This is more than normal 12 year old drama

[thehorrorspersistyetsodoi]

Earlier this year we discovered my DD(12) had been self harming. She is under CAMHS but is not properly engaging with support at the moment and they know about all of this buy dont actually know what to so it seems. ( she is no longer self harming and stopped immeditely)

Up until this year she was genuinely the happiest, loveliest child, so so much fun, carefree, loved life. She had a steady group of friends from the start of high school and there were never any major issues.
Since this year her behaviour in friendships has become intense and alarming.

It is mostly happening through messaging but im sure at school aswel. She fixates on perceived problems and repeatedly questions friends until they are worn down. She assumes there is always something wrong. She struggles to let things go. Small issues escalate quickly. She can spread information/rumours she has heard ( or made up im not sure) without thinking about the consequences. She will apologise, seem to understand, and then repeat the same behaviour.

From the outside it looks obsessive, dramatic and socially damaging. The other girls seem drained and frustrated. I am deeply worried about the long term impact and also thats shes potentially damaging other children as she is defo the problem.

I am constantly checking her messages and speaking to her about what I am seeing. I have approached this calmly. I have been firm. I have shouted. I have threatened consequences. I have tried to be understanding and loving. I feel like I have come at this from every possible angle and nothing is changing.

Please be kind. I am honestly struggling, im terrified of other parents reading these and approaching me. If she were not my own child, I know I would judge this behaviour very, very harshly.

She comes from a great background, loving parents and wider family, all shes seen is positive relationships.

Has anyone dealt with this before?

No i dont think she is autistic, possibly ADHD but really not sure. Its not something we ever thought until this happened.

It was no doubt kicked off by tiktok content, we have now heavily restricted her content ( initally was a complete ban on tiktok for about a month)

Her account is now linked to mine, i can see every single message, watch, repost.

We have put all the keywords of vidoes to not show, she has the general restiction in plce, she has max 1 hour a day on it then it blocks.

But absolutly we were niave with tiktok and educated ourselves very quickly.

She trains till 8.30pm 3 nights a week and at the weekend during the day, so when she gets home she has 15 mins on it while eating her dinner.

There could absolutly be a trigger but she has completly shut down in telling us what that may be and thats what cahms are trying to get out of her.

And i am really aware now of the mistakes we have made with her phone, i thought i was doing the right thing with holding off till she went to high school etc

We could afford it but at the moment she is unwilling to talk about it, she sits in her weekly cahms app and says barely anything.

An hour of tiktok a day does sound like a lot for a 12 year old. Does she do any after school activities or meet with friends? A lot of the nuance of communication is lost through text message, so she's possibly interpreting perfectly innocent comments the wrong way.

@thehorrorspersistyetsodoi A couple of us have suggested that something has happened to her that has made her feel unsafe. You've replied to a lot of suggestions about taking the phone away, as far as I can see you haven't replied to our suggestion. Perhaps you're not ready to reply to the suggestions yet that something bad happened to her, but it's not uncommon for some automatic self defense to kick in that makes us humans blind to what we fear

That’s a pretty intensive training schedule. What’s she training in? Could something have happened there, or could she feel like she’s missing out on normal teen life because of it?

I think as the phone is causing problems could you get a dumb phone. And the punishment for phone misuse would be the sim getting removed from smart phone and put into dumb phone for say 1 week.

Has she watched self harm content on tik tok as im sure this is a thing?

A teacher upthread had said she bets an incident has happened, maybe shes seen upsetting content via her phone? You say your accounts are linked, so what is she actually watching? Maybe spend 30 minutes spot checking her watched videos to find out. But I think tik tok is one of the most brain rot and potentially dangerous apps.

Examples would be:

DD -I thought you hated her why have you made up with "AB"

friend - Uch i dont want to argure with anyone

DD- yeah but you hate her, i dont get why you have made up with her.

friend- i dont want drama an i prefer just to be friends

DD- why you getting annoyed, im only asking, i just care about you, i just find it weird, ok i dont get why your starting an argument with me now, why do you keep going on about it

Friend - ok im sorry lets just drop it

DD- your the one that keeps going on, its only a simple question, why do you keep going on about it.

This went on for an hour and a half, it was horrifying.

The next week my DD was best friends with "AB"

Sorry, hes great we are generally very happy, hes just as active as me in this situation

We have 3 DDs, and shes my oldest.

She trains in a sport 4 times a week, shes very active, we are very active as a family

Sorry im just trying to answer everyone.

This is my ultimate worst fear and one that I have spoken to the GP, school and cahms about.

I asked her gently, if something happened physically or sexually to her, she looked at me like i was nuts and said no.

Of course im aware this could be a lie its something always at the front my mind.

I’m curious as to why you dismissed anxiety so quickly? Self harming, excessive control, starting arguments for seemingly no reason, these are all very common symptoms of serious anxiety.
Removing her phone won’t fix this until
you find out the reasons behind it. I would try to get her a good therapist privately, but I would be very careful on choosing them - women are often diagnosed with personality disorders when the real problem is abuse or neurodivergence.

Remove tiktok and remove the phone.
Honestly
Just do it.

Do it for 3 months.... see where it gets you.

Trampolining, she loves it, she knows she can quit at any time.

I trust her coach, club is all female led. Coach is aware of everythig and is always keepng an eye.

I also agree with this, 3 nights a week until 8.30pm is a lot. Im also curious what she is training in. You say she only has 15 minutes on her phone after training before it switches off. What clubs require kids to be there from school finishing until 8.30pm.

It sounds too much.

Id switch up her clubs and think about social prescribing for her mental health and do a mix of:

Social/skill building: like guides, cadets or a gpod youth group

Creative: art class or group music lessons

Exercise: a girls team sport like hockey, netball or football. Team sports are proven to be good for teenagers.

Outdoors stuff like a young ranger program in a nearby country park.

3 long nights of the same thing sounds a lot and a bit stagnant. Mix it up and make the goal fun and socialisimg with new people.

Prime age for neurodiversities to come to the surface. Girls mask really well and all seems well, until it isn’t.

ok sorry ill try and go into more detail just didnt want to be too outing but here goes.

She trains 3 days a week 6.30-8.30 and one day weekend 4-6pm

Before this change in her personality i cant really convey how happy and solid mentally she was. I even googled if she could have a brain tumour as the behaviour change was so sudden.

Ive went though every single message on her phone and nothing indicates an "event" or a "trigger" ive thought back to when it stated and again nothing of any importance has stood out.

This doesnt mean it hasnt happened, just i cant see anything that could point to that.

Any school holiday or spare time she messages my best friend and goes out dog walking with them ( she owns a dog walking business) shes very active, loves life. She enjoys new challanges and is obsessed with animals.

So i know the phone is an issue, its just that shes not glued to it all the time, she has a very active happy life ( on the outside)

I honestly havent discounted anything.

I just have no idea, but from what ive seen and only my opinon she is very very confident, but maybe im just thinking about more classic anxiety, i dont know.

Get rid of the phone completely, don’t phrase doing this as a form of punishment though.
Just tell her that she is a child and as her parent you can see having the ability to text/call/tik tok is detrimental to her wellbeing so she isn’t allowed one anymore.
Do you not want to do that, and if not then why?
My son was raised completely phone and social media free, he didn’t have a phone until he got a job at 17 and brought himself one.

I would say ADHD is ruining alarm bells for me. Being obsessed, hyper focusing on stuff.

Self harming was an attention seeking thing so I'd be love bombing her. I'd consider giving her a month off school, take her away no phone, just be a family. Try new hobbies etc and get her out of the toxic school friend mindset.

I dont want to do it because im worried that it will alienate her from her friends, we live in a world of phones, its how we get through life.

However, as much as i dont want to do it that really is the next step if this behaviour continues, we have told her this.

It’s her behaviour on the phone that’s alienating her though.

Apologies for the long quote.

so I would read this behaviour in one of two ways.

she is clearly trying to find out why people act the way they do. Why does friend make up with other friend when only a day ago she said she hated her?

hate is a strong word - and it is genuinely and interesting question - teens (and adults for that matter) will be distraught and upset and say they hate person X and will never speak to them again and then the next day they are walking into class together thick as thieves all the “hatred” forgotten.

your dd seems to be trying to understand that, why it happens.

now there are a couple of readings on why she is trying so hard to understand that and get people to explain their thoughts.

The first is that this is something I have seen autistic teens do. If autistic teens hate someone they hate someone and it doesn’t flip between best friends and best enemies and the way that (some) neurotypical teens do. So they really struggle to understand why anyone would be back being best friends with someone they hate.

the second is that your dd has had friendship issues and has been emotionally hurt by them and is trying to understand why someone would do that to her. The classic example is when a group of friends suddenly turn on one of them and totally ostracise her - don’t speak to her, don’t sit next to her in class and refuse to explain what she did wrong (or worse, say “you should know”)

@Octavia64 agree with all of this.

DD is very intense, when she loves someone she loves them hard, but shes also quite black and white.

However, there has been times when she has done something to someone for example

DD told someone something she was asked not to tell them and she maintains she was absolutly right as she was being honest, yet the next week they do the exact same thing to her and tell the person something that DD has told them not to do.
And DD is outraged, cant see any similarity.

Its so frustrating