How did that weekend turn out? I was wondering, if he emailed you, do you email him back? If you do, I don’t think it would have been inappropriate to let him know she would not be there, and that she needs her space from him a this time. End of that conversation.

Although I do know how easy it is to get drawn into becoming engaged in more interaction than you want again – give them an inch…

If you don’t, then I’d feel totally comfortable not answering that or any other email. It’s his responsibility to having a way to keep in contact with his daughter, rather than just showing up whenever he feels like it.

Anyway, I’ll be checking this board a little more regularly. Hope to hear from you again and best to you and your daughter!

But now, here’s the reason I logged on to your site: I’m in need of advice. My daughter (I’ll call her Kate) is 18, freshman in college. To weeks ago, she had a psychotic break. Perhaps she is bipolar (it runs on her dad’s side of the family, in addition to the narcissism), or perhaps she’ll eventually receive some other diagnosis, but it’s far too early to say now. She’s in a psych intensive care unit.

I’ll spare the horrible details of the past few weeks, to focus on now: she’s doing better, responding well to both medication and therapy, and may be getting out of the unit next week. As I write this, her dad does not know where she is or what has happened. He thinks she’s still at college. But that’s about to change. He e-mailed me, saying he’s going to her college this weekend to pick her up to take her to his mother’s (her grandmother’s) big hoopla 75th birthday party this weekend. So when he goes to the college and can’t find her . . . well, I just don’t know what he’ll do. (Yes, he’ll show up there, even though he hasn’t spoken to her in two weeks; she can’t have a phone on the psych unit.)

Kate doesn’t want to talk to him, doesn’t want to see him. She has asked me not to tell him anything, not to talk to him. Easy for me to do, since I have something like a restraining order against him anyway. I’ve talked to quite a few people about this, who’ve all assured me that I’m well within my legal and moral rights not to talk to my ex. I suspect he’ll go on a rampage and make a barrage of phone calls to anyone he can think of who might know where Kate is, but the people who know have all agreed not to tell him. They know him too well.

With Kate, I’m just being there for her during the one-hour visits and brief phone calls she’s allowed on the psych unit. She had repeated to me that she wants no contact whatsoever with her dad right now. I’m just listening to her. I don’t even want to give her advice; I just want to listen to her.

But eventually, something’s going to have to happen. Her dad will not stop until he finds out what’s happened, and there will be an emotional firestorm.

Kate’s an adult, though, so I can’t take any legal action or anything else on her behalf.

Any advice anyone has for me would be most sincerely appreciated.