wishing he could have witnessed the uncontrollable sobbing
wishing he could have witnessed her entire body shaking
wishing he could have witnessed the bruises covering her body
wishing he could have witnessed her desire to be dead
wishing he could have witnessed her fear
wishing he could have witnessed her confusion
wishing he could have witnessed her questioning why
wishing he felt her agonizing pain
wishing i could wake up from this nightmare
wishing the scalding water could wash away the pain
wishing i could rid myself of the overwhelming hate for another human being
wishing i could fix it
wishing i could make it better
wishing for a miracle
I feel like I have been sitting here staring at the computer screen for hours. Trying to find the words to describe what I am feeling. I am at a loss. One of my worst fears has come true.
It all started Thursday afternoon. I was at work, actually in the middle of a webinar with my boss. The phone rang and it was my girl. I was immediately on high alert because I didn’t recognize the number showing on caller ID. She was crying and obviously upset. She asked if I could meet her at home in about an hour. Of course I said yes and I asked about the number she was calling from. She said she didn’t have her phone, but she would be home in an hour. She hung up.
I left work and headed home. My mind was racing. Now what? I got home and sent her a message on Facebook, not knowing if she had access to her messenger or not. I asked her if she was hurt. She sent a text message back saying “mentally”. A few minutes later she sent a text saying “physically”. I asked “did he lay his hands on you?” Her response “Not necessarily. I fell down the stops. My finger hurts. Might be jammed or something. I tripped over a bunch of crap trying to leave his room and fell over everything possible and fell into the wall and hit my eye.” Yes, I’m sure anyone reading had the same reaction as me – BULLSHIT.
My middle son happened to be home from work and came to the house to be there with me when she got home. My husband was not able to get to the house in time. I had no idea who was bringing her home. I assumed it would not be drippy dick since obviously they had some type of fight. I’ll be damned if it wasn’t him that drove up to the house. She was in the backseat, he was driving. My son went outside to make sure my girl got into the house safely. I saw her getting out of the back, red puffy eyes, crying, grabbing all her stuff. I saw drippy trying to get out of the car and my son holding the door shut so he couldn’t get out. I stepped outside to make sure nothing happened between my son and drippy. We eventually get my girl inside and drippy leaves.
My girl was just completely distraught. Sobbing, gasping for breath, basically a panic attack. When she could, she told us they had a fight, she tripped on stuff in his room, fell into a wall and then fell down the stairs. Her index finger on her left hand was swollen and black and blue. Her right eye was red and you could see the start of a bruising. I probed as gently as possible about the injuries and how they were sustained. She insisted drippy did not touch her. I had contacted a very close friend and someone I work with to talk to my girl. This person is familiar with domestic violence and I felt would give my girl some insight and be able to remain even tempered. My girl was very receptive to all that was said. She said she was at the point where she wanted help for her disorder and would like to go to a place I had found. It is in Boston, is only for women and is a two week in-patient treatment center for Borderline Personality Disorder. It helps patients regain control and gets them ready for the actual DBT treatment when they leave.
While we were talking, I noticed two police cruisers in front of our house. This was odd. They came to the door and asked to talk to my girl. She freaked. They said they were asked by another police department to stop by and make sure my girl was okay and get her contact information so an officer could call and talk to her. Come to find out that while drippy was driving my girl home, he pulled into a fast food place and told her to get out of his car. She did. She went inside with her stuff, sat down and asked the manager if she could charge her phone (he gave her the phone at some point) so she could call for a ride. The manager could obviously see she was upset and told her that was fine. Drippy comes into the place screaming and yelling at her, telling her to get in the car because he will take her home. The manager tells him to leave. I can only imagine how much of an ass drippy was. While drippy is outside the place he yells that he is going to come back later and shoot the place up. I am fairly certain there was more than just that said by drippy, but I don’t need to know. In order to diffuse the situation, my girl leaves the fast food place and gets back in the car. Drippy does bring her home. But now she is just over the edge. The sight of the officers threw her into a true panic attack. It took some time, but she eventually calmed down. I don’t think her body had the strength to continue.
My girl took a shower, and we got a small bit of food in her. This was in the midst of sobbing. I took her to get her finger checked. It was fractured and needed to be splinted. At some point we all went to bed, not that anyone really slept.
I stayed home Friday to be with my girl. We called the place in Boston to start the process, only to find out there is an 8 week waiting list. This sends her into a tailspin. She had her mind made up she wanted to go and she wanted to go now. I eventually get her to agree to see a general therapist for the time being and hope she will get in before 8 weeks.
We continued talking throughout the morning. Again, I can only push so hard and far or she will shut down. At one point she said “I might as well tell you what really happened. He did touch me.” I almost threw up. She said they had been fighting and she needed to leave. She was shoving stuff into her bag and was kneeling on the floor. He walked by her and basically hip-checked her, knocking her down. This infuriated her more and she continued to yell at him. At one point he pushed her into a wall, causing the black eye. He then sat on her chest (she is tiny), making it difficult for her to breath and then choked her until she was close to blacking out and kicked her while she was down on the floor. When she got him off of her, she grabbed her stuff and ran down the stairs. She said she did fall down the steps because she was going so fast. She got outside, had her bags, but not her phone. He wouldn’t give her the phone. So she approached some random stranger and asked to use his phone, which he allowed. This is the phone call I received at work. Why drippy ended up driving her home I don’t understand. I do know through talking to my girl, he was controlling every aspect of her life, he was manipulative and used her disorder against her.
Drippy started contacting her Friday. He told her he was being charged for the incident at the fast food place and it was all her fault. I checked court records and found he was charged with Terroristic Threats, a felony and a misdemeanor Disorderly Conduct charge. Oh, I almost forgot. My girl also told me drippy had a gun. That scares me more than I can tell you. As of this post, drippy has still not been picked up on the charges.
After finding out the information about drippy assaulting my girl, I started the conversation of filing charges and obtaining a Protection from Abuse order. She agreed. I got her in the car and headed to pick my husband up at work to go with us. While we were driving she answered a call from drippy. She kept saying what he did wasn’t right. You don’t choke someone you love. That he should turn himself in and face what he has coming. By the end of their conversation she had shut down. She said she couldn’t handle pressing charges or applying for the PFA and she just wanted to go home. So we turned around and came home. We are still trying to get her to reconsider.
My girl is still very confused and lost. But she is home. I will take that for the time being.
I am sad today. Like down to my bones sad. No one wants to read the same old stuff about my girl child, cause it doesn’t change. Each day I try to be “normal” – whatever the fuck that means.
A piece of my heart is missing. People tell me I need to “stop thinking about it” or “just get over it” or “stop thinking about her”. It’s very easy to say that, not as easy to do that.
Last Sunday, my dinner table was full and I loved it. Both my sons and their girlfriend/wife were there, and of course my granddaughter. I love having the chaos and noise that comes with my boys. I do my best to be present when they are with me……..but I can’t help but be sad that my girl isn’t there. I know it’s her choice not to be there. But it’s not her choice to have the fucked up thoughts in her head telling her we don’t want her around. I feel like people think I am making excuses for my girl and her behavior, and maybe I am. I try VERY hard to keep fact and fiction separate. The fact is she has a severe mental health issue. The fact is she has been professionally diagnosed. The fact is Borderline Personality Disorder is the hardest psychiatric disorder to treat. The fact is she didn’t ask to have this disorder. The fact is her thought process is completely fucked up.
I have made the decision that I will always love my girl and I will always hate the disorder. I have to keep the two separate, no matter what.
Yes, I need a hug. I need arms around me. I need to hear I am understood. I need a warm, soft place to rest my head and cry for my girl and the piece of my heart that is missing.
Things are pretty much status quo in regards to my girl child. I might get to see her every three or four days when she swoops in to shower. I have struggled with taking her car for weeks. I feel like we now made drippy dick her savior. He now drives her around, has more control over where she goes and when. She will eventually use not having a car as an excuse to not have a job, even though when she had her car she only had a job for about 2 weeks.
My mind swirls with thoughts about her all day, every day. I haven’t reached out to her recently, but she hasn’t reached out to me. I haven’t sent her an “I love you” text, but she hasn’t sent one to me. I have to remember that I love her with my entire being, I hate the disorder she has been burdened with. I need to tell family and friends to reach out to her, even if she never responds. If a person already feels like an outsider, not including them makes it worse.
I will send her an “I love you” text every day, maybe twice a day. I may not know what she is doing, where she is or who she is with – but my girl will always know I love her.
Some days I can find a spot in my brain to tuck away all the emotional bullshit. Today is not that day.
Last night I had a dream that my girl was dead. I don’t know how she died, where she died or any other specifics. I just knew she was gone forever. I was in a car with my mom, an aunt and my grandmother who passed recently. They were all bad mouthing my girl and saying horrible things. I was so upset and I couldn’t get them to listen to me or hear me when I tried to explain that she was a beautiful and wonderful person who was afflicted with a horrible mental illness.
I am exhausted today. Drained and depleted of any and all positive or happy emotions.
There was an approximate 24 hour period where we thought we had our girl back home and away from drippy dick. It was a ray of hope that faded all to quickly.
On Thursday, 1/2/20, I heard from my girl for the first time since New Years Eve. On New Years Eve she sent me a message letting me know drippy was driving her home so she could shower. She arrived around 9pm, came in the front door, straight up the steps and into the bathroom. No hi, no nothing. When she was finished showering and what not, she came down the steps and went directly out the front door. No goodbye, no nothing. She jumped in drippy’s car and was gone. When I messaged asking what the deal was I simply got a “I’m sorry” as a response.
Anyway, back to Thursday. Thursday was back to work for my husband and I after the holiday. I had been very reluctant to message my girl since I had no idea when drippy would be reading and/or responding to me or what influence he was having over her responding to me. Even though the year is now 2020, I still do not have cell service at work. I have an iphone and can receive texts from other iphone’s, but nothing else. That is why I always relied on Facebook Messenger to communicate with my girl when I am working. Around 1pm I got a message from my girl asking me if I would get her an Uber to get home. She was with drippy. I asked few questions and realized they were having another fight and she needed to get out of the situation. This was our biggest fear in taking her car. She is 45-60 minutes away and has no way to get away if she needs to. I ordered the Uber and was glad it was only 5 minutes away from her. Yes, she now had to give me the address of drippy, at lease I am assuming they were at drippy’s house. I tell her it’s on the way and get a message saying I should cancel it and she would “figure it out on her own”. I replied it was too late the Uber was coming and she needed to come home. The Uber drive sent me a message and said he would be picking her up at a nearby intersection, I relayed the information to my girl via message. She responded she didn’t know where it was and then another message comes in from her that reads “lmfaooooooo”. I was very confused. And then I realized drippy was reading and sending messages on her account. I called her just as the Uber was getting to her. Again, she was crying and distraught. I made sure she was in the car and on the way home and hung up. The next message that came in was “fuck you both”, which was sent by drippy. A few minutes later another message came in saying “I’m done you guys win”. I had no idea who sent that and what is was referring to. I stood by a window to send my girl a text and find out if she sent it and what was going on. She told me he sent it and that they were done. She made it home safely and told me she was going to shower and would see me when I got home from work.
Of course the remainder of the work day seemed to drag by and all I could wonder was if I was going to go home and find her dead or alive.
I got home and she was in her room. I could tell she had been crying. I asked if she wanted to talk and she said she wasn’t ready. That evening she went to visit her oldest brother and his family. She said she needed the distraction. She ate dinner with them and got ice cream. When they brought her home she looked exhausted, sad and just awful. Before she went to bed I asked if she was ready to talk about what was going on. Again she said she needed some time to think. I was okay with that, I knew from past experience if I pushed her to hard she would completely shut down.
Friday was another work day for me and my husband. I checked in with her throughout the day. She told me she was sad and didn’t feel like getting out of bed. Eventually she did get out of bed and showered. I got home from work and checked in on her. I told her we were thinking of going out to a local restaurant for dinner and asked if she wanted to go or we could do something else. She said she wanted to go and would get ready.
I waited downstairs for her and when she came down we made some small talk and then I asked her what was going on. She said she didn’t know what was happening with drippy and that he might come to talk to her later that evening. I took the opening to ask her if she really thought this was a healthy relationship, asked how much they fight and argue, and a boatload of other questions. She was open and I think honest with me. She told me she felt physically ready to leave him but not mentally. I told her I feel she doesn’t want to stay at home because we would make her live in reality and deal with her Borderline Personality Disorder (BDP) and when she is with drippy she can live in a fantasy world where no one makes her be responsible. She didn’t disagree. I asked her what she thought about the message he sent me regarding the Christmas presents. She always becomes defensive of drippy. I was very honest and told her that I don’t think I could ever get past what he has said to me and other members of the family and there was no way I would allow him to be around my granddaughter. I asked her if she was okay with his comment them getting married and having kids and never letting me see the kids because I’m such a terrible person. She didn’t have a response to that. There were many other comments made about therapy and getting a job. I can’t express in words how heartbreaking it was to hear her say she just doesn’t care enough to get the help she needs. She doesn’t want to be here and wishes we (meaning the family) would just hate her because it would make leaving the world easier for her. The hopelessness she expressed was simply heartbreaking. She told me she thinks about not being alive every day. She was in tears, so was I. I ended the conversation telling her we would never not care or not love her and all we wanted was for her to be mentally and physically healthy.
We did end up going out for dinner. I think we both needed the distraction. My middle son and his wife joined us, as did two close family friends. We sat and ate and chatted. At one point my girl said she would like to go home, she was feeling anxious and needed to get away from the noise and commotion. I was okay with that since the place we were at is about three minutes from our house. My husband took her home and then came back to the restaurant. After about 20 minutes I got a message from my girl telling me that drippy was coming to get her. I told her I didn’t understand why she was going to leave with him and she said she needed to talk to him. The cameras alerted us when he picked her up and she left with two bags of clothing.
My girl came home Saturday evening, again to shower. We had friends over that hadn’t seen her in about a year. They were shocked how skinny and pale she looked. As soon as she came in I could tell she was stoned. And she didn’t stick around to chat. She showered, came down and talked for about 5 minutes, took some food and left with drippy.
Any hope we had that we would be able to get her the help she needed is gone, again. She promised me she would call about therapy on Monday, but I have heard that many times. My heart is heavy and my fear is off the charts. It’s just a matter of time before something happens to her. I have nightmares about answering the door and seeing police officers that came to tell me she is dead. I fear she will be at a very low place and do something to herself and drippy will never tell us. She is slipping farther and farther away and I am terrified.
December 30th was our worst tough love day. We have been struggling with when we needed to make some changes regarding the relationship with our girl and setting boundaries. There was a letter written to send to her. It would be impossible to talk to her in person because of her quick fire responses. It touched on the car and the fact it needed to be returned to us, unless she was able to put it in her name and pay insurance. She needs to find a home for, or take her cat. She needs to respect our home and clean the trash out of her room and the bathroom. And the last thing, our home would not be used as her dumping point. She needed to decide where she was going to be living. The letter reassured her that we love her, want and need her in our lives and when she is ready to get help we will be behind her.
The letter never was sent. We were going to send it the week after Thanksgiving. The day we were going to send it she had a huge breakdown. It wasn’t a good day for her or us. Later that week she had another huge fight with drippy dick and called in crisis mode. We decided to wait until after Christmas, probably because we were terrified what would happen after we gave it to her.
Christmas was……………awkward. Her being in the house is awkward at this point. I don’t know what to talk to her about. What do I ask her? I don’t know what her day to day life consists of. I don’t know where she is or what she does. Christmas Eve she was with us and hung out us th some special friends. Christmas morning she woke up early and left to spend time with drippy dick and his family before our family came to our house. I was actually surprised she came home in time and was in a good mood. The day wasn’t awful, but we (my husband and I) could sense the un-comfortableness that happened at times.
The day after Christmas, towards evening, we could tell she was getting ready to leave. As we were talking she said “we will be back tomorrow.” I asked what she meant. She told me that he (drippy dick) had presents for us. I’m fairly certain my head spun in circles and my response was to say “no, that’s not happening.” She got defensive and nasty saying he did it because he isn’t a dick and left the house saying she would tell him to return everything. As she was driving she was messaging me via Facebook Messenger. More about drippy and the presents. I tried to explain I didn’t understand the present thing. She kept insisting that he was trying to be nice and fix things. I responded that it’s a conversation we need to have in person. Within probably five minutes after the messenger exchange with my girl, I get a Facebook message from drippy dick. This is what I received…
“At this point I couldn’t give 2 hoots that you don’t like me, and you have all this resentment towards me. You have expressed nothing but dislike and hatred towards me when all I’ve sought from you was expectance. I’m no angel I’m fully aware of that, but I am trying to mend a broken relationship between you both and myself especially heather and I. I purchased you gifts even though you both didn’t deserve it and I didn’t have to. Why because that’s the type of person I really am I don’t seek conflict I don’t want to have issues with the smith family. I wanted to show you that I want to take a step closer to you not apart, by looking for things you would like spending not only my money but precious time. I know you have a fondness for Star Wars and hot wheels Mr. Smith. I know you like The Wizard Of Oz and Woppers candy Mrs. Smith so I purchased you both something. I didn’t just spend time and money though I swallowed my pride and humbled myself to bring a ray of light into what we have going on as best as possible and it was denied? How can we ever learn to atleast agree to disagree when your acting like a child? Your daughter isn’t going anywhere, one day she will be my wife and bare my children. Your actions will be greatly considered when you are asking to see YOUR GRANDCHILD. I will NOT have a child around such nonsense barbaric negativity it’s a shame and pathetic! Merry Christmas to you both and a happy new year if you will even accept my verbal salutation of peace…”
Yes, drippy thinks of himself as quite the eloquent gentleman. For some reason this just cut through me. It really hit me hard. Not what he thinks of me, but what is my girl doing with someone like this. How doesn’t she see the pathetic person he is? I did not respond to his message. I wanted to, but he isn’t worth it.
I received texts from her shortly after getting the message from drippy asking me what it would take for her and I to get back to where we once were, should she leave him, etc. My responses were that I can’t make that decision for her, we love her and she has to decide what she wants out of life, etc. Now, remember, she started contacting me in messenger and then switched to texting me. Drippy messaged me probably 15 minutes into her drive. No one will convince me drippy doesn’t have access to her facebook and can see every message between us. However, he doesn’t yet have access to her text messages. She doesn’t want him to see her asking me about leaving him and wanting to repair our relationship.
Fast-forward to December 30th. My husband and I are at the store and I get a message from my girl that she will be home soon. While at the store our cameras alerted to motion in the driveway. I checked what was happening and see our girl is home. Oddly enough she is backed up our driveway. She never backs up the driveway. I immediately tell my husband and my prediction that something is wrong with her car and she parked that way hoping we wouldn’t see it. We got home, and sure enough the driver side front fender had a nice dent in it. As well as the passenger side having two nice scuffs. It looks like someone kicked the car. I would have to assume during one of the fights drippy kicked her car.
We walked in the house and she was in her room. I yelled up the steps and asked what happened to her car. Her response was a very assy “what are you talking about?”. This went back and forth a few times. She claimed she had no idea and why wouldn’t she tell us, etc…. However, she never went out and looked at her car….. Through the conversation she was told the car would be staying parked in our driveway. She walked away mumbling “fucking fantastic”.
The day continued, I had no idea she was going to be home and made arrangements for my middle son and his wife to eat dinner with us. We also had our granddaughter. I had no idea how my girl would be or even if she would come out of her room to eat and see her brother and niece. She did come out of her room and eat with us. After dinner she said she was going to take a shower. Our son and daughter-in-law left, and we were getting our granddaughter ready to take home. I get a message from my girl (yes, she was only upstairs) asking if she is allowed to go. I asked her to come downstairs and talk to us. She came down and I asked her what happened to the car, she still claimed she didn’t know. I told her the car stays here. She starts slamming around the house saying she’ll have drippy come and get her and just being mean in general. She decides she has to get out of the house and tells us she is going for a walk, along with some smart-ass comments about the car. I decide I will take the baby home and my husband stayed at our house as a just in case.
As I’m driving my baby home my middle son texts saying that my girl is messaging and calling them and she wants them to pick her up, etc. Mind you, both our sons live within about 2-3 minutes of our home. I drop baby off at her house and when I get home my son’s car is parked out front. Walk in and she my husband but no one else, and then I hear the yelling from upstairs. I walk up and my girl is wild, scary wild. She has garbage bags and is cleaning up the trash from the bathroom and her bedroom. Her brother is trying to talk to her, but at this point there is no talking to her. I have seen the rage and wildness before, but never to this extent. Her brother has never seen it. My girl was talking about killing herself and doing it right this time. I said if that is where she is at she needs to go to the hospital. She freaked and said if I ever do that to her again I will never see her. She continues in her rage. Making all sorts of comments about having to get out of the house and leaving. I asked her if there is anything in her car she needs and she tells me to fucking burn it all, she doesn’t care, etc. I said okay, then give me the keys. Now she completely exploded in rage. She threw the keys at my face, I ducked and the keys took a chunk of wood out of the door trim. My son pushed me out of the way and got in her face telling her not to touch me. She punched him in the chest and stormed out telling everyone to get the fuck away from her. My husband tried to stop her and she told him to fuck off and get the fuck away from her. She stormed out saying she would find someone to pick her up.
We all stood in the kitchen in amazement and disbelief, but knowing we did what we had to do. My girl came back in about five minutes later, all while talking to drippy on speaker phone, went to her room and came right back down and went back outside. We moved to the family room and she came back in and said she needs things from her car and needs her keys. My husband had taken them to the basement to hide them. When she saw him going to the she told us how pathetic we were by hiding her keys and some other nasty things, again all while drippy is on speaker phone. She got the keys, took stuff out of her car and threw them back in the door and told us to have a nice life. Someone picked her up and that was that.
She did TEXT me later that night.
It just saddens my how her brain works and how her thought process works or doesn’t work. I have to remind myself and others that her brain is messed up. It is not an excuse for her, it’s the truth. She is the only one that can decide she wants the help and then accept the help.
I don’t know when I will see her again or how she is doing. I haven’t gotten many messages from her at this point. I am worried and I am scared.
I need to let her go
I need to let her fail
I need to let her learn
I need to step back
I need to not feel
I need to not care
I need her home
Ironic, I was typing a blog about an hour ago. The blog was about the dreams I kept having this past weekend, all surrounding my girl child. And I got a phone call from her. She was crying, screaming, wailing, hysterical, gasping for breath. She was saying she can’t do it anymore, everything is fucked up, nothing ever works out, she doesn’t want to be here anymore………..the connection sucked and it was hard to understand her. I have unfortunately dealt with this before and knew I had to keep my voice calm and get her to focus on me and what I was saying. It was taking much longer to get her to focus on my voice and listen to what I was saying. I asked where she was and she said told me at his (drippy dick) brother’s house. I asked if she was alone and she said no, he (drippy dick) was there. I could hear him yelling at her in the background. She told me she would call me right back. I told her to stay on the phone with me and that she needed to come home. She hung up.
I called and called and called her. I sent her messages. I finally get a response via message that she is good, everything is fine. I messaged her to call me, she said she is fine. I demanded she call me. She did. She was in her denial mode. Denying there is a problem with her, because she is fine. Denying she should come home, because she is fine. Everything is fine. She isn’t coming home, she is staying there with him.
I don’t know where she is. I don’t know who she is with. I don’t know if she is safe.
In the dreams I had about her, she kept getting farther and farther away from us. We would find her and she would disappear and each time we searched for her it was harder and harder to find her. I feel her slipping faster and faster into a black hole. I am so fucking scared she will fall so far into that black hole that we won’t be able to save her. She will be lost and gone from our lives forever.
Ironic.
How do I...life? 