Friend brainwashing child into 'mental illness'

This daughter is 6 years old and living with a mother with a long standing and extreme mental health illness. The poor young girl will be suffering

Don’t put quotation marks around ‘mental illness’ - it’s stigmatised enough as it is.

There’s no need. And it’s pretty appalling.

would you do it for someone with ‘cancer’? No.

Vile.

Having said that o agree that her daughter’s now using mental ill health as an excuse to get whatever she wants.

And @Jollyjupiter clear dislike for the 6 year old daughter drips off her posts.

She drains everyone.

So stop socialising with her.
Stop hanging out.
stop organsing playdates
Stop giving her indirect access (via her child) to your child.

Super simple.

This child is 6. 6!!!

Living with a mother with a very serious
mental health illness

and you seem to think the 6 year old is just being a madam.

You have known all this For years.

This child is 6.

I’d knock this friendship on the head - it will do your child no good. Children copy behaviour from friends.

Triggering is being used wrong. The whole point of acknowledging something triggering is that you acknowledge it to yourself think about why it is upsetting to you and then find away through it.

Again what a horrible attitude to have towards someone with mental health difficulties. You really are making yourself look like such a nice person OP.

Would you speak about someone with cancer as a drain? How about dementia or a disability?

Mental health illnesses have symptoms. Not all of them are easy. People communicate the pain and struggling they are experiencing. It can take a long time for people to find the help they need. In the UK there is very little help available unless you can pay.

Educate yourself and get some empathy.

I don't think you're horrible, just frustrated and worn out from it all. My partner suffers from mental health issues and never sought help, he was diagnosed with BPD recently and only went to the Doctor because we kept on and on. the one thing the Doctor said was the majority of people don't seek help for mental health issues for many years if at all. You obviously can't cope with your friend, it's not easy to deal with, you said she's draining, my partner can be too it's hard but she probably can't help it, to be honest as it's making you unhappy and you have to consider your daughter first before anyone I would stop contact.

OP your child your choice. I have seen the damage that parents who constantly go on about mental heath and there "anxiety" have done to there own kids so would keep my kids well away from someone like this. I dont think unless you have met someone like this or being around them people realise how negative an impact it has on others. Children should not be subjected to it.

Apart from her child using words like “triggering” or “anxiety” when she doesn’t want to do something, what else is actually causing concern? The children I teach on a daily basis will often say they’re scared of a task or too tired to do it whenever given the opportunity, so using those words on their own is hardly a cause for concern.

And although the mother sounds like a self-absorbed narcissist with borderline tendencies, those personality traits are becoming fairly normal in today’s society. If your child is getting along well with the other child, and that child isn’t displaying any concerning behaviours beyond the two interesting words she’s picked up from her mother, I don’t see why you’d deprive both children of a friendship.

Why is it not appropriate to be judgemental? Everyone has judgement and uses it. You can't actually live a life without. You are always judging people, situations, etc as to whether they are safe or appropriate.
There is a definite issue here and while this woman refuses help it may be because like her daughter it's all made up because she sees it gets her sympathy or excuses from things. Why would a person refuse treatment if it was real? She's also committing a type of child abuse.
I'd definitely stop all contact between the children and tell both the kids and the mother why.

I agree with you about anxiety disorders, and them being used as a reason not to work. But feeling anxious and having an anxiety disorder are two entirely separate things.

A lot of people use the term anxious as a synonym for nervous. It doesn’t have to imply that person has a disorder that leaves them unable to do things.

So my 8 year old will say he she feels nervous about a particular thing. Ie I’m nervous to go to school.

But if she has that same feeling and she can’t explain why, she’ll tell me she’s feeling anxious. That language can then help us talk to her, find out why she’s feeling that way to hopefully find a resolution for her and send her on her way.

grapesstrawberriespleass
You sound horrible. There can be so many reasons people don’t seek help for their mental health issues. Fear of confronting the issue, fear of not being believed, fear of medication changing them, fear of therapy etc. You sound awfully judgemental.
I get it, it’s frustrating when someone you care about won’t seek help, and it’s tiring and you’re absolutely valid in wanting to cut ties to protect your child. But your post reeks of disdain for your friend. There’s literally no need to put ‘mental health’ in quotation marks like it’s a lie or all a bit joke. Just tell her you don’t think the friendship is working and you don’t feel your children can be friends anymore.

I actually disagree, on mn I usually call out people being bad friends/ sounding like they don’t care but as someone with mh issues that I laid on too much for my poor friends I don’t think op sounds like she is judging, at some stage people need a break from always hearing the worst. And her child shouldn’t be hearing words that are more for a counsellor/ psychologist or psychiatrist’s room. Both children need to be kids.

I would make a safeguarding referral to school so that they are aware and it can be addressed.

Another person who doesn't understand how mental health works 👏

Get off mumsnet and do some reading on mind and the NHS website. FFS

This is the person I know. We all think Munchausens by proxy. When mum has had personal issues she has kept daughter off school. Mum has told daughter really inappropriate things about her personal life. It is very disturbing to watch play out in real time.

I totally agree with you. I used to teach and the schools with the most anxious kids were also the ones that spent the most time fixating on how everyone was feeling all the fucking time. One awful school got them to "check-in" every single morning with a traffic light system about how fizzy or whatever they were feeling. By year 6, these kids were neurotic, nervous, anxious, scared to try anything. It was shocking. The school had really failed them. I left. Didn't want any part of that.

Yes, they might do a welfare check / offer a strengths and needs assessment but it will boil down to essentially FA.

OP i don't think you can ban the friend if they see each other at school but as others have said, don't allow play days or sleepovers at the other house, keep your child where you can supervise.

Unfortunately therapy speak is becoming common language, especially 'triggered" - that was all round primary school when my kids were there.

I agree with you in theory. But the bar for ‘involving social services’ is about 30 miles away from this.

This, because wtf. It sounds to me like the Mum is using her 6 year old to discuss and project her mental health issues, which is so damaging and inappropriate. A quiet word with the DSL like one of the PPs suggested at school is a good idea.

SS don't abduct children whose parents have MH issues, they offer support which this woman obviously needs. Her MH is so bad that she's inappropriately discussing it with her 6 year old, possibly munchausens-by-proxying her and every discussion with OP seems to turn back to MH discussion. The woman isn't well and frankly could use an adult in the bloody room.

OPs friend should have sorted her MH out before having a child if it's so bad that it seeps into all her conversations with OP and that mental health language is so present in their daughters' conversations that it gets back to OP. This woman sounds like a mess.