Hi all, here's my story:
I just found this forum after searching all over the internet, trying to find out how to cope with walking away from an adult child. So I m new here.
My difficult child will be 23yo this year. Four months ago she was married, has two kids, a home, a car, a job. AS of this weekend, she is homeless, no job, no car, no husband, and will soon lose custody of her kids but is pregnant with her boyfriend's child.
2 years ago she was diagnosed as BiPolar (BP), Borderline (BPD) and has always been a chronic liar. She has refused to get treated. Her 4 year marriage has been rocky from the start, with multiple affairs and financial woes. This recent episode started in April when her husband found out that she was communicating with old boyfriend's on the internet. He had enough and told her to leave. This began the worse descent she has ever had into this illness. She hooked up with a guy who has fed into her disease to use her and manipulate her. She pawned all her stuff to give him money so that he can continue his habit. This is when she stopped seeing her kids, stopped paying her bills, lost her job andbecame homeless. We spent two months trying to talk her into coming home so that we can get her cleaned up and out of that lifestyle, so that she can see her kids and get her life back on track. We could never get her alone without the boyfriend being there. It finally took my husband and her Ex-husband going over to where she was and physically dragging her home with a warning to the boyfriend not to get in touch with her. This lasted for about 2.5 weeks while she tried to repair the relationship with her Ex-husband. It didn't work out and she ended up on our doorstep this last Thursday, pregnant with the now EX-boyfriend's child. We brought her in, grateful that she came home, sat her down, made a plan for her life which included going back to school and staying home. We were going to take care of all her expenses, the one thing we specified she could not do was to get into contact with the EX-boyfriend. This lasted for exactly one night. She was off to "visit friends" and we have not seen her since.
What I wrote above is more of a clinical "this is what happened" post. It really doesn't represent all the heartbreak, tears and sleepless nights. This doesn't include me battling for her life and reputation with people that don't understand mental illness. Those people that called her horrible names to my face while I was screaming "but that's my baby girl! She is sick don't you understand!" . On the flipside I am getting yelled at for not "fighting for her" anymore. I feel like I am being ripped into two.
But to my horror, I just walked away from her. I can't take the stress and worry anymore, battling for her life when it is the life that she keeps pulling herself too. I know this isn't the life she wants, she just cant seem to get herself to a place where she can get some "fresh air" and breath. I can't handle the questions from my grandbabies when they are asking me why Mommy hasn't come to see them yet. My 4 yo grandson was in tears when he realized that mommy wasn't coming to see him. It is heartbreaking. I feel like I had to make the choice to save my grand kids FROM their mother,my daughter. This is not the little girl I raised. It's horribly tragic.
My heart aches every moment of the day. It's only been two days since she walked away and we let her go.
How do you get through this kind of pain and still try to live day to day?
I just found this forum after searching all over the internet, trying to find out how to cope with walking away from an adult child. So I m new here.
My difficult child will be 23yo this year. Four months ago she was married, has two kids, a home, a car, a job. AS of this weekend, she is homeless, no job, no car, no husband, and will soon lose custody of her kids but is pregnant with her boyfriend's child.
2 years ago she was diagnosed as BiPolar (BP), Borderline (BPD) and has always been a chronic liar. She has refused to get treated. Her 4 year marriage has been rocky from the start, with multiple affairs and financial woes. This recent episode started in April when her husband found out that she was communicating with old boyfriend's on the internet. He had enough and told her to leave. This began the worse descent she has ever had into this illness. She hooked up with a guy who has fed into her disease to use her and manipulate her. She pawned all her stuff to give him money so that he can continue his habit. This is when she stopped seeing her kids, stopped paying her bills, lost her job andbecame homeless. We spent two months trying to talk her into coming home so that we can get her cleaned up and out of that lifestyle, so that she can see her kids and get her life back on track. We could never get her alone without the boyfriend being there. It finally took my husband and her Ex-husband going over to where she was and physically dragging her home with a warning to the boyfriend not to get in touch with her. This lasted for about 2.5 weeks while she tried to repair the relationship with her Ex-husband. It didn't work out and she ended up on our doorstep this last Thursday, pregnant with the now EX-boyfriend's child. We brought her in, grateful that she came home, sat her down, made a plan for her life which included going back to school and staying home. We were going to take care of all her expenses, the one thing we specified she could not do was to get into contact with the EX-boyfriend. This lasted for exactly one night. She was off to "visit friends" and we have not seen her since.
What I wrote above is more of a clinical "this is what happened" post. It really doesn't represent all the heartbreak, tears and sleepless nights. This doesn't include me battling for her life and reputation with people that don't understand mental illness. Those people that called her horrible names to my face while I was screaming "but that's my baby girl! She is sick don't you understand!" . On the flipside I am getting yelled at for not "fighting for her" anymore. I feel like I am being ripped into two.
But to my horror, I just walked away from her. I can't take the stress and worry anymore, battling for her life when it is the life that she keeps pulling herself too. I know this isn't the life she wants, she just cant seem to get herself to a place where she can get some "fresh air" and breath. I can't handle the questions from my grandbabies when they are asking me why Mommy hasn't come to see them yet. My 4 yo grandson was in tears when he realized that mommy wasn't coming to see him. It is heartbreaking. I feel like I had to make the choice to save my grand kids FROM their mother,my daughter. This is not the little girl I raised. It's horribly tragic.
My heart aches every moment of the day. It's only been two days since she walked away and we let her go.
How do you get through this kind of pain and still try to live day to day?