Feeling peace in your soul

newstart

Well-Known Member
Even though I don't post that often I still think and worry about the rest of you, I know your stories and I have felt them. I would love to hear a short update on your life. When I mention anything good my daughter does, just know that the other shoe drops and we are back to square one, there is always another side to her when she is doing ok, a secret side that I know nothing of. I have to become a detective to figure out her life, I listen to tone and look at body language because the bit's and piece's that come out of her mouth are lies. I feel satisfaction when I read about a parent taking back their life and making their adult child's nonsense stop. I feel so proud for you that you have the strength and courage to make the madness end and regain your peace. I have done it too and it takes much strength, my daughter knows I have it inside of me to not tolerate her abuse but it has taken me many years to get to that stage. There are times I still feel defeated and I gain my self respect and strength and have to hammer down on her even at my age of almost 66.
I went on vacation and met a lot of parents who have wayward adult children. It breaks my heart to hear their stories because I have walked that walk and I feel their pain intensely.
So for now my daughters boyfriend is backing away. My daughter has lost 30lbs and doing ok in her job. I know as soon as he is in the picture the weight gain happens and she feels ill all the time and does not go into work. He has tried to wiggle back into her life and I know when that happens because of her terrible attitude and weight gain.
The creepy boyfriend does not live in my rent home with her anymore so the place actually looks decent. I stop over unexpected and I have not seen him there or any of his things...But that does not mean he is gone all the way either.
When I say her home looks decent, I mean decent for her, far cry from what I could live in. Also, I have to find and schedule lawn service but I make her pay me back. I deeply enjoy buying her things that she likes and needs. I get deep satisfaction out of doing this. As long as she is respectful to me and gives back then I will continue to help her out like this. She does thank me. I am working on cutting back on this, I am going to therapy the end of this month to find out why this gives me such deep satisfaction. I contribute to other causes and people too and feel good about it but not on the deep level as when I give and help her with things.

Things are a bit balanced for the time being, I know anytime it can fall off quickly and I never know what hit me or how it got so bad so quickly.

I want to tell the new people on here what has helped me the most in the past with my daughter.
I told my daughter that her evil behavior is demonic and she is pleasing to the dark side. Each time she did something bad I would tell her that the dark side is taking her.
I quit talking to her, completely, for 3 months meaning no phone calls or nothing. It helped me the most. I just could not take her B.S. any longer and knew if I continued it would ruin my health. It was the best thing I could do for both of us and the ONLY thing that forced her to change.
Wishing all of you peace, the deep peace your feel deep in your soul.
 

Mirabelle

Member
Newstart - it is so nice to hear from you. I am glad you feel that you have some peace in your life right now (although I know that we never know for how long.) My husband is considering cutting off all contact with his son apart from making sure his bills are paid and he gets his allowance. I have always encouraged and supported a relationship between them. But at the moment I do not. My husband is being hands down abused and bullied, no bones about it. I hope he has the courage to shut his son out for a while for his own healing, and quite possibly, to save his own life. His emotional and physical health has really suffered.

I was interested to read that of many things you have tried, quitting talking to your daughter for a few months was what helped you most. I just could not take her BS any longer and knew if I continued it would ruin my health. My husband is at this exact point. And what a wondrous thing to think that it made your daughter change. I know everyone's situation is different, but I can't think of anything we have tried to this point that has worked. Cutting off contact is really the only thing we have not done.

Thank you! Hugs to you. :):)
 

newstart

Well-Known Member
Newstart - it is so nice to hear from you. I am glad you feel that you have some peace in your life right now (although I know that we never know for how long.) My husband is considering cutting off all contact with his son apart from making sure his bills are paid and he gets his allowance. I have always encouraged and supported a relationship between them. But at the moment I do not. My husband is being hands down abused and bullied, no bones about it. I hope he has the courage to shut his son out for a while for his own healing, and quite possibly, to save his own life. His emotional and physical health has really suffered.

I was interested to read that of many things you have tried, quitting talking to your daughter for a few months was what helped you most. I just could not take her BS any longer and knew if I continued it would ruin my health. My husband is at this exact point. And what a wondrous thing to think that it made your daughter change. I know everyone's situation is different, but I can't think of anything we have tried to this point that has worked. Cutting off contact is really the only thing we have not done.

Thank you! Hugs to you. :):)
Hi Maribelle, I am sorry for your heartache and pain. Knowing that an adult child is out of control is extremely painful. I went to years of therapy with my daughter and alone. There were many things suggested that I did to help her and me but no one ever said stop all contact. My daughter knew I was tender hearted losing her brother to death and took full advantage of me. It was truly demonic. After years of counseling and self help books, all I read and was told to me was to just work on it and do not disconnect. After deep prayer I felt in my heart to just let go. It took all the strength I had. It was the ONLY thing that made my daughter make the changes and the changes came very slow but they did move forward.
I wish you much peace and strength for you and your husband to follow your intuition and try something different, something drastic that would force his son to grow up. My daughter could not believe I had the strength to do it, but in the process I regained my self respect, some joy and it forced her to try much harder.
The one thing I noticed immediately when I reconnected back to her was her belligerent towards me almost stopped. I think it was because she knew I had the strength to walk away.. Prayers for you, the deep kind that make positive changes.
 

Aching Heart

New Member
I quit talking to her, completely, for 3 months meaning no phone calls or nothing. It helped me the most. I just could not take her B.S. any longer and knew if I continued it would ruin my health. It was the best thing I could do for both of us and the ONLY thing that forced her to change.
Wishing all of you peace, the deep peace your feel deep in your soul.
I have not spoken to my youngest daughter now for 3 & 1/2 years and as far as I am concerned, she is an adult (well into her 30's) and no longer my responsibility. She treated me cruelly without any consideration for my own (poor) health and her selfish disregard for how her actions affected me was beyond the pale. I wish her well in her life but I doubt she will ever change sadly. She broke my heart but I refuse to allow her to break my spirit, which she surely would have done if I had allowed her to continue. I am no longer her cash cow nor am I her verbal punching bag. It takes great strength to do what I have done and it takes unwavering support from close family, who saw the damage she was inflicting on my mental health. Not everyone can go full, long term no contact I know, but I am slowly healing, though I doubt I will ever get over it fully.
 

Mirabelle

Member
Newstart and Aching Heart, thank you for your responses. I hear you both saying that you had to cut your children off ultimately to save your own life. I think we are at that same point. Aching Heart, I am so sorry that you remain estranged from your daughter, but I am glad that you have taken steps to protect yourself and find some joy in life. My son has been so cruel to his father, so manipulative, so heartless, that I would be quite satisfied if it were a long time before I saw him again.

We have an excellent therapist and one of his suggestions has been to go no contact. He has extensive experience working specifically with these type of situations. He said, with true empathy and concern I might add, that this might be the best our son ever gets, that he might have hit his ceiling in terms of mental functioning due to the mental illness and drug addiction he refuses treatment for. Many years ago our therapist had an extreme situation where a husband and wife actually had to move to another state, just disappear in the night, because their son would not accept no contact and kept turning up at their house, their workplaces, the grocery store etc. A nightmare. To be stalked and terrorized by your own kid. We could be in for anything, but we feel that we have to try this.

Thank you both so much for your kind words and I wish you much peace and love.
 

Nomad

Well-Known Member
Staff member
I actually have heard of a story as well of a husband and wife literally moving to a far away state to escape the abuses of their adult child. “Sad” doesn’t even begin to cover it.
 

newstart

Well-Known Member
Not everyone has the nerves to go no contact. It is excruciating and difficult self care. I made a huge list of the things my daughter did to me and pinned that list on my refrigerator. Each time I would feel weak I read that list and told myself how much better off I was not being caught up in her never ending timeless self made drama. At night when I went to bed I told myself how much better my day was to not hear or be involved in that mindless waste of time and money. The amount of money we wasted on her BS is just horrible. I was spending a large amount of money trying to help her and all I got was kicked more and harder. I know and understand that this is an illness and I know and understand that the ill people have much more control over their behavior than we give them credit for. I have seen some bipolar/borderline people treat other people respectfully and then when they find an empath or other caring person they give them hell.
I too was stalked by my daughter. Calling my phone using other people's phones so I did not see the number come up on called ID. I did not answer the door or pick up any calls and took my voice off the answering machine. I watched one Easter as she made an Easter basket for me and left it on my front porch, I knew if I broke the 'no contact' I would be back to square one and the changes that need to happen would not happen also if the changes did not happen, I was ok with that because her behavior was causing me an early death. After she left my front door, (I peaked out through the blinds) I picked up the Easter basket and sobbed so deeply and so long, yet I knew not enough time had passed to make her change. I am crying right now just writing this. In that Easter basket she put my favorite chocolate candies. It was heartbreaking and also felt like manipulation. It had my emotions so twisted off.

Now she knew I could blow her off for my own mental health. A few months later, I received the most heartfelt apology letter, actually several of them. Even though things are somewhat better on somedays between us I am not sure that between her and anyone else things will ever be healthy. She still lies. She is almost 41 and I see some maturing here and there. The belligerence was the hardest part and she knows instinctively that I can 'blow her off' if she starts with the belligerence. It is horribly grieving being on the receiving end of a unmedicated bipolar/borderline person.
My husband and I were honestly thinking of moving away and not leaving a forwarding address. IT WAS THAT BAD.
 

Mirabelle

Member
Newstart, your description of your experience with no contact is so powerful. I only wish my husband could follow through. He has initiated no contact but it hasn't been tested yet. Our daughter came to see us yesterday and he explained that he feels obligated to his son because 'everyone else has given up on him' ie. his mom, his sister, his grandmother, me. I don't see what the rest of us have done as giving up on him however. We have all chosen to take a step back. His sister, grandmother, and myself will not answer his calls, including those from numbers we do not recognize, because as you say, it is often our son using someone else's phone. We have decided to take a step back and shield ourselves from the abuse and the heartache and the sheer ugliness of it all. Our son knows what he must do in order to re-establish contact with us, but has cast himself in the role of abandoned victim instead.

I feel personally that he knows his Dad will continue to take his BS, even if his Dad gets mad and says he's done, to this point, it has not been true. He knows his dad is an empath and takes full advantage like you say. He won't place demands and guilt trips on people if he knows they won't stand for it. I feel his Dad is unwittingly helping him to continue in his dysfunction and destructive lifestyle, but he is so scared of his son dying, he cannot help himself.

I will share your post with my husband. Hard, hard stuff, and I cannot commend you enough for having the sheer guts and will to see it through. The Easter basket.......oh my God. It's like something out of a movie. You probably cried for a week, but you did it. I could not admire you more for your courage, and far from 'giving up', it shows just how much you love your child; to put yourself through that to give them a last chance at redemption.

I hope that my husband can reframe his thinking. One good decision my son had been making was to take his monthly dose of an anti psychotic and mood stabilizing medication. I just learned that he has suddenly decided he is not going to do that anymore. So yet another round in the psychiatric ward may be in our future. I catch myself feeling so sorry for him, and I do, but I have to remind myself that he probably has more control over his behavior than I give him credit for.

Thank you so much for sharing your experience and I pray for your continued peace.

Many hugs,
Mirabelle
 

newstart

Well-Known Member
Thank you Mirabelle for your kind words. I lost a son to death so I know what it is like to bury a child. I too was very scared of my daughter dying so I tolerated her abuse way too long. During deep prayer, I realized that the way she was treating me felt like a death and if she died while I was not talking to her it was the same as the way she was treating me. My daughter's nasty behavior towards me kept me ill. I needed to be healthy for my parents, my husband, siblings, co workers, community and all others that depend on me. I could not let one person beat me to death and rip off all of my other relationships. How dare someone that I gave my entire all to treat me this demonic? I say evil/demonic because that is what it is.

Cluster B persons are in tuned into empaths and actually get pleasure out of destroying them. When my daughter realized she does not have the power to destroy me it changed something inside of her.
I was an easy target and she was out of control manic.
Your husband is just prolonging the agony like I did. Each person has to find the right time and method to make the madness go away. I have friends right now that keep their wayward child and them self stuck because they cannot let go, scared to death the child will die. And that is just it, they are scared of the death. I looked that possibility straight in the face and knew I had to do something drastic because my daughter would have never stopped. I am sure I would have the abuse today had I not put a cork into it. I know parents that are still on that rocky boat because they will not put a cork in it. I realized that by allowing my daughter to abuse me, I was teaching her that her evil behavior was getting her what she wanted, money on demand without working for it. When I cut ties ALL responsibility went back to her. It grew her up quickly. Doing this was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do but it had to be done. I was willing to take the chance of being disconnected for good and I was willing to be ok with it because I will NEVER allow another to harm me to that degree.
Your husband needs to do it for his son, to make him a contributing human. He will know when the time is right. I pray it is soon.
God Bless and protect you and your family on this wicked, heartbreaking journey. Thank you for your prayers, I felt them and pray deeply for you.
 

mom58

New Member
I have not spoken to my youngest daughter now for 3 & 1/2 years and as far as I am concerned, she is an adult (well into her 30's) and no longer my responsibility. She treated me cruelly without any consideration for my own (poor) health and her selfish disregard for how her actions affected me was beyond the pale. I wish her well in her life but I doubt she will ever change sadly. She broke my heart but I refuse to allow her to break my spirit, which she surely would have done if I had allowed her to continue. I am no longer her cash cow nor am I her verbal punching bag. It takes great strength to do what I have done and it takes unwavering support from close family, who saw the damage she was inflicting on my mental health. Not everyone can go full, long term no contact I know, but I am slowly healing, though I doubt I will ever get over it fully.
Hi Broken heart. Yes, I do know the pain of no contact. Changed my phone # last time my son left out of here. He had told me he would rather be homeless than live here. Told me I was a control freak. :) I gave him my truck. Which I think he earned as he dug out a new french drain on the south side of the house. That was a huge job. Took him forever to finish and meth " as it turned out" which made him a wee bit crazy. But it is dry under the house now. Amen. By the time he moved out, I was in a bad state of mind. He would gaslight me to the point I questioned my own mental health. Did I have memory lapses? Or selected memories? Where did he get some of the stories he made up? Some of which I could verify with my brother did such and such happen? No was always my brother's answer. Anyway, no contact for a year. Yes, he was homeless, Yes he got back heavy into meth, yes, he got in trouble with the law. And now back in jail. So at least this winter I knew he was warm and fed. Although the jail was having heating problems he said water in toilet froze. During a very cold spell in Kansas.
At some point grandma gave him my phone number, she asked first. So we are talking. Gonna have to set some boundaries about phone calls from jail, and how much a month I might send him. I can see that already once I sent money it is never enough. Granted phone calls and snacks are high but what else is he trading for ? I remember how it got out of control the last time he was in prison. Not going there this time. There will be boundaries or I will stop contact again if he can't accept that fact.

Honestly, no news was good news for me. Not knowing all the chaos and drama was nice for me. I know part of me felt bad like who turns their back on their own child. But did I deserve the treatment I got?
Who else is gonna stand up for me if not me?

Have learned from youtube "Put the shovel down" Amber is an addiction therapist. Her video cover how the addict affects the family and how we as co-dependent /enabler hurt them and keep the cycle going. I hope you check her out on youtube.
 

JMom

Well-Known Member
Hi Broken heart. Yes, I do know the pain of no contact. Changed my phone # last time my son left out of here. He had told me he would rather be homeless than live here. Told me I was a control freak. :) I gave him my truck. Which I think he earned as he dug out a new french drain on the south side of the house. That was a huge job. Took him forever to finish and meth " as it turned out" which made him a wee bit crazy. But it is dry under the house now. Amen. By the time he moved out, I was in a bad state of mind. He would gaslight me to the point I questioned my own mental health. Did I have memory lapses? Or selected memories? Where did he get some of the stories he made up? Some of which I could verify with my brother did such and such happen? No was always my brother's answer. Anyway, no contact for a year. Yes, he was homeless, Yes he got back heavy into meth, yes, he got in trouble with the law. And now back in jail. So at least this winter I knew he was warm and fed. Although the jail was having heating problems he said water in toilet froze. During a very cold spell in Kansas.
At some point grandma gave him my phone number, she asked first. So we are talking. Gonna have to set some boundaries about phone calls from jail, and how much a month I might send him. I can see that already once I sent money it is never enough. Granted phone calls and snacks are high but what else is he trading for ? I remember how it got out of control the last time he was in prison. Not going there this time. There will be boundaries or I will stop contact again if he can't accept that fact.

Honestly, no news was good news for me. Not knowing all the chaos and drama was nice for me. I know part of me felt bad like who turns their back on their own child. But did I deserve the treatment I got?
Who else is gonna stand up for me if not me?

Have learned from youtube "Put the shovel down" Amber is an addiction therapist. Her video cover how the addict affects the family and how we as co-dependent /enabler hurt them and keep the cycle going. I hope you check her out on youtube.
Hi Broke, I am going to check out your youtube suggestion.
 
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