I have never struggled more to write anything in my life. Mainly because my brain is so scrambled that there are a million things going on at once and neurons are firing in so many different directions. But saying that is like writing the ending before the beginning. So let me start again.
The current (dire) state of my mental health is in direct correlation to that of my adult daughter. I’m definitely not one to lay blame at anyone else’s feet but in this instance – yes, I am.
My daughter is 44 and is severely bipolar. She is also an evil human being. Yes, you can be both. You can be a good person and be mentally ill. You can be a bad person and be mentally ill. My girl is the latter. She is a very, very, very malicious human being and this is completely apart from being ill. This makes her extremely toxic and even more cunning and dangerous.
She has spent the past three months dancing with the devil of psychosis as well as the one who resides in hell. She has disappeared from her life and from ours. She has abandoned her pets, a heretofore never to be imagined situation.
She squatted in uninhabited houses until arrested by the police. She broke a window in our home while we were away and broke into a gun cabinet, taking out a rifle. She called the police herself as she was bleeding profusely from entering the house through the broken window and was arrested. She is currently facing charges placed by the state over that incident. She disappeared again and was arrested and hospitalised in a psychiatric unit when she was found showering by resident homeowners in their bathroom.
After several days in the hospital, she was released without having to comply with a conditional release for either medication or therapy treatment. Although we are severely impacted (and terrified by) her behaviours, we have neither right nor input nor access to any information.
However, she does call us on a nearly daily basis, multiple times daily, to demand money. A lot of money. She doesn’t ask. She doesn’t say please. Profanity of the most vulgar kind imaginable spews from her mouth. In fact, I would wager that you would not begin to believe what comes out of her mouth. No adult child could even begin to create what she comes up with. Evil. Vile.
So what is the point of this story exactly? Abuse. Most importantly, and finally, stalking. She found us at our summer home today. At 6:50 this morning I received a call on my cell from the town where we have a summer home, so I took the call. It was our daughter. She had followed us to our summer home. Not only did we have a nightmare day from hell with her – the worst ever – but we both had Covid and she knew it.
The hours prior to writing this was spent like the ‘old days’, decades ago. Sobbing, holding my head in my hands, feeling as though the brain in that head was filled with writhing worms; needing desperately to scoop them out, wanting to crack my head open like a coconut, feeling the writhing, slithering alien being within me needing to be cut out and set free. This is not a good sign. It’s a sign that I’m finally broken. I haven’t just had enough. I’ve had far too much.
My own mental health is in desperate straits. I’ve stood tall, used my tools, and maintained my mental health for decades of suffering at her hands. She hasn’t allowed us to help her yet she has trodden upon us with impunity. I feel myself slipping down a muddy slope backwards toward a raging river. My own bipolar disorder is becoming a part of this story. This is not a selfish lament, it is a simple fact. When this happens where will the story end then? The most disturbing question is: When and how is this story going to end?
Deb Wilk writes for various publications and she runs her own blog, Living Bipolar.
