Hello~ This is my story

My 16 year old daughter was diagnosed as having "borderline personality disorder". We have dealt with years of lies and manipulation. She craves attention, both positive and negative, constantly, and from everyone.

The Background:

Looking back the signs have been there for a very long time. I can pinpoint "red flags" from as early as 4-5 years old. Of course at the time I did not know. Her father and I are divorced. We fought- a lot. Both my daughter and her brother (who is 16 months older) spent a lot of time at Grandma's house. We were young parents, we didn't know how to be parents. Her brother had severe speech and learning issues, which made her have even less attention. Their father and I split up several times, the most notable when she was 1 (1999) for 6 months, and again when she was 4 (2002) for a year, after which we reconciled and were together for about a year and then separated for good and ultimately divorced. During the separation in 2002 the children were bounced around one week with me, one week with him. He had a live in girlfriend at the time, and when they were with them they lived in a tiny 12 ft trailer in the backyard of his parents house. I met my current husband in 2005, and had another baby in 2006, making the only daughter now a "middle child". With a son who was still struggling terribly in school and now starting "melt downs" (he would eventually be diagnosed as bi-polar with rapid cycling), and a new baby she seemed to "get lost" more. As I look back I admit I inadvertently overlooked behaviors I should not have. She would lie, I wrote it off as normal childish behavior. She would sneak out and take off on her bicycle, my mother (who lived with us for a time) would have to walk the neighborhood to see who's house her bike was at. To my daughter "everyone was her friend".

When it all started to fall apart:

When she was 12 she began to be interested in video games, in particular online mulitplayers (Halo). I didn't think much about letting her play online. I thought it was mostly kids about her age hanging out and playing. We always had 1 rule, no personal information was to be given out. The more she played the more we noticed she was becoming obsessed. She had a boy she met online (Gage) and seemed to be too friendly with. We started to check things out. We were shocked. Not only had she broken the "no personal information" rule, we found it was not one boy, but many, many boys that she had befriended and added to facebook. Lots of "I love you, you are the only one that I want to be with" to several different boys. She had given out her cell phone number to these boys. They started calling all hours, texting all hours. We would be in bed and hear her phone going off in the next room at 2 a.m., even on school nights. We put a new rule into effect, at bed time her phone turns off. It didn't stop. We took it futher, at bedtime the phone had to come into our room. She would always "forget". Her stepdad and I would have to go into her room and find the phone (she usually had it stashed in her pillow or underneath her). This was a hard feat considering she slept in a top bunk above her younger sister. Some nights she had to be woken to find out where it was hidden. I started snooping on her facebook messages. I found many inappropriate conversations of sexual nature. I also found some that told these boys that I starved her, that I beat her. Another said that she was dying and I refused to take her to the doctor (she had a nose bleed). One boy said that as soon as he could drive, he would come and get her (he lived in the neighboring state of Kentucky).

At school she had begun hanging out with a couple of new friends as school. She told me that they had "special meetings" because one of them had an abusive druggie dad, and the other is sexually abused by her step-dad. Another girl at school had taken to bullying her (she said laughing at her and throwing gum in her hair). She would come home saying that she had been shoved into lockers, or her lockers had been shut on her head etc.

The beginning of the end was the day we found out she had a new boyfriend. Her stepdad questioned her about the new boy. Normal questions, what was his name, where is he from, since people were already offering to come "save her". She yelled at him "I don't feel comfortable with you asking these questions". Two days later she told her dad that her step dad "touched her" and he moved her out.

Investigation Begins:

Her father called me and said "we have a problem", and proceeds to tell me her claims of abuse. Of course I am hysterical, I jump in the car and immediately go to see her at his house. My daughter wouldn't look at me. She held her father's hand the entire time and kept telling him that I wouldn't believe her. I told her to give me a chance, tell me what happened. She explained that one night when her stomach and side was hurting that he grazed her boob when he checked her side for fever, and that you "don't check for fever in your side". I knew that sounded off. I also remembered that not so distant night. She had been having stomach pains (as she often did, even though the Dr. could never find anything). He had checked her side to see if it had a localized fever. I was in the room, I was 3 feet from both of them. She slept on the couch that night because she said she hurt too much to get in her bunk bed. She kept her phone and continued to text her step dad if she needed anything. I went over that night with her. Told her I was there, and asked if she really thought he was touching her like that. She yelled "I told you she wouldn't believe me". I was heartbroken. I left that night confused and not knowing what was going to happen to the world that I knew. As her father and I live in neighboring towns, but different states she was still going to school in the district where we live. She would ride the bus to the stop at the end of our street, where her dad would pick her up. She would tell her friends that if she saw either me or her step dad out that she would run to their house.

Her father let me know that CPS had interviewed her. About a week past and since I still had not heard from CPS I called them. The caseworker had all of us (myself, my husband, and both of the remaining children in my care) come in to talk. She talked to us all together, and then had the kids leave and talked to just me and my husband. She informed us that the investigation would take about 45 days and said she would be in contact to do a home visit. About 45 days later I got a phone call from her that she was closing the case as unsubstantiated and that her recommendation was that my daughter was to stay with her father and that she was not to be alone with her stepfather.

Her Dad gets clued in:

In her new life at her dads she had no restrictions. She was the "victim" and got whatever she wanted. I tried to clue her dad in to what we had been dealing with, and slowing they began to see. She started lying there too. Even little petty things like if she ate a peanut butter sandwich, she would lie and defend her lie for hours. They began to track her online history. The multiple boyfriends grew and began to include girlfriends. She was "sexting" with a lot of them and exchanging nude vulgar pictures with them over facebook. She even created a second and third facebook account. New lies included her dad starving her. Her stepbrother "climbing in bed with her" and telling her "she is pretty". She told one boy that she was from England and her parents moved her to West Virginia. This boy lived in England and she was sending him voice chats talking in a fake British accent. When one "boyfriend" told another "boyfriend" information, she tried to prove she was loyal by giving one of them her facebook password, but her password was another boys name. When he asked her why, she said that was the name of her baby brother who died (obviously false). She was "cutting" and took pictures and posted them on her page. The "touching" story went to full molestation, and then rape. At one point she told people that her she was scared because her step dad (whom she had had zero contact with the entire time) was going to come and kill her and her father. She made up a story of being sexually assaulted by her uncle (her step dads brother- who is the same age as my daughter -both 15 at the time, and she hadn't seen him in over 2 years). The lowest point came the day she got on facebook #3 and pretended to be her younger sister, putting her in danger of these people. She told them her name (and we already know she gave out our address information). She said that she was logged in to tell them goodbye because her big sister was laying in the hospital dying because her mother had slit her throat.

In seeing all of this her father now sees what we already knew. He talks to her again about the "abuse". She admits she made it up.

Getting her help:

I would never have guessed the amount of energy and determination it would take to get her help and diagnosed. Her dad and step mom went through so many "hoops". They took her to the hospital, however since she wasn't suicidal they couldn't keep her. No mental hospital would take her without a Court Order. We ended up filing for an incorrigibility petition. This process took about 6 months. Her dad had to sign her over to the state to be admitted into an inpatient diagnosis program. She spent 45 days in the program. We as a parental group (all 4 of us) spent a 4 hour long meeting giving all the details of our daughter (pretty much since birth) with a counselor. The diagnosis was Axis 1: Oppositional Defiance Disorder. Axis 2: (what they believe her to be, but are not allowed to list as Axis 1 because of her age) Borderline Personality Disorder.

It was Ordered that she could return to her dads house and that she was to receive treatment there and at school. She was also put on probation until she turns 18.

Believing her again:

After her release, she wanted to start to work on her relationship with me and her step dad. I began taking her during the day. She would spend time with us and then I would take her back to her dads. As those went better and better we began to take her on the weekends. She seemed to really be trying. She said she wanted to come back to live with us. She said she wanted to make things right. She said she wanted to fix our relationships. She said she thought of her stepdad as a "best friend". She convinced us that she was trying to make a change. I let her in again. Her step dad let her in again. She would call me up out of the blue to pick her up after school just because she wanted to see us. She would just walk up and bear hug her step dad "hello" and made sure to give him hugs "goodbye", despite her stepdad voicing his fears of physical contact. She would follow him and talk to him, play games with him and make jokes. That being said I never let me guard down completely. I would never leave them alone in the same room (for his safety). If she followed him to another room, I would drop whatever I was doing and follow too, or I would make sure her brother was present.

The Now:

Having our family back and complete felt so wonderful. Until it wasn't. Her father said two weeks ago she came home from school crying. She said some people at school were talking about her and her step dad. That made no sense to me because 1. why would she be upset when she told her lie to everyone she met before and 2. why now.

Fast forward to this week. Her father received a phone call from the police station, who was ready to arrest my husband for molesting her-again. That day when she came home upset wasn't because people were talking about her, it was because she was talking with 2 friends in a conversation about one of them being abused and another one getting emancipated and she decided to bring out her old stories. She told them that when she hugs her step father that he puts his hands down her pants. And that she can't tell me because I didn't believe her before and that she is worried about her 8 year old sister. Those 2 friends went to the guidance counselor, who called WV CPS, who called Ohio CPS, who called the local city police. When the local police called her dad he was able to give them the history of what has happened with her and they did not arrest my husband (as of yet).

After speaking with the police her father called her and asked what she said and to who. She denied saying anything. Said someone must have made it up. She even called him back and yelled at him saying "why would she do that when she has been working to come back to live with us" and "why won't anyone believe that she is changed". When he got home he spoke with her again telling her that what she is saying didn't make sense and she had to have said something. She finally admitted she said it, and admitted that she made it up.

But here we are again awaiting a CPS call. According to her probation officer it has to be investigated, and because he is a "2nd offender" and I am a "molester supporter" that the other children will have to be removed from the home.



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