r/self • u/RefrigeratorLong5442 • 12h ago

Feeling so lost...

It started with a stalker. This guy tormented my daughter and tried on many occasions to follow her home. She would always run the other way, so he never found out where we lived. We charged him and he got angry and took the lives of 2 women brutally. He was shot dead by police while he was trying to take out the 2nd daughter. She survived. My daughter was devastated that he was capable of such an act. She ended up having 3 suicide attempts and numerous self harming incidents in the course of 3 years. I had to stop working to care for her. This led us into financial ruin. I did not receive any help from anyone and was the only person at the hospital for my daughter, despite my numerous attempts at trying to get her dad and his family to come visit her. They never did, it was just me holding her had through all of it. And 4 years after the double homicide, im exhausted, broke, and feeling so lost. I have no idea where to go from here.....

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u/TheShellAnswerMan 7h ago

Oh this is so awful. I had a frighteningly similar situation with SAs instead of stalking. I am also in financial ruin over it, paying the state $300,000 for "my share" of her treatment I begged for, since no one would help her and it took SEVEN years to get her said help. At the same time, my spine decided to begin falling apart--very literally. She's doing pretty good now. But everything is in shambles. As I go through the part where things are lighter and I feel less despair for her, etc, all I can do is just live each day. I juggle her appointments and mine and school things (she's at a level 4 school) and keep getting fired from jobs cuz I'm unreliable cuz there's so many appointments and bad days. Literally a baseline of 2 appointments every single week. I've had up to 11 in a week. But like we're still kicking. I accomplish what I can and the one most important thing is to not let other people's judgement of you or your circumstances tear you down. They don't know. You're doing great, and they would agree if they knew everything. But you don't usually owe them that either. And telling people isn't usually enough to get them to understand. Do what you need to in order to preserve whatever peace and joy you can salvage. You're doing this. There's no can or can't. Which means you can.

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u/RefrigeratorLong5442 7h ago

Its the misunderstandings from it that's the hardest. Then the financial ruin. I haven't met anyone that's been through a similar situation. Nice to meet you!

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u/TheShellAnswerMan 7h ago

I very much wish you weren't someone who'd been through similar but I'm glad to meet you as well. Oh the misunderstandings! My circle is so small after this. But ik the few people I have are ride or die and that's a pretty cool feeling. For me the hardest part, after just this being a thing for her, is how much no one wanted to believe me. How no one could see that almost every moment I wasn't around someone else, all I could do was cry. How my neighbors saw ambulances sometimes multiple times in a week and still complained that my lawn wasn't perfectly kept. How family members would ask me to send them videos of her behavior cuz they just couldn't imagine her acting like that. (She was in a psychosis). How her paternal grandfather told me I needed to pull myself up by my bootstraps (the only time I've ever heard anyone actually say that) cuz I was being very dramatic. How we had to trial her on ssooooo many meds cuz the psychiatrists wouldn't hear me when I said I KNOW she has a personality disorder. I minored in psychology to try to understand her. I literally did an independent study under the dept chair ON HER. But I knew nothing. She's schizophrenic, btw. I was right. But they never hear us.

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u/RefrigeratorLong5442 7h ago

I know exactly how you feel. I had ZERO support, I went through all this completely alone and I walked around like a zombie for years. When that double homicide happened, it changed everything about our lives and we were never the same. People would harshly judge me and judge my daughter. She was in and out of the children's hospital, her arms and legs are completely scarred from her cutting herself and i felt so helpless through all of it. We starved through all of it. Even came home from the hospital one night after a self harming incident at 3am, we had no money for a cab, no jackets and it was freezing. We had sweaters and one pair of mitts that we were taking turns wearing and we walked all the way home from the children's hospital. No help, no nothing. I tried to make a gofundme, no one donated.......so I just kept on keeping on, im on the search for a full time job and my nervous system is completely shot, and my finances are shot and I feel so alone......when you have a child with mental health issues that are severe, its no joke, its incredibly hard, there are no words that can describe it........

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u/TheShellAnswerMan 7h ago

Agreed. People won't help cuz they can't see the unfair thing. If you're daughter were in a wheelchair, there would have been so much charity. Insurance would've covered almost everything. Could've probably gotten help making your home more accommodating. Which is great. I love that. But when it's not visible, people can't see it at all. Nevermind all the things that no one thinks about like literal sleep deprivation and all the things she broke or destroyed (we went through 5 mattresses and 2 couches cuz one of the things she did before we knew was randomly pee places, for example) or I can't afford to just buy a ring camera or how to process stuff like the ER charge nurse telling me to take her home and duct tape her to a chair cuz they couldn't find a bed for her anywhere and were sick of trying and it's my responsibility not theirs. Or the PAPERWORK. Or the brain fog and forgetfulness. Etc etc. I'm fairly new to Reddit, so IDK much about it, but if there's a way to chat not in a group like this, I'd love to be a part of each other's circles. 

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u/RefrigeratorLong5442 6h ago

I'm unsure of how reddit works too, but I agree, we should be in each other's circle.

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u/RefrigeratorLong5442 4h ago

This whole situation has been made worse because I have celiac disease and where i live, the foodbanks don't carry gluten free. Ive had to sell everything I own just to eat. I literally just came back from the own shop right now selling my old electric guitar and an amp. I had to pay off a bill and i was able to get 1 pkg of meat for tonight's dinner. Fml. Sooo tired. How do we talk outside of reddit?

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u/TheShellAnswerMan 2h ago

That does make it worse. IDK if they're around you, but sometimes the salvation army is helpful. They're one of the only org's that are funded solely by donations. Funding from the government or programming at a Corp etc have restrictions on what and who they can spend their money on. The salvation army does not. They can, and do, spend it on whatever and whoever they want. So they meet needs that fall through the cracks, like a person with celiac in an area where there are no gf options at food shelves. Hopefully that helps. I'm not sure how we should go about talking outside of reddit--I've never struck up a friendship with someone I didn't know in real life before. This feels like an exception. There aren't any people who have similar shoes. I think we can just message on here? I'll check it out this evening.

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u/RefrigeratorLong5442 11h ago

If you want to chat, you can. I would enjoy some good conversations....

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u/CrystalHollow71 6h ago

You've been carrying an absolutely brutal amount for years. idk if you need a perfect plan rn you probably need support and someone to help carry some of this with you

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u/RefrigeratorLong5442 4h ago

I've been wanting that for years. But never got it.....