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Account Suspended
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Location: California Uber Alles
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Jul 14, 2018 at 11:23 PM
#1
Please note: This thread has a trigger warning on it!!!!!! It has very disturbing information in it.
***TRIGGER*** :::::::::::::::::::::: : : : : : : : : : : : Twenty years ago my nephew married a woman who had a daughter, 3 years old. My nephew adopted her. The little girl's name was Samantha. Time went on, my nephew and his wife had a baby, a son. My nephew's wife was very unwell. Major mental and emotional disorders. In addition, she was an alcoholic and severely abused prescription medication. She was mean and abusive to her children, especially to Samantha. I mean, really cruel to her. When Samantha and her brother were 10 and 7, their mother took off. No warning. She just left one day. She moved to another state far away, lived with a guy who was some years younger than she was and eventually, 5 years later, drank and drugged herself to death. Meanwhile, my nephew remarried. He and his new wife had a son. They were married for a few years, then got divorced. My great-niece, Samantha, was accepted to a good college on an art scholarship. She was a very bright, gifted 17 year old, and a talented artist. Incredibly creative. My nephew met yet another woman. Samantha began showing strong signs of having a mental illness. Paranoia, self-hatred that was pathological, delusions. My nephew took care of his two sons and Samantha began college. During the first semester she had a complete break-down. My nephew had basically kicked her out of his home because he was very involved with his new lady - another great-looking, seriously emotionally disturbed woman. Samantha walked away from her college dorm one night and began living on the streets. My sister and brother-in-law, her adoptive grandparents, made a decent attempt to find Samantha and help her. But she wouldn't stay in their home and they were getting on in years. The most they could do after Sam turned 18 was to keep in touch with her now and then...get clothing and food to her on occasion. That type of thing. I loved Sam and also tried to help her out. Bought her shoes, food, gave her rides here and there. She clearly needed psychiatric help, but since she was 18 there wasn't anything anyone could do to actually get her that help without her consent. Sam would tell us about a train that ran beneath the city in which she lived (homeless). She said it was her God-given responsibility to save everyone from the train, which was loaded with explosives. She had a number of delusions like that, always ones in which she was responsible for saving people. One day Sam disappeared. No one heard from her, or could find her, for nearly 2 years. My sister and I knew that Sam had become heavily involved with street people and street drugs. Once she popped up in a psych hospital; her grandparents visited her and so did I. She had been brought in by the police, who found her walking on the freeway - she had walked a full 30 miles. When I visited Sam, she was as sweet as she had ever been...a gentle, extremely caring and thoughtful person. Her intelligence had always impressed me. But her paranoid delusions were off the hook. She was released from the hospital and disappeared again. So some months passed. One afternoon, my sister got a phone call that Samantha was being held in a local hospital.
Possible trigger:
That was about 2 years ago. Samantha was given surgery, but her sight could not be restored because of the damage in her brain. She was placed in a state-run psychiatric hospital and that is where she still lives (she remains suicidal). Of course, she is on medication. She will live in the hospital until she can live in a group home - if that ever happens. The last time I spoke with Samantha was about 18 months ago. I live in a different town than she does and I have not seen her since she's been blind. My sister says that Sam is "doing okay"...or as okay as she can be doing, given the horrifying situation. I miss Sam. I often think of her. I look at beautiful pictures she drew and think about how she will never be the artist she should have been. I remain furiously angry with my nephew for essentially abandoning the daughter he had so willingly adopted. Today, July 14th, Samantha is 23 years old. I didn't even send her a card or call her because I know that I'm not going to visit her. I'm afraid to see her, to see what she looks like now. I would feel like a complete hypocrite to contact her at this point. But I've been sending her love all day. She deserves so, so much more from life than she got. |
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Legendary
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Jul 15, 2018 at 03:29 AM
#2
((((((*Laurie*))))))
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Wise Elder
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Jul 15, 2018 at 04:20 AM
#3
oh how sad of a story, i hope she gets better and she can live with the blindness.
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Legendary
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Jul 15, 2018 at 06:18 AM
#4
I'm sorry to hear about Sam... It is sad because I'm at the same age of her and an artist too...
I hope she has better future. 
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Jul 15, 2018 at 08:28 AM
#5
Thanks for your replies. After I posted the OP I felt kind of silly. I wasn't sure why I had posted it. But your caring replies have helped me to have some peace about Samantha's situation. My guts were churning yesterday, thinking if her all day. I guess I just needed some support.
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Legendary Wise Elder
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Jul 15, 2018 at 03:45 PM
#6
What a sad story. I am so sorry
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Account Suspended
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9 5,382 hugs
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Jul 15, 2018 at 08:03 PM
#7
Thank you, divine. I know...doesn't get much sadder. Samantha was one of those people who never had a mean bone in her body - except toward herself. She trusted and cared about everyone she met. My nephew, who is only 7 years younger than I am (my sisters are/were much older than I) had a terrible falling out over the situation...how I felt that he neglected Samantha. I feel horrible about the falling out. I will think to myself that I'll send him a card, or write him a letter. Try to repair our relationship. But then I think of Samantha and how her life went to ***** before she was even an adult. and my nephew let that happen. I'm just not able to reach out to him. I beat myself up thinking, What could I have done? What could I have done? I tried hard. I know there's nothing I could have done. Still, it haunts me.
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