Tanya M

Living with an attitude of gratitude
Staff member
Cedar, I'm coming in a little late on this. I'm so sorry for the heartache and confusion you are experiencing. I have read through what others have posted and there is some very good advice. The only thing I can offer is while you love your daughter you also need to think about yourself and your own metal and physical well being. Having her in your home right now might make things easier for her but the cost would be an enormous amount of stress on you and husband.
((HUGS)) to you!!
 

Albatross

Well-Known Member
Cedar, I am coming in late on this too but wanted you to know I was reading along. I am so sorry you are mired in such a confusing morass of emotions. I think the advice from the other moms is spot on here. Though you imagine how frightening it is for the grandkids to hear those conversations, as you said, it may be more frightening in your imagination than it is to them. It sounds like ex-husband is a responsible and protective parent. I think it is best not to step into that bond, for all concerned -- you and husband, your grandkids and your daughter. But I am sorry you are going through this.
 

SeekingStrength

Well-Known Member
Cedar,

I don't have much to say. You were one of my greatest strengths when I found this board. I remember asking husband to read a post of yours over and over while we were driving someplace or other.

I do think you might should contact Child Protective Services, and yes, I am guessing that, otherwise, you should stay out of it. Perhaps, let CPS know that you are scared and share your concerns.

This difficult child stuff is seldom tied up with a pretty bow. It just keeps happening. Mental illness, substance abuse, whatever.....the ramifications are deep and wide.

Your ability to stay honest with yourself will bode you well. That is a strength of yours...to process it like you see it, including all the good, bad & ugly.

Man, I wish I had wisdom. This is tough stuff.
 

Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
It is a wonderful thing, to have this site, and all of you. Thank you so much. There are times ~ and we all know this, I guess ~ when the strength in not being alone with it is that little extra something that helps us pull through.

difficult child daughter had stopped taking her librium some time ago. This is what has been happening. Guide Me, it was especially helpful to read your very honest post. I am so sorry that sort of thing is happening to you too, and I wish you every success as you go on from this point.

My heart goes out to you.

difficult child daughter did talk things through with the ex-husband. She was so upset that no one could understand that she said those things about harming the boys and herself around the issue of...Ebola.

?

She was outraged and devastated (those are correct interpretations, not purple prose descriptions) that I criticized her instead of supporting her in relation to the things she was saying about her ex-husband. We talked about trust only being possible when both the good and the troubling things can be freely discussed, and we talked about loving someone enough to tell them the truth.

So after much conversation between daughter and myself and between daughter and husband ~ wait for it....

Daughter's parting comment was that she hoped I was not upset when I saw the "Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers" piece she had posted on my FB Timeline.

Oh, for Heaven's Sake.

Thanks again, to each of you. Your responses mean more than you know...except that we all do know what it means to have the site, and one another, don't we.

:O)

I am helping teach Tai Chi this morning, so I won't be on 'til later.

Cedar
 

tishthedish

Well-Known Member
Cedar,
It is so unfair that you can work so hard to come through past trials only to learn that they morph and come at you in a different directions. You can't help but feel gobsmacked again. What you and so many of us have worked to achieve...equilibrium in the face of chaos and maelstrom...can be jeopardized by difficult child's behaviors at any time.

difficult child daughter is angrier lately. She is making decisions that seem rational until the conversation deepens and the reasoning behind the decisions is exposed.

When things have been quiet for awhile I find myself letting my boundaries be compromised piece by piece. My difficult child's seem to know when my resolve weakens. I start to treat them as if we can have normal relationships. Their indication of this is that I am happier. It's almost as if they can't stand to see it. They immediately launch a stress initiative to wage war on my peace of mind. And my arms get so tired holding up those protective walls.

I have been dealing with mental health issues my entire life in one way or another, parents, self, children, siblings. And I think that they can randomly flare, much like people with systemic problems like allergies, lupus, MS. When the conditions are right for these flares... a perceived slight, an unkind word, a lack of attention the switch is flipped and another episode comes on.

I have learned from this site (from you in particular dear Cedar), therapy, books and al-anon how to admit the problems, face the necessary consequences and make the changes in my own life in order to allay my suffering.

But here's the rub. We are going to have to do this over and over and over again for the rest of our lives. We get the occasional respite, but most times our difficult child's never muster the requisite energy to gain a permanent solution to their underlying problems, whether they be bipolar, disordered thinking, paranoia, narcissism, manipulative behaviors.

When you weigh things in your mind, if your daughter is not bringing as much energy to addressing her underlying situation (short of asking you for plane tickets to escape) as you are worrying about it, you may need to step up and then step back.

I learned yesterday that she threatened, some time ago, to harm the boys and then herself. So, the ex-husband quit his job at that time to stay home with she and the boys.

How long ago is "some time"? Please remind me how old the grandkids are now. Remember I had a 4-year old special needs/non-verbal grandson that was found neck deep in water in a nearby lake.

I am going to quote back to you something you said to me in my very first post. It had such an important impact on me and I have read and reread it in order to measure my judgment and behavior by it when I am in the fog. Here it is:
What I heard in your post is that you know what decision you have to make. Two years ago, when the first danger signals of our daughter's impending breakdown were shivering around the edges of things, husband and I considered calling in Social Services. If there is anything I cannot forgive myself for now, it is that we did not do that. Our daughter's children were exposed to terrible things, to terrible people.
No one can decide for you, Tish. But I can tell you that you are seeing what you think you are seeing. That little boy does need help. All the dreams we dreamed, all the things we were so sure we had, as we raised our children...none of that happened for us, Tish. Something very bad happened, to us, and to our children. We have to see that so clearly Tish, so we can know how to proceed. I do hear that in your post. You do see your situation clearly. But you, like my husband and I, are reluctant to act decisively on what you know.

When things like this are happening in my life, like now, I find myself sleepless and fretting and while my head is spinning my sons' heads are probably resting comfortably in a deep sleep on their pillows. You are probably exhausted. Are you up for a visit with an agitated difficult child? The baggage she'll be bringing may test your hard-earned peace of mind. When I get twisted up in the "what ifs" I defer to my husband. While you probably had to lead your husband to the serenity well, it sounds as if he may find it easier to maintain a cool head in the face of an oncoming storm.

Finally,
You questioned yourself in an earlier post:
Now, here is another interesting question: What kind of mother thinks such things about her own child.
Well, what kind of mom uses her children in a threat like that against their father to the point where he has to quit his job? You are a good mother. A great mother. What would you advise if it were me or MWM or COM or Guide Me.

We stand with you Cedar. I am so sorry for this stormy weather in the tranquil life you fought so hard for and deserve.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
One more thought that hit me as I read the last, newer responses, which were excellent. It won't help you, but it's an observation.

difficult children will use "shock and awe" words to get our attention if nothing else makes us do what they want.

"I will kill myself and the kids."

"I will go to Wisconsin and shoot and kill you."

Again, and this is just my own layperson take on it and could be wrong, it is more personality-disordered crapola than mental illness. Remember crazy Susan Smith who drove her kids into the water, getting out herself? She is not on anti-psychotics, which is for t he truly mentally ill who do not know how to tell reality from fantasy. Andrea Yates thought God was talking to her and killed her kids, but not in anger...in a delusional act of, what she thought was, love. She's in a hospital for the criminally insane.

Big difference.

Our difficult children are not psychotic. They know fantasy from reality. And t he reality is if they use "shock and awe" statements, we will react and maybe do what they want. I mean, you CAN'T ignore those types of statements so you HAVE to react.

And t hey may get what they want, which is why they said such horrible things in t he first place.

Thankfully for you, the grandkids are with a stable, loving man.

Anyhow, just my thoughts. Take what you like and leave the rest and try to have a serene day knowing that Dad will protect your precious grandchildren.
 

SuZir

Well-Known Member
Glad to hear that that situation doesn't seem to be quite that serious and more about made up drama and your daughter's need for that. Examples I mentioned are truly morbid and even more terrifying because these people in many perspective seemed rather normal. People knew there were issues, but I mean, who hasn't? And who isn't close to someone who has more serious issues? And you never expect anything like that.

One more thing to ask following this line (and no, you really don't need to answer us but maybe just think about it and if needed, talk with your husband): Does your daughter's ex-husband, who seems to be more stable parent, have a safe way out with the kids, if he feels like he needs that? Police doesn't always take domestic complaints made my men and against women too seriously and domestic violence establishment is more made to serve women. Does he has place to go and take the kids, if he gets too worried and your daughter's issues start to get worse or are getting too much for him? Do you have a relationship with him where you could talk with him or provide advice on what he could do in that kind of situation? Or simply give a promise of paying a motel room for him and kids, if it just gets too much? (Or would that make you prone to be used by him?)


Daughter's parting comment was that she hoped I was not upset when I saw the "Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers" piece she had posted on my FB Timeline.
Oh, for Heaven's Sake.

Ouch! And this is a reason, why I tend to have an issue against people flailing home-made personality disorder diagnosis against anyone, especially in any way publicly. Even when it is pure bs, people tend to think that "well, then there is smoke..."

It would seem somehow much more fair to call other people difficult characteristics and challenging behaviours mostly just that, if competent professional who has met the patient hasn't given a personality disorder diagnose. Or at most just say that this person at times behaves in the way that brings something to your mind or something like that. While I do get that it feels liberating to find out these diagnosis exist and people who have caused you troubles is well described in books concerning it at least in some ways, calling someone personality disordered (if they have not been diagnosed and can be recognized) is rather cheap trick.
 

Albatross

Well-Known Member
We talked about trust only being possible when both the good and the troubling things can be freely discussed, and we talked about loving someone enough to tell them the truth.
I love this so much.

Daughter's parting comment was that she hoped I was not upset when I saw the "Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers" piece she had posted on my FB Timeline.

NO! Oh Cedar!

It really is true, we can't make some of this stuff up.

I confess, I was catching up on your thread at a stop light this morning and continued to read just a teeny bit after the turn arrow changed, and I...well, I briefly veered into a ditch at that part of your post.

I am very glad she and her ex talked things through.
 

GuideMe

Active Member
Daughter's parting comment was that she hoped I was not upset when I saw the "Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers" piece she had posted on my FB Timeline.

Wow, I can't believe she actually did that. She put it on your facebook page? Ouch is right. I would have deleted it.

And you're welcome. My paranoia is most hard to deal with for sure. However, I deal with it better than most who have this problem. However, I suffer with it terribly. It is a constant daily struggle.
 

GuideMe

Active Member
Most of my paranoia turns into Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) behaviors. Such as constantly checking things that I already know are fine. Worrying about my daughter excessively. Yeah, the worrying is the worse.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Cedar, people who know you know it's your daughter's problem, not yours. And anyone who may not are not really your friends.

If I saw this one somebody's timeline, I would just think the person who posted it was nuts.

I'm so sorry about this whole thing. Your daughter is truly very sick and you don't deserve her treatment of you.
 

in a daze

Well-Known Member
Cedar, I'm so sorry to hear of this latest turn of events.

Why won't she take her medications? And how long can her (ex) husband afford to be off from work?
 

Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
NO! Oh Cedar!
It really is true, we can't make some of this stuff up.
I confess, I was catching up on your thread at a stop light this morning and continued to read just a teeny bit after the turn arrow changed, and I...well, I briefly veered into a ditch at that part of your post.

Ha! I love this.

The most troublesome part of the FB thing is that difficult child daughter has done such things many times. Not on FB necessarily, but...for instance. There was a time when our neighbor here in Florida visited us in Wisconsin. As it happened, difficult child daughter chose that day, just minutes before we were leaving for the airport to collect the neighbor, to come in off the streets. A friendship formed between difficult child daughter and the Florida neighbor which is ongoing to this day.

So, after the phone call where difficult child daughter and her exDH were fighting and difficult child daughter was running her exDH down for not working to the point that he shouted out the why behind that one, difficult child daughter FB me to call her.

And I didn't.

And so, difficult child daughter told me, when husband called her that night because I wasn't ready yet and after she had talked to him about how hurt she had been that I had not defended her, that it had been so nice to be able to talk to the neighbor about these things, since she had not been able to reach me.

Chilling.

But I don't want to know, so I don't really know that.

Why won't she take her medications? And how long can her (ex) husband afford to be off from work?

I am not sure, IAD.

I am thinking how to approach this. Lithium is working for her, but everything feels "dull." She admits to enjoying aspects of the manic phase of her illness. I am in denial about so much of this, and so I justify my way through it instead of researching the illness.

Denial really is such a strange, convoluted thing.

They are living in the ex-husband's grandmother's beautiful home. For free. difficult child daughter began receiving disability after the beating.

So, that is their money.

But difficult child daughter was all about how the money she "saved" is gone. husband and I were talking about it last night, and he reminded me that difficult child daughter had just received something like $7000 in disability "back pay".

So we are girding my loins (as mine are the only vulnerable ones) to practice all the detachment skills.

I am having that shockey feeling again.

I think I am not imagining all these things, but I don't see how they can be true, either.

FOG.

difficult children will use "shock and awe" words to get our attention if nothing else makes us do what they want.

Our difficult children are not psychotic. They know fantasy from reality. And t he reality is if they use "shock and awe" statements, we will react and maybe do what they want.

I know you are right about this. It's that denial thing happening to me again that prevents my fully claiming the reality of it. It seems like such a mean thing to think about someone. It seems like a mom should ~ I don't know. Should be able to not think like that about her own children.

So there is where I am doing myself damage, then.

That is the accusation I am making against myself, down in the heartlands where I can't access it.

But on so many levels MWM, I know you are right.

I suppose what I don't know is how to love a grown woman who is my child and who is also so darn mean and manipulative.

I feel like a foolish person, sometimes.

Part of this is that I have the dream of what I wanted and of who I think, and will persist in believing, my child to be.

In reality...in reality that may not be true.

But it might be. And so, I will not make myself give up on that dream just yet.

This is not a simple situation.

I do love her. I need to be wary and wise and I need to learn to be okay with that.

When things have been quiet for awhile I find myself letting my boundaries be compromised piece by piece.

That happens to me too, Tish. I have been thinking about the reaction I had. I think those blank places, those places our brains stop us from going, are there to protect us. There would be no way we could stay present with our kids when they are not in crisis without some barrier between the trauma response we've had to develop and the normal interactions of day to day presence.

I think that might be what happens.

I remember when the worst of it was happening, and I remember how odd it seemed that I was able to compartmentalize so much of it. I got dressed, I cooked things, I went to work, I went to school.

It might be that we erect boundaries not between ourselves and our children, but between ourselves and our traumas. When the trauma is fresh, the boundaries are there. When the trauma is concealed from us, the boundaries dissolve.

So, there is alot of energy there for us to access, if we can ever work through it. I was talking to someone who composes music, today. We were talking about what he sees or hears or feels when he composes, and how he recalls the separate pieces when he wants to play them back. He described it as a function of the brain that is happening to all of us, all the time. Our brains are processing all kinds of information, truly mind-bogglingly complex amounts of information and storing them away for future access in an instant, with the right key.

So, all those terribly sad things that have happened to all of us with our children are in here, fresh as daisies. They can be whipped out and presented in an instant. But when they are, we hit overload.

It's like blowing a fuse, maybe.

It might be that the grief response to the loss of the children we believed we were raising is locked up in there somewhere, too.

There is something happening there, when we cannot access those parts of ourselves. I do know that when I could break through it, the feelings accessed were intense. Once I got there though, I was able to push through them.

It was a strange thing.

It was like diving through deeper and darker layers of trauma to reach the one that echoed the horror of that imagery of difficult child daughter harming her children.

That one still has a little of that shocky, echoey feeling to it.

It costs us a great deal of energy to watch our kids suffer, or to function in spite of our own suffering. I never thought about where that emotion goes. I think it might be tied up in those PTSD kinds of knots, not so much to protect us from going there again as to prevent the toxicity of those kinds of understandings from infecting the rest of our lives.

It could be that this is why I found the phrase about "yielding to the joy underlying all of life" so comforting. All I had to do was go deeper, and there it was. This could be a piece of the reason we try so hard to make sense of things in a way that allows us to keep choosing loving and trusting in the face of what looks and feels like devastating, and repeated, betrayal of everything that matters. (I know I sound like a dork here, but I think I am on to something that matters.)

I could not think rationally, yesterday. I would get to a certain point, and my brain would just blank. I slept with those feelings, woke up with them too, but not in a clear way.

It was like I literally could not think my way through. I was getting sidetracked by the trauma response. I heard it described once as pulling up a fishing line. The deeper the line goes, the stranger the conglomerations of pieced-together things somehow adhering to it are. Those conglomerations of things adhering to the fishing line are pieces of unresolved trauma, and they were stopping me in my tracks.

They say the limbic pathways become automatic pathways, over time. Maybe that has something to do with it. It was like I was being stopped at the doorstep of one horrifying set of images or another.

It felt like being one of those game pieces in a lights and buzzers game where you wap the other guy's player. I could respond to a simple question from one of you. (Yet, I do not talk about it with husband in the same way at all. I did not tell him, for instance, the piece about the threat difficult child daughter made about the kids. I don't want him to know, I don't want him to suffer. I did finally tell him, night before last, what the heart of the thing was for me.)

Maybe that is why we leap to fix things, why we respond instinctually to emotional pain instead of thinking our way through or remembering to say the words we've learned here.

We literally cannot access them.

I read yesterday's posting. My writing seemed to have that same chaotic, disjointed quality my thinking did.

And the reality is if they use "shock and awe" statements, we will react and maybe do what they want.

They do use shock and awe tactics, don't they.

I never can figure out whether it's a tactic or whether it's real.

I remember posting about a conversation I had with difficult child daughter just after the beating. I was able to be in that place where I could view her as strong and healthy enough to take her life in a new direction if she chose to. She did not like those responses maybe, and she immediately posted pictures of her face taken by the nurses at the hospital. I hadn't seen them before, and I didn't know they were coming.

She was literally unrecognizable.

The FBI was involved because of both the savagery of the beating, and where it occurred.

They asked for pictures of difficult child daughter from before the beating.

She did not look alive.

Still have a little shocky around that too, now that I am there again.

I remember posting about that. I didn't know why she did that, but when I posted about what happened, the parents here pulled the pieces together for me.

It is one of those things where I know this fact on the right hand, and this other one on the left hand.

And never the twain shall meet.

So shock and awe tactics are real, and our children do employ them.


Glad to hear that that situation doesn't seem to be quite that serious and more about made up drama and your daughter's need for that.

Thank you, SuZir. I think this is where difficult child daughter is taking this, and that she will pursue it. In my coldest of hearts, I think she may be backtracking because the reactions were not what she had hoped. I could be wrong, of course. I sometimes really do wonder what causes me to think like I do. But I do think that way.

I do.

I think difficult child daughter is determined to have her boys back and to be away from exDH and I think that has been her plan all along and that she has done what she had to do to make that happen.

I think exDH may actually be in some danger from difficult child daughter. I think the situation is volatile. I do think these things. One of the things difficult child daughter said last night (just before she told me about the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers posting) was that the thing that hurt her most was that it seemed that I did not believe in her when I told her she needed to reach for her center, to reach for her best, kindest self and to respond from that place.

Eerily certain.

That is how I feel.

Eerily certain I am being played....

Sad.

The husband will keep the boys safe. He is an honorable man. I had discussed the quitting the job thing with him a few months back, in the sense of how that was affecting his self esteem. He never once told me so much as a whisper about the real reason he'd quit.
It was only when difficult child daughter was running and running him down to us on the phone that day that he began shouting out in the background what had happened...and difficult child daughter agreed that it did.

Maybe it is true that together they can pull one another through.

That is what husband says.

Cedar
 

Lil

Well-Known Member
Lithium is working for her, but everything feels "dull." She admits to enjoying aspects of the manic phase of her illness.

I have a former friend, she was the one who introduced Jabber and me, baby sat our son, stood up with me at our wedding. She was bi-polar and we are no longer friends because after her daughter was grown, she went off her medications and went crazy, stole from me, ran off, never apologized. She told me, before, that she hated her medications. That she loved being manic and said it was worth the suicidal depressions. I don't understand that thinking. Our son was on anti-depressants for a very short time. He said he won't take them again, because they made him feel nothing.

Cedar, you have said so much I'd like to respond to...but in the end, all I can say is I'm so sorry you are going through this. You and your daughter and her family are all in my prayers.
 

Albatross

Well-Known Member
Oh Cedar, I think it is not only okay, but perfect and loving to be wary and wise where difficult children are concerned. To be anything less (or more?) is to discount not only the truth, but ourselves. We all know the heavy cost of that. You have nothing to feel bad about for not calling her the first time or for not being ready to talk to her the 2nd time.

Your story about the neighbor and the FB post reminds me of difficult child son. I found out recently that the last couple of weeks of his trip were funded by his ex-girlfriend's mother. Though I knew she had helped him with part of a bus ticket, I did not know she had paid for a round-trip bus ticket simply because he wanted to make it all they way to CA...and traveling money. I also didn't know that she told difficult child not to tell her husband about it. (He and husband and I have been very vocal about her enabling behaviors toward her own child and ours.) And I especially didn't know that the reason she "helped" difficult child this time was because he greatly colored the story of how he ended up 1000 miles from home with no $, very much painting himself as the victim.

I'm glad he's safe and nearby. I'm glad he's clean and sober. I'm hoping the sober him isn't really the kind of person who would not only do the things he did that necessitated us kicking him out, but turn around and find the nearest sympathetic soul he could find, so that he could turn a natural consequence of bad behavior into an expenses paid vacation. I really hope that's not who he is, when he's clean and sober.

I suppose it could be argued that I should feel really awful for letting my child take off with $40 in his pocket and get stranded in the middle of nowhere and expect him to figure it out. But I'm not going to go that way. I'm just really, really mad...and really wary where difficult children are concerned.

I didn't mean to hijack your thread, just wanted to share that with you, which reminded me a bit of the dig your daughter had to make, about how comforting the neighbor was. Those kinds of hurts...man, they hurt on so many levels.
 

Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
I suppose it could be argued that I should feel really awful for letting my child take off with $40 in his pocket and get stranded in the middle of nowhere and expect him to figure it out. But I'm not going to go that way. I'm just really, really mad...and really wary where difficult children are concerned.

"But I'm not going to go that way."

That is the question. How in the world do we know how to do this, how to see it?

The answer is somewhere in staying out of it, like husband says. In not being afraid to face it but in not being responsible for it, either.

I remember when I would be angry about who difficult child daughter or even, difficult child son, seemed to have become. I would be heart-level offended, when I would know they had lied right to my face, or taken things from me or from other people.

I remember the first time I moved to protect someone vulnerable from difficult child daughter and realized I had done so.

And realized what that meant.

I remember the weirdness of knowing difficult child son had done something wrong, something bad that involved theft but was never quite cleared up when we sent him to husband' brother to be straightened up.

Those were such terrible disappointments.

They hurt my heart, to know them.

I am so sorry, Albatross. I pray with all my heart that your son has learned that who he was raised to be is who he is and who he wants to be.

***

It is very much harder to know we are standing where we mean to stand when other parents perform, for our difficult children, the very actions we forbid ourselves from taking.

It is very much harder then, not to question ourselves about what we thought we knew we saw.

But we are here together now, and we can help one another see our ways through it, one incident at a time.

No worries at all about hijacking any of my threads, Albatross. Each of us has insight into different aspects of what is happening with our kids, or of where we refuse to see, or of how we can help one another face those really hard things we don't want to know. Each of us posts in, pulling the thread one way or another and so, we see true things that might never have been exposed, otherwise.

I am deeply grateful for this site, and for each of you.

I laughed so hard about the heading toward the ditch when you read about the FB post!

:O)

Cedar
 

Albatross

Well-Known Member
It is very much harder to know we are standing where we mean to stand when other parents perform, for our difficult children, the very actions we forbid ourselves from taking.

It is very much harder then, not to question ourselves about what we thought we knew we saw.

Yes, that!

I pray with all my heart that your son has learned that who he was raised to be is who he is and who he wants to be.

Thank you, Cedar. That means so much to me. I pray that your daughter finds some perspective emotions and that your precious grandchildren continue to know they are secure and loved.

Well darn it, the Quote Me thingy isn't working anymore, but what you said about the thread being pulled this way and that and it leading to a truth we wouldn't see otherwise, yes, that exactly. I don't know what I would do without this place, I truly don't.
 
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