Ex-daughter relationship (pain!)

by Mary Hickey
(Brookfield, IL)

My daughter, Liz, was born with a stroke that developed into seizure activity from age of 2. What made things worse was the fact that her parents were also going through divorce that was extended due to custody issues. As, a result Liz was the oldest and found to be the pawn.

Her Father was blind and while considered a good man and Father, he did require assistance so he went back to live with his Mother. Despite the good his Mother provided it acted as a double edged sword as she was clearly out to ruin the marriage.

Her Father was a heavy drinker and did not support his Mother while she attempted early sobriety. This fueled divorce.
The Grandmother took full advantage of this making sure the Father did not have to pay alimony and allowing only enough days for Mother that the large expenses would be paid by the Mother and her time off from work would be further limited with her kids.

As a result, raising 3 on one salary was hard and caused for family to move to various apartment throughout the years. First, it was to be near family that could help with baby-sitting but that became difficult as the Grandmother continued to say nasty things about the Mother and the extended family. Whenever anyone attempt to get kids in line the other side would argue it was abuse and give kids strong voice to argue. The other side refused to work out days that would allow for kids to be in activities after school or to develop close friendships but the Grandma made sure they were consistent with friendships by her house and since house was paid off then Grandma was safe in knowing she did not need to move.

The Mother decided to attempt to get kids into great school system as Dupage was not helping any of the kids, especially the daughter Liz. Despite making clear they would have roof over head and would not move them out of new school system, Mother, Liz, and sister and brother were caused to move 5 times out of the 10 years but remained in the school system.

The Grandmother made clear that their Mother was to blame. The daughter was encouraged to kick and scream against their mother as long as there was someone she could blame.

To insure that Mother was not considered abusive police were even called and were able to sort out rather quickly the excuse. The daughter tried to cut her arm with a butter knife, claimed she was being followed by a man in a mask, we tried counseling and even put her in hospital when she acted like she was on drugs but refused to go to hospital for drug testing.

She played fights between Father/Mother, sometimes with assist from Grandmother and other times all on her own. Then when she started hanging out with rough crowd and was smoking pot, Mother told Father and was told I was being to hard on daughter but then when she reacted poorly with Father, problem was noted. The daughter treated Mother like she was a dog and made sure she moved out of house. Then approximately a year after highschool she moved back to Mother with indication that she would pay for her own phone, go to school and work. Then she started claiming work was to much so she quit Mother paid her phone, she became bossy and started yelling at mother.

Then I told her she was driving too closely to cars and speeding with car that was the only source of transportation. Later that day daughter had accident. She had version that did side with her version but with her hx she still did not realize that she can still have part in preventing accidents when we do not speed.

Regardless, she did not care that Mother spent thousands of dollars at a time she did not have good credit but daughter used car when she wanted and never paid insurance. After her brother graduated from school the Mother decided it was time to get closer to work and to get handle on finances and start saving since all of the Mothers money went to family expenses.

The daughter complained because she was not close to her school but all helped her through. Then because of fight between Her aunt Liz moved back to Father's house. Mother paid Liz outstanding parking tickets which were over $500. She expected her Mother to pay for her phone and car insurance.

Her Mother begged her to at least wait a few days or stay at friends to discuss as her Mother was going through 9 hour training sessions. Even though her Mother knew and agreed it was wise for her now 20 year old daughter to move out the attempt was made to leave good terms. Then a call was placed to the daughter and she was verbally abusive but Mother did call her a #%^@@!! when upset on day of her move.

She said that another last ditch attempt would be made a week later and for her to pick place to discuss. The daughter simply hung on Mother but did answer third time at which time she clearly expressed to her Mother that she should never have had children.

Liz never wants to see her Mother or consider her a Mother as she felt she could not take care of herself financially or health wise and that the only thing she intended to do was plan her mother's funeral.