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I have been stuffing down the urge to have a big , get it all out, tension relieving sob. I had a rough week with disassociating, anxiety, panic and trouble sleeping. Usually I am ok at work but all this stuff has been happening at work. So...yeah...not a good week. I ended up emailing my tdoc then calling him because I didn't know how to handle this crap during the work day.
We talked and he said that I should have a quiet weekend and if I could and if I felt safe let the tears come. He said to call him if I felt I couldn't stop them or if it got really bad.
There I was geared up for a day of healing (hopefully) tears that have been a few years in the making. Then Saturday I get the phone call: My Dad is in the emergency room. He had a mini stroke or so they thought. I drove the 50 miles to see him and luckily he was doing fine. They kept him over night for observation and sent him home today.
This morning at 5am my daughter is pounding on my door. She broke a piece of a molar off. She proceeded to have a melt down of effing major proportions. She is 20 years old. No health insurance because she won't apply for assistance. I asked if she was in pain and she said she was. I looked and couldn't see anything but then again I'm not a dentist. I told her that her options were the ED or wait until the clinic opened on Monday morning. She flipped out. Screaming at me. I saw the "look" come in her eyes. The look that signals she just dropped into the rabbit hole and I need to keep myself safe and non reactive. She demanded I tell her what to do. I repeated the choices. her screaming got louder and shriller. I could also tell at this point she was not in pain. I told her to stop screaming at me and go to her room or anywhere out of my room and calm down. She told me I was an effing c**t and body slammed me. Eventually she calmed down. I asked her what was wrong. She told me that the chipped tooth freaked her out. I told her I understood that but she needs to keep herself together. She told me she had a flashback. I offered her some ideas on grounding herself. I reiterated that she NEEDED to apply for assistance.
Anyway....I can't deal with her mental illness. I can barely deal with mine. I really wanted to break down and cry but I couldn't because she is barely functioning and I need to keep functioning. I can't let my guard down. I feel so damn trapped.
A few of you have read the tales of my daughter. I know the rest don't know the story but my daughter and I need to far far away from each other. It can only end badly.
We talked and he said that I should have a quiet weekend and if I could and if I felt safe let the tears come. He said to call him if I felt I couldn't stop them or if it got really bad.
There I was geared up for a day of healing (hopefully) tears that have been a few years in the making. Then Saturday I get the phone call: My Dad is in the emergency room. He had a mini stroke or so they thought. I drove the 50 miles to see him and luckily he was doing fine. They kept him over night for observation and sent him home today.
This morning at 5am my daughter is pounding on my door. She broke a piece of a molar off. She proceeded to have a melt down of effing major proportions. She is 20 years old. No health insurance because she won't apply for assistance. I asked if she was in pain and she said she was. I looked and couldn't see anything but then again I'm not a dentist. I told her that her options were the ED or wait until the clinic opened on Monday morning. She flipped out. Screaming at me. I saw the "look" come in her eyes. The look that signals she just dropped into the rabbit hole and I need to keep myself safe and non reactive. She demanded I tell her what to do. I repeated the choices. her screaming got louder and shriller. I could also tell at this point she was not in pain. I told her to stop screaming at me and go to her room or anywhere out of my room and calm down. She told me I was an effing c**t and body slammed me. Eventually she calmed down. I asked her what was wrong. She told me that the chipped tooth freaked her out. I told her I understood that but she needs to keep herself together. She told me she had a flashback. I offered her some ideas on grounding herself. I reiterated that she NEEDED to apply for assistance.
Anyway....I can't deal with her mental illness. I can barely deal with mine. I really wanted to break down and cry but I couldn't because she is barely functioning and I need to keep functioning. I can't let my guard down. I feel so damn trapped.
A few of you have read the tales of my daughter. I know the rest don't know the story but my daughter and I need to far far away from each other. It can only end badly.
I mean no offense whatsoever. None. But speaking as another who told myself I "had" to hold it together? Eff it. And your daughter is 20. In need of help you know you cannot provide. You've done what you can telling her where she should seek that help. And speaking as the daughter who has handed over the pamphlets and so on to a mother?
Eff it. Okay? You do NOT have to "hold it together" for her sake. Not when it's hurting YOU. She doesn't need to see your tears or know they happened, but you need them to, okay? I'm in the same dry-eyed boat for different reasons, trying to take my own advice...
Wish wish wish so hard I could make this different for you, for us all.
Healing purrs,
Leo
Hugs.
Awwww, Cecil.
They always say that the first step in helping/treating us is to get us to a place of safety.
And you're being physically and verbally abused in your own house ??
I'm so, so sorry.
Do you see any paths TO a place of safety ?? Are you open and honest with a professional (physician, therapist, psychiatrist) about your home situation ??
I'm really sorry. Just awful....
There will be explanations, I'm sorry's, excuses and reasons she thinks are valid, but it will escalate. She will continue as long as you don't close the door to it. Because you just sent her to her room is not enough, actually may even feed the immature outbursts, in the future.(really what help i it to let her stew in the past? none, she just escalated. I don't think she has the compassion gene you do. Which we have sen so often here.
Some kids just grow up with out it, it can be taught to go through steps to handle angry outbursts, but that takes a lot of therapy, to learn to live without it in a peaceful way. The court will make sure she gets it if she uses PTSD or any other psychological break to explain her outburst, also as victim in the courts eyes, you will not be held responsible for payment of her treatment.
If she has yet to reach the number, have her confined for treatment as being a threat to herself or others and you.. This is easier done than you think. There is a "Tarasoff"law that says social workers Doctors and therapist must report to the law in this case and they will do it for you, for your safety, now that she is using violence.
I know it's easy to say "It wasn't that bad, it didn't hurt that much and that you have survived worse" Because you're her mother, you will feel guilty for her going to jail, but if you don't? How far will she go when mad? You don't know. She obviously doesn't think she wasn't justified because of a chipped tooth, which you had no part in. But you took the brunt of her anxiety, anger. You became her violence release point. The above, are the words of an enabler, and a person in pain, weak to from the fight. Many of us do this thinking that there is a hope of redemption without confinement .Or that yeah w have been through worse so this is excusable.(That one kept me around for 8 more years of escalating abuse) I am barely alive for that reason, 16 bones broke , loss of ability to carry babies ( 5 miscarriages for John and me) to full term,from cumulative damage. Just from that thinking... I had enough love to fix one. It takes professional help now to keep her from escalating, if she can be stopped. I stop short of labels but you and I know that some may never comprehend that they are wrong, never understand that there are boundaries, no matter what they learn. My ex had 12 years of therapy ( court ordered after a hunting trip looking for me waving a gun,) after I left to finally make a dent in his. ( he was also dx Bipolar,depressive disorder and PTSD, during this.) They just don't have that linc in the brain. She will get mad, but she will not have a choice, therapy or incarceration. Either way the ball to her therapy and coverage through state and federal programs for coverage, will start rolling.
It's too hard to heal when you live with an abuser, she is one even if it has only started at puberty teens. There's so much that goes on hormonally to click switches in the brain, that like adrenalin, too much changes the brain chemistry, at that teen changing stage.
http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/envrnmnt/css/cs3lk1.htm
Your therapist if you have told him/her of it, is required to tell for your safety. Your name is on the lease, she will be removed. Then pack her stuff in storage, mail the key/location to her. Close that door until she is in active therapy and ready to see you are not there for her frustration relief. That this behavior is now a danger/threat to you.
As with all take it/toss it, but I care and worry for you Cecil. You have so much art, vision and have been a friend too me for awhile, I just couldn't see this and not respond.
Warm tiger hugs,
Jewells
Gentlest hugs and healing
Leo
I am just not ready to go to the police yet. She is in therapy but they aren't helping. She needs a case manager. She needs someone to help her through the insurance process. I have one more thing I want to try. I know...there is always one more thing. She is a good 75% better than she used to be.
I want one more talk with her but it has to be calm. I can't be calm tonight. My work day was horrid. 12 hours long horrid. I emailed my tdoc AGAIN. I see him Wednesday.
Hopefully I can let the tears out there. I need to know someone has my back while I am letting it all go.
My daughter has been in the hospital 3 times for melt down. They don't keep her. The next step is the police...who will either arrest her for criminal charges or take her to the hospital who will not treat her. That is how the system here works.
I know it is frustrating to keep reading about my issues with her and the answer seems so obvious yet I don't take action. it is just where I am right now.
Thanks for all your support
None of this stuff is easy.
I wish you all the best. I know what it means not to feel safe in your own home. Actually, I think lots of us know.
And you're definitely not the only one struggling with their adult child.
Unfortunately.
Big hug from this corner.
Jewells' detailed post is the true road map ahead here toward healing. "Close that door until she is in active therapy and ready to see you are not there for her frustration relief." Most of us here come from families in which there were scenes like yours at one time or another. Different roles, maybe, same story. All of us had good intentions in learning how to "take it" from our loved ones. I'll bet in no case did it turn out as well as we intended. For some of us the road to hell was paved with our good intentions.
I really don't want to add to your stress now, but it sounds like it's boundary time, as Jewells suggests. You're really good people, Cec, and you deserve boundaries for yourself so you can work on your own stuff as you described in the first half of your post, before the stuff about your daughter.
I'm so, so sorry for what you're going through. I've been through similar with a little sister, like Leo has. A little sister who got psychotic from not getting what she needed from her parents and turned on me. I don't know what it's like with a daughter, but I do know that experience, and I had to set boundaries with her.
Really, really good person vibes to you, Cec. You deserve them.