Sad mother, bipolar daughter

[JaneBetty]

I have a little bit of an update. It has been almost three months since our Difficult Child was forced to leave our home.

My youngest daughter came home for a visit a few days ago and reached out to Difficult Child through texting and an eventual meeting.

Based upon the text messages between them that youngest daughter let me read, I could tell that things had not really changed as far as how Difficult Child is thinking. Difficult Child wanted youngest daughter to bring a winter coat to her. I had already arranged, through a mutual family friend, to have that coat and other winter items delivered to Difficult Child weeks ago. Difficult Child insisted that she didn't have any winter clothing and said that I was lying about having the coat!

The eventual meeting between Difficult Child and youngest daughter was at a shopping mall. Difficult Child didn't greet youngest daughter when she pulled up, Difficult Child just strode across the parking lot towards the mall, expecting youngest daughter to follow. Youngest daughter has become accustomed to this type of treatment and stayed in her car and Difficult Child eventually came back and they were able to talk some.

Turns out that Difficult Child had been living with a young man and his family, and the family doesn't want Difficult Child around anymore. According to Difficult Child, everyone gets on HER nerves, all her friends are annoying, and no one believes Difficult Child that she is taking her medications, and besides, the medications don't work!

Somehow, she still has two cats. I noticed a $125 vet bill came through her credit union statement. And a $25 grooming bill. At this point, her expenditures are from her savings account that she is slowly emptying out.

So much of her daily existence is a mystery in some ways, yet I can imagine what is going on. She is resilient in an odd way, able to sweet talk herself into other's lives until the people around her reach the end of their patience.

We are getting ready to head south for a few months and I'm sort of resigned to the thought that she may try to break into our house at some point. It wouldn't be too hard, it's an old house. She showed up here the other week with a girl in tow and simply walked through the garage and into the basement. She wanted to give her friend a lamp from her pile of belongings. Spoke to my surprised husband like nothing was amiss, then later bashed him as a "creep" in a text message to our mutual family friend.

 

[BusynMember]

Lock up your valuables and financial info...use a lock box. Take the key with you.Get a cheap security camera to record things when you are gone. If you have valuables too big for a lock box, get a friend to maybe hang onto it and tell the police to drive by your house while you are gone.

Have a stupendous, marvelous vacation!!!

 

[JaneBetty]

Thanks, Somewhere : )

We have an old "coal room" in the basement that has a deadbolt, and I have a friend who will periodically walk through the house.

It's funny, but I sort of mentally let go of all of the household belongings with the exception of the little jewelry I own and some other easily transportable and concealable items back when she first started living with us and would routinely leave the doors unlocked and the garage door gaping.

Even then, I realized that I could spend all my time worrying about my things in my absence, or I could try to have some enjoyment.

All that changed when she had to be foreceably removed, but I didn't mention another incident that really brought home how imperative it was that she leave: last June, while my husband and I were away for a wedding, she took a can of flat white paint and made whispy marks all over the kitchen cabinets, the door and window hardware, the pipes in the basement, and the upstairs bathroom tiles. In retrospect, I now recall how many times in the months leading up, she told me she wanted to paint the house and I told her not to, not realizing she would go ahead and do it!

Of course, she was experiencing some kind of break wth reality. But what do you do with someone who does this kind of thing???

I spend too much time hashing this stuff over in my mind. Thank God for this forum. I could never talk about any of the things that went on here outside the family.

 

[BusynMember]

Well...that is the pain of a mentally ill loved one. And we must protect ourselves anyway. Please know all of us understand and are holding your hand. We get it. Now have a blast!!

 

[JaneBetty]

Today, we had a meeting with the D.A. that we had requested weeks ago after our daughter was arrested for assaulting me.

The meeting went well, we wanted to let the D.A. know that our daughter was working (I noticed a predeposit payroll notice from a local factory on her credit union stmt a few days ago), and that she seemed to be using the local Crisis Unit services, based on phone calls that appear on our family cell account.

The D.A. said that our state needs a "mental health court" to handle cases like this with people who have no prior convictions and have mental breaks, and he was sorry that she had to go through the regular court system.

He said that he was going to drop the domestic abuse charge but keep the simple battery charge, a misdemeanor, since he felt that assigning a probation officer and requiring her to take medication would result in a better outcome for her in the long run.

Onward!

 

[sandyr]

I feel ya... i'm in a very similar situation with my bipolar daughter.. she stole from us, lies like a champ, refuses to take medication and we have a restraining order because she assaulted my youngest daughter. She is with some kind of boyfriend (bad influence) and we are just waiting for the police to arrest her. We are heartbroken as we have been give her many opportunities and every time she relapses it is worse. I don't want to see her because I'm going to cry.

 

[JaneBetty]

Sandyr, I'm sorry you are going through this with your daughter. This forum helped me realize that there are limits to what is acceptable in an adult child and parent relationship. Because we lived with our daughter for such a long period of time, we didn't see how things had gone from bad to worse. It happened so slowly that every new bad event sort of became the new normal. It was hard to see this while it was happening, only possible in hindsight.

There is a part of me that is horrified how relieved I am that she is off on her own. I struggle with trying to figure out how much to care about her well being. I love her forever.

Her birthday is coming up, and we sent a card and some gifts. I sat with a pen poised over the card and ran through what I wanted to write all the while imagining her reaction to my written words, and in the end I simply wished her a happy birthday, love, Mom. I didn't want to provoke her. She twists everyone's words into unrecognizable meanings.

I feel terrible not to know where she is living, but she refuses to let us know. She has a job, but her attitude is that we are not allowed to know because somehow we will have "won" that she was forced to get a job!

Somehow, the circumstances of her life are all our fault, despite our earnest attempts to help.

It sounds like you are in the beginning stages of dealing with watching your daughter's actions from afar, but you are still in the know enough to have details of her living circumstances. You have done the right thing by having a RO issued, and it will probably be the first step in detaching from the drama of her life. It doesn't mean anything will be easier for your family, but at least a line has been drawn. You daughter needs boundaries, even though she might not think so!

I wish you well, please keep posting here, it really helps with the heartache.

 

[sandyr]

It is not easy at all, we came from a culture that your child lives with you until they get married, my youngest is doing college in another state and we allow it because we wanted her to be away from all this drama. Now she is calling my husband because she is switching from the hypomania to the depressive state and she is breaking our hearts. We know we need her to realize that all her actions are having consequences, because she seems not to understand because she is in a manic state. not sure what to do.