Grandchildren

[InnerSpin]

Writing this down feels like such a massive task I hardly know where to begin, so I’ll try to keep to the facts and relevant info. My daughter is 38. She has 3 children, boy 16, girl 9 and a baby girl of 8 months. They are all by the same father although their relationship has always been extremely volatile. They have had periods when they live together, but mostly it has been apart.

The history, as you can imagine, bears all the familiar hallmarks including drugs, drinking, police intervention, rages and tantrums and on and on. But now I feel things are coming to a head because of my grandchildren. The 16 year old boy has come to live with me of his own accord and wants nothing to do with his mother. Recently the 9 year old girl has also chosen to spend every minute she can with me (I don’t run their mum down or encourage bad feelings).

The children are removing themselves from a place of vicious arguments and drinking.

A couple of weeks ago my daughter got a call from the school as they were worried about my grandson who had been talking about suicide (he came to me shortly after this and now says he feels a lot better).

Through the school or possibly the doctor’s, my daughter got a call from Child Services re my grandson. My daughter immediately got on the phone to me screaming abuse because she thought it was I who had reported her.

I’m trying to keep this short, but it’s hard. I have always supported her and encouraged her to get help. After a major episode she usually agrees she has a problem, but within a couple of days the ‘problem’ is everyone else, and so it all goes round in a circle. I did get her as far as an initial consultation with a psychiatric nurse once, but she presented calm, logical and at most a ‘little stressed’. They did write to her to invite her to make a further appointment, which she never did.

I now feel I personally am changing the way I deal with my daughter. I need to put my grandchildren first. Of course I want my daughter to be well and for the children to be with their mother, but while she won’t recognise the damage she’s doing or get help, she is leaving me with very little choice.

Has anyone else ever gone down the official route of fostering their grandchildren because of this problem? I can’t see any other way forward.  I am in the UK. Your comments would be extremely welcome.

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[TopsyTurvy]

Hi InnerSpin. Thank you for being a safe haven for your grandchildren. We all know how hard it is for us, as adults, to deal with the drama and chaos that always seem to surround our loved ones with BPD. We come to this site for support and to learn coping skills to deal with this awful disorder. We try to use the tools we have learned here. And yet, even with all our knowledge it is hard to hold onto our own sanity and inner peace when someone we love is raging and out of control. If it is that difficult for us, I can not imagine how hard it must be for children who don't understand or have the coping skills to live in a house filled with turmoil. I don't blame them for wanting to remove themselves from the situation.

I am glad that you are available to be a guiding force in their lives.  It sounds like they need you, especially the 16 yr old. You say he is living with you. Did your daughter willingly allow him to move in? Is he receiving any type of counseling? Sounds like he could benefit from it, especially if he is talking about suicide.

I know how hard it is to love our child but believe we have to step in for the welfare of our grandchildren. I have been raising my 5 year old grandson for the past 3 years (except for a brief 2 month span when she got angry at me and moved him in with a man she knew for 2 weeks). I don't have legal custody but have recently hired a lawyer so I am just starting down that path. It's a heartbreaking situation to be in. Like you, I want my gs to be with his mom but sometimes it just can't be that way. Hang in there and keep us posted. I know there are many grandparents in a situation similar to yours.

[InnerSpin]

Thank you, Topsy, for taking the time to reply.

The 16 year old came of his own accord. There was no discussion between him and his mum or me and his mum about it. Daughter just wails 'I do everything for him, yet he treats me like s***. He's a lazy little s***.'

She totally doesn't get the life she exposes him to, constant arguing, drinking and instability that drives him into a solitary X-box world or in his bed with the covers pulled over his head. He will no longer communicate with his mother at all. She thinks this is 'so unfair'.

The 9 year old girl (the most delightful, pretty, clever and caring little soul you could meet) loves her mum, but despises her dad. She is also now insisting on staying with me at least until 'daddy's moved out and mummy stops drinking'.

My daughter does love her kids, yet lives in a world where 'everyone hates her, everyone has an agenda'. Right now I'm the most evil mother that ever walked the earth (couple of weeks ago I was the most wonderful!) She uses 9 year old as an emotional crutch.

My dilemma is, should I now be proactive regarding the children, or wait until the next crisis happens? Has anyone gone down the route of Child Services against the wishes of the mother. Would they also take the baby off her? She does look after the baby well despite her wine consumption and baby seems happy enough at present, but I don't know how it all works.

[qcarolr]

Hi InnerSpin and welcome to our family of parents. There a quite a few of us working out the best ways to give support to our grandkids in their chaotic lives with BPD parent(s). How much to get involved is a very complex decision and the legal aspects differ from place to place. I am in USA and each state has their own laws. I am not familiar with how the UK system works.

For myself, it has been a real struggle to balance the needs of my BPDDD28 and my gkids. My DD does indeed love her 2 kids deeply, and hold so much grief and loss because she has never been able to be consistently in their lives. She cycles through periods of blaming me for all the losses in her life, including her kids. She has been violently raging in our home in front of her daughter, yet does not now understand why her daughter wants no contact with her.

My gd8 (9 this month) has always lived in our home - we got legal custody the year she turned 1 with the help of the daddy. We were pursuing it through a lawyer and advocate and DD was going to fight us all the way. The daddy got out of jail and convinced her they could not win in court. They signed a voluntary stipulation giving us "parental responsibilities" with each of them having "visitation rights". It was intended to be temporary when we filed the motion (for one year, then back to court to request permanent order). The judge, who had our original custody petition filing, made it a permanent order. This has caused endless anger from DD and feeds many of her rages. Each time she gets in a new relationship her 'happy family fantasy' takes over until the r/s again crumbles.

Our gs is now 6. We chose to remain detached from this situation - a different dad, different patterns of dysfunction. He was in foster care at 5 months with weekly visitation from parents, monthly visit with gd (I went with her) until he was 18 months. Took way too long to settle. He was adopted by the foster parents and appears very happy on the mom's Facebook page. I have limited contact - they moved to a different state and give no details to him about his bio family. He knows he is adopted.

I have needed to build a support network for myself in order to really get that gd has to come first. I have had to learn to tolerate the pain for my DD, and accept that I cannot fix this. All I can do is work to heal my r/s with my DD and encourage her with opportunities that might help rebuild her r/s with her daughter. My gd is in therapy working through many issues around her mom now that DD is no longer in our home or day to day lives.

Your gkids need you very much. I pray for you to find the courage, strength, support and knowledge needed to make the best choices for your gkids. Calling child services has given me resources to the best interests of the gkids. Please let us know how things are going for you.

qcr

[InnerSpin]

Thank you, qcarolr,

Tonight brought a new crisis.

9 year old is a member of a theatrical group. They were giving a performance today in the West End. I loosely agreed that 9 year old would stay with her parents tonight as they were not due to get back until 10.30pm (no chance for drinking etc and school first thing in the morning) so I felt safe with that. But, at 10.30 BOTH children arrived back at mine. My daughter had been drinking at the event and managed to embarrass the kids. They both expressed they did not want to stay with her. A little later I got a call from the dad asking if he could also stay at mine as daughter had thrown a hot cup of tea at his face. Then I got the inevitable phone calls - it wasn't her fault - she was sober - he had been nasty etc etc. I stopped answering calls once I established the baby was ok. So it goes on. I suppose I am waiting for Child Services to contact me as I still can't bring myself to ring them. This is so hard.

BTW I am so sorry for what you have been through and continue to go through. It must be heartbreaking to know you have a little grandson out there who has been adopted away from his family through no fault of his own. Mental illness is just so awful.

[qcarolr]

InnerSpin - what a difficult thing for your entire family.

Have you read through any of the tools on the right sidebar? There is a lot of good stuff here that has helped me over time to communicate better with my Dd28. Our relationship, though still rocky, is better. And as I have allowed myself to step back and let the full consequences of her choices fall onto her shoulders (while still loving her and protecting my gd) she has started to do some self-reflection. The next step, just maybe, will be for her to acknowledge her part in the tragedies of her life. Only then will she be able to make changes to her patterns -- ie. accepting the need for treatments.

What is keeping you from contacting Child Services? Fear the children will be taken to strangers? Fear of your D's reactions? Fear of care for the baby?  These are just my guesses.

My DD28 is adopted - at 3 weeks of age. I do have great compassion for the desires of my gs's adoptive parents. They have been the best that could have happened with him. The family situation was very complex and it would have been difficult for my dh and I to provide for his needs. The court was looking for adoption, not legal custody. There are always difficulties in each of the options available. In this case, my gs is in the best place he can be.

I totally agree - mental illness is awful. Keep us updated.

qcr

[peaceplease]

InnerSpin,

  I think it is awesome for you to provide a stable environment for your grandchildren. I belong to the grandparents club, too.  I have a seven year old grandson.  My daughter with UPBD is no longer with her exbf, the father of my grandson.    They broke up for good a few years ago.  I believe the father is NPD.  I am so happy that my grandson can come here when things are not so good with my daughter.

Once upon a time, I wanted to pursue custody of my grandson.   His father would not permit it, anyways.  He has joint custody with my daughter. 50/50  I usually had my grandson most of the time when it was my daughter's week, anyways.  I decided that I would make myself available whenever needed for my grandson.

I am from the States, and do not know much about custody matters in UK.  

Oh my, the father wanted to stay with you, too?  Sounds like it was a rough evening for all!  

I am sorry about your grandson and his feeling suicidal.  Is he in counseling now?  I would imagine the school contacted children's services after talking with your grandson.  If he shared that his home life was in trouble, I think they felt a call to Children's Services was warranted.  That is not necessarily a bad thing, as qcr mentioned that she was given good resources through them.

I know that Children Services here like to place children with relatives if they want them out of parent's home for awhile.

Please keep us updated.

peaceplease

[pessim-optimist]

Hello InnerSpin!



I am also one of the grandparents here, and I want to join in welcoming you. I am sorry you are going through this dilemma of wanting to be there for your grandkids and also not wanting to hurt your daughter... .

Our situation is similar but different in that my step-daughter is married to her husband, no alcohol or drug abuse and that makes their situation somewhat stable. But the kids have been through a lot anyways. It's heart-breaking at times... .

My dilemma is, should I now be proactive regarding the children, or wait until the next crisis happens? Has anyone gone down the route of Child Services against the wishes of the mother. Would they also take the baby off her? She does look after the baby well despite her wine consumption and baby seems happy enough at present, but I don't know how it all works.

Do you think you could do some research on how this works in the UK? How about talking to some professionals who handle these kind of cases and know how the Child Services operate?

If I were in your situation, I would want to know how this works and what to expect before I would get the authorities involved... .

What do you think?

I am so sorry about last night... . let us know how it went, ok? Did the daddy end up staying over night? How is your relationship with him?

[InnerSpin]

Thank you all so much for replying and caring.

The father did end up sleeping on my couch. He is also an unsavoury character, never been there much for the kids. He has a partiality for cocaine although I don't know if he's doing it now or not. Only works on and off. I only had him here because my daughter threw a mug of hot tea at his face. I needed to defuse the situation because there's an 8 month old baby involved.

My daughter has been on the phone proclaiming her innocence, insisting she was not drunk and that they were all having a laugh in the car on the way home (she doesn't realise that in her first stage of 'drunk' she acts and talks hyper with a constant 'manic' laugh). She claims he had been in a mood all day because he couldn't drink. After the 16 & 9 year old were dropped off at mine, she said the dad started being verbally abusive, calling her names. This I don't doubt. She just can't see how her drinking is affecting the kids. She believes it is so unfair she is pilloried for merely 'enjoying herself'. When I try to point out that the children are not happy and voting with their feet, she attacks me saying I'm just another one against her etc etc.

I have read at length the coping strategies and doing my best not be drawn into the drama too much. My focus of attention has now automatically shifted to the children because they are reaching out, and I see that in the past I have always enabled my daughter, hoping that if I can keep her happy, she will keep the children happy. Sadly, it doesn't work like that.

[qcarolr]

My focus of attention has now automatically shifted to the children because they are reaching out, and I see that in the past I have always enabled my daughter, hoping that if I can keep her happy, she will keep the children happy. Sadly, it doesn't work like that.

I have deeply loved my daughter first. This makes stepping away from old patterns of expressing that love so difficult. It takes much practice with all in my life using the new skills and tools to be able to be more consistent in my relationship with DD28. There has been great suffering in my heart from the conflicts of a deep desire to nurture a loving r/s between DD and gd with the great need to protect gd from the dysfunction of her mom. It has taken the influence of others in my life, consistently applied, to move me. I have to forgive myself and know that I do the best I can each day. I am so grateful for the many people in my gd's life that support her. Dh, neighbors, teachers, therapists... .

It takes a community.

qcr

[qcarolr]

The other thing that these parenting books/models/strategies - for me they match with the tools at the right for us to use with our BPDkids - esp. my adult DD. I wish I had known about all these when DD was very young. Maybe things would be easier for her now.

qcr

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[InnerSpin]

Thank you again, Carol. I have been studying BPD for some years now. My daughter flatly refuses the problems come from within herself, except in times of crisis when she has caused havoc she might admit there's something wrong. The trouble is, she never carries through. And so it goes.

[pessim-optimist]

My daughter flatly refuses the problems come from within herself, except in times of crisis when she has caused havoc she might admit there's something wrong. The trouble is, she never carries through. And so it goes.

That seems to be the typical pattern for the high-functioning pwBPD... .

It is sad and disheartening at times... . We have a couple of videos here to the right (each almost an hour long) ---->

that deal with how we can help our loved ones seek help.

The information is in the Lesson #5; here is the information and the links, I think it might help you in this situation:

VIDEO: Helping your loved one seek professional treatment

According to Dr. Xavier Amador, professor in Clinical Psychology at Columbia University, denial is a powerful deterant to recovery in mental illness. What is often thought to be immaturity, stubbornness, and defensiveness is a much more complex and difficult problem.  Empathy with the patient's frustrations and even the patients delusional beliefs is also important, remarked Amador, who said that the phrase "I understand how you feel" can make a world of difference. The most difficult thing for family members to do in building a trusting relationship, he said, is to restrict discussion only to the problems that the person with mental illness perceives as problems - not to try to convince them of others. View this video overview.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdVj8gXsETs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppculi-Os2g

[InnerSpin]

Thank you for your responses. I am listening.

Grandson (16) and grand-daughter (9) are still with me. Grandson has no intentions of going back, yet grand-daughter, I feel, is torn between the love she feels for her mother and the reality of life living with her.

Today GD was due to attend a peer birthday party, so I dropped her off at ‘home’  a couple of hours beforehand. She also spent an hour or so with her parents before coming back to me. She seemed a little muted. I gently asked her if she was worried about anything and that, if so, she was safe to tell me as it would be our secret. She then divulged that her mum had said, ‘You either tell me when you’re coming back, or I will move away with (the baby).’

I am so angry at my daughter. My GD is being placed in an impossible situation. I have done my best to assure my GD that mummy will NOT move away with (the baby) and that this is not a competition about who ‘gets’ her. My daughter also told GD that I don’t love her anymore (daughter). I have reiterated that I do indeed love her mum, but changes need to happen. This poor little soul should not have to be dealing with this mess.

[mom2bpd]

 Nice to meet u. I'm sorry u r being put in this impossible position by your D.  I do understand though because I've received jealous remarks thru my granddaughte that her mother, my uBPDD, has said that were totally inappropriate for a 6 yr old.  She told my GD that it wasn't right for me to always have a bed for her when I didn't always have one for her mother, my uBPD! I've found my uBPDD to be remarkably jealous of her own daughter.

Best of luck in this difficult situation. I think u r doing very well managing the land mines a BPD can lay down for u.

[InnerSpin]

Thank you mom2. Its a total nightmare.

[qcarolr]

Innerspring - yes, it is a nightmare. It feels like your child desires to be treated the same as our gchild -- be the center of attention -- all the while believing that they are able to be a 'good mommy'. My BPDDD28 played this game with herself and our family for a long time. My gd will be 9 next week. She has always lived with us, often with her mom here along with the current bf.

My DD has been out of our home since last Sept - either in jail or trying to do probation. DD does not understand why gd wants no contact with her. Some days I also struggle with the completeness of gd's detachement. The T that works with gd holds me accountable to not allow DD back into our home. She said they are beginning work on 'issues gd has with her mom'. It is only safe to work through this stuff if DD is not living with us. Gd needs these 'tools' to manage when her mom is there, but they do interfere with her growth and peace. This really got my attention.

Another area for me is that I still desire to be connected with my DD, even though out of our home (when she is not in jail). I am in confict, loving both 'my girls' and having to do this apart. My 'happy family fantasy' is pretty much in tatters. Most likely this is a good thing.

Is there a counselor to T that could help your gd work through the conflicts she is experiencing? Maybe this could support you as well. There is nothing fair about the place your D is putting her little girl in.

qcr

[peaceplease]

Innerspin,

It is heartbreaking what damage they can do to their little ones.  I know that my daughter will say some mean things in front of my grandson when she is in rage mode.  I really see my daughter as another child at times.  She is stuck in adolescence.  (most of the time)

My gs loves his mom, and is loyal to her. I know that it really bothers him when he rages.  She was on a loud rant, today.  He went outside with tears in his eyes.  Then, this afternoon, when his mom came to get him, he gives her a hug, and tells me to come over for a group hug.

All we can do is be there for our grandchildren, and try our best with damage control.   

peaceplease