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?

I thought this, autism or adhd, maybe both

IMP there's a lot of dopamine seeking going on

That example sounds very much like me as a teenager, I was literally trying to control anything I could including people/friends because I felt like I had no control in my life at all - I was told what to do at school, told what to do at home, told what to do in my sport, I was literally managed to the second by the adults in my life and had no freedom.
There was no trauma, nothing bad happened to me, looking back I was just desperate for everyone to back off and let me have some autonomy. I also self harmed and controlled my food/exercise.
Tiktok won’t be helping, but might not be the full story

This is saying to me asd / adhd. I'm both. They hyperactivity part could be satisfied and regulated by trampolining, which could also help with the asd (proprioceptive input being so important in my household at least for regulating)

A lot of girls are great up until puberty when it seems to kick in - DD's autism journey is very different to DS, but it doesn't mean it isn't there.

That intensity around friendships, that confusion and shut down, I definitely recognise from myself

I don't think telling her off is the answer. We all get that you are horrified at her behaviour and very worried about what people will think, but you need to find a way to connect and get through to her. Telling her off isn't going to work because people very rarely act better when they feel bad. I'm not saying to let it go, I'm saying you need to get through to her and telling her off all the time isn't going to do it.

This absolutely screams of autism to me. This is how girls with autism present and it also suddenly becomes clear at secondary school and with friendships. Girls can be amazing at masking and so it goes unseen.

@SnowWaySnowHow

Thanks for this.

I dont want to this to sound like im the perfect parent because im sure im not but honestly the last 3-4 weeks ove been going down the supportive but firm route.

Ive started approach it more as a let me tell you what i see from this and how i think i will be able to help you. I reiterate I will not judge her, i love her and every decision i make if for her best interests.

Ive said to her if she cant help it she just needs to find soemthing that will stop her and seek help and i will help her, i said i will ever ever judge you if you want to say what your thinking of saying to me first and ill try and pull you back.

I am not a "shouter" never have been, i love comminucation and always say that to the kids.

But alongside me being supportive i am firm.

This sounds very, very like my adult DD (was like this as a teenager too).

Will have really close, intense relationships with friends. They can do no wrong, blah, blah, blah. Then suddenly, she's taken offense at something and rants on and on. IF the friend engages in it with her it will go backwards and forwards for ages (most adults won't do this though and they disengage from her). A few weeks later, the whole process will start again with another friend.

She has effectively either been dumped or gone no contact with all of her friends. All of them have supposedly shown toxic behaviour towards her in some way, causing huge offense. I used to support her in this, believing her narratives, but then it was turned on me and I realised it wasn't everyone else, it was her.

We've recently realised it's probably autism. We have several family members who have recently been diagnosed, one in particular who is VERY like my DD. Others of us also have ASD but present in very different ways. In DD I think it's inability to 'read the room' and to not be able to deal with an intensity of feeling or cope with other people not seeing things her way (black and white thinking). As well as a general lack of emotional intelligence. In her mind it is always the other person, never her. It is almost impossible for her to reflect on her behaviour and how she is causing the problems.

@MiserableMrsMopp thank you.

My worst fear is shes like this as an adult.

Did this happen all of a sudden with your DD?

It started kicking in as she was between puberty and a teenager. There were signs before that (struggling a bit with friends/intensity/not happy with the reciprocation) but it really massively kicked off in that 11-14 year age range.

I work with young people and we have seen exactly this behaviour before within groups of 12-13yrs old girls, all diagnosed with some form of neurodiversity.

The not letting things drop, the inability to see anybody else's point of view, the use of phones to start/drive drama, the targeting of a particular member of the group who is then soon back to being one of the main players is relentless.

If it i that thats ok, just because i dont think it is doesnt mean its not.

But then if it is how would we help with that?

Take the phone away. She’s 12. She doesn’t need a phone, and she certainly doesn’t need to be on any form of social media. My DD is the same age. Neither of my children can access the internet in my home unless I hotspot a device for them from my phone. I also confiscated my 12yo’s “dumb phone” a few weeks ago following a troubling incident; not as punishment, but for safety. She hasn’t asked about it since. Keep bedroom doors open and only permit internet access in communal areas of the house so you can supervise. I understand how troubling this must be…but please PLEASE get your precious daughter away from the utter brain-rot crap that is TikTok and social media. She’s a child. Let her be one, and remind yourself that YOU are the adult, so YOU have the authority…again, not in a punitive way, but in the sense that she can trust you and her father to circle the wagons and keep her safe. X

I think I would be removing the phone completely for a period of at least three to six months. Get a landline so she can call people and they can call her.
Ensure whe is watching only age approriate happy and feel good things on tv.
Get her enrolled for some activities, maybe something you can do with her that is easy and chilled like yoga, tennis in the park or an arts club.
Keep the news and soaps off the tv.
Id strip it all back and try to rebuild her confidence and happiness from the ground up.

The school SENCO and/or GP is the gateway to having assessments done if this is something that you feel would be useful. CAMHS may well suggest this pathway to you anyway if they suspect ASD/ADHD.

They should hopefully be able to suggest some local resources around helping young people to understand how to have positive relationships. The school may have resources as part of their PSHE toolkit.

Social stories can be helpful in helping to explain how behaviours impact on others and what the result may be. In this case, losing friendships and not having people to spend social time with. Good luck, it is hard I know.

I think their are two separate but connected issues.

Firstly, if she's using her phone to harass her friends for any perceived slight, it needs to be removed. Regardless of the reasons behind her behaviour, repeatedly messaging someone who has asked you to 'leave it' verges on bullying. You cannot allow her to continue doing this at home, where you have the ability to stop it.

Secondly, she sounds deeply unhappy and I agree, it does sound like more than usual 12 year old drama.

Keep talking to her and encouraging her to engage with CAMHS. If you can afford/save for private counselling it might help to try different options. Maybe she'll find someone she gels with?

On the face of it, BPD or autism sound like possibilities. But no one can tell you whether this is the case over Mumsnet. She needs proper assessments.

I think you need tk take her phone off her tbh. It won’t necessarily address the root cause but it will limit the damage she can inflict on other kids.

It will also cause her behavioural issues to escalate, being the only one without.

the phone is not the issue here, it’s much bigger than that, and the behaviour is also in person; this girl is also self harming.

No 12 year old needs a phone for social purposes.

That's a hell of a lot for a 12-year-old.

Its not really, also shes very active by her choice.

Do we want to be driving back and forth 4 times a week not really but it does keep her off her phone, have a varied circle of friendships, keep ker healthy and active.

She loves it

But by the sounds of things her phone is going to be the cause of her alienating herself from friends.
I get it’s hard but I really do not regret bringing my son up phone free.. At 12 if he wanted to see friends out of school he had to arrange a time/meeting place or he had to just do what I had to do.. Go and knock on there door to see if they were in.
Luckily there were a few parents with kids in my son’s class that did the same.
I really feel and hope that more parents are going to go down this route going forward.

Ok.

so I’m going to try to talk through some of the complexities your dd might be seeing.

i’m going to use as an example the phrase that you or someone else used - honesty is the best policy.

ok, so let’s imagine I don’t understand social situations and I have been told this.

at Christmas, grandma gives me a jumper. I say thank you because I know that’s what people say. She asks “do you like the colour” and I say no because so I do not like the colour and my parents have told me to be honest.

after that my parents tell me that I really upset grandma and it’s not ok to do that.

so now I know that I should be honest at all times except with it hurts someone’s feelings.

i’m not sure how I am supposed to know how someone’s feelings are hurt or what they say or look like when their feelings are hurt.

a few days later at school, friend Alison tells me that she likes boy Benedict but it’s a secret and not to tell anyone. I find this confusing because I have been taught always to be honest except if it would hurt someone’s feelings. Later that day friend caroline asks me if friend Alison likes anyone and I tell friend Caroline that Alison likes Benedict.

later that day Alison comes up to me and shouts at me because I told Caroline Alison likes Benedict. But I have done nothing wrong - I have been honest as my parents taught me to be - but wait - they recently said be honest unless it hurts someone’s feelings.

so I start asking Alison - did it hurt your feelings when I told Caroline? And Alison says yes.

now I have a problem. I have literally no idea when being honest is ok and when it is not because I cannot predict in advance whether someone will be upset about it.

welcome to autism

Has she started her period? The year before mine started I was an absolute terror as was my sister. We are fine now. Some of these behaviours are alarming, but if I don’t think it’s that abnormal for a teenage girl.

I had ASD and puberty was particularly challenging navigating changing social dynamics so I kind of tried to be manipulate situations (and failed miserably). My niece is 14 and has just started her period, no ASD or anything - but for the last six months she’s driven my brother and SIL mad. She also engaged in some minor self harm but we took it as a cry for attention and once we gave her that she stopped. Idk, this is just another perspective that I think sometimes gets overlooked with girls. With boys a lot of the time it’s “ah hormones” but I vividly remember when I was a teen feeling completely out of control. Now I'm an adult and it’s nowhere near as bad, but I know when I start to feel that twinge of rage it’s my period.

I unferstand that you're concerned that she'll be out of the loop with her friends if she doesn't have a phone, but she's seeing them at school and in her sport, so she's not going to be socially isolated if she doesn't have one.

Her phone use is causing her, and her friends, big problems, so cut it off for now. She can make in person plans to have a friend around at the weekend, meet up for the cinema etc, or spend more time doing things with you and her family. I think it's very important not to make her feel that she's being punished, she needs to understand that you're helping her.

My brother has a personality disorder which manifested first in mid-teens, he became very judgemental and rigid in his thinking, so I wouldn't jump to ASD as the only likely reason for this change in her.

You sound very caring and pro-active, I hope you can get help to support her.

This honestly sounds like ADHD to me
I was the same as a teen , I would repeat gossip and get myself into trouble
It wasn’t that I wanted too but it was almost like my brain couldn’t filter out what I should repeat and what I shouldn’t , it had no sense of what the potential repercussions could be

also the questioning friends, if she can likely pick up on the slightest change in tone, manor , facial expressions then she might feel like she has something to do with why , even if that’s not the case

even if someone then tells her it’s fine , if their words don’t match their expressions then an ADHD brain will tell them to keep asking as something just isn’t matching up

that’s my experience anyway and she sounds very similar , I’d maybe explore that option a little and see if there are any other traits

ND in women is often misdiagnosed as BPD