Hi, I'm BrianS. Please let me know if this post is not appropriate.
I found out about this community whilst looking for help for my daughter, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
I'm 52yo, I currently live in Canberra & I have a 26yo daughter.
To be honest, there is nothing that I can think of in the last few years that she has done that has made me laugh, sorry about that.
Best thing about weekends? Well, I have to plan things to do on Sundays, to both help & entertain a 16yo young man I have been a primary carer of for 2yrs now. Being non-verbal, I've learned to read signs of how he's feeling - with mixed success. 😉 We have setbacks, but I feel satisfaction when we achieve small steps.
However back to my daughter,C, who is why I'm here. I've run out of ideas for how to help her. She has been diagnosed with NPD (*'Narcissistic Personality Disorder') meaning an inability to empathise with other people. She is also a chronic alcoholic who consumes vast quantities of alcohol when she drinks, to the extent that she is well known to both the police & ambulance services but luckily doesn't have a criminal record - yet. She is also very well known to all the acute mental health services.
C has no insight into her condition. She regularly engages in destructive practices, meaning that she has by now burned all her bridges with not only all her family but also various crisis accommodation services, the Dept of Housing's crisis help, a few mental hospitals - well, you get the picture. On various occasions she has been sectioned but then let go to continue her destructive behaviour.
She has highly intelligent & very plausible when dealing with mental health / drug & alcohol people but she has no basic life skills, such as budgeting, working, shopping, cooking, sharing chores etc etc. She has started but not finished Uni degrees & has never held a full time job. Her current plan is to get the DSP ('Disability Support Pension') so that she won't have to work & will have just enough money to live & drink. As she regularly has been thrown out of share accommodation I think this plan won't work & she will end up homeless before long if she gets her way.
Currently she is in an acute mental health facility, after a few near-death drinking episodes & the behaviour that accompanies them. She has no address to be discharged to, so is basically there, trying to get out, whilst we wait for a long term rehab to take her. She has also burned bridges in that area, meaning choices are less, but she does have private health cover (paid for by her estranged stepfather, thank goodness) so our best option is a local private rehab.
If/when she is accepted into a long term rehab she will be a 'voluntary' patient & I have no hope that she will last even a week before she gets thrown out, either by breaking every rule she has agreed to, or coming back from leave hugely drunk & angry. Else I think she will simply go AWOL.
I'm exhausted & out of ideas. I see no happy ending. If there is anyone else out there with similar experiences I would love to hear from you. Again, sorry if this is an inappropriate introduction, BrianS.
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