Ask the Therapist
Child Abuse and the Mentally Ill
I have an adult daughter who is 30 years old, single, with a 2 year old son. She has had a history of psychological problems, hospitalized once, but I believe not correctly diagnosed (schizo-affective disorder) since she has never had any hallucinations. In reading about borderline personality disorders, her behavior matches most of the characteristics, except self-mutilation. My husband and I have provided support in many areas of her life which we don't mind. I would prefer to continue to support her in any way possible so that she can maintain an independent life-style. However, she lost her job 3 months ago and we have come to find out, has spent all 3 months severance pay plus her income tax refund and can't pay her rent. We bought a small townhouse as an investment and rented it to her. I retired this year from teaching so that I could help watch the baby while she worked. So, my retirement income is quite small and I really can't afford to pay the rent or her expenses. She can't seem to ground herself in reality in what she needs to do to take care of herself and her child. Although she took good care of the baby as an infant, now that he is two and very articulate, she is being very abusive with her words, and she does yank him around and is always yelling at him , many times anger about nothing that he does, but she takes it out on him. I can't stand the way she treats the child and he is becoming aggressive ( he is a tiger and a t-rex) growling and he refuses to eat, which I think can be normal but at the extreme a reaction to her. I have been going to counseling to learn how not to react
to her constant anger over things that don't even relate to me but I am at a wall and don't know what to do next. I wrote her a letter explaining my concerns about the child because she won't let me even speak a sentence without cutting me off. I don't want to report her for child abuse or kick her into the street but he refuses to consider medications. The subsidized housing in our community is a 7 month wait. I don't know how to get her to get the help she needs before this escalates into a crisis. A few months ago when I was watching her child, she came home from work, raging, and pulled on the baby's arm and screamed at him to get in his bed and when I confronted her she pulled my hair...etc...she called the police because I defended myself from her...it got very nasty and of course, the baby was traumatized and just clung to me. I made up my mind that I couldn't control her but I was going to make sure that it wouldn't happen again, if I could control the situation. Dealing with her anger is the most difficult and seeing the effects on this child is a big concern for me. What can I
do? I just don't know the next step. If she would only sit down and listen even to a few sentences of our concern, how desire to help her to be independent and keep her child, but she won't even focus on our words to communicate with her. Can you give me any suggestions?
Your daughter is abusing her child, both physically and emotionally. That's all you or the courts need to know. If you act on this -- and realistically, it's your only choice --, the child will be removed from her custody and likely be placed in yours and your daughter will be required to get the help she needs. Everybody wins -- especially the kid.
There's really no wiggle room on this. You can do all the counseling you wish to learn to deal with your daughter, but it's she that needs to change and, clearly, that's not happening now.
