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My kid needs help …
… but is there anything I can do?
My kid is a smart but very angry runaway who has mental illness/developmental disability issues, but won't stay on her meds. She's also barely over 18. She's been on meds for either medical or psychological issues from 16mos to when she quit them several months ago. Before she turned 18, she begged me to become her medical POA, but when it came down to it, we thought she needed to take control of her own affairs. Then she cut me out and began keeping secrets.
She left the house on 7/30 to check herself into the hospital, but has since been living on the street/in shelters. The shelters apparently have too many rules for her. She knows very few people in town and nobody with a car. She had no street smarts at the start of this, but she's never really met a stranger. And I don't know what to expect after a few more weeks of being on the street (it's been 5 weeks of bouncing from psych hospitals, ERs, shelters, and the sidewalk). She has quickly burned bridges and has a terrifyingly nonchalant sense of things so far, and I'm not sure she really has a grasp of how much danger she could be in at any given minute, day or night.
She texts a family member, so I get sparse information third-hand, and they won't even tell me everything. When she left, we had a disagreement about how she left, but I honestly thought we'd ironed things out via text on her way to the hospital. But she had been keeping a secret for months, telling therapists, and now her case mgr, my family, and people in the hospital (she listed someone there as her "guardian") that we'd abused her, kept her locked in her room, etc. None of that is true, but she won't give anyone permission to speak to me. Until the last year or so, she and I'd had the most wonderful mother-daughter relationship (or so I thought). She wasn't the easiest kid, and I am certainly not even close to a perfect person/mother, but I have always truly thought I was the luckiest person on the planet to have a kid who loved me so much and wanted to spend so much time with me.
One problem at issue is a major misunderstanding – it's a personal thing, but if she'd have come to me and specifically said what she was going through, what she was feeling, it may have have taken some time, but I know we could've worked through it. Now she's nursing the mother of all grudges, and has been telling people she hates us and has wanted to "get the F away from those two"
She doesn't get along with her dad (mostly attitude clash), but it's gone beyond that. And I had NO CLUE she felt this way about me. I want to fix all that, if it's possible, BUT MOST OF ALL, I WANT HER SAFE AND WELL. I think she's most of all having obvious psychiatric issues that require intervention. She keeps saying she's suicidal, and she's having obvious other issues. Can't they do something to get her the help she needs in the psych hospital? And what can I do? I don't want to drive her away forever, but I can't sit by and do nothing! Honestly, seriously, is there ANYTHING I CAN DO? PLEASE? TIA ❤️
My kid is a smart but very angry runaway who has mental illness/developmental disability issues, but won't stay on her meds. She's also barely over 18. She's been on meds for either medical or psychological issues from 16mos to when she quit them several months ago. Before she turned 18, she begged me to become her medical POA, but when it came down to it, we thought she needed to take control of her own affairs. Then she cut me out and began keeping secrets.
She left the house on 7/30 to check herself into the hospital, but has since been living on the street/in shelters. The shelters apparently have too many rules for her. She knows very few people in town and nobody with a car. She had no street smarts at the start of this, but she's never really met a stranger. And I don't know what to expect after a few more weeks of being on the street (it's been 5 weeks of bouncing from psych hospitals, ERs, shelters, and the sidewalk). She has quickly burned bridges and has a terrifyingly nonchalant sense of things so far, and I'm not sure she really has a grasp of how much danger she could be in at any given minute, day or night.
She texts a family member, so I get sparse information third-hand, and they won't even tell me everything. When she left, we had a disagreement about how she left, but I honestly thought we'd ironed things out via text on her way to the hospital. But she had been keeping a secret for months, telling therapists, and now her case mgr, my family, and people in the hospital (she listed someone there as her "guardian") that we'd abused her, kept her locked in her room, etc. None of that is true, but she won't give anyone permission to speak to me. Until the last year or so, she and I'd had the most wonderful mother-daughter relationship (or so I thought). She wasn't the easiest kid, and I am certainly not even close to a perfect person/mother, but I have always truly thought I was the luckiest person on the planet to have a kid who loved me so much and wanted to spend so much time with me.
One problem at issue is a major misunderstanding – it's a personal thing, but if she'd have come to me and specifically said what she was going through, what she was feeling, it may have have taken some time, but I know we could've worked through it. Now she's nursing the mother of all grudges, and has been telling people she hates us and has wanted to "get the F away from those two"
She doesn't get along with her dad (mostly attitude clash), but it's gone beyond that. And I had NO CLUE she felt this way about me. I want to fix all that, if it's possible, BUT MOST OF ALL, I WANT HER SAFE AND WELL. I think she's most of all having obvious psychiatric issues that require intervention. She keeps saying she's suicidal, and she's having obvious other issues. Can't they do something to get her the help she needs in the psych hospital? And what can I do? I don't want to drive her away forever, but I can't sit by and do nothing! Honestly, seriously, is there ANYTHING I CAN DO? PLEASE? TIA ❤️
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