Hi, I'm new, not sure I am in right place - I would like some responses/advice.
I'm 42 and have one child, a daughter, soon to turn 13.
My daughter and I have always had a close and loving relationship, despite incredibly difficult circumstances including domestic violence from her dad, a brief stay in a mental hospital for me due to acute stress reaction (i.e., 'nervous breakdown'), and, following that, eight years of custody dispute and counting, plus my mother's suicide a couple of years ago.
Currently my daughter spends only 5 days each fortnight with me. Up until very recently she wanted to have at least equal time with me, possibly even my reinstatement as her 'primary carer'. But over the last couple of months she has been treating me horribly. I feel bad saying this about a little girl not quite 13, but there's no getting around it. She is frequently abusive verbally, says things she knows will hurt me dreadfully, and many times has come very very close to actually hitting me.
The aftermath is even worse in a way: she weeps hysterically, begs my forgiveness, tells me she loves me, insists she is a 'horrible person'. This apology phase can go on for hours until she is reassured that I will always forgive her, that I don't hate her and never will etc.
One of the worst aspects of the problem is that all of this behaviour closely resembles the abuse I used to get from her father, and makes me feel not only hurt but really ANGRY. I never thought I would be capable of feeling so angry towards any child, let alone my own.
Most of the time I keep my hair on, but lately I've been rising to her bait more and more often and I despise myself for it afterwards. The last fight we had was awful. I can't even remember what got us started, but it was the usual sort of thing at first: she hates me, I'm a loser, an embarrassment, an idiot, a failure. She loves her Dad and stepmother more than me and they are quite right to despise me. Etc. We were in the car and I couldn't take it any more. I pulled over and told her that her father and stepmother ought to be ashamed of themselves for many reasons, but in particular, that in my view they were in part to blame for my mother's suicide.
The thing is: my daughter didn't know her Granny was a suicide until this outburst. I always told her that Granny had died of natural causes. I'd intended to explain about the suicide when my daughter was 16. But in this great wave of rage against all the pain I've experienced, firstly from her father, and now from her, I suddenly couldn't stop myself. I'm not even sure why I snapped like this. Was it just to shut her up? To hurt her? Or was there a better but misguided reason beyond this? in the sense that For so many times I have wished I could make her understand why it's been so hard to get over Granny; why sometimes things are so hard for me; why I am on anti-depressants ... in other words, so many times I've wished she could know of my grief and give me a bit of a break with the verbals, the nit-picking, the shows of contempt ...
After this fight, for the first time ever my daughter went back to her Dad's before the appointed time.
I love her desperately. I cried for about an hour yesterday, just sobbing out the words sorry sorry sorry, feeling dreadful. Then feeling guilty too because I was actually relieved she had gone away.
I repeat: I love her so much. I just want her to be happy. But I'm also scared of her power to hurt me and thus, yes, it is a relief to be here on my own at home.
But how much have I hurt her?
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Teenagers
Lost it with early teen dd: I snapped & said some ugly things. HELP!
36 replies
teritobin · 06/01/2016 05:59
OP posts:
hesterton ·
06/01/2016 15:17
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