Adult child with a child who is draining me. Send help? Or even hope! Please!

[Xhausted2001]

Adult daughter lives at home and has a young child herself, she’s not with the father, but he is a part of our grandchild life.

She’s had mental health problems for over ten years that has had seismic impacts on the rest of the family including myself. Sounding selfish but I spend at least 80% of my life the past decade with her at the forefront of everything I do day to day and wondering when the next crisis is going to hit. I feel suffocated, held to ransom by her nearly all the time. Ive given so much of myself to try provide her with stability, emotional support, anxiety support, you name it, I feel like I’ve stopped living ten times over to be a better parent for her.

i have two other children that live at home. her and the next eldest have the same dad who I divorced years ago (several reasons but one being he doesn’t and did not ever parent). I’ve since remarried and my husband is amazing and tolerant and patient. My other two are one adult and youngest is a pre teen. They are becoming more stressed with the eldest ones attitude and lack of priorities or respect.

i am at my wits end.

money - she pays no rent, no housekeeping. We pay for most of her belongings, subscriptions (Spotify, her phone, Netflix etc and so on), her car (all servicing and insurance as well as usual MOT , tax etc). We pay for her child who we adore, life is wonderful with her. We pay for her classes and clothes and nappies and whatever is needed for her apart from nursery costs.

work - she’s a clever girl, albeit probably on the spectrum she has a good level of academic ability but never wants to do anything with her qualifications and refused going to uni or apprenticeship or anything that involves her activlely putting an effort in. I gave up my own career to ‘care’ for her some years back (she was under section for some time and i literally could not cope with a toddler, a teenager at home and this one in a mental health unit needing physical care) and have since set up a company to provide her with some level of work. Hoping she would take the lead and continue input to the business but there is none. She literally does bare minimum and meanwhile I’m trapped.l doing work I’m not so keen on and exhausted trying to make it a success for her benefit rather than my own.

parenting - she is a wonderful mum, despite her many challenges. But she relies on my husband and I, my parents, her siblings to help out. Day in and day out. We all chip in but it’s gotten to the point where I take on the parenting for my grandchild every single morning and some full days. My husband then does all the evening and getting to bed shifts. We are both utterly utterly utterly exhausted. And I feel like I’m being used. Because she is being a bit lazy? A bit because we just get on with it? A bit because she doesn’t know what to do? Am I making it too easy I don’t know

lifestyle - she has a boyfriend who I’m not the most happy about. He seemed nice and understanding. But he’s cheated on her and he does seem to manipulate her into prioritising him and his needs rather than hers or her child’s. But the big issue is she is a disaster with spending too much money, buying and hoarding and general tidiness at home. I’m trying so hard not to criticise and not understand her mental health situation but I’m talking utter disgusting, no laundry, bags and bags and bags of stuff, make up, clothes, books you name it. Just utter crap. Her room and her daughter’s rooms are horrendous. She has a fairly sizeable double room and has more fitted wardrobe space than the rest of us at home put together. I have spent hours and hours and hours of my life tidying and cleaning it all for her. Then within a week it’s destroyed again.

i sound so pathetic, but it’s really impacting my own mental health. I’m so fed up with it. I don’t know how to talk to her, how to deal with it. It affects everyone in the home. It’s utterly soul destroying. I cannot see how it will ever get better or stop being a problem.

am I the asshole?

any tips or ideas of how we can move on from this cycle of despair? What can I do to improve the quality of life for all of us?

we Have huge arguments between us pretty regularly. She always gives the same excuses and I always end up doing it for her and literally taking me at least an entire day if not two to clean her room for her. It’s not even clean, I’m talking tidying stuff up, putting clothes on hangars and away etc. lids on skincare pots, taking out plates and bowls and glasses to the dishwasher. Clearing actual rubbish and putting it in the bin.

what do I do?

I am embarrassed. I am ashamed. I feel angry and frustrated and just sad.

What do I do now?

I was going to say this. You need to consider his very seriously. What would happen if you and your DH died in a tragic accident this week. Could she cope if she had to? If not, and the state has just been relying on you because you're there, you need to make plans.
Contact social services, say you can't cope and that you need to step back and that there needs to be a plan - both for her adult social care and for the protection of her child.
Be serious about this. If she's at risk of being sectioned like in the past your GC really needs legal protection before a crisis happens (eg if you suddenly lost your health overnight).

Your focus now needs to be about moving her towards independence (and coping with the relapses along the way). You could die at any moment and she and her daughter are not prepared or set up.

I would start with conversations about where does she want to live and what is affordable. Go and get her name on waiting lists etc. This might plant the seed that work is necessary if she wants to live in a nice environment. Mental health problems or not, it's time for her to branch out and start living an adult life - not one of prolonged teenager. This will be a process over years but it's for her own good.

she’s not on medication. She has in the past but only if I’m liquid form. She has a series of mental health issues and a severe phobia that results in her not eating very much and being very untrusting of medication. She will only take call for pain relief for example. No matter what I have done or tried. She refuses everything. Even when in alarming pain. It’s awful.

She actually sounds exactly like my 22 year old PDA autistic daughter, who is now in supported living. She has just had a day or two in hospital because she stopped eating and drinking. My daughter has very high care needs and has carers 24/7. At the moment, it's very difficult to get her out into the community.

This is useless advice. You clearly don't understand autism and mental health problems and how they impact people's lives.

parenting - she is a wonderful mum, despite her many challenges. But she relies on my husband and I, my parents, her siblings to help out. Day in and day out. We all chip in but it’s gotten to the point where I take on the parenting for my grandchild every single morning and some full days. My husband then does all the evening and getting to bed shifts

She isn’t ’a wonderful mum’ if she isn’t actually doing any of the parenting. She’s basically just another child you’re having to look after, along with your own youngest child and your grandchild.

I think that the OP may need to get social services involved. Is the child's father able to have her a little bit more? You want to try to avoid her being taken into care but a good social worker could give the OP and her daughter practical support.

I think you should look at ADHD in women. Lots of flags in what you describe.

Also she's got no incentive to improve things because you enable every aspect of her life. Why would she want to change?

I suspect your DD has additional support needs that are likely to be permanent. It doesn't sound like simple laziness. This all sounds like problems with executive function.
However as she is an adult, your ability to influence her to get the help she needs may be limited.
Can you afford a private assessment for ASD/ADHD?
I'm also going to agree that this is impacting on her ability to be a good parent. Loving her child isn't enough.

I've got nothing to add here, you've been given some great advice and would take it on board.

How does she meet men (baby's dad and the current boyfriend) to form relationships with? It doesn't sound like she goes out very much...Where do they conduct their relationship? Does she go to their homes or do they spend time together in her filthy room? Could the child's father not take on more of the parenting of his daughter? Is he aware that the wider family are effectively raising his child, rather than her own mother? Why isn't he stepping up more?
A lot of questions, I know, but these are all important issues to be taken into consideration.

I'm sorry that sounds very difficult for you. If she lived independently, I strongly suspect there would have been intervention by social services already.

You can't keep dealing with all these issues yourselves- you need to get social care involved.

The fact she may be loving and kind to her child doesn't make her a good or even adequate parent. Without you, the child would be neglected and at risk of harm.

Maybe she could have her own place and live on benefits, with you supporting from a distance, but I suspect her child would be put on a 'child in need' or even a 'child protection' plan straight away. People like this are the kinds of people social services deal with all the time. They would prioritise some kind of mental health support for her to keep a relationship with her child, initially at least.

You could then take on the child if she was deemed unfit, if that's something you feel able to do.

You both need support. Social services is a good place to start.

I mean this kindly, but you are funding and allowing get lifestyle. It seems that when she wants money, for the car, Netflix, her child, then mum will come to the rescue. Stop paying for these things, starting with the luxuries - Netflix etc.

If she was a male partner, she’d be called a cocklodger.

I don’t think that is fair on that poster. The daughter is unlikely to be able to meet the care needs of her child in the future due to her own obviously very high needs but at the moment she is hampering her daughter’s needs been met and damaging relationships with the people who probably ultimately will be able to meet her child’s needs. In reality anyone who has complex family dynamics due to MH/PDs//NDs addiction knows that there is no knight in shining armour who steps in unless things reach serious abuse levels. The OP may not be able to get her daughter out of this set of beviours and in fact she might be reinforcing the behaviours by continuously enabling her. From my own experience of a from a lifetime around people with ND/PDs sometimes letting things fall down and then picking up the pieces afterwards can be the only way forward. Enabling bad behaviours rarely ends well.

It's perfectly fair. I am sick of people making comments about autistic people with obvious care needs, calling them 'lazy', saying they need to get a job etc. And clearly not being willing to accept that autism is a disability.

Would you tell a person who can't walk to get out of it and run up the stairs? Because it's the same thing.

I have empathy with the OP and it sounds like she needs a lot more help than she is getting. But that also isn't her daughter's fault. It's obviously more complicated by the fact that the OP has other children, too and a grandchild. She definitely needs help.

But forcing a mentally unwell person into a job when she can't even take care of herself and her child is not good or effective advice.

I would start by getting a diagnosis and medication (if she has ADHD)

This can’t go on.
You have to stop dancing with her.

Get a diagnosis (or a diagnosis of nothing wrong) and get on with your life.

Your job is done. Get therapy and support for yourself.

so, in summary:

1. get a diagnosis for her
2. get therapy for yourself
3. get your life back

Nobody in forcing anyone anywhere. There are suggestion after suggestion of reducing the daughter’s dependence on her parents. I have an autistic child, he has a disability but if he had a child and started doing what the OP’s daughter is doing then I would focus my limited time and energy into the child because God knows the OP has already tried everything with her daughter.

Suggestions that social services will get involved are beyond really unlikely to get anywhere, they likely won’t touch this situation with a barge pole because the child is clearly well cared for. It is my own belief that the best outcome here in the current situation is that the daughter goes to a supported living situation and the OP becomes guardian for her grandchild. But that all has to happen with the DD’s cooperation and why would she agree to it at the moment when her life is being entirely facilitated by her family. Unending empathy for the daughter neglects the wellbeing of absolutely everyone else in the family. It has to be tempered with considered the needs of everyone else.

The OP has said that her daughter had recognised support needs when she was at school so this sounds like a case of her struggling through school with no diagnosis...

I agree with this post. I think that all the support that Op and family are providing is just lengthening the time before her DD goes into crisis anyway. And it's not sustainable and a child is also at risk.

Op I hope that you find these different perspectives useful. It's a horrible situation for your whole family

She's been sectioned. What makes you think there's no diagnosis? People aren't sectioned willy nilly and they certainly aren't released without a care plan.

This is 100% avoidable. Whatever care plan was put in place when she was released hasn't been followed. If she didn't have the capacity to live independently she wouldn't have been released. She's not taking her medication that's on her. She's a grown adult refusing to help herself and leeching off her mother and neglecting her own kid and prioritising her boyfriend.

Thousands of people with mental illness take medication to help them function. She's not a child.

Well I’m certainly not saying that the OP can go on as things are - of course not. Her dd needs professional help. The mental health act can be used if someone is mentally unwell and refuses medication.

What I disagree with are the frequent posting which are basically say that she needs to leave her mum’s house and get a job and learn to stand on her own two feet. And the idea that if someone is clever, that will negate the effects of a disability. You can’t force a square peg in a round hole.

This sort of thing is really complicated and is, no doubt not helped by all the cuts that have happened over the last 14 years.

People with autism can be helped to have a degree of independence, which depends on individual circumstances. Three out of my four children are autistic and the other one has panic disorder, but she has managed to stay at university with the help of fluoxetine. My oldest daughter also takes fluoxetine. The youngest two are both autistic with very different support needs but I’m helping them both find their own path which gives them as much independence as possible but it’s not the path of a NT person and it never will be. The 15 year old came out of school in year 8 and now does an NVQ course in equestrian studies - she’s a very gifted rider and handler of horses. The youngest is academic but highly anxious with PDA and is starting at a very small school.

I strongly believe that autistic children who grow up understanding who they are and why are more likely to find happiness and a degree of independence in their lives.

What really hurts is when teachers, family, friends, whoever keep on saying things like ‘you’re just lazy, it’s time to grow up, you are not of this world, you’re useless, you’ve screwed your life up, there’s nothing really wrong with you’ etc

She has no diagnosis of autism. She has a history of mental illness including an eating disorder. She doesn't engage with services and won't take medication.

No, the OP says that she is probably on the spectrum. Which suggests that it has been suggested by school but not diagnosed. But we won’t know unless the OP comes back to the thread.

People with autism often have poor mental health and if someone refuses medication which they need they can be sectioned.

But has @Xhausted2001 not done what you have done and poured herself into her daughter but the daughter is behaving in ways destructive to everyone in the family including her own child. I absolutely agree with you that the daughter needs ongoing support but it has gotten to the stage where she has bled the family support well nearly dry now and that support has to come from elsewhere. The problem is that services don’t step in without crises and the family are currently preventing that crises which is really already there based on the OPs user name.

PDA also commonly associated with anorexia or ARFID.