Phone calls and excessive worry

13 years ago

I'll keep it short. We had SD for the weekend. The afternoon we were supposed to return her (for the night, and get her back the next day) she got a phone call from BM. Evidently BM had a stomachache and went to ER. But called SD and got her all stressed and worried instead of calling DH or myself. SD ended up staying an extra night with us; which could have been wonderful, except SD was a wreck because she thought her mom was going to die and we actually had plans that night, so it ended up with her freaking on the couch for hours and the evening completely ruined.

Tell me, who calls their 10 year old to say they are going to the hospital? Why not just call the adults and say what is going on so the kid isn't worried?

I finally took the phone away (again!) and said I'd talk to mom. Every time she got on the phone with SD the call ended with SD a little ball of nerves. Then moms "best friend"... some guy... got on the phone and he wanted to talk to SD. I told him I didn't want anyone freaking her out, but gave the phone to her because he was acting as if I was keeping her from her mom. Surprise surprise... he had nothing good to say, and she got off crying. And the next day (that we were supposed to have her again) she was completely a wreck as well and ended up getting "sick" herself.

Comments (6)

sylviatexas1
13 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
I think people who do this kind of thing do it because they love the reaction;
they get a great deal of satisfaction from the emotion they can stir up (I must be pretty powerful, I just made my daughter cry herself sick over me).

& I always think the best thing to do about disfunction & abuse is to arm the victims;

let them know what's actually going on & let them know how to disengage.

If her dad can do it without giving her something to defend ("it wasn't her fault mom had to go to the hospital"), he might let daughter know that the drama that swirls around her mother isn't real & that it's always a good idea to stop & think before reacting or responding to something someone says, be that person family, friend, or car salesman.

I wish all of you the best.
finedreams
13 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
this is crazy, does SD live close by now, did they move? dad used to stay in a hotel to go see SD? if they moved, good news she is close by, but now you'll deal with phone calls. don't know what's worse kid far away or crazy ex close by. crazy.
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Please - all you Mamma Bears (said with great respect - I'm a mom too) take a deep breath, stand back, and calm down. I have no doubt that that phone call was upsetting and frightening. Your daughter was smart to call you, and I think you were smart to investigate and also for Dad to call back and make himself abundantly clear. If the caller had bad intentions, he now knows that your daughter has a pissed-off no-nonsense male for protection. That can't hurt. But please do consider that the caller may not have had bad intentions. As you noted Bethpen, your daughter was kind to several young men with poor social skills, any one of whom might have made that call without understanding at all how it might have seemed to her... He may genuinely have considered her a friend, and have wanted to reestablish contact and see how her new job was going, and had no idea how creepy it would have seemed. But your daughter's creeped-out reaction may have alerted him to the fact that the phone call wasn't going well, so he declined to give his name for that reason - not thinking how that would make it all even worse... This type of action and lack of insight would be very typical of a young man with autism. This call was a single action, not a series, that was perceived as creepy because it did not conform to social norms. There was nothing threatening in what was said, but the social inappropriateness (that's the nature of the autism disability) created a perceived problem. A mountain out of what could truly be a molehill. At this point there has been one phone call with a message that was inappropriate and yes, creepy, but not actually threatening. Please try and keep that in perspective, and carefully consider the option that it may not have been meant to provoke fear. That said, I do agree with the suggestions to inform HR where your daughter works, and to ask for specific training about how to handle threatening calls. Given the nature of her work, that can only be of benefit. This post was edited by sweeby on Sun, Aug 10, 14 at 14:24
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Thaimommy, I think maybe I did not express myself adequately if you some how got the idea that I think sex is more important than the love of a child. My parents are divorced. There are times even now, I wish I could talk to my dad with out having to go through my sm, so I do try to put myself in her shoes. She comes to our house eow and once during the week. I try to make sure she feels like she is getting "quality" time with her dad, just her and dad, as well as trying to make sure that she knows I care about her and very much include her in our lives. My sd parents have been divorced since she was 5. She is 12. Her dad has always been involved in her life. Thats why I could not really understand the insecure behavior. Which now is more like obs. com. behavior. Her mom is somewhat compulsive obsessive and the phone calling seems to be similar. I am not trying to cut her off from her dad and I realize she is at an awkward time in her life, thats why I wanted to try to get some feed back as to how to handle it. It just did not make sense to me that anyone would call anyone every hour and half from 5:00 to 10:00 every night unless there was a problem.
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The way I understand TOS, is that ALL stepmothers are the other woman no matter what the circumstances surrounding the divorce were or in most cases how absent or inept the mother is. In my view her views exemplify pure unadulterated rage at the lot of females in society and she holds women--ie stepmothers--accountable for it. If women didn't participate by helping men abdicate their familial responsibilities it wouldn't happen would it. Men just don't have the gumption to raise children. Truly that ideology does have some merit. But like everything else in life, there is a HUGE gray area. And, personally I don't believe you can hide that much rage from children, no matter how much you think you have it under control.
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You need to get yourself to the ER now. The hospital may have a good dermatologist on staff. The doctor's inability to get you in is getting ridiculous. I can't believe the lack of triage where ever it is you go. They should have told you to come in and sit in the office if need be until someone could at least have a look to determine if you needed immediate treatment or not. Some dermatologist can't fit you in while he's probably treating some teenagers acne or writing a script to some middle aged woman for Retinine who's worried about her wrinkles. I'd be camped outside their door until they saw me. Go to the ER. Please.
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lovehadley
13 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
"Tell me, who calls their 10 year old to say they are going to the hospital? Why not just call the adults and say what is going on so the kid isn't worried?"

SS's BM does!

The woman goes to the hospital seriously every other day when she is pregnant.

Ok, I'm exaggerating. But really, in all honesty, throughout her pregnancies with her two daughters, she went to the hospital about 8-10 times total. Maybe a little more.

And yes, each time, she would call and talk to SS and say "Mommy's having contractions, the baby might be coming tonight, please pray she doesn't, it's too early" and he'd stress/worry/etc. With her last pregnancy, at 5 wks she had an u/s and they didn't see a heartbeat--totally normal at that gestational age. Of course the woman just HAD to tell SS---"Mommy has a baby in her tummy but it might not live." For crying out loud.

A.) WHY tell your 7 year old that you are pregnant when you're only 5 weeks along???
B.) When you have a super early u/s like that, and OB says come back in 2 weeks for a better look, then we;ll know more...WHY do you have to tell your child you have a baby inside and it might not live?

UGHHH.

Given the fact that she is a total hypochondriac and not once did her doctor EVER put her on bedrest or anything of the sort, I'd say all her hospital trips were all pretty unwarranted.

Another example---SS had been having headaches this past spring. DH & I thought it was from being carsick b/c frequently he'd complain of it in the car. I get migraines and they seemed migraine-ish to me in that it would hit him, usually late in the day, and then he'd rest for a few hours, and be better.

But BM thought it good to take him to the pediatrician and DH (and myself) totally agreed. If it were my DD, that's what I'd do. So BM took him and the ped. also thought they could be migraines or sinus related. Changed his allergy meds. to see if that would help.

This was not good enough for BM. She insisted on taking SS to the neurologist and was INSISTING he needed a CAT scan. The neurologist told her it was unnecessary and, frankly, harmful. He said he did NOT want to expose SS to that amount of radiation at this point in time. He also said they seemed like migraines and prescribed a daily preventative for SS to take.

Two weeks went by and BM never filled the prescription! DH finally got mad and demanded she give him the script so he could fill it. I mean, why go to ALL THAT and then not do what the doctor says?

I will tell you why. Because BM is an attention-seeker and she likes drama. Not saying she WANTED SS to have a tumor or something, but once she heard it wasn't anything serious, she "lost interest."

But DH and I both thought---HEY--we need to SEE if this migraine preventative works---because if it DOESN'T, then the situation needs to be further evaluated. Which, I think, was the doctor's point in saying "let's try the migraine preventatives and see how things go."

Anyway, thankfully, SS has been fine since...but geez....

Sorry to hijack Silver!

I can so relate to the hypochondriac/freak out type mom who sucks her child into her drama. What ended up being wrong with SD's mom, anyway?
And you're right, it is unfortunate b/c it could have been a fun bonus night for you guys, but of course her wacky mom had to stick her claws in and make it DRAMATIC.
sweeby
13 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
This is SO annoying! And it really is a bid for attention on the part of the hyper-dramatic parent.

When older DS was being tested for ADHD and learning disabilities (a g a i n), he was meeting with the psychologist to take about 3 hours worth of paper and pencil tests. He was 10 or 11 at the time. Didn't want to do it, naturally, but also not hysterical, scared, freaked out... So I bring him to the psych's office (where he'd been before), tell him that if it's OK with him, I'm going to run some errands while he's taking his tests, and that I've got my cell phone with me if he has any questions or needs anything.

He's being taken from the waiting room into the testing area when in rushes Dad -- to the rescue! "Oh Baby, it's going to be all right. You don't have anything to worry about and I'm going to be here the whole time! It's just a couple of tests, and I'm sure they're not going to find anything wrong! You're perfectly fine! And I'm going to be right here whenever you need me!" You should have seen the Dr's eyes roll -- Anyway, now DS starts to wonder if it's a much bigger deal than I've presented it to be. You can clearly see the confusion on his face, then the start of anxiety creeping in. I just told him some paper and pencil tests, no big deal -- but here's Dad, clearly scared to death... I could have shook him!
mattie_gt
13 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
lovehadley: Mommy has a baby in her tummy but it might not live !!! That is just so sick.

I cannot even imagine what is going through people's minds to do this to a child. BM talked to SS a couple years ago right before Thanksgiving, and told him that she hoped he had a good day; Mommy didn't have any money and didn't know if she'd even get to eat Thanksgiving dinner. We were livid. Besides the fact that there was no mention of this apparent starvation before or after that one single day, she lived in the same town as all of her family (where, of course, she went for dinner - same as every other year.) SS had been so excited about getting to spend the day playing with cousins, etc. and suddenly he went to "Sigh. I hope Mommy is OK and gets something to eat."
finedreams
13 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
nothing to eat? starving? I would give her a call and say i heard you are starving, we'll send you some bread. stupid woman.

Phone calls and excessive worry

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sylviatexas1

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