Have been here before saying we feel that we can't go on like this. But of course you do go on don't you? What choice do you have
We've had a quietish summer because dd spent pretty much every single day she wasn't out with a friend, in bed until afternoon, on the sofa watching films all afternoon, and on the internet all evening until late. We didn't try to make her go to bed, or get up, or tidy her room, or help around the house, or do any school work (despite the fact that she's got GCSE's this term and is likely to fail because she missed more than 1 in 4 lessons last year through truanting/lateness/bad behaviour). Or anything at all. Because she's so aggressively unco-operative that we've lost heart.
Back to school Wednesday, and you could feel her ill humour building as she started to contemplate not being able to do what she wants all day, every day for the next few months. She's been absolutely objectionable for a week. Yesterday it came to a head. She called DH and me 'fucking cunts' for trying to get her out the house on time for an orthodontist appointment, laughed in my face when I asked her to be home by 5 after school and said 'I'll be coming back at six. What are you going to do about it? Nothing? Of course you're not you stupid, sad, bitch', and then threw a wicker basket in DH's face when he took her phone off her after asking her to turn the music on it down at midnight last night and being told to 'fuck off you bald cunt'. He took the basket and threw it back at her and it hit her on the temple, causing a bruise. She ran at him and pushed him, and he pushed her back, so she landed on her bottom.
When I saw what was happening I rushed over and inserted myself between them, told DH to go into our bedroom and shut the door. Dd was shoving me and screaming by this point, and both the other dc's (8 and 10) were awake and upset. DD kicked two massive holes in the toilet door, tipped over shelving in the hallway, threw things at me, threw glasses across the room, all the time shouting that DH and I are fucking cunts. She then said she was leaving, so I locked the front door to stop her going out into the night alone. When she realised I'd done this she started threatening to break windows if I didn't let her out. She was so out of control emotionally I thought that she might actually do it, and I couldn't just open the door and freely let a distressed 14 year old out at midnight with nowhere to go - we live in a very rough part of London.
Anyway, I phoned 999 and unlocked the door so the police could get in. DD pushed me out the way and took off down the street as they were arriving. To cut a long story short, she came back within the hour, (though not until after they'd bough sniffer dogs around to look for her) and the police persuaded her to get in my car and allow me to drive her to my mums, where she stayed overnight. My sister got her to school today.
I can't and won't have her back here any time soon. I'm frightened for the whole family, including my DH, who has been the most patient dad in the world up to this week. He is traditionally a 'coper' and very even tempered, but the last few months have been shitty for him. We've had a cancer scare with ds1 (10) which still not resolved - he's got another ultrasound next week and question mark over whether the lumps in his chest need a biopsy, and whether they might be neurofibromas. He's got a very pressured management job and doesn't get home until 7.30 most nights. He then goes straight out 2 evenings and a full day most weekends, to cook for his parents, and wash and dress his father, who has had a stroke and has completely urinary incontinence. His mum has multiple health problems, can only walk with a zimmer frame at the moment and has been very depressed. He does a lot for them, ungrudgingly. On two of the days that he doesn't go out he usually has to do bedtimes as I work a couple of evenings most weeks. He's very tired and pissed of right now and has become unable to cope with dd's extreme disrespect towards him at the moment, despite the fact that he has been so patient with her up to this point. He's really, really good to her usually. Takes her out on her own for meals, takes her shopping, always tries to join her in family things. I'm frightened she'll provoke him into being physical with her again and he'll end up being arrested and losing his job. I've told him it CAN'T HAPPEN AGAIN. EVER.
But what happens if my mum can't take her any more? Do we have to have her back? I'm so sad and worried for my two younger children. DS1 is a very anxious child, and has started to do things that really worry me these last few months like perpetual hand washing, being very fixated on food and talking about weight gain (he is built like a strand of spaghetti). Yesterday I picked him up early from his first day at school because he was sobbing over a pain in his belly. Turned out he had done 100 sit ups the day before to try to get a six pack and had sore muscles......DS2 has autism and his reaction to stress in the house is to become very volatile and shouty himself.
I just feel like DD is destroying everyone's peace of mind and dominating the house with her moods.
What to do? We stopped family therapy with CAMHS because it wasn't helping, but I have today written to the consultant psych who supervised the therapy (and who seemed to think that dd has no diagnosable mental health problems) and described what has happened, and asked for advice. But in the end, what can CAMHS do? Therapy is never a quick fix.
Thanks for reading this. I know it's very long.
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Options? Can't go on like this. Violence. Swearing. DH lost it. Long
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Minifingers · 06/09/2013 16:21
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