My happiness is dependent on my teenagers happiness

[lookingtofeelhappyagain]

My 16 year old DD was diagnosed with Inattentive ADHD earlier this year. She was an easy child (day dreamer) but changed significantly with puberty. Basically the teenage years have been hellish.
She's been medicated since March and I can certainly tell if she's not taken her medication but her moods are just horrendous.

She's a thrill seeker and needs to have something planned with friends at ALL times. Only thing is she falls out with friends so much. Jumps from group to group. She's super sensitive and gets hurt very easily but has no problem dumping or casting aside others. She goes knee deep into new friendships then as quickly can just change. She needs her friends and at the moment has good friends (prior to this was with a rough crowd drinking etc),

I've tried over and over to talk her though the upsets and responses to them etc.

So if she wakes up and has plans she's all excited then next day if nothing on she crashes and walks around so depressed and sad. Then she will have emotional outbursts for no reason to me, her siblings, her Dad etc.
We walk on eggshells at all times around her. I feel sick to my stomach when she's like this. It's like she's on the edge. I worry she will do something stupid. She's so manic.

At the weekend she was out with nice friends and I didn't have to worry about her drinking or meeting boys.
I had the most lovely relaxing day with her sister. Honestly I felt like my old self again. When the time came for her to come home that awful knot started in my stomach again. True to form she had a meltdown about coming home (was getting late and was 1.5 hours after initial time arranged to come back).
She's like a toddler that doesn't want the party to end.
Once again the next day was hell with her and she stumped around in a mood all day long.

I worry what type of life she will have with this emotional deregulation. It's exhausting.

It's affecting my marriage. I'm too overly involved in her life. If she's happy, I'm happy. If she's not I feel so stressed. I worry about her ALL the time. I can't concentrate or even do chores etc.

I don't know how to sort of detach from it a bit. I want to be there for her but I'm at breaking point. I honestly can't see how she could leave home in a couple of years and fend for herself. I so worried for her future.
Those with teenagers with similar problems how do you cope?

They do say that a family is only as happy as its saddest member, and there is truth in that.

But ...... you cannot live all the ups and downs with your DD during her teenage years - you will get giddy!

I think it helps teenagers for parents to try and stand back a bit and be as objective as you can - one emotional person is more than enough!

Good luck - I have lived through the teenage years of 3 DDs!

Does your DD get social trainings - they only profitably work while on medication - to help her with structure and organization etc. and teach her how to work with her brain and its chemistry?
(My DD has ADD inattentive, too, diagnosed when she was 8), she is now in her 20ties.

I have a teenager with likely Borderline Personality Disorder. Yes, it can be absolutely overwhelming and take over the family. I've got counselling and am trying to take a step back at the moment as things had come to a head.

Be kind but firm. Don't try and reason with the impossible. Be there for her but not at her beck and call. Put your oxygen mask on and do things you enjoy, carve out time for yourself.

If she's stomping around in a mood and you feel it's going to last all day then get out of the house! I find a good dig in the garden or some hard pruning therapeutic!

Talk to her about the highs and lows -does she see it as a pattern/issue? Does she appreciate the knock-on to everyone else at all? Maybe plan some strategies together.

@Prokupatuscrakedatus what are social trainings?

I have a moderately autistic 17yo with adhd who has detached from outside life, particularly through the pandemic and a severely autistic 15yo whose mental health has been affected in different ways by the pandemic - he now has a tic disorder to contend with.

Sadly, the only way I have survived is by lowering my expectations and too much wine

Currently going through this with dd(19) and ds(16).
The happiest times we’ve had have been when we all enjoy something together, which is sadly rare.
The rest of the time seems to be about managing situations and walking on eggshells to prevent situations.
I do try to encourage them to learn how to manage mood swings etc by themselves, but it’s a work in progress.
I have had to become more detached from the mental health issues as it’s not sustainable to deal with it alone.
As for how do I cope? Not sure. Antidepressants help. Trying to have some time alone to have a breather.

@Mischance thank you. I hope you weathered the teenage years ok.
I really wish I could take a step back. It's also created a void between me and her Dad as spend so much time distracted googling ADHD stuff or trying to support/counsel/be nice to DD. It's like I'm licking up to her all the time.

@Twillow thank you for the suggestions. I've been going on very long walks and it really does help

I've got two of them, boys with ADHD. I totally struggle to detach my mental wellbeing from theirs, if something goes wrong I'm on edge until they recover from it, and things go wrong often enough for this to be a problem. I think I'm a bit traumatised from some of the fallout of their difficulties and am hypervigilant as a result, id like to have therapy but am nervous of wasting time and money if i choose the wrong one.
Recent examples, DS3 managed to get arrested last summer, that was fun! DS1 had his first serious girlfriend, at the back of my mind i was just worrying how he would react if she dumped him, he of course was very withdrawn and then horrid when she did, although he's OK now. Everytime he gets low i worry about the suicide statistics for young men, its exhausting but he's 23 now so I've had many years of it. I will say the gaps between dramas are longer now that he is on meds and older.
Thank goodness DS2 is a calm individual!

And yes, I am absolutely carving out time for myself, but I'm finding that harder through the summer holidays as I can't just catch a bus off somewhere, by myself, on a Tuesday or lose myself in a day's sewing.

OP does she need her medication adjusted or changed? Surely things wouldn’t still be that bad if the medication was working?

I feel so much for you. I have ADHD but not diagnosed until my late 20s. My teenage years almost ripped apart my family and certainly destroyed any chance of a close relationship with my mum. If I had been diagnosed and correctly medicated everyone’s lives could be so different- not just mine.

Things were so difficult for my parents and I can fully appreciate that they are for you too. I don’t know how you can stop yourself feeling so involved in it all though. It’s surely natural. If things could even out for her then hopefully you could relax a bit more too.

@Wbeezer this is how I feel. I honestly feel she's so impulsive she could do anything.

At 14 she went off to some boys house she met online and switched her phone off when we discovered this. When I write about it I even feel butterflies in my stomach. Lockdown was a blessing for us as she had to stay in. It gave us basically a year of respite. She somehow got nice friends over this time but she totally fucked it up recently and they want nothing to do with her now. Think this is why my anxiety is in overdrive as I wonder who she will take up with next!

I also think I was a bit of a wild teen but my parents had no idea what I was up to. I definitely have ADHD too (undiagnosed and probably unwillingly to go down that road as I can't face even talking to a doctor).
So I ended up realising in my mid 20s when I matured a bit that my lifestyle wasn't healthy. I learned slowly by my mistakes.
Could I take a step back, not sure I could.

I feel so fucking consumed by her happiness. I want her to have a good life but I really can't see how she will be content ever!!

Running on the treadmill at the gym helped me, stopped during lockdown but need to get back to it. I've reluctantly given up alcohol too as it makes my anxiety worse.

OP there is a link between teenage pregnancy and ADHD. I was a teen parent myself so plenty of contraception chats. You probably won’t be able to stop her sleeping with as many people as she wants but try and encourage a long term method of contraception (not the pill because she likely won’t manage to remember to take it enough to rely on it).

Lockdown actually helped DS3 calm down away from school, the arrest gave him a real shock (took LSD and reacted badly) id let him have a break from his meds in the holidays, never again! He's been better since then. DS1 is older and has not liked being cooped up with everyone, he's basically staying in his room avoiding us and is often very rude.
I don't have many words of wisdom, DH is better at detaching, i think because he has more engaging work than me to distract him.

@lookingtofeelhappyagain
I am not in the UK so the terminology is probably different.
But after my DC were diagnosed (ADD + AS) there were courses for parents and - age appropriately - for the children on how to live with all the poblems an ADD brain throws at you, which were only possible during the hours when medication regulated the brain chemistry to an almost "normal" level, for eample:

• inability to start, keep going, finish even such a simple task at getting ready to leave the house - let alone writing an uni paper
• no feelings of happiness or success when an 'ordinary' task is finished because the chemical release is not sufficient
• working memory problems that result in having forgotten the beginning of a question or task setting when the end is reached
• no inner feeling for time and how long a task will take