My daughter (23) is bright, funny, smart and beautiful – with severe MH issues, which I know I've discussed on here, before. For the sake of trying to avoid confusion, we'll call my daughter Beth (absolutely not her real name). It's just that there's a lot of people about to be mentioned in this. Also, to avoid drip feeding accusations later on – Beth has caused no end of trouble for me and her younger brother over the last 3 years, leading to the diagnosis' by a psychiatric team. She has struggled to come to terms with her MH issues, but over the last 6 months or so, has been taking her medication as prescribed, stable, happy, and an absolute joy to spend time with again. No violence, no aggression, no sudden bouts of unexplainable rage, no malicious phone calls to the police, no suicide threats...
However, her mental stability – fragile at the best of times – coincided with her on/off again boyfriend (whom we'll call Alex – which isn't his actual name) moving to the other end of the country, telling her that he was doing so, the day before he left. She said he announced his departure as a done-deal, and she was devastated by the almost callous way in which he told her. She said she felt as though she'd never mattered to him, their 3 year relationship meant nothing to him, and she felt abandoned by him. Her family? Was relieved that he'd gone, to be brutally honest. I had nothing against the boy, at that time, but he and Beth are absolutely toxic when they're together – and it's me who had to pick up the pieces, every time they broke up, argued, he was ignoring her... During their relationship, whilst Alex was only 10 minutes or so away, Beth would often stay at his flat – only to come back the next day and spend hours ranting about how Alex had promised her they'd go out for dinner, then refuse to budge from the couch and his video games... or how he'd changed plans and left her alone until the early hours of the morning, because he'd gone to the all-night gym with his friends who “hated” her. Alex would cheerfully tell her that his two closest male friends “despised” Beth – and then list the reasons why, apparently. So of course, when Alex wanted to go to the gym with them? Beth would have to stay behind, by herself. When Alex wanted to go to the pub with them? Beth would be permitted to go with him, but would spend the entire duration of their “date” being glared at and studiously ignored by Alex's friends and their girlfriends – whilst Alex apparently told her that it was all her fault; if she'd been nicer/kinder/funnier/smarter then they'd have deigned to talk to her. In hindsight, I do wonder if these young men and their various girlfriends had been manipulated into “hating” Beth, by poison dripping from Alex's tongue into their ears. Beth went to university with the two male friends – and whilst they weren't friends, they did work together on projects with minimal fuss. This behaviour coupled with Alex's sudden decision to leave and move away, with absolutely no consideration towards the young woman he professed to love, confused Beth horribly. We all walked on eggshells for a while after Alex's departure, because Beth was literally going through the various stages of grief for the relationship she'd believed herself to be a part of. But Alex had promised her that he'd “make the effort to visit every other week”, and Beth believed him. That was in September... he stayed at the other end of the country, didn't visit (that Beth knows of), and their conversations over social media/their 'phones were... well, Beth's side of it involved a lot of tears and shouting, so I suspect they did nothing but argue. But after the initial phase of “I can't believe he left me!!!”, Beth did calm down – and unless she was talking to Alex on the 'phone, she began to settle into stability. She passed her driving test, the group of friends who had drifted to the edges of her life whilst Alex was physically there all returned, and she was happy. Then in February, Beth decided that she was going to fly up to the other end of the country to visit Alex for Valentine's Day. She hadn't seen him in 5 months at this point – and she was making a last-ditch effort, she said.
When she came home, she was moody and irritable, so I left her alone until she decided that she wanted to tell me what had happened. Apparently, Alex had spent the entire weekend ignoring her, refusing to go out and show her around the area he'd moved to, and preferred to clear out his landlord's garage/go to the pub with his new best friends (who yes; all ignored Beth when she tried to say “hello” to them on the doorstep before Alex disappeared off with them into the evening) than be around her. At this point, Beth told me, enough was enough, she was worth more consideration and deserved better... and she called a halt to their relationship. I did advise her to remove him from her SM accounts, but she said that as he'd never been the one to initiate a conversation, she didn't see him suddenly doing so after she ended their relationship...
Beth hit stability and being a young, single woman with a vengeance. She also hit the job market with a determination I'd never seen in her before (and which gave me genuine hope) and secured a full time position with a growing company in April. She made a lot of new friends through this job, and was out with them at least three times a week. Whilst I did worry about her exhausting herself, she's an adult and actually? I was just pleased that she was finally sorting herself out. Especially when she casually mentioned that she'd met a new man... whom we'll call Steve (not his real name, obviously)... who seemed perfect for a rebound relationship, apart from his 8 month old baby and his “absolutely bat-shit crazy” ex-girlfriend. There was a lot of discussion between myself and Beth at this point – whilst I pointed out that I couldn't stop her from seeing Steve, she'd been that baby herself and knew how it felt from that side of things and I was worried that she'd end up pregnant by him, herself, and become the next “bat-shit” ex with a baby whom he refused to have anything to do with because “he didn't fucking want it in the first place” (there absolutely has to be a script that men like Steve follow, because Beth's biological father – who was abusive and thankfully disappeared from our lives when she was a month old – did likewise, and I know from what Beth told me, Steve claims the “bat-shit” ex got pregnant because she wanted to get her hands on “all his money”, which... he was 22 at the time and unemployed, so WTAF?!). Beth did her best to reassure me that she was aware, she was just “having some fun” and it wasn't really anything serious. She'd go out with Steve and their mutual friends on a Friday night until late (no sleepovers because she and Steve both live with their mothers and have younger siblings at home!), and then they'd go to festivals and to the various pubs/vintage markets/gigs around our area on Saturdays and Sundays. Beth was happy, she was stable, she enjoyed working at her new job, she'd a group of friends whom she loved spending time with, and Alex? Well, Alex was a distant memory...
And then, one evening she comes in from work and is crying. When I managed to understand what she was saying, it turned out that Alex? Who lived at the other end of the country, bear in mind, and had announced to her that he had absolutely no intention of ever moving back to our area again... Had applied for a position with her company, which would involve him working directly alongside Beth. She didn't think he'd get it, but... couldn't understand why he'd do something like that. I asked her if she'd removed him from her SM accounts, and she said “no” (which I already knew, but...). I asked her if she and her friends had been posting photographs of their nights/days out on SM, and she said “of course!” (because she's 23 and that's just what they do... it's like breathing to that generation, I'm almost certain!). I asked her if she'd changed her relationship status to “seeing” Steve, and she said “yes”. And then she said “Oh...!”
A few days later, Alex started to call Beth, relentlessly. He misses her, he loves her, he's coming “home” (his home town is actually the one he ran away to!) in a few days for job interviews and to look at flats, of course he wants her to go with him, and he wants to meet her work colleagues, and how about they spend the weekend in the nearest big city to us, and he'll wine and dine her whilst they're there, and they'll visit art galleries, and... on, and on, and on. I watched Beth's mood shift from happy, to confused, to stoically unhappy in the space of a few days. The weekend in the nearest big city was one which was always going to happen for Beth (by herself) – because her employers were paying for her to do a diploma course there. Something else she'd posted about on SM because she knew that her bosses were displaying confidence and faith in her ability to do her job, and do it well... and that it would look good on her CV. Alex must have seen these posts and latched onto the weekend like a leech. But off they went, with me encouraging her to do her best on the course and make sure that was her focus, and not Alex... Well, he wouldn't let her study for the course in the evenings, insisting that they visit one museum after art gallery after museum instead. They ate nothing but junk food (think McDonalds), which would be fine, if it weren't for the fact that Beth had been making it a point to eat healthily during Alex's extended absence, and had gone almost vegan – when she wasn't traipsing around the city in Alex's determined wake, she was hugging the toilet in their hotel room, because her body was furious with the grease and who knows what else she'd been encouraged to consume... She failed the course. Her employers were actually pretty cross about that (as I would have been, too), and she started to come home saying that she “hated” various colleagues, when prior to Alex's visit, she'd been on good terms with them. I hoped that it was just a readjustment phase, that Alex had buggered off, and that things would go back to stable happiness for my beautiful girl once more. She was still “seeing” Steve, until Alex called and there was an argument, and then she wasn't “seeing” him anymore. She was still going out with her friends, until Alex started to call and then nights out tailed off again. She was doing well at her job, until Alex called, and then suddenly she was looking for other employment because (after 4 months!) she “hates her job and everyone who works there!”. And she had a birthday at the start of the month, for which a family day out followed by a meal in her favourite restaurant had been booked... until the day before, when she disappeared off into her room to talk to Alex, and came out again hurling vitriol at us, and I refused to subject myself or my 14 year old son to it, and said that whilst she could have her gifts, the day/meal out were cancelled (yes; I felt awful about that, but she's not a child, and I won't reward her like one... her brother and I were looking forward to spending the day with her, but given her history, I wasn't running the risk of her turning violent towards us!).
(Hold on, too long for one post, sorry!)