Supporter Please Help Me Help My Daughter :-(

[DMerish]

Hello, and thanks for taking the time to view my post.

I'm a (baby boomer) divorced/parent with three grown children - son 40, son 38, dtr 30 and son 28. Each of my sons have their own families. Two sons have a "little one" and the youngest one's wife is expecting. If I knew before, and was able to skip the single parenthood phase of my life, I'd go straight to the grand-parenting phase! The best part of life (IMHO) is being able to observe how people change/mature and grow into becoming who they are, and getting to enjoy the little tikes without all the mess is the best :) After this intro, I'll post in the "Support" section. For now, I'll just say why I decided to join this forum:

The reason I joined involves my daughter. She was born very premature. I've come to understand through reading medical/internet research that premie babies oftentimes have some degree of cognitive impairment that continues sometimes throughout their lives. She had math and reading disabilities during her school years, the divorce didn't help things, nor did being raised by a single parent without help from extended family. To make a long story short, she's a rather dependent type of individual although she can be very stubborn about "doing her own thing" (i.e. drinking/drugs, not thinking through actions/consequences, etc.), and she got into abusive relationships with men. . .

Warning: Trigger alert possible -

Daughter and BF were drunk and fighting. He pulled out a gun and threatened to kill himself if she left him. The gun went off accidentally. She was left with the mess, no home, no money, suicide/survivor's grief, severe depression and PTSD.

A lot of the time, I don't know how to help her and would greatly welcome suggestions.

I'm going to switch on over to the "Supporter" section now - thanks for reading.

Drew

 

[Loloma]

Hello Drew and welcome to the PTSD forum. Glad you found the forum where you will find a lot of help and support not only in the Supporter section.

How long ago did this incident occur?

 

[DMerish]

Hi Loloma,

The incident happened at the end of last Fall '12

 

[Loloma]

Okay so it's less than a year. It takes a long time to recover from that sort of trauma. I empathise with you having gone through it myself. The fact that your daughter was fragile before this happened makes it even harder for her. It sounds like she is still grieving a lot which is probably stopping her from making any progress.

I agree with you that you can't be there 24/7 for her even though you would probably like to be. Is there no one else family wise that could be of any help? I read your post in the supporter section where you said that she had missed 3 out of 5 appointments with her therapist. It a hard one alright, as she has to be willing to help herself.

I am sure you will get some response soon from others on the forum, who may have other suggestions. I wish you all the best, take care for now.

I forgot to mention that she has to realize that it was not her fault in any way.

 

[Anna]

Welcome to the forum :)

 

[intothelight]

Hi Drew,

Welcome to MyPTSD! :)

It is difficult to be the supporter of an adult child with PTSD. I have a few of my own and have to constantly battle the urge to go into "mother mode" and rescue them. The only thing I can suggest is learn all that you can and continually encourage them to get help to help themselves. No one can "change" a person or the situation, as it is ultimately up to each individual.

I hope you find the support here helpful as it is hard to watch a child, regardless of their age, struggle.

Take care.

Debbie

 

[Lady of Longbourn]

Welcome to the forum. :)