked out of our family (except for ex) after marrying in my opinion a woman who wanted no other women in his life...not a mom or his sisters. I had to grieve him. The good news is, time passes and things grow more tolerable with time. You let go if you must. You really dont know the end of this story yet so that makes it harder to let go.

We are here for you.
 
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karisma

Member
I just want to say hi and I'm sorry for your pain. It is an agonizing process, this greiving the loss of a child who is still alive, yet lost to us. Only others who go through it can understand. This site has saved my sanity and I am glad you have found us. My son is homeless and very ill (bipolar, psychotic, on drugs). He is tormented and it nearly kills me to watch him suffer. Especially in 115 degree weather. So I cope by being in this site and reading the new and old threads about 6 hours a day. There is a lot of crying involved. You are not alone. Big hugs to you
 

Copabanana

Well-Known Member
Hi rebjoh: I have a different take than do some others. First, conduct disorder is a set of behaviors, not a true diagnosis of a mental disorder, like is depression or anxiety. It is used as a placeholder until the real issues become apparent, later in life. Some kids go on to have antisocial personality disorder while many others do not.
wondering how she had changed from the happy little girl I had raised she told me to get over it, that little girl was gone said with no tears in a cold flat voice with eyes as dead a s a shark
I do not place much importance on these cold, dead eyes, or the seeming indifference. My son did a variation of this, and he later told me, this was a reflection of his own feelings of self-hatred, that he had never stopped loving me. I believe him. He is changing back to the personality he had as a child, which was like your daughter, loving, happy, cheerful.

Of course SWOT is right, that our children have genetic elements of each of their parents, but there is not necessarily a link between her behavior and anything genetic.There are so many other variables that could be present, that she can potentially work through as she gets older. Nobody can responsibly tell you what happened, because nobody can know, until time passes and your daughter matures, or gets help or not, and new symptoms may or may not appear.

The message I would try to take from this is that no quantity of agony experienced by you, no loss or self-punishment will make a difference. You must begin to take care of yourself, and your other daughter. Because you both matter. No more suffering on your part will help her, or you, or clarify the situation. Only time will.
 

Copabanana

Well-Known Member
Currently homeless for the last 2.5 years. he doesnt want help. Highly intelligent, articulate, very good looking, and terribly tormented. My favorite person in the world

Karisma. This could have been my son, you are writing about, now 27. Except on top of it all he has Hep B acquired at birth and a brain injury.

He is now living at home with us and working for us doing remodeling. He is also seeing a psychiatrist something I have prayed for. The future is unknown but it is better. The important thing right now for you (and me) is to find hope for ourselves. I truly believe our sons will make it, on their own terms, in their own way. I think this is true for rebjoh's daughter too. We need to make it, too.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
I do differ with Copa in small, unimportant ways. We basically agree and I admire the growth she shows and how well she has handled her son. She has done a magnificent job on herself and with her beloved child.

I couldnt agree more that WE matter and must work on ourselves more than them because we can only control our own lives, not that of others.And we need to be able to still have good times, even if our children struggle. its hard sometimes, but suffering doesnt help them. I think if we show them good mental health in ourselves, it helps them. They dont want to see or hear us falling apart. At least, and I could be wrong, I dont think they do.

I hope I didnt scare you off. I so did not want to do that.
 

Copabanana

Well-Known Member
We basically agree and I admire the growth she shows and how well she has handled her son. She has done a magnificent job on herself and with her beloved child.
Thank you, SWOT. I return the complement.

What changed was only one thing: I said, Hell no I won't go. I would not allow him to go on and on about his conspiracy theories with me.

Honestly. I do not know why this had the positive effect that it had. But it got his attention that I would not follow him everywhere. That something had to come from him.

This might be what is happening with rebjoh's daughter when she reached out on FB. Maybe it got her attention when her mother turned her parental rights over to the state. Maybe having choice now, and responsibility, was what made a little bit of light flicker inside of her. To make her remember who she was and remember her mother.

I believe in hope. The worst thing happens, many many times. And then it does not. We can come up with all kinds of reasons and explanations about why it is the worst and most irrevocable of forces, responsible for the pain of our children, and then our own. And then? Everything changes.
 

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
. I am so scared she is already turning into her biological father who is a sociopath.
Unfortunately, genetics is stronger than nurture. Her twin didn't get the extra boost toward bio-dad's set of genes, somehow - whatever that mental health trigger is. There have been studies about it in twins. And just because one gets mental illness doesn't mean the other one does (although there is a higher chance).

Puberty is often a trigger for genetics to rear its head. It's an awful time for all kids, but way worse if you're a "loaded time-bomb" of disasterous genes.

You did what you could. She still had and still has choices to make.
 

karisma

Member
Yes Copa, you are correct -- everything changes. Keeping ourselves in good shape is actually the only thing we can control and our suffering does nothing positive for the Difficult Child's. And SWOT, you are so right that they do not want to see or know our emotional pain, our falling apart. My son will take off from wherever we are meeting at if I show any sadness for his condition. While I am with him, I project the attitude of "its your life, do as you please, I'm indifferent"
Hope. It buoys the spirit when I have it and crushes the heart when I lose it. But I always seem to find it again on some level...and then lose it again. And on and on. So long as they are alive, there is hope
Admittedly, I feel very little hope for any real change in his condition. But I still hold on to hope that I can learn to cope better, or move on emotionally, or in some way salvage my own future.
And Rebjoh, you just put the pictures in the closet until the day you can handle them being out again. They do get better. They also get worse again, and get better again.
Such is the journey of the Difficult Child
 

Copabanana

Well-Known Member
Unfortunately, genetics is stronger than nurture.
While the influence of her genetics may be behind your daughter's problems, NOBODY can say. There is yet too much to work out.

Even if it is genetic, environment shapes genetics. In human beings there is seldom only a genetic influence. Even in schizophrenia. Your daughter may well begin to choose environmental influences, that help, not hurt her. We do not know. She has not yet written her story.

In my family, my father had 3 brothers and 3 sisters. Every single one of them was an alcoholic. And one? When he was about 48 married a wonderful woman (his 3rd marriage.) He was headed down the exact same path as his brothers and sisters, when he made one choice, that saved his life. His life thereafter was a marvel. He not only seemed to have the same genetics as did his siblings, he had been making the same choices. Until he made one different choice.

I am not saying it is not genetic. What I am saying is that it may well not be the kind of genetic determination that cannot be modified by her own set of choices, or environment. Or it may not be genetic at all. She could well have had an experience about which you do not know. Or something that she experienced, and interpreted in a way that is causing her enormous pain or confusion.

There are people who turn to crime for example that never, ever had a genetic influence to make this choice. And then? They can decide to change and they do. Or there are people who have "terrible" genetics, like me, for example--and define their lives by integrity and hope--or try to, because they choose it.

This is a difference in point of view between us that has not a thing in the world to do with you, rebjoh.

It may give you a sense of peace and comfort to believe your daughter is suffering inevitably because of a genetic influence. Or not. To say it may not be genetic, is not to blame a parent. To me, it is to offer realistic hope.
 

rebjoh

New Member
Thank you all so much. It was difficult to write about her but I cried when I read some of your responses. I have felt so alone and not understood for so long. I am just so grateful for 1 response; I feel like Tom Hanks in Castaway with my cat instead of a soccer ball. You all get it. For an update, I hit bottom with her last night. I thought I had many times over the past few months but nothing compares to the scope of this. Its over. Well and truly over. I have no more false hopes for her. Shes on her own. She posted a picture of her father on Facebook who had molested when she was 5-6 and emotionally traumatized them. He told them he was going to kill me or kidnap them and take them away to where I could never find them. She called him her daddy, said she loved and missed him like crazy. I and the local police dept and childrens advocacy fought for months to get his rights suspended which they are to this day. She doesnt have amnesia, she went through this with her twin sister. Years of therapy and me being there to love her through the aftermath and this is where it ends up. Self-destructive, manipulative, delusional. There has been no contact with him for years. I just feel so betrayed. She is deliberately turning her back on me and is happy about it. He is also a serial rapist and the experts called him a sexual predator. I have to go talk to somebody today, I feel like I just got the obituary notice for the little girl I raised with such love and tenderness. My heart goes out to any one who has got through this emotional funeral I am going through today. All I need is a tombstone and a shovel. I'm clinging to the Promises. Lord have Mercy on us all.
 
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