dealing with no contactt

[teachersub]

This is becoming too much to bear. I have read the posts with situations like mine - undiagnosed 44 yr old son keeping only grandchild away for almost a year - and have learned valuable info, but I don't know if I can ever reach the point some parents have. Right now there is more anger and hatred in my heart than love. I don't want to feel this way,but anything else causes intense grief and frustration. There is more to the story if you wish to know.  I need help.

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

[lever.]

NC especially where there are also grandchildren involved is very painful.

It is like a living grief.

I think it is easier to feel the anger and hatred than the distress and even despair. As with any other grief a range of feelings are involved and many of them we try to avoid experiencing.

We would like to hear more of your story and we want to help.

Sometimes there are ways of reaching out and sometimes not.

It would help to know more.

Some of us have experience of this very painful situation and we want to help.  

[teachersub]

Thanks for your comment on the anger issue--it's. just the way I feel. I'll give you a profile of my son and why I feel that he has undiagnosed BPD.

    As an adult, he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Last year about this time, he said he was feeling so good that he took himself off his meds.

     He never finished college because he couldn't decide on a major. He went into the service,decided he wanted out, and threatened to shoot himself if they wouldn't discharge him.

       When he was 25, a relatively minor situation between himself, his grandmother ( my mom), and his father (my ex) led to 3 years of no contact with any family member. During that time my mother became ill, and was eventually diagnosed with cancer. He never visited her, or attended her wake and funeral, and this was the woman who raised him while I worked.

          He reestablished contact later that year when he was about to be married because " he couldn't  take this step without his family there." Things seemed to be quiet for a while, but the bits and pieces I later picked up from my former daughter-in-law suggested that there were similar problems such as no contact for periods of time. She also told him that he would have to stop quitting jobs if they wanted to start a family. I know that he borrowed $5000 from his former father in law to take a truck driving course which he didn't finish and never repaid the loan.

       One day after 9 years, I got a phone call from her telling me that my son was in a hospital psych unit and they were getting a divorce.

         This is the first part of the story. I need to take a break, but will continue up to the present in another post.

          Thank you for being here.

[Rapt Reader]

Hello, teachersub & 

I'm so very sorry for all the trauma and troubles you have been dealing with (and your son's Ex has been dealing with!) regarding your son. I, too, have an adult (37) son with BPD, and though he's in Treatment and remission as of now, the past was similar to your own son's (except mine never married or had a child).

We will still be here when you are ready to tell the rest of your story 

[chooselove]

My heart goes out to you, too, and I certainly understand the anger.  There are times I wish I could have felt anger vs the overwhelming empathy, which only led me toward being codependent. Now, several months into no contact, when I go over some of the events that occurred between us, I'm able to feel a little something akin to anger (but not really anger) and that helps me stay in an extended neutral place now, vs. the raw heartbreak.  It's the holidays and she seems to get some gratification from being invited to get togethers and ignoring the invites. I have heard her say in the past while shunning family: "I have them where I want them." She's done it for a few years now but we ask anyway because we do not want to be the ones who closed the door... .and of course, we would love it if she came.

It sounds like you are on good terms with your daughter in law.  Given his history does she have shared custody of your grandchild, at minimum?  I hope you are able to have some time through her.

[teachersub]

Thank you for your responses. When something like this happens,you tend to feel that you are the only one who suffers with a BPD loved one.

  To correct some confusion (sorry ), my son and his former wife had no children. When I bumped into her several times at a store, I talked to her about the situation, and that is how I picked up a little info on her experience.

    I am feeling somewhat sad today. It is my daughter's. birthday. She is 2years older than my son, and she suffered a birth injury which left her with severe brain damage. She lived at home for about 25 years until I was able to find a really great residential group home. She is doing as well as can be in her day program. I mention her because my son has not seen her since she went into the residence, has made no attempt to, and barely works up any interest when I speak of her. So I have one child who can't speak to me, and one child who won't.

            The mother of my granddaughter is my son's fiancee. He met her on line in the fall of 2012, and by Christmas they were expecting.She accepted his proposal on Valentine's Day, and I was delirious thinking now he would get his life together, and I would have a grand child.

   It was like a dream when she was born. My partner and I had been at the hospital with them all day, and got to see the baby within a hour after her birth. When she came home, both my son and his fiancee seemed thrilled to have us there almost every day.

     When mom had to return to work, we volunteered to babysit, so they wouldn't have to consider daycare, and we did 10 hours days for gas money only. However the atmosphere began to change after about a month, and we had no idea why. Things came to a head at a family meeting when very unexpectedly my son, for some reason, became enraged and blindsided me with some extremely cruel comments regarding my care of the baby. Earlier his fiancee had told my partner that he was concerned about my age and health, and this is what we supposedly were going to discuss.He later also claimed that we had not kept up our end of his babysitting requirements.

   A very uneasy truce continued until Jan.(2014)when my partner got word that her back surgery had been scheduled for the end of the month, and she also found out that recovery time would be much longer than expected. My son and f. knew about the surgery, but expected her back in a few days. When I called f. with the change in plans, even though I told her I would be there for the baby, she went off the deep end. Many horrible calls and texts went back and forth, my son saying in effect that we had ruined their lives, and we would probably never see my grandchild again. They have blocked all communication with us, even going so far as block the other grandmother's phone so I cannot even speak to her.

     I am bitter that I have missed all the milestones in her young life so far, and do not know how many more will pass by me. I am a cancer and heart attack survivor, but this will be far tougher to survive,and at 67 years old, time could be limited.

     Thank you for your thoughts, advice, and companionship. It means so much.

[lever.]

Hello teachersub

Thank-you for coming back and sharing more of the background to the breakdown in contact.

As a grandmother in her 60s I really understand how upset and angry you must feel.

Take a step back for a minute and try to think how you most want this situation to resolve.

What are your priorities?

If contact with your grandchild is first priority you may have to put your feelings about your son aside and swallow some pride.

Or is it that you would like to resolve things with your son and his fiancée.

Do you have an e-mail address?

When my daughter wouldn't speak to me and I wanted contact with her children I found that e-mail was the best way to contact her-I could draft and re-draft and keep the e-mail. There was less room for misunderstanding.

I tried to validate the valid even though I felt I had been treated unfairly.

I read a post recently that said people with BPD fear both abandonment and engulfment. As you were doing such a lot for your grandchild I wonder if they began to resent this and feel that you were taking over?

I know this wasn't your intention and that you were being very helpful but with BPD I think that is a possibility.


When I approached my daughter I ran some of the e-mails past people on here and they were very helpful.

I also read Valerie Porr's book "Overcoming Borderline Personality Disorder" and used a template of a letter from there.

I have to say that the initial replies were not positive (lots of bad language and telling me how I had been a failure as a parent). It could have fueled my anger.

I just tried to validate the valid-but I slowed it all down and didn't push things.

What worked in the end was saying "If you feel less stressed without me in your life I accept that and will not contact you again-but I love you and I am here if you ever change your mind" (suggested by another person on this site).

Thankfully contact with my grandchildren was re-established.

I hope sharing my experience helps and gives you some ideas. If you want to run anything past us please do.

I would avoid discussing it with the other grandparents-I think it would make things worse-try to deal directly with your son