Jan, you are not rambling. You are faced with a choice no one wants to make, turning away your own child. That being said, you are right that you cannot allow her back into your life where you can bet she will do everything in her power to hurt you. You have established a life for yourself. You deserve it. Protect it. If she calls again, tell her she needs to work crisis counselors if she ever wants to improve her life. Affirm that you cannot take calls or visits from her under the circumstances. You probably should cut off the phone as it could be enabling though I understand you are trying to hang on to that last glimmer of hope and at least you know where she is. But....it is not helping her, or you. I'm sorry for the way things have worked out but you have the basis for a happy life. Grab it. God bless.

Jan, you are being SO STRONG!!!! I know how much it probably hurts inside, but you said and are doing the right thing. The ONLY thing your daughter will do is drag her drama into your life. Even her boyfriend couldn't take it.

Stay strong, say prayers, and focus on your marriage and your own needs. Your daughter, unfortunately, will do what she will do and nothing anyone else says or does will change it...

Don't you think after 20 years of anger and sorrow you deserve happiness? I do..... Do not let her come home. It's time to enjoy your life with your new husband. Don't let her ruin that for you and you know she will. You have sacrificed enough!

Thank you for the kind words. I will raise my GD and enjoy life.

Um...? Honey?...you ARE doing the right thing. I too had to tell my daughter no and that she could not come back to our home. This was after BF# WHO KNOWS!....kicked her out. My husband and I have our beautiful wonderful little 8-month GD and get permanent guardianship of her in two days. We said no to her HELL this time and sent her "packing" We had/have it with her abusive mouth, rudeness, CRAZY/WILD manic-bi-polar behaviors, and off the wall decisions. We pray for her, but have done all we can humanly do. It is in God's hands now. We are leaving it there and HIS will be done.

PS: I would not pay for her to have a phone if I were you. Do not pay or enable her in anything. Just take of your GC

GMJan...

we have tried many times to "help" our DD out by allowing her back home... she always takes advantage, she is rude, foul mouthed, disrespectful, messy and just unpleasant to be around... so we have told her this last time she is not allowed to move back home EVER!... I hate it but she had made it this way.

There is a difference between giving our unconditional love to our children and enabling them. Sometimes loving them is letting them go to make their own mistakes and hopefully come out better for doing so.

We had to tell our daughter the same thing that her bipolar runs the house. I lived with the moods,mouth and mess for too long. It hurt like hell to tell my child she is not welcome home again,but I have to protect the grandson from the maddness.Love to all and thank you for making me feel sane. It is so hard to fight your child and protect their child from them.Keep strong !

Even if they suffer from mental illness, at some point they must be held accountable for their own actions. I'm sure any therapist would say that learning to accept responsibility is part of treatment. Otherwise they'll be dependent for the rest of their lives, using their illness as an excuse...

Even schizophrenics need to know that they must stay on their meds if they have a prayer of living as normal a life as possible. And sometimes they have to hit bottom before they realize that.

Sara, the problem is that many are incapable of taking responsibility because of their mental illness. For a family it is difficult to accept that. Mental illness is not a choice. When they wrote the mental health codes they assumed the mentally ill would do alright outside of an institution because of the meds that had become available. What they did not see was the problem of mentally ill having the right to refuse medications. With the recent devastating shootings and the obvious mental health of the shooters, legislators are looking at what changes need to be made to protect the mentally hill from hurting themselves or others. The bottom line is there is no magic pill or therapy. My husband is disabled and walks with a cane. He also is visually impaired. We have to use a wheelchair when we go out, not because of his disability, but because of the general attitude of people who expect he should walk faster and think nothing of bumping him out of their way. I cannot tell you the number of people we have had trip over his footrests as they try to race past us. With mental illness you cannot place a normal expectation on them because they cannot fulfill it. That is part of the illness. It is not about taking a medication so they can make better decisions. More than not the medications just dull their senses so they cannot make any decisions. Lack of responsibility is part of the diagnosis. Schizophrenics suffer from distorted thinking and medication is again not the cure all. Living with mental illness is not hitting the bottom, but living at the bottom. When I worked with severally depressed patients on the psych unit, I wanted to say: just think of something positive and you will feel better, but it's not that simple. As a family member, the best you can do is learn how to live with their illness, which may mean walking away from them, but whatever you do, you will not be teaching them responsibility, you will be just another person who rejects them.

I agree with you, Daisy. When they closed the institutions they threw the baby out with the bathwater. Instead of justifying that the severely mentally ill have a "right" to refuse medication, they should have improved the institutions. There was no reason why they couldn't have made conditions better. But instead they just opened the doors and let them out to freeze and starve in the streets.