Concerns of physical danger

Good afternoon I have a question I'm hoping someone can help me with. My ex daughter-in-law has been diagnosed with BPD and bipolar. Our family has literally gone through hell for 15 years. My son and her divorced in 2014, but the separation took place at the beginning of 2012 when she left my son for another man. A lot of things have happened since 2012 and it has resulted in my son having to go back and modify child custody. Last week he won custody of his two children. Where Im from it's not very common a mother would lose custody of her children and even less common to modify a judges previous order. Not to mention she literally had the best lawyer in the state representing her. It would take me a year to tell all the details of what my son and grandchildren have gone through along with the rest of the family...One problem is they were high school sweethearts, my sons first love, and they kind of had to grow to adulthood together. They got pregnant within 2 months of meeting in my sons senior year with their first child.
She has been able to inflict horrible self-mutilation to herself and throughout the years she has had the ability to make my son physically ill, she has put another man in jail because she blamed him for her self-inflicted injuries and she won even with my son's testimony of her behavior and diagnosis. I can attest her parents have never crossed the line in her mind and held her accountable for anything...as a matter of fact she has always come out on top and always gotten her way until last week. Now that the recommendation ruling has come in she had 10 days to submit an exception to that ruling. Since that has not been denied as of yet there is a small chance the judge will allow a hearing to see if she has anything further to contribute. So at this very moment she believes there is a chance my son will not get the children. My sons attorney assures him it is just protocol and everything will go through as recommended. Her attorney actually fired her and withdrew from the case last week which is nearly unheard of. The reason is private information that will not be made available to my son but the judge found it important enough to grant him the withdrawal of counsel on a Sunday through an emergency hearing. She refuses treatment and downright denies her diagnosis that we lived with for 15 years and tries to act as if the psychiatrist made a mistake and she was cleared of any mental illness which she was not able to produce documentation to support that claim during the trial. Her sister committed suicide about five years ago. Overall her family is just very unlike most families I've met. My daughter-in-law can be very vindictive and evil. I have had my grandchildren taken away from me for a year for simply buying a dining room table that she was envious of. How much do I need to worry about her hurting my grandchildren or my son when this final verdict is ordered...because I don't have a very good feeling? Like I said this will be the first time she will be held accountable for her actions which still she is blaming everyone else including the judge and the lawyer for losing her children. She is not one that takes rejection well...she is not one that will allow you to ignore her and not coddle her to a sickening extent...we could be in the middle of a celebration and if she's not getting enough attention she will create usually a very embarrassing dramatic scenario to get the eyes back on her. On the horrible day of 9/11 she was at my home and I Drove five minutes down the road and pick my son up from school as she offered to watch my daughter and her son. I was gone absolutely 10 minutes max and came back home to ambulance in my driveway. I think we can all remember that day and she couldn't even allow that to supersede her. You see so much in the media especially right now and I feel so scared for my grandchildren my son and his fiancée. For some reason the judge did not order her to seek treatment and prove it to the courts in order to see the children, but what she did order is only 88 days out of the year visitation with the kids. The last four years they have had shared custody with my son paying her $600 a month in child support. The things she is now she is probably most upset about her now having to pay child support and my son does not. What is the likelihood with these diagnoses combined with it being the first time honestly she has ever in her mind lost....and not receiving treatment that she will harm my family? My granddaughter is 13 my grandson is 16 and she actually has another child who is three years old which up until about a month ago was never allowed to see his biological father even giving the child my son's last name because she conceived him while still married to my son. I am in contact with that child's grandmother as well because she is extremely worried right along with me for all of their safety. If I do have something to worry about is there a certain protocol something I should be doing or preparing them for besides telling them to watch their back and keep their weapons handy in their phones charged etc...another problem we have is that my son is so protective of the children they do not know of their mother's mental illness diagnosis and he still does not want to inform them. Yet if the children's mother shows up unannounced at their home while my son is at work or any other time for that matter my sons fiancé does not feel comfortable and with absolutely no she wasn't making a friendly visit, but at the same time the children would see nothing wrong with it and would open the door for her. There's got to be some way to also warn the children in the proper way. Any advice on that topic would be greatly appreciated. It's not that they don't know something is definitely wrong with their mom but they have not formally been told that and it's the only mom they've ever known and I'm not sure that they think it's abnormal.

Hello Gotem 1012: I'm sorry you are in such a difficult & complicated situation. From my perspective, I don't think there is any way any of us here on PC can comment authoritatively with regard to your ex daughter-in-law's potential for violence or other disturbing & disruptive behavior. The vast majority of people who have mental illnesses pose no threat to anyone. They are more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators. However, there certainly are exceptions as well. And unfortunately I'm afraid there's no way to tell, preemptively, whether or not your ex daughter-in-law will turn out to be one of those exceptions. A diagnosis of BPD & Bipolar Disorder is certainly, to my mind, a complicated condition.

I hope this isn't simply a copout on my part. Perhaps there may be mental health professionals, here on PC, who will reply with more concrete suggestions. But my inclination here is to say that what needs to happen is for your son to get your grandchildren established with a child psychologist or mental health therapist who can work with them consistently over an extended period to help them to come to an understanding of what is going on & how to handle it. This is likely to continue to be a very complicated & unpredictable situation for quite a long time to come. And my personal prejudice would be that the family members alone are unlikely to have the ability to guide the children safely through these troubled waters. Yes, there certainly are going to be better (& worse) ways in which to share, with the children, information regarding your ex daughter-in-law's mental illness. A child psychologist or mental health therapist is going to be in the best position facilitate this process. I wish you all the best...

Hello Gotem, welcome to the PC forums!

I agree with Skeezyks' and only want to add that your son is the best person to keep
tabs on the family dynamics concerning the mother of the children.

You sound caring and very concerned. Keep in communication with your son about the status of things and provide a supportive role to him and the kids. You getting drawn into the potential drama of the situation will not be helpful, in my opinion, and your son is the best person to monitor the situation. I say "drama" because unless the mother has a history of violent behavior - her inflicting violence is unlikely.

It is definitely possible that she may try to drag you in the middle of the situation. That will not be helpful for anyone. Your son will be co-parenting with her over the years. Let him do his part as father and you enjoy being a grandmother, not a potential pawn.

Thinking of you!

Thank you so much, I think you are absolutely right with your suggestion of a therapist. They have been taken to therapists by their Mother to try and get my grandson labeled for disability benefits. He is a perfect, mature, smart, sweetest example of a 16 year old. He acquired mild Turrets syndrome at the age of 6....prior to that his speech was perfect. It has in no way disabled him. Luckily the therapist agreed
In my desperation I posted probably knowing no one could predict what we may have to go through. Like you I think it's something we will have to live with until our time or hers is up.
Thank you again it's been a rough night. My son will only communicate through email to keep record of visitation, changes, etc...as she is untreated her decisions and mood changes with the wind, and the lies never cease...
She sent 4 or 5 emails, my son replied to 2 that pertained to the children. She proceeds to question him about the previous emails (he never responded to) stating exact sentences and arguing with him over nothing he wrote. In the end she forwarded the correspondence to my sons lawyer demanding his lawyer do this and that etc....smh she just keeps digging her hole and making things much worse for herself. It's in black and white she's quoting sentences that aren't even there. She doesn't like taking medicine but if I didn't know better I would think she was on some heavy recreational drugs. I'm glad she sent it to his lawyer maybe we will get somewhere with supervised visitation at the finalization hearing.

Haha you pegged me...I've been a pawn for years. I've even babysat her son she conceived while married to my son by another man. My son is a loving person it didn't bother him in the least. I have been the primary caretaker of the kids when she has been unable to care for them. Which literally has been a few days a week or more depending on if she's run off with a guy for a week. Yes...it's happened at least 6 times during their marriage that I know of. I have no clue how to explain my son staying 12 years other than he knew if he was with the children he could keep them safe. He was correct because on her watch they have endured way too much for children.
She has had no contact with me since they retained attorneys. The kids are older and she can no longer keep them from me. She doesn't pull that card anymore.
I just try to stay out of it and ease my way through. Yes I learned to walk on those eggshells along with my son and grandkids...
She apparently threatened to kill a girl she worked with if she told my son about an affair she had with the girls roommate. She literally found the girl on break...at night in her car, jumped in her car and threatened her life.
Little did she know my husband had already spoke to that girl. After that we receive a call from the girl stating she just had a baby and could not call us again for her family's safety..told us what happened with her and my daughter in law. The girl was petrified...quit her job and everything.
So regardless if she could follow through, she sure isn't shy to threaten it. She has suggested she has been a different Mom to my Grandson than she shows us and said she is resp for his Tourette's. I'm not sure if that statement was for attention or a fact.

There is something I would like to add so I don't come off aloof. She never self mutilated until she found another fleating friend who was a cutter. I never saw her drink or tipsy once in all the time I have known her yet when she met another fleating friend who attended AA she claimed being an alcoholic and went to AA for years....so because she verbalized these things I do not always take them as truth....our first few years were filled with constant battles...arguments, etc because I was the only one calling her out. But my son was brainwashed and obeyed every punishment she dished out to me. I had zero backup...that's when I just read a ton of books on her disorders and kept my mouth shut and let time do its work. I still have yet to find the chameleon behavior I've explained in her diagnos'. Maybe I just have missed it but unsure if we are dealing with the proper diagnosis or missing another diagnosis