Grand daughter in danger!

Dotkom - posted on 02/07/2011 ( 3 moms have responded )

Hi,
I'm a new-ish grandmother. I joined to find help, any help with a worrisome siutation. My eldest grandchild, a nearly 2 year old girl, who I'll call Cici, has been displaying signs of emotional trauma recently. We, my husband & I, see her at least once a week. She had her first overnight visit anywhere with us last weekend & stayed again 2 days ago. She's a dream child. :-) Yes, I'm prejudiced but even so, she's very well-behaved & easy to deal with. I have to give my daughter credit for that. But (isn't there always a but?) we're convinced that our daughter is slipping back into her self-destructive ways again. I don't have the strength to go into much detail about what she's done over the last 6 years. Let me just say her life has included such things as robbery, drug use & dealing, theft (from us too) courts, police, beatings, running away, teenage pregnancy (thus our grand daughter) and an inexplicable attraction to really bad men. My baby girl's father is the worst of the worst. Currently he lives out of the country, having been deported as an illegal alien convicted for repeat drug offenses. Yeah, a real catch, huh? Even after his deportation, my daughter lied & conived her way to follow him & lived with him for several months. Apparently he became abusive with both her & the baby. I still feel physically ill every time I think of it.

She's been away from him for a year or so but we're convinced some guy's in her life currently. I don't think it's 'him' but let's face it, there are 100s of losers out there ready to take his place. And if her tendency is still toward such men, she'll find another one. Our fear is that she's done just that. Mind you, we have no absolute proof of anything, but lots of circumstantial evidence. The most convincing evidence that something bad is going on came from our grand daughter just the other day.

She spent the night & was good as gold the whole time. However, we'd noticed over the weekend that she was quite sensitive, brimming with unshed tears several times when reminded not to touch or to come away from something. Then while driving her home she began demanding raisins, which she'd apparently dropped. I thought she was asking for mittens & kept explaining that she didn't have any mittens today. She got stuck in a loop of sorts & just kept saying 'mittens, mittens, mittens' over & over again & again & again & again. I admit, it was irritating as heck. I tried to calm her but she didn't hear me. Finally I raised my voice & said, 'Cici...stop!' May God forgive me. She heard me & in an instant shattered. Huge tears rolled down her cheeks soaking her jacket. And then this horrible, gutteral sound came out of her. She never acutally cried, but rather she went into these kind of spasms. She seemed to be choking on tears she was desperate to hold in. In 50 years I've never seen or heard anything so heart-wrenching. So bad was it that my husband had to pull over & hold her so stop her from shaking & choking. We just looked at one another unable to say anything. Finally, she stopped & just stared out the window. Needless to say I feel horribly guilty. But in all honesty, I didn't yell. I did raise my voice to be heard over her little mitten mantra. But her response was clearly disproportionate. Now the question is, Why?

I've excluded alot of the things that have lead us to believe that our daughter is up to no good again and to be fair, we have definitive proof. But there's alot of circumstantial evidence that something unhealthy is going on in that household. She acts like a gal with a secret & she's doing the same kind of things she's done before when headed for trouble. We've been down this path too many times to fail to recognize the signs. The problem this time is that now she's taking an innocent child along with her. I love my daughter, but she's hurt herself in so very many ways & seems to work hard at it. It blows my mind, the risks she takes. Just when she starts to get it together, she throws it away again. She's fortunate to be free, as in not in jail. That's no exaggeration! One would imagine she'd be extra careful with the 2nd, 3rd & 4th chances she's been given. But no, she continues to gamble with her whole life. And now she's rolling the dice on her child's life too. What are we, as grandparents supposed to do? Is there anything we can do? We don't want to take her child from her. Much as we love Cici, we don't want to raise another child at our age. We're willing to keep on assisting them to have the best life possible, but it feels a bit like fighting gravity. I'm worn out, I'm weary of grave disappointment & worry. I'm already on meds for anxiety & am told that my illness has been greatly exacerbated by stress. But how do you stop stressing about someone you love when they live on the razor's edge of disaster? Anyone with experience....I'm all ears. If you know of any other sites that might connect me with others in this predicament, please refer me, if you would. I'm truly grateful for any suggestions and assistance. Thank you all for listening.