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Will my SS have his mother's mental illness?....

FrustratedButHappilyMarried's picture

Such a long story, but I'll do my best to keep it short. My DH and I have been together for 5 years and 3 of them have been spent avoiding direct contact with the baby momma. We do the drop-off/pick-up thing through my MIL. And up until recently they haven't even spoken on the phone because my husband cut contact early on due to some things she did and said to try and break us up. So,my husband's father died recently and she used that as her way to force contact between them for their "son". She told my SS before my own husband even got the chance then she called him --secretly--so that he could "comfort" his son. I accidentally found out and was upset that #1 she told my SS before we could and #2 that the calls were secret. I handled it with my husband. In the process I found out just how two-faced my MIL has been and how close she really is with the baby momma (whom she supposedly has zero respect for and talks bad about her every chance she gets) But according to baby momma they are beasties. That was news to me! So I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone,....cut out the middle man (MIL) and do pick up/drop off ourselves so it squashes their girl time and puts me back in the picture to remind baby momma who the wife is here. So we called the momma's on speaker phone and set em both straight .All is well right? Open communication, what could go wrong, right? NO! what I got was more than I could have ever prepared for....!!! All of a sudden (instantly) baby momma called the very first day saying She needed us to call her or go to her house ASAP! She said she heard SS saying he was gonna shoot somebody (he's 7) and she was gonna have him admitted! My husband was at work and for hours she called/texted both of us and begging me to come over. We have NEVER had a problem with him, and all of a sudden his mother is going to have him admitted!!! Before my husband could finish saying he was coming to get him she said come on. So I go from every other weekend to proud mother of a 7 yr old in 2 seconds! With no discussion. We get to her house (my first time there) and it is like a really bad episode of hoarders....I mean for real! My hubby and I couldn't even step a foot into the house. It was very awkward. They had trails through the junk from one room to another and that was it! Now, we were there (standing in the doorway) for 45 minutes while she "looked for something" she didn't offer us to come in (fully) or sit- not that we could have-and she darted around climbing over stuff and flipping stuff and at one point was on her back looking under a table. I would've laughed if this were a different situation. My husband and I just looked awkwardly at each other while this was going on. I felt bad for my SS, this is where he lived! And this is who he lived with! She has a live in bf and a new baby plus she's pregnant again :/ So after all that time I said to her not to worry about the item, I could just go pick it up the next day and I told my SS to tell momma bye and come on. She followed us outside to talk. She was clearly having a drug induced manic episode. She was twitching and slurring her speech and talking about craziness. But in the 10 minute talk I learned (from her) that she is diagnosed Bi-polar, schizophrenic, psycosis and all sorts of other crazy. Why would she tell me this??? With the tense relationship we've had in the past I could use this stuff against her! Does she realize what she's doing! Anyway, things intimately calmed down and a few days later we brought him back home. I can't stop wondering, is this in his future? Will he have momma' s mental illness? He seems normal to me, aside from being bratty and self-centered. I just don't know what to expect.....

hereiam's picture

He does need to be removed from that environment and out of the hands of this woman who is obviously a mess and wants to admit a 7 year old (I assume she's talking about some sort of mental hospital?). If she were to get him committed somewhere (and she could if she told the right story), it would not be good for him and his mental health. And staying with her isn't, either.

The fact that you know this can be a good thing. Anytime there is a medical predisposition, knowing about it puts you one step ahead. For instance, there are a lot of drugs, prescription as well as street drugs, that will bring diseases to the surface that would otherwise lay dormant. There are chemicals in foods that can cause problems, things like that that you should be aware of that could make a difference.

I have gone through this for many, many years with my sister. It is anything but fun.

FrustratedButHappilyMarried's picture

I was shocked at was I was witnessing and when my husband and I had a chance to be alone I asked him if this was normal for him to see her like this and has she always been this way, he said yes, just not this bad. We brought him back because she asked us to (she called the police once when we were 15 mins late bringing him back home from our weekend with him, which by the way was our honeymoon weekend! So we knew to do just as she asked)and miraculously things just seemed to go away. We haven't heard another word. My MIL, who handled all the contact with her for the last few years has never said a thing about any problems being mentioned to her from the baby momma. And believe me, she would have. So I'm thinking that all this was just a little bit of entertainment for a bored, homebound drug addict. We were a new audience. A new play toy. She must be over it now. My husband is livid that she is trying to project her mental state onto his son. My husband asked his son why he said he was going to shoot someone and the kid had no idea what dad was talking about. Even started crying. This girl collects disability for several mental reasons and stays at home making babies. I think she was bored And so she had a little fun with us. It's sad though because now I know what his life is like over there and I feel bad for him. But all of his little quirks and personality issues make so much sense to me now

hereiam's picture

I am not one for saying, "Take the kid from his mother," nor do I ever suggest any step-mother to become one full time but your DH needs to get his son out of there.

Orange County Ca's picture

Being male the boy is more likely to have inherited his fathers brain. Also the boy is not drug addicted. So it's likely that he'll be just fine especially in light of the fact that he's acting normally.

But Daddy isn't. He needs to call Child Protective Services and have the boy removed and placed in his temporary custody until he can file for permanent child custody with supervised visitation by the mother. Supervised either by him or a disinterested third party which costs money. I.e. someone stares at the mother when she's with the kid so no harm comes to him.

Yes you did sign up for this and if the kid is going to be saved now is the time to do it.

FrustratedButHappilyMarried's picture

My husband acts powerless when it comes to this girl and it's not his personality to be that way in any other part of his life. He's made threats (to me) about taking his son from her before but never says a word to the girl. He has said to me that there's no way a guy ever gets custody of the children, the mother basically has to die or go to jail for the man to get custody. I tell him I think he could based on the circumstances. It all comes down to him being afraid of her. He has allowed her to do alot of things to him out of fear of not being able to see his son. My husband's mother is the same way. I'm the only one who's not scared of her, but then again, what do I have to lose. I see this whole thing in a different way than my husband does but I don't have the control to fix it. I try to be the normal in my SS' s life, a safe place to go, but that's all I can do

LadyOfShalott's picture

Two of my three skids have inherited bipolar from their mother. They all have official medical diagnoses. The BM is type 1/manic, the kids are undifferentiated. The BM also acts what I have come to recognize as "borderline," though, and DH swears he has seen five different personalities in her.