I am not sure I can cope with much more of this...daughter issues

guitaristmom

New Member
I wrote my daughter a very carefully worded letter about how I feel she has thrown me under the bus in our relationship. My husband has been saddled with her $100,000 student loan as she has defaulted. Actually, she doesn't make payments. He's made them all.

Tonight I read a letter that she wrote me, where she said some things that were outright delusional:

1) regarding her rape, that I felt she deserved to get raped.
2) that she wanted to get into a good school and I told her she didn't have what it took.
3. That she starved and didn't have lunch during high school because I didn't make it for her.
4. That she didn't have school supplies because I didn't buy them (I recall buying supplies every Fall and spending close to $100 on these items)

The situation with lunches? I told her that she should prepare her own sandwiches. I thought it was a way to assert a sense of independence.

I am just sitting here stunned by this letter I got from her. Where did this come from? There have been other lies. That one of us (her dad or i) threw her down the stairs. We never did such a thing.

Chronic, blatant lies.

I don't want to get any more emails from this person that took over my little girl. She is overlooking the thousands we spent on her care, the times I dropped whatever I was doing at a drop of a hat because she was having an emergency. I remember being on the highway to get to an appointment at work and she needed her mom, was having yet another situation, so aborting work to put her in front of all things, because I thought that is what a good mom does, puts her kids first.

The letter is horrible. I would post it here but I am not sure I am allowed to. I will post an excerpt about the car we have. We had to get it out of impound because unbeknownst to us, she was driving it on a suspended license and got caught. The $275 my husband paid to get it taken out of impound was not paid by her.

here's her words. I had to wonder about the "we bought it" as she has not paid a penny on the car as she promised to and she had it for a year before it got impounded. My husband made all the payments. those days are over. She writes:

Keep the car. I'm going to call today to try and get the loan transferred but honestly I know that they're not gonna do it. We bought it WAY under blue book value anyway, if you just put a little into the cosmetic stuff on the front you'll probably pull a profit off of selling the thing. However, I need everything back that was inside of it. Most of it was trash (I was so ##### busy, sorry) but there are a few things I want in there. I'm going to go to one of these in-house financing places and get a car with a 30% interest rate or something ridiculous. But I will be thrilled to do it, because that's one less thing that you can control me with.

************************

Okay sharing something else she wrote:

Carrying (baby) for 9 months, giving birth to her, watching her grow and sleep in my arms, has cemented in my brain now what mom really means. And despite it all, I know you love me, and you tried so hard to be a good mom. Years ago I forgave you for all of this, which is why I stopped raging back. But forgiveness without caution is foolishness. And though you have gotten much better over the years, (i think the apnea was partly to blame), I have no faith in God, dad, or you, that you will ever change and stop threatening my daughter and I when things don't go your way. And right now I am crying so hard mom. Because I love you so much. But I have to protect my family from you.
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She contradicts herself. I tried so hard to a good mom. yes. But I made some tragic mistakes of enabling her and this self entitlement she has. The part about threatening the baby? I love the baby. I gave her several chances to rectify the situation of mold growing in the baby's bottles. She would ask me to come over to help with housecleaning and it would take me 2 hours to do the dishes. The baby bottles were full of disgusting mold. After warning her three times, I did call CPS to investigate. I warned her I was going to do this based on the bottles and the presence of drugs in the home. Around the computer of her boyfriend's a silver powdery substance in a bag and a sharp knife (to draw lines?). Open smoking of pot in front of the baby. reporting one's daughter is the worst think that you can do, but sometimes there are no other choices. I gave her warning.

So we are selling her car. We are also speaking to an attorney to disown her from the will. THere's so much I haven't shared. Being beat up by my own daughter with closed fists. The rage. What my therapist calls...projection. I became the dumping bag for all of her problems but was only a phone call away when she needed to borrow money or spend money on her for lunch.

We are exhausted. I can't emotionally deal with my daughter any longer. We are cutting her off.
 

Childofmine

one day at a time
Guitaristmom, this is a good day for you. This is a hard day, but it is a good day. You are finally done. God bless you and God bless your daughter. I am so sorry for the pain and suffering you have endured, and she is enduring too.

Sometimes there is no good outcome. I can hear your love and your weariness in your words above.

The person who has taken over your daughter is addiction. It is a 40-foot-tall monster that mows down everything---everything and everybody---in its path. It takes no prisoners. It is pure evil, I have come to believe.

It is residing in your daughter and in my son.

Until THEY decide to fight the monster and it will be the fight of their lives---every single day for the rest of their lives, there is no redemption.

I wish there was something, anything we could do but there is not. We have tried it all and more.

I remember the day I went to my counselor of some 10 years---she counseled my husband and myself both in marriage counseling and I went to her alone---I went to her and said: I'm done. I can't do this anymore. I was talking about my marriage of 29 years and the fact that I had tried and tried and tried and I was alone in the marriage and worse, I was starting to choke every time we were in the room together. I truly stayed in the marriage way too long but I kept thinking I could try hard enough to fix things. I tried for 10 long years. Finally, there is nothing left, no reserves at all.

She said: Oh, I just hate that because you two are such good people.

I said: What would you have me try that I have not tried many many times before? Tell me and I will try it.

There was a long long silence.

She had no answer for me.

This counselor---as good as she was---admitted to me later that she knew little about addiction. Today, I can see that, looking back. And I have had to get over the anger and resentment I felt toward her---the actual betrayal I felt---because she can't know what she doesn't know, and when we started together neither of us had any idea we were dealing with alcoholism.

Addiction is cunning and baffling and insidious. It is like an evil snake that slithers throughout a relationship, waiting to strike and bite and damage and kill. And it is ringed with denial.

We can't win against it. All we can finally do is turn that energy and attention onto ourselves and try to heal from it all and through that healing, we will discover an amazing gift---becoming much better human beings because if it. It is true fruit from the poisonous tree.

Blessings on you today guitarmom. You are a warrior. I hope you can now focus on having a great life regardless.
 

recoveringenabler

Well-Known Member
Staff member
I am so sorry, this stuff just takes us out. I think you've made the right decision, you've reached your own critical mass and when we do that, we make serious changes. I've reached it too. Once you flip to the other side and get over your anger at your daughter and yourself (for all you've done for her), and realize that this is what is, you'll begin the road to acceptance and you'll begin to heal from this trauma.

What has taken over our adult kids is a terrible thing, whether it is addiction, mental illness, a conduct disorder, whatever it is, they are not our children anymore. It usually takes us quite awhile to come to grips with that. However, you seem to be headed in the direction most of us find ourselves headed in, detachment and acceptance.

Try to place the focus on you and your husband now. Be so kind to yourselves as you move ahead in your lives. Do nourishing things for yourself. You've just left a war zone and you will need to rest and recuperate. Wishing you peace. Keep posting it helps. We're glad you're here.
 

witzend

Well-Known Member
First - {{{{{{{big hugs}}}}}}}}

I don't like to put anything in writing to the difficult child's (this includes adult difficult child's in my family) that might be turned against me. This limits my written communications with them to something along the lines of "Happy Birthday. I hope that are well. Love Mom"; or "I'm sorry for your loss. I hope that you will be well. Love Witzend". I worry that even that is something that can be turned against me with that group. If they can figure a way to turn it against me, I guarantee you that they will show the letter (card, note, etc.) to everyone we know as well as everyone who might be someone they can take advantage of with a blow-by-blow of "what Witzend really meant when she said that - do you see how disadvantaged I am?" This is exactly what I see in your daughter's letter to you.

I know that this isn't helpful for what your daughter wrote to you. I hope that it is helpful to avoid another such letter from her. Never ever write her an "honest letter about how you feel" again. If you can't explain it to her verbally because she can twist your words on the fly, you can't explain it to her in writing either.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
I'm so sorry your daughter has done this to you. My son whom we adopted at age six did something similar to us and he is not a drug user. Sometimes our adult children have personality disorders, such as antisocial, narcissistic, and borderline and reality to them can be skewed. In their minds, the world screwed them and we are #1 on their lists and reality doesn't matter. Many adults with personality disorders also substance abuse, which make it doubly awful. At any rate, you KNOW your reality and hers. If she told you, with gusto, that you have red hair and she hates red hair and your hair is black, would it bother you or puzzle you? It's the same thing. She is insisting things happened that didn't. That is called gaslighting. It is an attempt to make YOU think that YOUR memories are wrong and that you are a horrible person. My son told his wife I made him pay for everything, even household bills, even as a child (shrug). What do you do with that sort of lie? She believes it. I haven't seen him for six or seven years. If that is his personality now then I don't need him in my life. I'm afraid to have him in my life. There is a line anyone can cross and for me he crossed this line.

Often these adult kids bring out their top ammo after we have refused to give them money. THAT makes them go ballistic. Or if we set a reasonable boundary.

Funny, none of my other kids remember this supposed abuse of making a little boy, who had no money, pay all of our household bills. Do your other children, your spouse, your other family and friends remember what your daughter said you did? Of course not. You didn't do them.

At some point in time, and I say this with sadness, in order for us to live peacefully and in happiness we may have to let go of somebody we love very much, and often it is because of either extreme drug abuse or a personality disorder, which is only treatable if the person acknowledges the problem and wants to change. Most people with personality disorders think it is everyone else's fault and have no interest in changing. I think a large percentage of our difficult children here have secondary personality disorders. This isn't true of all of them, but your daughter may be one.

At any rate, I feel you are making a decision of survival. This is a stranger, like my son turned into a stranger. A cold-hearted, mean stranger who wants to hurt you and me.

I hope you can find some peace with your decision. It took me some therapy, but I am now good with his decision to leave our family. I would not know what to say to him if he came back since he was so vile last time we spoke and since he would not come back except to gloat and puff up his chest and tell us what we are doing wrong and what we did wrong. I like my family the way it is now. I hope you seek therapy while you go through this.

We are here for you. We are on call 24/7 and 365 days a year. Hugs for your poor hurting mommy heart.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
OH, yes, by the way (how could I forget this?) you were right to call CPS. If I saw that in my daughter's house (she just gave birth to a baby) I would have to turn her in also or I'd never forgive myself if anything happened to that precious baby. YOu did right by your grandbaby. You did a very brave thing. It is soooooooooo hard to turn in our children.

I agree with Witz about letters. Don't put anything down on paper. Our disturbed adult children read our love the wrong way, twist them and ridicule them, but it doesn't move their hearts and, yes, they can and often will use our own words against us.Many of our kids, either because of addiction or because of addiction plus personality disorders, have no ability to feel empathy for others so a letter from your heart about your feelings is a waste of time. They only care about their feelings, not ours. Go back to before your daughter started the drugs. If she has always been a self-centered, me-centric, selfish person...it is not only drugs, it is probably a character disturbance as well. And your letter, which was so heartfelt I'm sure, could not touch her.
 
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