Not to make light of the situation, but perhaps OD wasn’t the best choice of acronym for this situation.
Oh good lord!
We need to keep in better contact.
Did she know the other girl was pregnant? Not that it matters, I wish she could have kept her temper in check better.
I can’t help but feel disappointed in her for all this trouble.
She was such a good IM buddy for a while, but I haven’t talked to her in over a year now. Right about when she made the attempt while you guys are out of town shopping.
Hang in there honey. Big hugs to you and the family.
Good God Norine, I am so sorry. I used to be your daughter, minus the mental illness part. I have come a hell of a long way in the last 14 years, but I have seen hundreds (well, thousands) fall well short of the mark.
You have to want this thing called sobriety (and sanity!) more than you want anything else in the whole world, and that’s a tall order when you’re young. It would have saved me, my loved ones and the general public lots of pain and suffering if I’d stayed sober after that one NA meeting when I was 19, but I wasn’t ready. By the time I was 23, it was time, I found AA and I have been sober ever since (I’m 37 now).
I sponsor several young women (one is a cutter), feel free to email me if you need to. You and your family are in my prayers.
Debbie
You have my best wishes, norinew.
Good luck, norinew.
Sorry to hear about this situation, norine. I’ve seen a lot of people go through what your daughter’s experiencing; nothing makes it easy. At the very least, I’m glad that you and your husband are on the same page about this; you have each other’s support.
Your family is in my thoughts.
Shhhhh! Actually most of the makeup is for my 13-year-old daughter, whose purse (with all her makeup in it) got stolen a few months ago. A couple of the small, powdery compressed things didn’t survive shipping, but everything else is wonderful, thanks so much!
Regallag, thanks for the words of encouragement! It really does help!
fessie, I don’t think faith is going to be much help to my daughter, until and unless she decides what she has faith in. She was Baha’i for a couple of years, then Wiccan, then Christian, now she’s sorta Christian, sorta Wiccan. I don’t think she’s really trying to follow the tenets of anything, including her 12-step programs, and right there lie the roots of many of her problems.
Chairman Pow (BTW, did I ever tell you I love your username?) Sometimes, if it weren’t for black humor, there’d be no humor at all.
You know it!
Both she and her boyfriend says there was no way the girl looked pregnant, but the Deputy says that whether she knew or not is irrelevant. But you’re right: pregnant or not, she had no right to put her hands on the girl.
Yes, I understand that. My father was sober in AA from the time I was 14 until he died two years ago when I was 41. I think my daughter treats the program as more of a social club, a place to meet people. I’ve never discouraged this, as I know that sometimes things can rub off on you even if you don’t really want them to! But that’s why she’s not going to meetings now: she has her boyfriend and his social outlets. I might email you one of these days!
RT, Muffin, Guin and moi, thanks for the kind thoughts and wishes!
What a tough situation. I’m sorry, you’re family is going through all of this. Must be tough on everyone. How many other children do you have?
I have a 16 year old daughter who is very emotional; has been since she was a little girl. Also has her father’s temper and negative attitude. She hates it in herself and is trying, with the help of a therapist now, to turn things around. Fortunately, she has the desire to do so and has never gotten involved in drugs/alcohol to my knowledge.
(And she has a tendency to tell me everything, even things I’d rather not know!) She saw an older cousin, whom she adores, and friends dealing with those demons and has said she has no desire to go there. But just dealing with her emotional outbursts and neediness can be exhausting. And it’s tough on the younger ones, too. Sometimes it feels like there just isn’t enough of me to go around.
Prayers and good thoughts for healing and strength to you all.
Ack, can’t believe I did that! And I’m an editor!
your, your, your :o
I have a daughter who’s thirteen (and sounds very much like your 16-yr-old), and a daughter who will be five the end of this month. Thanks for your prayers and good wishes!
I can’t comment on the drug addict/alcoholic part personally (my parents were both substance abusers, but that’s different). However, I know all about bipolar, borderline, suicidal behavior and self-injury. When you are suffering from any or all of these and not properly medicated, it is a living hell inside your brain. Racing thoughts, delusions, depression, anxiety, paranoia, it’s all there - not to mention the fact that the volume is turned up to 11 most of the time, meaning reaction to events is over-the-top. If you have made up your mind to let her stand alone and fix her own problems, then I wish you all the best of luck. If you want to be supportive without being co-dependent, then I would recommend trying to educate yourself about these mental and emotional disorders as much as you can. A little compassion (not enabling her behavior, but letting her know you love her) goes a long way. I was out of control in my teens and 20s, started to settle down in my 30s and was finally diagnosed in my 40s. The worst thing my parents did was look the other way when I acted out, and not tell me that they loved me. Now that I am controlled with medication (which is a total drag and has many horrible side effects), I am able to work 2 jobs and function fairly well.
Just some food for thought.
As pointed out before, her father and I both reassure her constantly that we love her; she has a regimen of drugs that help a lot, but she chooses not to take them.
I don’t “look the other way” when she acts out; I tell her that if she wants to stop feeling like this, she needs to be on her meds and get to counseling, but that if she chooses not to do these things, I won’t force her.
Wow, I am really sorry you are having to deal with all of this. I have a very similar daughter of my own. she has in the past been diagnosed with Bipolar and borderline personality, but now sh is diagnosed as severe depression and severe ADD. She is also a very brittle Type 1 Diabetic. Living with her has been a rollercaoster of screaming, crying, and the sweet child in between when her drugs are balanced for a few days at a time. She is 23 today and is nowhere near holding a job, and goes ballistic if pressured too much to do anything. In another 7-8 years she will need a kidney transplant. The only problem we do not have is drug abuse. I really feel your pain, I feel as if I must protect her as much as I can and push her to do better every day. there is no balance, and you never know which personality I get to see when I come home from work every night. she has stopped hurting herself and has not tried to hurt anyone else in over 2 years. this was a very big step for her, at 18 I stated, if you don’t take your drugs, you don’t live here. this is the hardest thing I have ever done, because this kind of kid resents the drugs and believes that they should be able to get over them, so when they start to feel better they quit taking them, and they can’t, ever get away without the balancing the drugs give them. She has spent as much as 3 months at a time in a psychiatric ward. The year she was 15 that was the only time I slept. My son still has problems when he gets stressed, hurting himself, not just cutting, but burning too, but he refuses any treatment at all. so I use the threat of ’ in my house we do it my way, or live somewhere else’. so far this works.
SamIAm, the one thing I am truly grateful for above all else is that my 13-year-old does not seem to have these behavior traits or patterns! I can’t imagine having two kids like this! I feel for you.
Hi Norinew. You’ve seen me on my soapbox about forced psychiatric treatment and/or the sloppy effectiveness of what they’ve got in their arsenal, so I won’t reiterate that again.
I’m really sorry about how things are going with your daughter. I know you’ve been trying for a long time.
If you think it would help, I’ll correspond with you, her, or the two of you in tandem.
In general, strategically, I agree with a tough-love approach. She can make her own choices but you don’t have to accomodate those you disagree with under your roof. Having said that, I’d say it matters a lot and can be very important for you to emphasize that you still love her if she decides she can’t play by your rules (e.g., can’t commit to taking her meds, etc) and chooses to forego your roof and strike out on her own.
It’s what I did 20 years ago. I hitched from New Mexico to New York, had all my stuff stolen, ended up in a shelter for homeless people, got specialized into a shelter for homeless mentally ill people, joined up with the area movement against psychiatric oppression, applied for and got accepted into SUNY at Old Wesbury as a freshman with full financial aid benefits, fought for and won the right to transit money and other relevant accomodations from the shelter, got a social worker from the shelter to advocate for me with the admissions department when they initially took a dislike to my previous college transcipts, and once in, did well. Moved into campus housing for my second year, bye-bye “housing for the mentally ill homeless”.
No guarantee that she will do equally well on her own. Reciprocally, no obligation on your part to continue to tolerate her behaviors (some of which are her as she would be anyway, some of which are forms of emotional blackmail she might not engage in if you were not in the picture).
I have no advice to offer, norinew, just the best wishes of a total stranger. Now I’m going to go and hug my son until he squeals and breaks free.
Yes, and as you can see, I’m not forcing her to take her meds or go to counseling. But I don’t think that makes me a bitch when I don’t have a lot of sympathy when she cuts herself or starts feeling suicidal. It’s as if she were diabetic, and refused her insulin; there would be limited sympathy when she was having problems due to her fluctuating blood sugar.
I’ve had so many people on the SDMB offer to correspond with her to try and help, but she won’t be bothered in maintaining email relationships. She hyper-focuses on her attachments, and right now it’s her boyfriend. However, you might find an email from me one of these days!
We tell her almost every day that we love her, and that nothing she can do will make us stop loving her. She actually moved out for a few days, and moved in with a woman up the street who has a bad back; the deal was, the woman would give her free room and board and a little pocket cash, and my daughter would do the housework. When the woman woke her up at 6AM on Thanksgiving morning to clean the house, my daughter decided this wasn’t for her, and asked if she could move back in. We said of course.
See, this paragraph tells me that you are passionate about this! That’s wonderful! I think a lot of her problem is that she’s not really passionate about anything. I don’t think she doesn’t take her meds because of any grand ideals, but rather because she can’t be bothered. I hope she finds something in life to be passionate about; it’s not something I can give her.
That’s the funny thing about life, right? You don’t get any guarantees. And I’m glad you made the remark about the “emotional blackmail” because I very much think that’s what we’re engaged in right now. She claims to be thrilled with us loosening her restrictions so greatly, but she goes out of her way to tell me of things she does/is doing that she knows I disapprove of. It’s like she’s trying to find out what she needs to do to push my buttons. But I’m just not letting her get away with it.
Thanks for your input.
Case Sensitive, thanks for the words of support. Parenthood can be a joyful, wonderful thing! Enjoy!
I have nothing to say except to wish you the best and to tell you that IMO you’re doing exactly the right thing. Stay strong!