Crazy Bipolar BM
I have dealt with my husbands ex for two years now. She was diagnosed with bipolar when she was younger. Our life has been total torment because of this woman. She "thinks" that she is god I guess. She is very abusive to my husbands 7 yr daughter. The law around here allows her to do anything she wants with no punishment. They have even allowed her to threaten my live and my 17 month old son's live on numerous occasion. She has come to our house and damaged our home and they let her walk. Here lately she as spread rumors that I am mean to their daughter. Which is not true. My sd is always hugging me and kissing my cheeks. She hangs on to me ever time she is with us which is not very often. My sd has even went to her teachers at school and told that her mother is abusive to her and calls her names grown women should never be called let alone a child. The ex keeps my sd from her father and when we do get to keep her she calls the sheriff on tells them a bunch of lies so they come and get her from us and inform my husband that he has no right as a father to his child. I guess all he's good for is money. The ex is constantly drinking and partying and leaves my sd with whoever will watch her. And that means anyone. She even went so far as to tell the judge that she wasn't takeing a drug test and they did nothing. She constantly calls even though I have called the cops to get them to keep her from calling and she even comes to our home like she owns it and the cops tells us there is nothing we can do. That we have no rights in anything. Any advice?
I know the law's can be
I know the law's can be frustraiting and always seem to protect the ones who are the ones we need protecting from. What bothers me is this child is going to school and telling teachers and nothing is being done about it? This is somthing to complain to the school board about. If they don't listen go to your local officials and congressman. Teachers who refuse to listen to a child in need of help should not be Teachers. By law they are required just as a physician is to report any signs of abuse.
Phone harrasment by the BM get an answering machine and save any messages she leaves for you. Threats to your life or your childs life is serious and a crime and with someone suffering from bipolar issues you just don't know what would push them over the edge.
Last.. a good shrink told us this when dealing with x's you have to accept you can not control anyone but yourself and sometimes the best way to deal with someone is to cut them from your lives. Go to court set up visitation that you don't have contact with this BM have the courts mandate a drop off spot and a court appointed drop off person. Eventually her games of calling the police and crying wolf will backfire on her. Even to the point of her loosing custody of her child. Take a deep breath. It might be a long fight but it could end up with a positive ending.
I completely agree with this
I completely agree with this last statement! BM is an undiagnosed bipolar. She was mandated by the courts to have a psych eval, and she went ahead and had it, but will not sign off on it to allow the courts access to the results so nobody really knows the truth about her issues, but we all know deep down that she's not well. In my opinion, BM is bipolar and shows paranoia and doesn't listen to authority at all. She does what she wants, and when she's told she *has* to do something, she does the exact opposite. Thankfully we're custodial otherwise we would never see SS. She had her rights taken away from her for abusing her DD and she recently took us to court claiming that we weren't allowing her to visit SS, but the truth was that she wasn't coming to see SS because she's only allowed supervised visitation and she doesn't want anyone to supervise the visitations. The judge mandated they the visitations are to remain supervised and set dates for visitations, which were completely open before, all she had to do was call ahead and schedule when she wanted to see him. So now that the court has told her the she's not allowed unsupervised visitations and that she could only visit him on certain days, she's decided not to visit or call him at all, which is awesome if you ask me. It breaks my heart to see my SS all mopey because he misses her, but it's either he misses her or he's emotionally abused by her. I prefer the moping.
The best thing you can do is get the visitation mandated by the courts, have a third party that you can meet in public somewhere drop off and pick up your skid, and don't deal with BM at all. Follow the parenting plan by the book, and document, document, DOCUMENT! The more the better because if you could show you have a better living situation then her and she's abusing the skid, then you can go for a change in custody.
I assume she does not take meds?
I have a girlfriend that is Bipolar but you'd never know it because she takes medication. Another one of my girlfriends dated a guy that was bipolar but her always 'forgot' to take his meds and acted extremely crazy as a result. I was diagnosed with dystimic depression years ago which progressed into major depression.... I take medication and do very well because of it....
My understanding is that most bipolar people go into denial about their disorder and thus do not take medication.... If that is the case I'd talk to an attorney about what steps to take for the safety of the kids.
Thanks!
I was reading over this post cause I was curious.. sorta lurking around these forums...
And I'm so happy that someone did mention that someone with bipolar when treated or managed properly isn't a monster. As a future step parent with bipolar disorder, I can say parenting with any illness is tough... I know a lot of mothers who have bipolar disorder and they are amazing parents...
Bipolar doesn't mean they go around abusing people... it means they have bouts of depression and mania.... Depression is tough... and mania.. well I can vouch that I would rather not have another delusion or hallucination again. But most people who are BP don't lie or abuse people. That's more personality than chemical. And fortunately your SS has someone to look out for him.
I think people who do these horrible things and have a label of Bipolar Disorder add to a very harmful stigma about mental illness.
Wow TJ
TJ I can totally relate to your story. Our BM is BPD also. I am 5 years into full custody with the children which has resulted in stability for Skids. Things get better for a moment and then she has episodes and the craziness starts all over again. I'm not sure if she forgets her meds or what.
When Skids were living with BM she insisted that they attend private pre-school at the cost of $13000 each. Understand that she was receiving $1000 in CS, but that was for "shopping" b/c she did not pay bills. She then wanted Skids to take up tennis lessons, so she took us back to court for more $. When summer rolled around and it was time for summer camp, she took us back for more $. When one of them got a snotty nose...she took us back for more $. I'm sure you get the picture that I'm painting. There was no rhyme or reason to anything she did.
DH took SS to the dentist to find out that he had a cavity at 4 y.o. The dentist recommended the tooth come out rather than be filled, since it was going to fall out anyways. BM thought that SS was too young to have dental work and hid the child from us so that he could not make the appt. Even sadder was the fact, that child was initially taken to the dentist b/c he complained of a toothache. Let's see, kid is too young for dental work, but not too young to be fed massive amounts of garbage to cause tooth decay to begin with. Huh?
Every weekend when SKids came to visit, I would wash, condition and braid SD hair or do cute little ponytails. SD absolutely LUVed when I did her hair. BM got jealous and called DCF and filed an abuse report on me that I had used "chemicals" in the childs hair. The chemical in question was "hair oil" that is necessary for african americans b/c our scalps can get dry from the washing. Never mind the fact that everytime I saw SD her hair was sticking up on her head like she'd but her finger in an electrical socket. Never mind the fact that I was making life easier for her so that she didn't have to be bothered with hair. Sigh!
BM would call us and become irrational and when we couldn't hold a decent conversation with her rather than sit on the phone screaming and yelling with someone who couldn't reason, we would introduce her to "Mr. Click" and hang up on her. She would proceed to call back to back sometimes upwards of 15-20 calls as if she were going to make us answer her delusional call.
Mediation was re-scheduled a total of 5 times b/c she would always cancel the day of. She was found to be in contempt of court on a couple of occassions, but nothing ever happened to her. During the hearing where the judge removed the kids from her and gave them to us she told the judge "Take them. I only wanted one child to begin with anyways." (I have actual court transcripts stating this). Even sadder is the fact that SD doesn't like to spend time with her unless she has money to take her shopping. She has built her relationship with them aroung buying them things. They in turn see it and try to use it to their own advantage.
I even had my SD say to me that she doesn't like to spend time with BM because she acts like she only has one child. She dotes on SS (the younger of the two). She has tried talking to her and she dismisses her. BM is not open to hearing from anyone about anything she does wrong. It's like going out and having a conversation with an elephant. Accomplishes NOTHING. I would feel sorry for SD and allowed her to stay back on visits when she did not want to go, only to have SD turn on me and become verbally abusive when I made her do her chores. She would then call BM and she would swoop in like the avenging angel to make things better.
We have since limited BMs contact with the Skids, because she is the source of all confusion and turmoil. They can call her to vent if they wish, but they must do what is expected of them and she is not allowed to swoop in to save the day anymore. My new declaration when there is conflict is "You may call the President and the Pope for all I care. As Queen of this castle it is hereby ordered!" That meaning call yo momma, she had betta not step foot to my house with any nonsense.
Since the new rules and the fact that we no longer allow open visitation, things are a whole lot calmer around here. I don't think the SKids see that BM is the problem, they always blame me. I no longer accept that blame, b/c I'm doing the job that she signed on to do when she decided to have them (18 months apart). Even better she actually told SD that everything was DH's fault b/c she told him that she didn't want kids, she wanted to finish with school. BM was 28 at the time so, if she didn't want kids why was she not doing anything to protect HERSELF rather than leaving it to the man or chance. Even more interesting is the fact that there was actually a child before SD that did not make it a month. So surely she knew where babies came from and how they were made. Please stop the madness. OWNERSHIP!!!