Can't catch a break...
- Thread starter ksm
- Start date
Sigh...last night she wanted our leftover fast food take out to take with her to a friends house.
This morning, I found the sack of food on the desk where she left it. Along with her car key, her phone that doesn't work, a dollar and some change, the two new pair of socks I gave her and two jackets she wore over here.
I bet most of her clothes are in multiple houses in our town.
Ksm
This morning, I found the sack of food on the desk where she left it. Along with her car key, her phone that doesn't work, a dollar and some change, the two new pair of socks I gave her and two jackets she wore over here.
I bet most of her clothes are in multiple houses in our town.
Ksm
Does she see the doctor regularly? Generally speaking, it takes two diagnosis to qualify for disability. She might quality. Folks can still work (very) part time with disability. Does she take medication? We found that a multi vitamin and a supplement called PS 100 helps a tiny bit with memory issues for our daughter. She takes prescription medications to help with her bad mood swings. It's been sooooo difficult. Wishing you well.
BusynMember
Well-Known Member
Arent her memory problems and lack of reasoning skills part of fetal alcohol? If so you cant rely on her "common sense" and memory and you may have to remind her. Maybe forever. Not trying to be a downer. Factually, if she has brain damage, she does and her forgetfulness and poor choices may not be her fault.
I knew a woman in our adoption group with a teen boy affected by alcohol and drugs in utero, like my son, but this boy seemed to have dodged any good luck. He could not make reasonable decisions, forgot or broke everything, drank himself although his parents repeatedly told him how risky it was for him to drink, and finally fathered a child at 18. He never saw the child or the mother and could not stay on task long enough to keep a job.
Obviously, he was/is more damaged than your daughter, but maybe she has less severe but similar symtoms. I know this boys parents lived in stress and despair. The boy never seemed to understand why anyone was upset with him when he got into trouble and would run away from home crying whenever his parents tried to explain things to him. She moved and we all lost touch with her.
Alcohol ingestion in utero is going to mess in some way with the developing fetal brain, but some victims of alcohol in utero are more affected than others. If only people did not drink during pregnancy!!
My sons birthmother had already given birth to four alcohol/cocaine exposed birthchildren when Sonic was born. My son had crack in his system when he was born. (Sigh)
I think seeing if medications can help her is a good plan.
I knew a woman in our adoption group with a teen boy affected by alcohol and drugs in utero, like my son, but this boy seemed to have dodged any good luck. He could not make reasonable decisions, forgot or broke everything, drank himself although his parents repeatedly told him how risky it was for him to drink, and finally fathered a child at 18. He never saw the child or the mother and could not stay on task long enough to keep a job.
Obviously, he was/is more damaged than your daughter, but maybe she has less severe but similar symtoms. I know this boys parents lived in stress and despair. The boy never seemed to understand why anyone was upset with him when he got into trouble and would run away from home crying whenever his parents tried to explain things to him. She moved and we all lost touch with her.
Alcohol ingestion in utero is going to mess in some way with the developing fetal brain, but some victims of alcohol in utero are more affected than others. If only people did not drink during pregnancy!!
My sons birthmother had already given birth to four alcohol/cocaine exposed birthchildren when Sonic was born. My son had crack in his system when he was born. (Sigh)
I think seeing if medications can help her is a good plan.
She is too forgetful to take medications...plus she feels there is a stigma for taking medications for moods or anxiety or ADD.
When she turned 18 almost a year ago, she dropped out of the DBT classes that the psychologist recommended. Last week, we saw her old psychologist, I thought it was for all the problems she was having. But I guess she wanted to talk o her because a FB friend committed suicide. They had attended school together, but I am not sure how close they were. She had never mentioned him before.
Her "grief" was too great to work...but she was able to attend a concert with friends that week. She lost her job for not showing up...or for showing up and not working...
Everything is snowballing...she hasn't been to my sons home for almost three weeks. Hasn't even talked to him. His girlfriend got her the job where she has worked for 5 years.
DS said she left her space that she shared with girlfriend's daughter strewn with foot deep dirty clothes and shoes. He had allowed her to live with him on the basis that she continued her education...even if it was just taking one class...
She is struggling and I know I can't fix it.
Ksm
When she turned 18 almost a year ago, she dropped out of the DBT classes that the psychologist recommended. Last week, we saw her old psychologist, I thought it was for all the problems she was having. But I guess she wanted to talk o her because a FB friend committed suicide. They had attended school together, but I am not sure how close they were. She had never mentioned him before.
Her "grief" was too great to work...but she was able to attend a concert with friends that week. She lost her job for not showing up...or for showing up and not working...
Everything is snowballing...she hasn't been to my sons home for almost three weeks. Hasn't even talked to him. His girlfriend got her the job where she has worked for 5 years.
DS said she left her space that she shared with girlfriend's daughter strewn with foot deep dirty clothes and shoes. He had allowed her to live with him on the basis that she continued her education...even if it was just taking one class...
She is struggling and I know I can't fix it.
Ksm
SWOT...when she was home, I was her external brain. Probably the only reason she got thru high school is that I kept at her.
She moved out the week of graduation last year. She is resistant to any one telling her what to do. It could make sense to 99% of the population...but if she doesn't want to do, no amount of talking will change anything.
Ksm
She moved out the week of graduation last year. She is resistant to any one telling her what to do. It could make sense to 99% of the population...but if she doesn't want to do, no amount of talking will change anything.
Ksm
Lil
Well-Known Member
KSM, I haven't had anything really to contribute, but want you to know I've been following along.
I can see where this kind of behavior has to wear at you. We want SO much for our kids to be "okay"...to just be successful at living an adult life. These sort of scattered and immature behaviors are directly opposed to that. But, she is so very young. Hopefully, though her issues aren't curable, age will bring a bit more maturity and she will learn coping methods that will enable her to function adequately, if not perfectly. Hang in there. We're here for moral support.
I see most of what a dad has said as, "Some day we'll look back on this and laugh." Some things are so hard to cope with when they are happening...but time passes and they seem "better" and you can find humor in the strangest places.
I can see where this kind of behavior has to wear at you. We want SO much for our kids to be "okay"...to just be successful at living an adult life. These sort of scattered and immature behaviors are directly opposed to that. But, she is so very young. Hopefully, though her issues aren't curable, age will bring a bit more maturity and she will learn coping methods that will enable her to function adequately, if not perfectly. Hang in there. We're here for moral support.
I see most of what a dad has said as, "Some day we'll look back on this and laugh." Some things are so hard to cope with when they are happening...but time passes and they seem "better" and you can find humor in the strangest places.
Copabanana
Well-Known Member
Lil. Reading your post made me EXHALE with relief. I had not realized I had been holding my breath. Every single thing you write applies to me.
a dad's is a view about life that I find immensely comforting and hopeful. I wish I had lived this way and maybe I will set it as a goal (not looking good people...I am intense, high-strung, reactive and lacking of control....although kind). I am curious what a dad's wife is like. Is your outlook, a dad, common in your culture or did your wife and children just get lucky?
You know, I was born 3 months premature at a time when babies often did not live or had profound health problems. I have personality characteristics that have made my life hard sometimes: emotionality and sensitivity to name a couple. In my early adulthood I read a bit about effects of prematurity and saw there were many consequences emotionally to the child. And such were permanent and irreversible. I felt kind of shattered and ashamed.
If you think about it, all of us are marked (sometimes, crushed) really in some way by our lives, whether genetically or by difficult experience and relationships.
The whole point of life, really, as I see it now that I am older, is to respond to who and where we are in ways that are adaptive and hopeful. We carry culture, each of us. That our individual choices are constructive is the mechanism that allows the human species (and world) to survive.
I wonder if our responses to our difficult children are in fact genetically fueled, because we fear we are failing in our mission. Because just like worker ants have their work to do, so do we. And we panic because our little worker ant babies are shirking their jobs!
(Sometimes I look at my posts and wonder how you guys can be so patient with me as I travel so far off the reservation.)
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
a dad's is a view about life that I find immensely comforting and hopeful. I wish I had lived this way and maybe I will set it as a goal (not looking good people...I am intense, high-strung, reactive and lacking of control....although kind). I am curious what a dad's wife is like. Is your outlook, a dad, common in your culture or did your wife and children just get lucky?
You know, I was born 3 months premature at a time when babies often did not live or had profound health problems. I have personality characteristics that have made my life hard sometimes: emotionality and sensitivity to name a couple. In my early adulthood I read a bit about effects of prematurity and saw there were many consequences emotionally to the child. And such were permanent and irreversible. I felt kind of shattered and ashamed.
If you think about it, all of us are marked (sometimes, crushed) really in some way by our lives, whether genetically or by difficult experience and relationships.
The whole point of life, really, as I see it now that I am older, is to respond to who and where we are in ways that are adaptive and hopeful. We carry culture, each of us. That our individual choices are constructive is the mechanism that allows the human species (and world) to survive.
I wonder if our responses to our difficult children are in fact genetically fueled, because we fear we are failing in our mission. Because just like worker ants have their work to do, so do we. And we panic because our little worker ant babies are shirking their jobs!
(Sometimes I look at my posts and wonder how you guys can be so patient with me as I travel so far off the reservation.)
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Lil
Well-Known Member
I think my response is largely because of intense confusion as to WHY he is the way he is. I know, genetics, his biodad was a Difficult Child, but I say, over and over and over, "What about MY genes?"
I was a GOOD kid. Almost stereotypical good, like Leave it to Beaver good. The WORST thing I ever did was drink and drive - on back roads in the country with pretty much no other drivers around for miles. I didn't smoke pot, I didn't take pills. Hell, I was a virgin until Law School when I was just tired of waiting! I didn't talk back to my parents. I didn't disobey my parents. I only broke curfew twice - once when I was home on a college visit! I certainly didn't steal from or openly defy my parents. In fact, had my parents been alive when I met my first husband, he would never have been my husband and I would never have even had my kid, because my parents would not have approved of him and I would not have married anyone my parents didn't approve of had they been able to voice that disapproval.
It just ain't fair darnit.
Copabanana
Well-Known Member
I do not share genes with my son. With how close we were his genes should have mutated (almost.)
I think a dad might be saying that we should try to chill, that the story has not been written. I think he is implying that our own intensity, reactions, our own needs to believe everything is alright, and our fear that it is not, is part of the problem.
Indeed, my own son thinks similarly. (And sometimes, so does M, who will also not let my own son off the hook.)
The bottom line. We have no control...even though I keep trying.
I can't make this stuff up! Older daughter was here for a couple of hours. A friend of hers knocked on the door and she stepped outside with one of my two land line cordless phones. She was having a conversation on it.
15 minutes later I look around my yard and she is gone. So is my home phone!! I have tried hitting the "ring handset" button on the base...but I only hear the phone in my bedroom!
Why would she walk off with my home phone? No telling if I will ever get it back as she is just drifting from house to house.
Ksm
15 minutes later I look around my yard and she is gone. So is my home phone!! I have tried hitting the "ring handset" button on the base...but I only hear the phone in my bedroom!
Why would she walk off with my home phone? No telling if I will ever get it back as she is just drifting from house to house.
Ksm
Well when I was a kid I had a cow one of my responsabilities was to take care of them when they where grazing with the other cows in the village. Now I had done a stupid thing I do not remember what and when I came home my father yelled at me and in his anger grabbed the wrong cow to put it in our property.
The cow knew its master and it was not my father so she struggled he kept dragging and hitting the cow to enter the cow did not enter. This went on for 1 hour until a neighbor of ours who owned the cow came and clarified the situation and took his cows.
So where was our cow well with me watching from outside as my father tried to bring the wrong cow inside I did not say a thing because I was mad at him and well it was funny. To this day I laugh when I think of this I laugh. Yeah I do have strange sense of humor and this kinds of situation make me burst in laughter.
So this was in a time where there was no help for people with this issues there is not even now the only help was family.
If we did not help especially my mother well my father will have not have made it.
She needs someone to be cover what she lacks. I do not think the state can help her here.
Correct me if I am wrong they make a program she needs to remember to respect without rembering her every day? Is not the problem the remembering part?
The cow knew its master and it was not my father so she struggled he kept dragging and hitting the cow to enter the cow did not enter. This went on for 1 hour until a neighbor of ours who owned the cow came and clarified the situation and took his cows.
So where was our cow well with me watching from outside as my father tried to bring the wrong cow inside I did not say a thing because I was mad at him and well it was funny. To this day I laugh when I think of this I laugh. Yeah I do have strange sense of humor and this kinds of situation make me burst in laughter.
So this was in a time where there was no help for people with this issues there is not even now the only help was family.
If we did not help especially my mother well my father will have not have made it.
She needs someone to be cover what she lacks. I do not think the state can help her here.
Correct me if I am wrong they make a program she needs to remember to respect without rembering her every day? Is not the problem the remembering part?
ADad... By "a program" do you mean an agency? So far she hasn't qualified for any government program. There are apps for phones, that will send you messages to remind you to take medications, appointments, etc. but that really isn't an option as she has broke or lost multiple phones. Plus can't pay for monthly phone service.
She is of average intelligence. I think her main problem is that she lives in the moment. She doesn't think ahead...even 10 or 12 hours ahead. Her life is what is happening now. So planning for the future is non-existent.
It's hard to explain to others. Let's say, when she was working, and maybe she had $50 left to last a week. Most people would think...if I spend $5 a day for food, I will still have enough money for gas til next pay day. Nope. She will spend $45 to have a manicure with acrylic nails.
Maybe, if I hadn't watched her bio mom do the same thing for almost 20 years...I wouldn't be so alarmed. Bio mom is now is jail on $250,000 bond for armed robbery. She had spent the last 30+ years couch surfing, not being able to hold a job, and basically manipulating people to survive.
daughter did come to our house before 10pm and spent the night here. The first time since she moved out 10 months ago. I am going to get her up by 9am and make her start working on getting her car that has a flat tire home. Otherwise, it will set there u til it is towed away and impounded. Again.
Ksm
She is of average intelligence. I think her main problem is that she lives in the moment. She doesn't think ahead...even 10 or 12 hours ahead. Her life is what is happening now. So planning for the future is non-existent.
It's hard to explain to others. Let's say, when she was working, and maybe she had $50 left to last a week. Most people would think...if I spend $5 a day for food, I will still have enough money for gas til next pay day. Nope. She will spend $45 to have a manicure with acrylic nails.
Maybe, if I hadn't watched her bio mom do the same thing for almost 20 years...I wouldn't be so alarmed. Bio mom is now is jail on $250,000 bond for armed robbery. She had spent the last 30+ years couch surfing, not being able to hold a job, and basically manipulating people to survive.
daughter did come to our house before 10pm and spent the night here. The first time since she moved out 10 months ago. I am going to get her up by 9am and make her start working on getting her car that has a flat tire home. Otherwise, it will set there u til it is towed away and impounded. Again.
Ksm
so ready to live
Well-Known Member
KSM. Having/trying/continually attempted to raise/loft/liberate a Fetal Alcohol Effects (FAE) adult, I know your pain. It is beyond putting into words. My son is 10 yrs. older than your daughter and functions much like her, even now. You've done the best you can, especially now with a 2nd generation, save yourself. I know it's not what you want and it's impossible to figure out. We have done much withdrawing from our son in the last 2 years, coming to realize we can only hope for the better. We have not seen it. We have learned to not ask questions we "don't already know the answer to". When he requests help in a respectful manner, as long as it's not money, we do what we can. Just as we'd do for anyone. Just as I'd do for your child. No comments on what he should do or not do. This does require my forgetting that he got himself into this mess at times. It was simply essential that we let go before we lost "us". I really thought I was close to a breakdown in every sense. Don't be me. Draw lines and stay out of her mess if you can possible do this.
Pasa's right. While we don't like to be manipulated, that "skill" may save them. NOW save you.
So Ready To Live... I agree with your advice. But she is almost 19...I feel like I can't just let go completely yet. My husband and I are the only constants in her life.
I realize I can't be doing this for 10 more years... Or even 5 more years. She has spent more time with us in the past week than she has in the past year. And I don't enjoy this much time with her. Basically because she is depressed and moody. But, hey, as soon as a friend calls, she is out of here.
Luckily, she can return to her dads house. She had chosen not to go there...but the last 3 days he had to evacuate because of wildfires that were with in a mile of his home. 10,000 people were displaced. Most were able to return home last night.
After getting her car off the street (I can use AAA) I can drop her off at his house, I can also take the bike we fixed for her. It's about 1 mile out of town, and about 4 miles to our house.
Until she is ready to do some positive things, I am going to step back. way back. I will help drive her to apply for jobs, but not to friends houses to hang out.
Ksm
I realize I can't be doing this for 10 more years... Or even 5 more years. She has spent more time with us in the past week than she has in the past year. And I don't enjoy this much time with her. Basically because she is depressed and moody. But, hey, as soon as a friend calls, she is out of here.
Luckily, she can return to her dads house. She had chosen not to go there...but the last 3 days he had to evacuate because of wildfires that were with in a mile of his home. 10,000 people were displaced. Most were able to return home last night.
After getting her car off the street (I can use AAA) I can drop her off at his house, I can also take the bike we fixed for her. It's about 1 mile out of town, and about 4 miles to our house.
Until she is ready to do some positive things, I am going to step back. way back. I will help drive her to apply for jobs, but not to friends houses to hang out.
Ksm
BusynMember
Well-Known Member
So ready to live, i loved your post,,,for all of us. Oh, unless a nineteen year old were dangerous, id still try, although I dont think trying with money is good, but id stick around emotionally.
At 29 and with me in my 60s, i would not give up any more time or my special years in this lifetime with even a disabled child if that 29 year old refused community services. There IS help...but you can lead a horse to water (services) but ypu cant force him to take the assistance or comply with their rules.
My problem child is 39. He is much better to me now that I hang up at the first sign of abuse. He wants to talk to me so he tries harder. I am planning to visit St. Louis in June mostly to see my grandson. This was something I was iffy about doing even a year ago but im not afraid to go now. And grandson adores my son because so far he has treated him very well and grandson is s brilliant young boy with a loving soul. I Skype him, but I want to hug him.
But I wont let this 39 year old man abuse me anymore and he could never live with me no matter what. He has mental health issues but at 39 he can take care of them himself. Or not. I dont get involved or nag him. Useless. Doesnt make him get the help.
But at 19 i still tried yo steer him right until he corned me and spat in my face and tertorized me.
We can only do so much and I feel my senior years are years for US. I want to make this life great, although totally believe we dont die in spirit and come back to live again until we get it right Doesnt mean I dont value THIS life!!!
Think of whether your help is help or enabling and live, live, live and have so much fun!!!
At 29 and with me in my 60s, i would not give up any more time or my special years in this lifetime with even a disabled child if that 29 year old refused community services. There IS help...but you can lead a horse to water (services) but ypu cant force him to take the assistance or comply with their rules.
My problem child is 39. He is much better to me now that I hang up at the first sign of abuse. He wants to talk to me so he tries harder. I am planning to visit St. Louis in June mostly to see my grandson. This was something I was iffy about doing even a year ago but im not afraid to go now. And grandson adores my son because so far he has treated him very well and grandson is s brilliant young boy with a loving soul. I Skype him, but I want to hug him.
But I wont let this 39 year old man abuse me anymore and he could never live with me no matter what. He has mental health issues but at 39 he can take care of them himself. Or not. I dont get involved or nag him. Useless. Doesnt make him get the help.
But at 19 i still tried yo steer him right until he corned me and spat in my face and tertorized me.
We can only do so much and I feel my senior years are years for US. I want to make this life great, although totally believe we dont die in spirit and come back to live again until we get it right
Doesnt mean I dont value THIS life!!!Think of whether your help is help or enabling and live, live, live and have so much fun!!!
