my little electra

[mopinko]

well at least a few things are making a little sense, here. my 18 y.o. bp daughter has been out of control all her little life. she has a dx, a good shrink, lots of therapy, but still no acceptance that she is sick and needs help. she explains herself to herself by believing that the only thing wrong with her is that i am her mother.
i thought that her dad understood what was wrong with her, but he has apparently been sucked into this. i had been trying to say- she needs pills, she feels better when she takes her pills, you could help rose by accepting that you might need some help. that has been met with denial that she is sick. oy.
she is apparently the source of these crazy ideas that i am hurting my kids, and trying to tell doctors that people are sick when they are not.

edited to say that she has been staying with him, off and on, and is planning to live with him. she has been out scouting apartments, and telling her little sibs that i am evil. i had to tell her to get out yesterday, she had them so worked up. oy

[mopinko]

1. well, he is coming for a visit

and is saying he wants to come home and try again. we will have to see.

[mopinko]

4. he's planning on coming home tomorrow

he went back, but plans to come home tomorrow. he took a bunch of computer parts with him, so i guess he promised to upgrade their computer.
we talked a lot, and agreed to a plan. people who are pissed off take a walk. they don't come back until they are not only cooled off, but ready to talk. and we both promised to keep talking, even if it is tough.
not sure how it will work, but it is worth a try. especially since staying with these "friends" is about the worst thing i can imagine.
little electra is pissed, but she is just gonna have to deal.
he also promised to try to get her to take her f'ing pills. she is so much better when she is medicated, physically and mentally. but she refuses to admit it. maybe he can help her. at least he is seeing that she is causing trouble here, and not being his allie. big step.

[drumwolf]

2. sorry to hear about your daughter

Based on what you've told me and my own experiences, I'll make some comments, and I hope this helps somewhat.

I'll speculate on the possibility that she might just have to learn the hard way, i.e. after getting knocked around by life a little. Eighteen is still really young, and it wasn't until my thirties that I fully realized I had some personal issues I needed to deal with. Denial is a powerful thing, and it wasn't easy to accept that maybe there was something about ME that was causing me to struggle in life.

What was she diagnosed with, if I may ask?

Good luck and I hope it works out.

[mopinko]

3. she is bipolar

probably started as a little kid. we had a lot of struggle. we homeschooled until she was in 7th grade. she definitely has learning disabilities that i could not cope with. she had always bugged to go to school. but when she did, she fell apart. part of that was the school. the "program" she was in, which was supposed to be remedial, was not. and i think she bore the brunt of a lot of anti-homeschool prejudice. she just couldn't cope, and no one was any help. we got a lot of lectures about discipline, which probably made things worse. ordinary good parenting can really blow up in your face with a bp kid.
she ended up cutting, having auditory hallucinations, drinking, taking drugs, not sleeping, you name it. she was in the hospital for a few weeks, in part from bad care and meds.
she is in a therapeutic day school, and most weeks gets 3 hours of therapy. she is getting straight a's, but still hates mom. i guess i could do better with her, but i don't really know how. protecting myself from the venom is a full time job sometimes.
she has been given a lot of meds, and even when they help, she insists they don't. she'll take them for a while, then give up. she takes her depakote sometimes, cuz it helps her migraines.
i have been fairly good at keeping my nose out of her shit, especially now that she is 18. she has a lot of support, and she just can't accept any help from me. things have been hot because i have been refusing to take her crap, especially when it comes to being bullied into chauffeuring her around to her docs. she can take the train to timbuktu to party, but she needs a ride to the shrink? she needs to be responsible for herself.
she has really gotten in the middle of all this shit. she thought she had a free ride out of here. she is going to be pissed if her dad comes home. i have to stand up to her at least to the point of refusing to let her fill her little sibs heads with fear that i am secretly hurting them. there is a line. trying to do it calmly, but there is a line.