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<blockquote data-quote="recoveringenabler" data-source="post: 687841" data-attributes="member: 13542"><p>Thank you all.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Thanks Copa. I understand your reasoning with your son. My daughter has an unusual reaction to rules. I certainly would have made "no visitors rule number one" too.......however, how I envision her response is what prevented me from feeling good about allowing her to stay in our home. I can easily see this conversation after the fact.....</p><p></p><p>Me: "There are a number of things missing from the house.</p><p>Daughter: "I don't know anything about that Mom.</p><p>Me: "Did you have anyone over here?"</p><p>Daughter: "No, but so and so dropped by to give me some money he owed me."</p><p>Me: "Did he come in?"</p><p>Daughter: "Well, he asked to use the bathroom, so yeah, of course I let him in for a minute."</p><p>Me: "Were you in the house with him the whole time?"</p><p>Daughter: "Well, I went out on the porch for a cigarette. But I wasn't gone long."</p><p></p><p>The problem with the whole scenario is that "but I wasn't gone long" could be 2 hours. My daughter, bless her heart, has never had a concept of time, nor of the manipulations of others. She is the only person I know who takes a shower for 90 minutes and then actually claims, "I take very short showers." She can show up 3 hours late for dinner. She doesn't seem to have any ability to have insight into her own behaviors. How she sees herself is vastly different from how I, or anyone else sees her. And, one time when she was staying with us, we asked her NOT to have any of her friends come over (they were pretty sketchy guys and we had her then 14 year old teenage daughter living with us.) Literally within one hour there was a guy at the house. When I talked to her about it, her response was, "Mom, he only came over to rub my back because I was in so much pain." To her, our rule didn't matter because she was in pain. For her rules are next to impossible to follow, she withers under them, her perception of rules is like a death to her. Her perception of freedom is that she cannot compromise it under any circumstance.</p><p> She pleaded guilty to a crime she didn't commit because she couldn't wait for 2 weeks in jail, even after her attorney told her she would get off free if she just waited. She refused and set up a four year debacle that was a nightmare for all of us. She still maintains she did the right thing. You cannot argue with that reasoning, it is not logical. All I can do is accept her reality and take care of myself.</p><p></p><p>I also do not believe she is manipulative, I believe she has some cognitive impairment, I believe she thinks in terms of "magical thinking" and I believe she suffers from a number of various mental illnesses where she believes her own irrational thoughts to be the truth. It's taken me a long time to see things this way, because I did believe she did a lot of things on purpose, but as time has gone by, it begins to become obvious that there is something fundamentally very different about her. Once I really understood that, in a way it got easier, because I let go of the anger and made everything about being very, very clear with my boundaries while accepting her for who she is. That's when real change occurred. Since she has refused any kind of professional help and does not believe there is anything the matter, she simply continues her life the way she sees fit. Because I have demanded that she treat me respectfully, along with my belief that she got to a point where she could actually "see" me and appreciate me, along with my own deep changes of protecting myself and taking care of myself, my relationship with my daughter has changed. However, in many ways, she continues to be herself out in the world, making some strides along the way, and yet her basic personality and way of seeing the world, has not changed much. I am very grateful to have gotten this far in my own thinking.</p><p></p><p>She is presently staying at her former residence. She has some good opportunities to move in to a more stable environment because she can see that where she is no longer works. It had to get really bad before she recognized it as necessary to move. I hope she follows through, and it sounds like she will, but until she makes the change, I don't really know how it will evolve. She can talk about doing something for a very long time before any real change happens. It's a bit like my brother, who is schizophrenic. For 40 years he has written me letters, perhaps 3-4 times a year asking for money, which I always send to him. In every single letter, for 40 years, he tells me, "these 2 friends owe me quite a bit of money, and when they pay me back, I will certainly pay you back all the money you've lent to me." He believes that to be the truth.</p><p></p><p>Being surrounded by so much mental illness has changed my life in remarkable ways. I could have easily sunk in to a pit of the non reality that many of my family members reside in because it is crazy making to be around that level of delusion and illusion without questioning your own sanity and your own reality. Which I did for many years. With the support of many excellent therapists, I learned to separate myself from all of it. And, my daughter in particular forced me to address what acceptance, forgiveness, compassion and detachment really mean for me. It's been a very difficult journey, however I've come out the other side with a deep sense of love for my family and what they've taught me about myself. In the end, it's been a gift. I never would have believed I could say that, it's been very painful.....but it is what it is and acceptance has given me peace.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="recoveringenabler, post: 687841, member: 13542"] Thank you all. Thanks Copa. I understand your reasoning with your son. My daughter has an unusual reaction to rules. I certainly would have made "no visitors rule number one" too.......however, how I envision her response is what prevented me from feeling good about allowing her to stay in our home. I can easily see this conversation after the fact..... Me: "There are a number of things missing from the house. Daughter: "I don't know anything about that Mom. Me: "Did you have anyone over here?" Daughter: "No, but so and so dropped by to give me some money he owed me." Me: "Did he come in?" Daughter: "Well, he asked to use the bathroom, so yeah, of course I let him in for a minute." Me: "Were you in the house with him the whole time?" Daughter: "Well, I went out on the porch for a cigarette. But I wasn't gone long." The problem with the whole scenario is that "but I wasn't gone long" could be 2 hours. My daughter, bless her heart, has never had a concept of time, nor of the manipulations of others. She is the only person I know who takes a shower for 90 minutes and then actually claims, "I take very short showers." She can show up 3 hours late for dinner. She doesn't seem to have any ability to have insight into her own behaviors. How she sees herself is vastly different from how I, or anyone else sees her. And, one time when she was staying with us, we asked her NOT to have any of her friends come over (they were pretty sketchy guys and we had her then 14 year old teenage daughter living with us.) Literally within one hour there was a guy at the house. When I talked to her about it, her response was, "Mom, he only came over to rub my back because I was in so much pain." To her, our rule didn't matter because she was in pain. For her rules are next to impossible to follow, she withers under them, her perception of rules is like a death to her. Her perception of freedom is that she cannot compromise it under any circumstance. She pleaded guilty to a crime she didn't commit because she couldn't wait for 2 weeks in jail, even after her attorney told her she would get off free if she just waited. She refused and set up a four year debacle that was a nightmare for all of us. She still maintains she did the right thing. You cannot argue with that reasoning, it is not logical. All I can do is accept her reality and take care of myself. I also do not believe she is manipulative, I believe she has some cognitive impairment, I believe she thinks in terms of "magical thinking" and I believe she suffers from a number of various mental illnesses where she believes her own irrational thoughts to be the truth. It's taken me a long time to see things this way, because I did believe she did a lot of things on purpose, but as time has gone by, it begins to become obvious that there is something fundamentally very different about her. Once I really understood that, in a way it got easier, because I let go of the anger and made everything about being very, very clear with my boundaries while accepting her for who she is. That's when real change occurred. Since she has refused any kind of professional help and does not believe there is anything the matter, she simply continues her life the way she sees fit. Because I have demanded that she treat me respectfully, along with my belief that she got to a point where she could actually "see" me and appreciate me, along with my own deep changes of protecting myself and taking care of myself, my relationship with my daughter has changed. However, in many ways, she continues to be herself out in the world, making some strides along the way, and yet her basic personality and way of seeing the world, has not changed much. I am very grateful to have gotten this far in my own thinking. She is presently staying at her former residence. She has some good opportunities to move in to a more stable environment because she can see that where she is no longer works. It had to get really bad before she recognized it as necessary to move. I hope she follows through, and it sounds like she will, but until she makes the change, I don't really know how it will evolve. She can talk about doing something for a very long time before any real change happens. It's a bit like my brother, who is schizophrenic. For 40 years he has written me letters, perhaps 3-4 times a year asking for money, which I always send to him. In every single letter, for 40 years, he tells me, "these 2 friends owe me quite a bit of money, and when they pay me back, I will certainly pay you back all the money you've lent to me." He believes that to be the truth. Being surrounded by so much mental illness has changed my life in remarkable ways. I could have easily sunk in to a pit of the non reality that many of my family members reside in because it is crazy making to be around that level of delusion and illusion without questioning your own sanity and your own reality. Which I did for many years. With the support of many excellent therapists, I learned to separate myself from all of it. And, my daughter in particular forced me to address what acceptance, forgiveness, compassion and detachment really mean for me. It's been a very difficult journey, however I've come out the other side with a deep sense of love for my family and what they've taught me about myself. In the end, it's been a gift. I never would have believed I could say that, it's been very painful.....but it is what it is and acceptance has given me peace. [/QUOTE]
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