Alice couldn’t believe her adult daughter would do anything really bad to her. After all, she’d given everything to her daughter, even paid for college. She was sure that underneath, even after a 25 year history of rage and attacks by her daughter, she really wouldn’t harm Alice. Her daughter was simply emotionally immature.
With bullies, narcissists, how much danger are you in?
Between the ages of 5 and 18, Alice’s daughter opposed any rules, resisted any discipline, snuck out, ran away, threw temper tantrums, broke furniture, broke Alice’s favorite things, threatened to hurt Alice when she got older, slapped Alice and lied to the rest of the family and to teachers about Alice beating and abusing her.
Between 18 and 30 she told college security Alice’s mother threatened her and had her walked off campus, stole Alice’s car and left for a week, called the police claiming Alice had smacked her, filed for a temporary restraining order saying Alice had abused and abandoned her and told people at work Alice had abused her, and had Alice barred from the building.
All of her accusations were lies. These were only a few of the examples.
Are the threats only toward you or to everyone?
This is an important question. Did Alice’s daughter behave the same way toward teachers, coaches, professors or bosses at work? If so, Alice’s daughter has a serious, probably intractable, problem that society will have to deal with. She’d need someone to protect her and enable her to get away with acting horribly or, eventually, she’d get thrown out of college, lose her job, confront the police and the system would deal with her.
On the other hand, actually, Alice’s daughter threatened only her, and the people and things she held precious. She’d charmed professors, gotten good grades, and was a perfect professional at work. Recently, she could always run back to the bosom of Alice’s ex, who’d verbally and physically abused her daughter when she was young. He’d been a bullying, abusive narcissist but now gave her daughter everything she wanted.
That meant, her daughter knew what she could get away with in each situation; she wasn’t totally crazy. She simply thought she could torture Alice without fear of anything bad happening to her.
Here’s a quick way of assessing:
Place all these incidents (and any others you suspect happened based on your experience and reading) on a scale from mild to life-threatening. Somewhere on that scale you must draw a line at the point of no return.
Before this line, you’ll get your hopes up only to be crushed, you’ll give your love and money, and be spit on and you’ll experience servitude, emotional pain and torture. But you won’t go to jail.
However, beyond that line, you’re in grave danger. Your reputation and ability to work might be destroyed, you’ll be snubbed by extended family and neighbors and you might be run out of town. You’ll be followed by social workers and the law, and you might go to jail.
When behavior is beyond that line, you must give up trying to beg, educate, use facts, reason and logic, and rehabilitate. If you try, you’ll probably be destroyed. You must fight to protect yourself
What’s likely to happen?
In my experience, Alice must draw the line at the point where her daughter went public with lies about Alice’s mother, lies about Alice, getting the police involved, Alice is in grave danger. Especially now that her daughter is supported and encouraged by Alice’s ex. Alice has been lucky so far. In all the previous situations, the police and the judge believed Alice. But it will take only one miscarriage of justice and Alice will be ruined.
Alice must have no contact with her daughter. Fortunately for Alice, her other children are grown and independent so she doesn’t have to protect children from a predator. She must stop trying to welcome her daughter back into family events in hopes of reconciling. She can only pray and wait for her daughter to prove she’s had a change of heart by good behavior over a long period of time.
How do you know for sure?
Most people try to decide based on the facts. Since there were always a few good moments in the past and since there are no facts yet for the future, you can’t be sure what I’m predicting will be one hundred percent certain. But if Alice waited until she had evidence that would stand up in court, it’d be too late; she’d be ruined with little chance of rehabilitating herself.
I estimate future probabilities based on character, personality and previous performance.
Obviously, based on Alice’s daughter’s hate-filled personality, lack of good character and past performance, Alice herself predicted continuing and escalating attacks. Alice’s gut wisdom predicted she was in grave danger and she’d better protect herself.
Alice let go of her precious guilt and stopped being the enabling, rescuing victim. She stopped contact with her daughter, blocked her on all devices and got a restraining order against her.
But what might her daughter think?
Might her daughter think Alice doesn’t love her anymore? Alice decided she wanted her daughter to know she was pushing her away and closing the door on her personality and hate. And there would be a high price of good behavior to pay before there would be any hope of reconciliation. Words and promises would no longer be enough.
Alice’s survival and future became most important to her. Her daughter was infuriated because Alice took control of the distance between them, honored her standards of good behavior and stopped playing her game.
Of course, there are many complications depending on your situation. The best way to learn how to take power in your life and to be the person you want to be is to hire Dr. Ben for personalized coaching and counseling so you can:
Develop the strength, courage, will and determination to be and to act your best resolutely, diligently and effectively.
Develop a plan and master the skills necessary to create the life your spirit has always hungered for.
Since all tactics depend on the situation, call me at 1-877-8Bullies for expert counseling and coaching by phone or Skype.