Back after several years coping on my own. I need your support

[qcarolr]

Hi. I was very active on this forum back in 2010 for a few years. My adopted daughter L is now 37 and struggling more than ever. She has been in a toxic relationship with M since 2012. My husband and I adopted our granddaughter E in 2016 after having custody since she was a baby. L & M have a son together, age 4. I am his legal custodial guardian since he was 2. I am pretty exhausted managing all these relationships impact on my day to day life.

I have found support for grandson through school district and Head Start. He has several issues that remind me of his mom. He has a totally different personality than her. There is cheerfulness and resilience. He has suffered neglect and trauma living with his parents until age 2. They fought a lot with him right in the middle. They were arrested when it got physical when he was about 6 months old. He was in foster care for 7 months. I am trying to be a "connect and re-direct" parent instead of yelling and spanking. My husband needs to attend therapy, which he refuses to do.

My granddaughter, now 16, has severe anxiety disorder with panic attacks, depression, and PTSD from being around her mother. Even though my husband and I became primary caregivers when she was 8 months I still did visits with mom. The daddy left when she was a baby and spent most of his days in prison until he died when granddaughter was 13 from drug overdose after release from prison. My daughter lived in our home randomly over the years. I was in severe denial about her abusive behavior toward me and the impacts of  her meth use. Maybe I thought I could change her by being in her life. I started therapy focused on self-care and codependency recovery a  few weeks ago. About the time she was sentenced to county jail for 90 days for a string of domestic violence and restraining order violations over the past 2 years. She has been in jail for 3 weeks now. When she called tonight she had received some information from coordinator of re-entry. She seems a tiny bit hopeful about life today. I pray this can continue to build so she can follow through with these opportunities when she is released. She has been living homeless in a car with her dogs for the past 14 months. Housing vouchers are very hard to get -- there are not many units available either. Part of her re-entry plan will include transitional housing as part of a recovery plan. Her obsession with M may get in the way, as well as leading to more DV situations.

I have tried to put boundaries in place to protect our home from her chaos. She cannot be here. I got a protection order to make that stick. She would also call me non-stop when I disconnected her call when she became abusive to me. Like every 3 minutes some communication came through. It made my phone unusable. 40-50 calls in a day. A couple of her charges are due to my protection order. I do have phone contact allowed while she is in jail. She has limited times she can call and it is easy to not take her calls.

She has a few areas that are really hard for her to manage on her own. The other side of things is she has some disabilities - mental illness and some neurological issues. She is on SSI and I am her payee representative. I care deeply about her wellbeing. It makes the whole detachment with love process so hard.

I fell like I am rambling. It is getting late and I am tired. I think I will post this now and go to bed. Thanks for listening.

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

[Sancho]

Hi qcaroir
Thank you for posting. What a long and difficult journey of love and care you have been on - and are still on. I am on that journey too- differences of course, but many, many similarities.

It is exhausting! Perhaps the most difficult thing is that I can't imagine that either things will get better or there will be an end. So we have to find ways to respect ourselves in the journey. Getting support for ourselves and finding ways to enrich our own lives is the way we can manage to keep going to support them. Bit like being on an aeroplane  . . . 'attach your own oxygen mask first of all'.

The thing I long for most is for others to be involved in my dd's life. I used to think that if she went to goal that would be the worst thing, now I find myself wondering if it would be the thing - the 'time out' - when she could regroup and also be supported in re-entry into the community.

Like your dd, mine has other issues beside BPD - undiagnosed but I am sure she has others. You say your dd sounded a little more positive - that is hopeful. It might be the beginning of a different possibility. I hope so.

Thank you for sharing. This is the place where I come so I know I am not alone on this journey. I hope you feel that too.

[qcarolr]

Self-care is what I hear  from every direction with all the support people involved with various members of family. Self-compassion feels better to me. Less  feeling of selfishness. My days are so packed full. I really appreciate your reply, Sancho.

[Sancho]

Yes - 'self compassion' - I like that. Sometimes I get caught up in dd's abuse of me etc and lose that sense that I have of her pain etc.

I find that I need some time to myself in order to hold onto that sense of compassion for her - so I suppose it is working both ways in that sense.

At the moment it's one foot in front of the other here - very hard to find even a short time to just reflect.

Hope you are okay  . . . .