HHHeeeelllpppp!!!!!

[JJNeedsHelps]

Hi everyone.

This is my first time reaching out to an online group of parents for help with our daughter. She is 20 years old and was diagnosed in middle school with ODD. After turning 18 she stopped ALL psychiatric treatments and medications and then her life, and that of my son (now age 23) and my wife and I, has been on a downward spiral ever since. She spent about 8 months living with my parents from 2014-2015 to "give everyone a break" until they could not take it any more themselves, and after weeks of debating and arguing with everyone, we took her back home. That was about 6 months ago. (We honestly did not want to have her back because of her behavior and gross disrespect for everything and everyone wherever she goes.)

Since returning home she has been impossible to live with! Many of the posts that I have read on this forum describe what goes on in our home on a daily basis, less the arrests and jail. The toll on the rest of the family has been immense. My wife suffered a heart attack last year (age 43) which has been traced back to stress! I have been on anti-anxiety and anti-depressant medications for about three years. Our son is severely depressed, has started drinking and mostly hides from her in his room when he is not working. (Thankfully he is working hard to move out on his own and my wife and I are helping with that.)

We have been desperate to get our daughter out of the home but feel like we are being prevented by the system. We recently had our daughter "temporarily" removed from the home to a psychiatric treatment facility after calling 911 on her - it was a particularly bad day of fighting which the entire neighborhood surly heard. Her last psychiatrist was contacted by the hospital, and he recommended inpatient treatment. But, despite the hospital agreeing that she needs intensive psychiatric treatment, they released her after 2 days because she was deemed not to be a threat to herself or to others, and that she would need to do outpatient treatment on her own. We explained how her behavior is negatively effecting everyone in serious ways within the home and how she refuses to get outpatient treatment, to which they said she is an "adult" and we can't keep her. This was our first "are you serious?" moment!

We refused to let her back into the home without her agreeing to seek outpatient treatment again - which she flat out said she would not do - but after about 4 days the police informed me that I would be arrested for "domestic abuse" if I continued refusing to let her back into the house. We were warned that if she pressed charges and pursued a restraining order that I could be barred from returning to my own home as long as she lived there. They said her mental illness and behavior toward the family is irrelevant. So we let her back in the home. This was our second "are you serious?" moment!

She immediately resumed her disruptive and belligerent ways with everyone. We contacted a lawyer about filing a formal eviction, but after he reviewed the case he declined to help because he said, "it will cost you too much money, it will take months, it will destroy your family even more and with her other disabilities I'm not sure you will win" – In addition to our daughters mental issues she has suffered her entire life with a genetic disorder call Epidermolysis Bullosa. (which is an entire story in itself) This was our third "are you serious?" moment!

So... here we are. She refuses to get help. She is abusive to me, her mother and her brother. The doctors won't help. The police have warned me that I can be arrested if I tell her she can't come in the house. She refuses to leave - not so much because she can't, but because she doesn't want to. An eviction lawyer says we have a BAD situation coming at us from all directions and he didn't want to take the case or waste our money.

Our daughter has hijacked our home, turned it into a den of constant arguing, disrespect and abuse and the system is backing her up! My family is beside themselves with the entire situation and have even suggested that my wife and I sell our home and run away without her. But... is that really our only option? It feels hopeless and we are physically getting sick from years of living like this and there seems to be no end in sight!!!

What can we do? HHHeeelllppp?

JohnJoseph

 

[A dad]

First change your nick name do not use your real name. Second it seems you are not living in USA if you can not kick your daughter out so my advice is simple go the selling the house way. We usually have the right to kick out our difficult children and we either use it as leverage for them to try to change or try to detach from them.
You do not have the leverage so try to have one you deserve to have peace and quiet in your home be it whatever home.

 

[BusynMember]

I assume you are not living in the U.S? If so, you can seek eviction if she is 18. Unless you left out details, there is no reason why you can't evict her in the U.S. Try a better lawyer. Again, I don't know the entire situation. Did you once let her have the house to herself? In the U.S. you can evict. That's what makes me think you're not in the U.S.

A heart attack at 43? Although I'm not sure anyone can trace t hat directly to your daughter, that is not good. Sounds like the family is being overly controlled by her.

I have no idea where you live or what your laws are, but if t his were me, and I absolutely had to do it due to impossible laws, I'd leave the house and let her pay for it and, although I'm not rich, let the house go under if it had to...rather than live to die in that environment or leave the house to her control and still pay the bills. I'm not one to pay an adult child's bills especially when they are bullying me. Now, this is simply my own possible idea of what I think I'd do because I am not good with chaos and would be worried about the rest of my family. However, for you it may not be possible you should take whatever anybody says that is useful and disregard the rest. We are simply other parents telling you what worked or did not work for us. Or they are our opinions, which may or may not work for you.

If you live outside t he U.S. and are able to state where you do live, it may be helpful as we do have members who live outside t he U.S. and Canada, but most of us are there.

I'm so sorry for your grief.

 

[JJNeedsHelps]

I assume you are not living in the U.S? If so, you can seek eviction if she is 18.... If you live outside t he U.S. and are able to state where you do live, it may be helpful as we do have members who live outside t he U.S. and Canada, but most of us are there.

We live in the US. We did seek the eviction route via a lawyer... and he declined to take the case for many reasons... namely that our daughters physical disability (and her inability to take care of herself) would be a hard sell to an eviction judge, i.e. who would take care of her? it's a complicated situation and it does tear at our heart-strings.

 

[BusynMember]

Get her on Disability and she will get services and the agency will house her and take care of her. This is a little joke, but what happens when you die? Are you unable to die legally too because your daughter is disabled? Find resources for your daughter. Lawyer's advice was ridiculous in my opinion. At the very least, don't stop trying. My autistic son lives by himself and has agency supports. Good thing too. I'm 62. Even if a judge orders it, he will need to live independently when I die in contempt of court And he's getting a great start on doing this.
Start by calling aging a nd disabilities in your area. Sounds like only for the elderly, but it's for the disabled too. This is where we were told to start a nd we did well. We never used a lawyer.

 

[JJNeedsHelps]

Let me clarify a point I made... when I said "she can't take care of herself", I am making reference to her mindset about taking responsibility for herself. She is not in a wheelchair or incapacitated or anything like that. She just refuses, and I mean relentlessly refuses, to take responsibility for anything. Its an in your face "F*@# Y%&... leave me alone" approach to being responsible. (...and she does talk like that to us.)

 

[BusynMember]

Well, then she's not disabled and you're good. Just because she doesn't think she can do it doesn't mean she can't be evicted. Many here evicted adult children just like her. Bad lawyer. I would start again before all of you fall ill to her. This is just my opinion. If sh e stepped close to me and looked threatening (or worse, laid one finger on me or anyone else in the family) I'd call the cops first, then get a restraining order against her and start eviction proceedings without a lawyer. Breaking things is also something I'd call the cops for. I think that too is considered domestic violence. Stealing? A no-brainer. I don't know what your daughter does, but I wouldn't let her terrorize the rest of the family. I am not the type to go easy on that because I may give my adult child a record. Safety first to me.

I don't think you need a lawyer to evict, but not sure. Others? That is not acceptable behavior in my opinion. Again, just take what you like and leave the rest, but she'd be out of my home ASAP. I sent one out for the same reason and he turned out pretty good and he was not as bad as her, but if you live in my house, you show respect for the others t here. Again, all this is JMO and what I did, which may not be everyone's advice.

Good luck!

 

[InsaneCdn]

She is 20 years old and was diagnosed in middle school with ODD. After turning 18 she stopped ALL psychiatric treatments and medications and then her life

She must have other diagnoses than ODD, as ODD is not a condition that can generally be treated at all, much less with medication.

Like many of us here, you may have been at the short end of the stick with a mental health system that is woefully inadequate. Supports are hard to come by without very specific diagnoses.

We were warned that if she pressed charges and pursued a restraining order that I could be barred from returning to my own home as long as she lived there

While it sounds harsh, maybe you DO need to move. Your wife obviously has health problems directly connected to your daughter's behavior, and her life isn't worth less than your daughter's life. Can you get your wife's doctor on-side and approach it from the need to protect your wife's health?

** Caveat: I'm not in the US - so just tossing out ideas.

 

[JJNeedsHelps]

Get her on Disability and she will get services and the agency will house her and take care of her.

She was on SSI her entire life because of her physical condition but when she turned 18 she was required to reapply through social security as an adult. She fought them, told doctors she was not disabled and that she was doing great (not true) and not answering questions honestly on the new forms... and the state bought it and took away her status. (YES... another "are you serious?" moment for us.)

We have a lawyer helping to appeal the decision by the state, but our daughter refuses to cooperate even with the lawyer and is now about to lose the appeal for reclassification for non-participation. When my wife and I try to keep things moving forward we keep hearing that she is an "adult" now and that my wife and I can't be the ones making decisions for her.

 

[RN0441]

JJ so sorry you are living like this but seriously I think that the advice you were given above is the way to start the ball rolling.

She's not going to change so you have to take control of your life. This is horrible for everyone. I have been through this with our son who abuses prescription pills but I do know the feeling and it's HELL.

 

[InsaneCdn]

If she was disabled to age 18, and no longer has that "label", then... there's only two possible ways to look at things.

1) She is still disabled, and the system needs to recognize that, and step up with supports to look after her.
or
2) She is NOT disabled, in which case you should be able to evict her, and she can figure life out for herself.

She can't have it both ways.
However, without some form of legal support, your only option may be to actually move and leave her behind.

 

[JJNeedsHelps]

Wow... so many responses to read and they are coming so fast.

I am not sure how to clarify some things based on my initial post... I tried to say years worth of experiences in a couple of paragraphs and it seems that I have left MANY missing pieces out of the story, or I was just not clear. I'll try to reply to everyone to clarify things and I read through your comments. (please be patient with me as I am new to this forum way of talking)

 

[BusynMember]

IC, in the U.S. you keep the label. At least Sonic did. But if he acted dangerously, he still could have been evicted. But he did need adult services. You choose who lives in your house in the U.S. You just have to do the proper eviction in some states. My kids didn't know about eviction laws and neither did I. When I told my kids who were acting out that they had to leave, they left that day. Nobody thought of eviction.

 

[JJNeedsHelps]

She must have other diagnoses than ODD, as ODD is not a condition that can generally be treated at all, much less with medication.

Like many of us here, you may have been at the short end of the stick with a mental health system that is woefully inadequate. Supports are hard to come by without very specific diagnoses.

They told us ODD at the time, but with a strong likelihood that she would develop into a personality or conduct disorder as she reached her 20's. She has also been diagnosed with Adjustment Disorder and Depression. Everything they told us to look for happened. Her behavior just got worse and worse... things like have 12 partners in 6 months (if she was telling us the truth.) Outright manipulation of people through blatant lies (which she has been caught in) Zero gratitude to people who help her ... and more.

For a few years she was on Intuniv, which kept things somewhat manageable. But once she turn 18, and stopped taking it, she became worse than ever. Her psychiatrist told us that with a conduct disorder the patients need years of therapy and must be committed to the process, and he did say sometimes medications help but sometimes they don't.

And I agree that the mental health care system seems to have abandoned her.

 

[JJNeedsHelps]

Let me clarify a point I made... when I said "she can't take care of herself", I am making reference to her mindset about taking responsibility for herself. She is not in a wheelchair or incapacitated or anything like that. She just refuses, and I mean relentlessly refuses, to take responsibility for anything. Its an in your face "F*@# Y%&... leave me alone" approach to being responsible. (...and she does talk like that to us.)

Let me clarify my own clarification... Her physical disability is that she suffers greatly from blisters and sores on her skin from even minor contact. She can have good periods where she can work. But then she has bad periods that have landed in a hospital for as long as a month and a half fighting infections. This and her negative attitude makes working a problem. (She's on her fourth job in a year and half... being fired from the first three.)

 

[A dad]

Wait she works how does they system thinks she is disabled then?

 

[JJNeedsHelps]

Breaking things is also something I'd call the cops for. I think that too is considered domestic violence. Stealing? A no-brainer. I don't know what your daughter does, but I wouldn't let her terrorize the rest of the family.

She does terrorize us physiologically. She is not physically violent other than slamming doors. (She has slammed the door to the lower level of our home so many times that the hinges have pulled out of the wall and the door sticks... you have to lift and pull to open it. I'm to discourage to fix it.)

She makes threats though... perhaps that I can call the police in for. For example, we have been asking her to clean her room since she came back and dropped everything on the floor. Piles of stuff. I got frustrated asking her to pick it up so people could walk and I said, "you clean it or I will clean it". Her reply was that if I touched her stuff that I would find all my business computers in the dumpster one day. (I work from home) I believe she would do that so I have left her stuff on the floor for months.

 

[JJNeedsHelps]

Wait she works how does they system thinks she is disabled then?

The program she would be on is a supplemental income program through social security. When she is well enough to work her payments decrease, but when she has these bad bouts the payments will be in full (whatever she qualifies for) and thus help her through her rough patches.

 

[JJNeedsHelps]

The program she would be on is a supplemental income program through social security. When she is well enough to work her payments decrease, but when she has these bad bouts the payments will be in full (whatever she qualifies for) and thus help her through her rough patches.

Unless they find a cure for her physical disability her life will be this roller-coaster of being well enough for a time to work and then being sick and unable to work... possibly for weeks or even months. Without this program she could never support herself (unless she finds some awesome husband to take care of her and her health problems and her mental issues too.)

 

[Lil]

JJ welcome to the board, though I'm so sorry you have to be here.

I echo everyone else who says find another lawyer. Even if she's disabled, you are NOT obligated to support your child for the rest of her life unless there's a court order for you to do so. As SWOT said, someday you'll die after all! Then what? She's not a person who is incompetent and requires a conservator to manage her money, she's got a physical disability. So do lots of people who live on their own. She has a steady income and can support herself. Find another lawyer and evict her.