Spartacusgrandma
Fewer than 3 Posts
 Offline
What is your sexual orientation: Straight
Who in your life has "personality" issues: Child
Posts: 2
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« on: July 18, 2017, 07:11:30 PM » |
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Hi,
My daughter's psychiatrist suggested that I use a support group. I opted to do online because it is the most convenient way to get the help I need.
I guess the best way to start is to just spill the beans. Maybe someone out in the land of the internet can relate to me or is willing to support me.
I could just blame this all on my daughter, but the truth is I'm in the mix. My father is a paranoid schizophrenic bipolar. Yes, that is his diagnosis, I didn't just string some words together. He has been in and out of institutions since I was about 19. Needless to say growing up with him was a roller coaster. I was beaten and abused every now and then. This will play into my story later.
I married a man who abusive. I know that is cliche. Physically, mentally, and monetarily. He had his own set of demons. I divorced him when my daughter was about 8.
For the first year, my daughter lived with me. I had moved in with my parents because I was really sick with Multiple Sclerosis, and quite frankly was shopping for nursing homes. I even had to leave my career which I loved. After that year my daughter chose to live with her dad.
My ex-husband could be an irresistible man. He could be charming, gregarious, the life of the party, in short he was the cool kid bad boy everyone loves. My ex gave my daughter a roller coaster of a lifestyle. I did have visitation. She would spend summers with me, and weekends. She lived with him during the school year. Things actually seemed like they might work. A new drug for MS came out. It worked like magic. I could walk, talk, use the bathroom, etc. The doctor released me to go back to work. this was 2008 when we had the big recession. I got a good paying job with benefits two hours away from her, and I took it. I even was able to get a hud house near my job with plenty of room for us.
As she got older, things changed. He kicked her out once at 10. He literally called me while I was at work, and said he was dropping her off at the Walmart parking lot in x amount of minutes. My parents lived in the town he was going to. My mom got her. I was two hours away. Did I mention it was blizzarding? That gives you an idea of what was going on. I set my kid up in a school, but she was really unhappy there. After a few months, she wanted to move back with her dad. I always gave my daughter the choice of where she wanted to live. She liked her dad's house because it was much more fun and exciting then mine.
When she was a freshman in high school, she called me to come get her because she couldn't stand the abuse anymore. She was hiding at a friend's house. I got my parents to go get her. I went to get her from my parents, talked to her dad, and she came to live with me.
I enrolled her in high school. She was coming apart at the seems. I took her to a variety of doctors,psychiatrists, and psychologists. At that time I was told she was bipolar, adhd, and depressed. I got the meds and made appointments. Paid for counseling,and it just didn't seem to help. She kept getting worse.
Finally, after about 1.5 years she was so out of control, I gave her three choices. Go live with her dad because she wasn't going to hit him, check into a treatment center, or try an after school treatment center that worked in 6 week cycles.
She moved with her dad. He no longer could control her, but he was becoming quite ill.
She then did online school because she no longer could be in a classroom or around others. And this allowed her to drive her dad to dr visits. She was still out of control and wild. My ex had part of his leg amputated before her senior year of high school. He was recovering fine, and then his heart gave out, and he died, but they put him on life support. When they tried to revive him, it turned out that his brain stem had been damaged from the lack of oxygen. And since my daughter is his only living relative, she had to take him off life support.
She tried to finish the school year where her dad lived, but that didn't work. Her principal was able to do online classes to get her to graduation.
Yay! She did graduate. She is even planning to go to college next fall.
But she is violent, nasty, and mean. She has been officially diagnosed with borderline personality disorder.
She has always been very cruel to me in terms of words, but with everything that has happened, she is now very violent. She used to just hurt me once in a while, but now I've taken a few really brutal beatings. She has not broken any bones or chipped out a tooth yet. But I am covered with bruises. Before she left to spread her dad's ashes, I was beaten 2 times in 3 days. And on top of everything else, she said my father molested her when she was a little kid. Before she was even in preschool. I had no idea. If I had known or even suspected, I would have never moved in with them when I was ill. I would have figured something else out.
She will be back tomorrow. The psychiatrist is optimistic she may be able to go away to college because she will not have a relationship with anyone there. She will have her own dorm room because it is not safe for anyone to room with her. She has no close friends. She goes through men at a pretty brisk pace. And she hates me. Everything I do ruins her life. She belittles me, yells, destroys the home and property, tries to destroy any friendship I have, and god forbid if I even think about going on a date. That is horrific.
I'm at a loss. I look back over my actions. Yes, I was very ill. She says because I was sick I abandoned her. When she was with me, I made sure she I showed her love, affection, read to her, cuddled her, encouraged her, and made she was clean and had the nicest clothes I could get her. I did use the thrift store quite a bit because I just was broke. I have been learning about BPD. It seems that mother's are the ones who caused it, but I have really evaluated my life. I was poor, I was sick, I did use thrift store clothing and home items, and generic food. I did get mad, I made her do her homework, I was a human. But I look at my actions, and I think overall, I did ok. I have some idea what happened at her dad's home, but I had no control over that. As far as I know, he did nothing illegal, just irresponsible boarding on neglect. Abusive, but not illegal. Besides he was fun. When payday came life was great for a week.
I know this is long. I'm hurt, I blame myself for allowing things like this to happen, and I feel guilty. I'm a person that is court mandated to report abuse and I didn't do it with my own kid. She was molested, and I never knew the difference. My daughter was babysat by my mom from 3 months to 3 years. My dad was not really around because of his job. If my father was around, my mother was too. My dad had been highly medicated for years, had been stable, showed no signs of violence, and had never to my knowledge molested or did anything even mildly sexually inappropriate with anyone. So, that means my mother must have known about it, and covered it up. According to my daughter, my parents told her not to tell me because they wouldn't give us groceries any more. (during the time I was married, my ex would gamble/spend both our paychecks. at the end of the month, we were out of food. My parents kept us going.) After my daughter's dad died and before I learned of my daughter's molestation in May, my mother disowned my daughter because my daughter was being a butt head. My daughter apologized, my mother didn't care, and I sided with my child. Which turns out OK because who wants to keep the molester and the accomplice around the victim anyway. My brother has nothing to do with me.
My immediate family is gone. The one person I have left in my family is my daughter. And she beats me, hates me, and often wishes I had died instead of her father. He dad always told her I was going to die soon. Ironic, huh? So my kiddo has no grandparents (her father's parents died a few years ago) and just me. Her dad's brother who was hadn't spoken to her father for years before he passed has invited her back into his life. He has a wife and two children about my daughter's age. She visited them to spread her dad's ashes this week. According to her, she has had a great time. The only person in the world who triggers her to go into rages is me because I am abusive. My abuse? According to her I say the word hope, and I have mannerisms like my parents.
I really need some support by someone who gets what this is like.
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