I need some strength from my CD family

[comatheart]

Kathy,

Were you ever able to get any kind of paperwork confirming the claimed epilepsy?

Also, if she is (was?) taking Lamictal, I totally agree with DammitJanet☝. Seizures were a major concern when my son was on the ventilator this summer thanks to Lamictal.

 

[Kathy813]

We know that she was prescribed the epilepsy drugs from her insurance records (we pay the premiums) but never saw the medical records.

We have broken off all contact for the time being. We also know that she is drug seeking and has managed to get multiple prescriptions for xanax.

difficult child is going to have to figure this out on her own this time. If she wants a life of substance abuse and living on the margins of society, we will let her go. If she ever decides sobriety is what she really wants, we will be 100% behind her although it will only be emotional support from now on.

 

[Kathy813]

Things are really bad now. difficult child's last therapist emailed husband last night that difficult child had been in contact with her and that difficult child was really getting desperate. She claims that she is living on the street and the therapist said she thought difficult child was suicidal.

The therapist tried to get difficult child to call 911 or tell the therapist where she was so that the therapist could call 911 but difficult child refused. She offered to go down to see difficult child today if difficult child would tell her where she was (the therapist is about an hour away from where difficult child is now). She also told the therapist that her phone was about to die and that she had no way to charge it.

husband didn't see the email until this morning. He called difficult child and she answered. So much for not being able to recharge her phone. difficult child was sobbing and said she was "having to do things that she had never thought she would do."

She keeps asking to come home for a "visit" while she figures out what to do. We all know what that would lead to. Once she was here, she would refuse to leave and we would have to go back to living with things under lock and key. I will never live like that again and husband told difficult child that.

He told her that he would not talk to her again until after she called the therapist. The therapist mentioned to husband that she thought a group home would be appropriate at this point for difficult child. She would be much more knowledgeable than we are on how to make that happen.

Of course, difficult child claimed that she wasn't using. I guess she forgot that we can see her insurance account and know about the additional xanax that she has been managing to get scrips for.

difficult child is still claiming that no halfway house will take her because of her new diagnosis of epilepsy. I have a hard time believing that. Her therapist did confirm that her health insurance is very limited when it comes to finding treatment programs which we already knew.

I hate this. Please help me be strong.

Kathy

 

[recoveringenabler]

Oh Kathy, I am so very sorry. It is just a nightmare to be on the sidelines while our troubled adult kids behave in the fashion your difficult child is. You're surrounded by help, your therapist, her therapist, you're doing all the right things and I know from my own experience, that doesn't take the nagging fear and anxiety away from you.

I hope you are continuing to keep yourself in supportive environments, perhaps stepping up the support will work, that's what I did, until pretty much every single day, I was attending a 12 step group, or therapy or a parent group, or NAMI. I had to keep my brain occupied so I didn't let the fear drag me around.

I don't know if this will be helpful to you or not, but recently I have been watching a lot of Eckhart Tolle videos on YouTube. I find them extremely helpful for me to keep my mind in a peaceful place. I listen to his CD's in the car. I am becoming quite the devotee! But in any case, it is a means for me to stay centered, balanced and peaceful in the midst of regular life. When in a hurricane, as you are, what I always did was step up my own support. It made all the difference in the world for me.

It's so hard. We'll circle our wagons around you as we do.................Saying a prayer for your difficult child and you and husband...............sending warm hugs for you to find some peace................

 

[Nancy]

Oh Kathy this is tough. You are right though, you can't go back to the way things were. If difficult child wants help she will contact her therapist. Hopefully she has connections and can get her into a group home. I agree that sounds like the best for her at this point. What do we do for the people who can't live on their own and have no ability to keep a job? It's an issue people don't want to look at and when they do try to blame people when that isn't the answer.

I know that you and your husband are willing to help if she is willing to do what she needs to do to be in a safe environment and she isn't using. All you can do is keep telling her that it is up to her to do the next right thing. I don't know how to get through this Kathy but we are all behind you. I think about you all the time and really want this to work out. Please keep us posted.

 

[dstc_99]

Sending hugs and support. Your difficult child has multiple people willing to help her and she isn't willing to let them. Until she is nothing much is going to change. All she has to do is stick out her hand and grab hold of the help. She can do it. She has to.

 

[Signorina]

Hi Kath - please stay strong. You are doing the right thing by not letting her come into your home. Absolutely, 100% the right thing!!! You brought her into your home hoping it would be her key to wellness. And it was not - and bringing her "home" now will not be the key once more. Remember that - please. The only thing that is going to help her is the motivation to start making good choices.

I know it hurts and I know it's horrible. Remember "the bridge/rope fable?"

The man said to the other, “Listen to me. I will not accept the position of choice for your life, only for my own; the position of choice for your own life, I hereby give back to you.”

The choice for her life is firmly her own - and that's the way it's meant to be.

XOXO

 

[toughlovin]

Oh Kathy, I so feel for you. That position of worry is just horrible. I agree totally that you cant let her come home. Besides the fact of how it makes you live, it wont help her because she wont get help while she can stay at home and avoid the reality of her situation. I think all you can do is keep letting her know you love her and when she really wants help you will help her get help, whatever that means. And it sounds like that means having her get in touch with her therapist. So you are doing the right things.

I know how awful all of this is.... so keep getting as much support as you can and distract yourself with things that you like to do.... even if you cant enjoy them fully, distraction right now is good.

 

[Calamity Jane]

Kathy, I'm so sorry this is ratcheting up. I hope the therapist is able to speak with her, I know how worried you must feel right now.

From your post it seems like difficult child is saying desperate things, is in a horrible situation, but when the therapist offered to drive 1 hr. to see her, she said her phone was running out of juice. Then husband called the next A.M., and she had managed to charge it. Also, you know she's been getting Xanax. I think husband was on the money that he wouldn't continue the conversation unless she contacted the therapist. I think it's true that difficult child is in a bad, horrible situation, but she's also resourceful and has been quite manipulative all along. My guess is she's going to magnify the drama until you do things her way. I hope I'm wrong, but that's kind of the way difficult child is hard wired.

Many, many hugs to you and husband for continued strength and grace under pressure. Take a breath. You are not being unreasonable.

 

[PatriotsGirl]

I am so sorry...

 

[Kathy813]

Calamity, you nailed it. The therapist had sent us an email saying that she thought difficult child might be better off back in metro Atlanta since there was very little down there for homeless people. She said that she had told difficult child that needed extended mental health treatment and difficult child agreed.

So husband and I were falling for it and even looked at some possible places up here that difficult child could go. We are standing hard and fast that she can't come back here to live and that she would have to go straight into some kind of program. The therapist even sent us a link to one that turned out to be $6000 a month. Been there and done that and not going to do it again.

But there is a highly recommended program that is 6 months to 2 years long for $600 a month and the clients are expected to get a job and pay for most of it. So husband called difficult child to talk to her about it and difficult child was angry that husband even mentioned a place like that. She said that she is absolutely not going into residential program. She planned to stay at our house for "a while" and would only consider an IOP.

Well, that told us that difficult child is certainly not desperate. I would think that if she was living on the streets she would jump at any chance for a roof over her head. husband told her that she should email if she decided she wanted us to help her find a program and she told husband that he shouldn't look for that email.

So I think that she conned the therapist and was doing her usual manipulation to try to get us to let her move back in here.

I called my therapist and talked to her about it and she agreed that difficult child was up to her usual tricks. She also said that she wondered if the therapist down there was trying to hand difficult child off to us since she is not getting paid to treat her anymore. I hadn't thought of that but it certainly does seem strange that she did a 180 from telling us that we shouldn't be helping difficult child anymore to telling us that she thought difficult child might have more options up here.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

But there is a highly recommended program that
is 6 months to 2 years long for $600 a month and the clients are expected to get a job and pay for most of it. So husband called difficult child to talk to her about
it and difficult child was angry that husband even mentioned a
place like that. She said that she is absolutely not going into residential program. She planned to
stay at our house for "a while" and would only
consider an IOP.

There is a certain kind of freedom for us in understanding how fully the difficult child is choosing to do what she is doing.

difficult child daughter will often cry to husband about the very things she knows will shame husband and awaken his protective instincts. (As it seems your daughter did, in telling her father what she had done to survive.) With me, difficult child daughter relates things horrific and particular to me ~ things about the beatings, about the shame of it, about the terror she felt.

And even though I know, on one level, that I am being manipulated, on another level, I am so horrified, in such a targeted way, that I cannot think.

I'm sorry this is happening to you ~ to all of you.

So destructive, on so many levels.

Kathy? We made it through. You will, too.

Cedar

 

[Hope_Floats]

There is a certain kind of freedom for us in understanding how fully the difficult child is choosing to do what she is doing.

That is the freedom that I seek. If we only knew, definitely, where that line lie, we would be more at peace with where we are now.

 

[Nancy]

She is not desperate, sounds like she is manipulating again. And it does sound like they just want her out of there. Makes it easier to stay strong.

 

[Kathy813]

I think difficult child is getting worried that her manipulation is not working anymore. She emailed husband saying that she was "rethinking whether selling her car is a good idea" and saying that she was willing to consider the resident program husband had mentioned up here if we thought it was the right thing for her to do.

This is less than 24 hours after she adamantly refused to even consider an inpatient treatment program. I don't believe her for a second. Luckily, my therapist pointed out to me that she won't follow the rules and will get kicked out and then she will be close to us which will make things even worse.

I could tell that husband was weakening so I reminded him what our therapist said. difficult child has to be the one that finds a place to go if she truly wants to get sober. I found a list of rehabs in Florida for indigent and homeless people and told him to send her the numbers. None of them are down in south Florida but that might be a good thing. They are in northern Florida (still far enough away from us). He asked if I thought we should tell her that we will help her get to a program if she finds one that will take her and I agreed to that.

He could drive down and get her and drive her to the treatment center. That is all I am willing to do at this point.

I don't know why she is rethinking selling her car. It is not working and according to her, she can't drive for a year. Of course, being told that she couldn't do something never stopped her before.

 

[susiestar]

I am sorry you are going through all of this again. She just never stops, does she? Didn't one of her past tdocs say that her main goal in life was to go back to living in your house and having you support her completely? Her current actions and statements seem to be yet another attempt to make that happen.

I know a couple of people who run rehabs/detox places. I asked 2 of them if an epilepsy diagnosis would keep a client from being accepted into a residential program. They laughed at the very idea. Epilepsy is often comorbid with other diagnosis's that patients often self medicate rather than staying on their medications. Plus some of those other diseases/problems are often treated with antiseizure medications and going cold turkey or mixing those medications with drugs/alcohol can often cause seizures in those who don't have epilepsy.

Add into this that both alcohol and benzo use and/or withdrawal can cause seizures, well, treatment centers tend to be pretty experienced with seizures. I am sure some will not take patients with seizures, but many places are able to accept clients with seizures.

Also, what are the odds that your difficult child has gone to a doctor or hospital for an EEG? That she has done this in a short amount of time AND gotten the results AND a diagnosis AND that difficult child has actually contacted a program about this? The chances of all of those things happening in the amount of time that difficult child has had seem slim at best.

Stay strong and let difficult child figure this out for herself. She hasn't learned from all of the programs and homes and tdocs/psychiatrists/otherdocs that you have provided. Another program getting through to her and changing things for the better seems like magical thinking on your part.

I really wish there was some magic program or bean that would help all of you.

 

[stressedmama]

Wow. That's a tricky one. If my difficult child called me with that info, I would call BS. But I don't know your daughter. Do you know if she is aware of the family history? Could she be using that tidbit of info to manipulate you?

I agree with dstc - see what the doctor's report shows (if you can get it) and go from there.

So sorry you are going through this...Hugs!

 

[Kathy813]

Just a little update . . .

We held the line and surprise, surprise, difficult child managed to find herself an IOP with a halfway house that took her insurance. She can live there for free! difficult child also has managed to find herself a full time job at a call center.

husband is talking to her again although I am keeping my distance. She told husband that she saw another doctor and has been cleared to drive. It's a miracle! So she is saving up money to buy car insurance and get her car fixed so she can drive again. In the meantime she is getting rides to work but has missed some days because she couldn't find a ride and the "bus didn't come."

I told husband she is trying to manipulate him into giving her money for getting her car fixed. He said he knew what she was doing and wasn't falling for it. We shall see.

difficult child keeps bringing up the holidays and how she will be alone. I do feel bad for her but as my therapist keeps pointing out, all of this is her own doing.

~Kathy

 

[recoveringenabler]

Wow Kathy, you guys are doing such a terrific job! (And, I know how incredibly difficult it can be!) She did in fact find a place to live and a job, amazing. You held your ground and she found her way. You must feel so relieved after all the recent drama. I am so happy to hear this, thanks for the update.

 

[dstc_99]

Love this update!