to be absolutely spitting with rage at 'D'SD?

[Iloveagoodroast]

My SD is 10. I have a very difficult relationship with her. I have honestly tried my best with her, but i have reached the end of my tether, She is ignorant, sullen and downright rude to me 99% of the time. My DD is 5 and worships the ground she walks on, yet SD is less than interested in her at best, nasty to her at worst.
DH and i have been together 7 years, married for 6 months and her behaviour towards me has always been the same (kicked me in the stomach when i was pg with DD and saying, "I hope that hurt her" is one of many examples. She was only 4 or 5 then)
Anyway, we only see her on a Sunday. Yesterday morning, DD tells me that "SD gave me some medicine out of the cupboard yesterday".
I ask which medicine, DD said, "All of them." A spoonful each of Calpol, Nurofen, Piriton, 2 adults cough medicine, an adults cold and flu medicine, and gaviscon!!!
I asked why the hell she did it (DD said SD told her she was getting a cold, she isn't, she's fine). I asked where i was when this was happening, DD said upstairs with Daddy hoovering, which is the only time they were alone downstairs so v likely.
AIBU to be so bloody angry i feel like killing* SD?! She could have done DD some serious bloody damage!!
DH went round there yesterday when i rang to tell him what DD told me, he said he went mad at her, asked her what the hell she was playing at and she could have made DD very sick, He said she just shrugged!!!!

She is due to spend Xmas day here, i do not want her anywhere near me or DD at the moment, i know it will spoil the day as i am so angry with her?
AIBU?

*obviously i wouldn't really!

So op what did nhs direct advise? for peoples info re paracetamol looking for symptoms waste of time by the time you get them it is too late and more drastic treatment is needed. Know a trainee who had cold. sore throat did not realise co-codamol, paracetamol and adn flu sachets all had paracetamol was not taking loads extra. Blood tests showed liver and platelets were abnormal from there it came out re paracetamol very very lucky not to need liver transplant. Never ever watch and wait if paracetamol involved. Am at gp and nhs direct advising this.

And even if for some reason, she is not intelligent enough (which I do not believe is the case) to not realize she could harm your dd overdosing her like that, she is still not to be trusted, and I would not want or allow her there for Christmas. If she was 4 years old, I would have not thought it was intentional to harm her sister, but she is ten years old, and would realize exactly what she was doing.

I cut contact with SD when she was 9. She was miserable with me, sullen, rude and unhappy. So I backed off, told my DP it was making us both miserable, so I was opting out. They had their own time, whenever suited either, but I no longer did any 'caring' for her iyswim. I did my own thing, they did theirs.

It sounds like this might be a good strategy for you, OP

It sounds like a most dreadful strategy to me. I am also appalled at the post by iscream
She sounds like she has a antisocial personality disorder, she merely shrugged and said "dunno" when asked why she did this? No signs of concern, guilt, remorse or regret? She probably thinks of herself as a victim. This is not normal sibling jealousy , neither is trying to harm your baby inside you
This is a mixed up, very unhappy, angry young girl and my heart goes out to her the way that she is written off and the answer is to cut her off, it sounds like a Victorian novel!

The only part of isceam's post that I agree with is that she needs professional help, BUT not alone-the whole family need therapy.
How long has OP spent alone with the DC? How often does she spend time with her and play with her id DH isn't there? Does she realise that she has a family of 4? When people ask her how many DCs she has does she say 2? It seems to me that she thinks she has a family of 3 and an inconvenient visitor. It sounds as one sister is much more equal than the other.
Even before the incident I bet OP wasn't thrilled that it was DHs turn for Christmas and the sisters would be together on the day-I would bet that she would much rather have just had the 3 of them? If my surmises are correct then the DD will sense all this, no wonder she is difficult. Do OP's family treat the 2 DCs differently?

When OP met DH she knew that he had a DD, he didn't come alone. She got his DD for life and there is no option of cutting her off.
If my DH behaved like this to his stepson (my DS) my DS would come first. There is no way that he would get cut off, whatever his behavior and he would be with us for Christmas Day-I would also expect his family to treat my DS exactly the same way as our DSs.
DH would be the one to go if he couldn't handle it.DS was here first and he isn't going to live in a house where he isn't loved.
No one is saying it is easy-but it is like your own DC-you never give up. The only time that you might have to give up is an older DC on drugs-you don't give up on a little messed up girl.

If I was your DH isceam and it was my DS that you were talking about I would leave you if you ever came out with the statement 'I won't allow her to be here for Christmas'. It is her home and her father. How can her DH have a situation where one DC gets him, a home and Christmas and his other DC doesn't see him, is an unwelcome visitor and isn't wanted for Christmas? How is this supposed to improve the relationship between the sisters? (it is like a Dicken's story)

Got the step kids and got the scars.

10 isn't that old, our youngest is 11 and is as daft as a brush (apologies to all brushes). He's still under the impression that Daddy's cough medicine is whisky. It could be perfectly genuinely she was trying to help and there was no malice or intent.

Step kids are pretty mixed up some times, especially when at the "other" parent's house. Not sure the castigation will do her any good. An explanation might.... The continuous nastiness needs addressing now by all four parents. Can you talk with his ex? Work out a plan of action? With both sanction and reward? You guys can't solve this on your own. All the very best.

OP I'm sorry but I don't think your GP is taking you seriously.

Just because he's been your GP for 20 years doesn't mean he can't get things wrong.

For just one example, my friend's GP told her her son was anaemic because she was still breastfeeding at 18 months (despite WHO guidelines that BFing till 2 is a good idea). Turns out that's complete nonsense and her son has Celiac's. Took ages and hassling for second opinions to get that diagnoses though.

Doctors are not gods. They can get stuff wrong. You should think critically about their advice not just take everything at face value. Especially when it comes to a potentially life threatening situation like this.

I'm a big fan of Occam's razor theory.

Is it likely that a 10 year old, managed to open 7 bottles of medicine, pour a measure out of each, without making a mess, get a younger girl, who when questioned the day later remembered every flavour, to take all the medicine.
And left no evidence.

Or it didn't happen, is why it left no evidence.

And as for the sociopath. I'm just staggered at that.

Trial by Internet.

What a horrible thing to happen and of course you are feeling v. upset.

Your family has serious issues and I think you all need professional help to get through this. Even if it is your dsd who appears to be the problem, you can be sure that the pain is felt by everyone in the mix. You know about your own pain and your husband's, and your own dd is v much at risk here.

I think asking for help whether through your gp or a family guidance type place would be a great place to start.

And for the record, my own 5yo tried to smother her newborn brother so this sort of behaviour is not limited to step children. She was fed up with his crying and in her 5yo mind, smothering seemed like a good option.

exotic, my dh agrees. he said "Hell no" when I asked if he would want her tor Christmas is it were us in this situation, if I were the step mother, and the 10 year old were his daughter.

She tried to kill her sister, why would I want her to come and visit a week later like nothing happened? The girl is seriously disturbed and needs help.
What if she succeeds next time?
The younger children need to be protected.

Do you think she is harmless?
I am not heartless, I really am not, but this isn't harmless stuff she did. I am just astounded that the 5 year old was not vomiting or passed out, and that she wasn't taken to the hospital when they found out what happened.

Why does my opinion that she is a sociopath so wrong? I am asking seriously. How many kids do you know that have done this?

A1980 you cannot rely 100% on a young child, she could have said yes to everything even though she may not have had that medication. Something is a bit odd with this post lots of inconsistencies, so therefore I am a bit about it all.

I don't know any who are treated as second class citizens, iscream, so they are not messed up by the adults in their lives. I also just don't believe that a 5 yr old swallowed 7 spoonful of such a mixture without being sick/drowsy.
If you birth DC behaves in such a way do you tell her she can't have Christmas and get her taken away by ss?
I wouldn't have married your DH if he wouldn't protect his DC. She is jealous, she is attention seeking-DCs don't act in their own best interests-they don't care how they are getting the attention. She is saying 'look at me-I am your eldest DD-iI want to be loved'. It is obviously the worst way to go about it!! But she is a little girl.
I wouldn't write off any DC. Sadly this DC doesn't have what all DCs should have-unconditional love. I doubt whether OP would even love her if she had perfect behavior. When I remarried it was 'love me, love my DS'- it wasn't optional.
I have known hundreds of DCs and if they show that sort of behavior there is a reason and the reason comes from the way they have been treated. No DC is born bad IMO.
The whole family need to book themselves into therapy and work on integrating their eldest DD.

iscream are you a psychologist or psychiatrist to be making this diagnosis! While I agree with iscream that the dsd intentions were to harm the child, she does sound like a very disturbed and troubled girl who needs professional help whether she likes it or not! Her behaviour should not go unpunished, there is no excuse for it and she is old enough to understand that what she did was very harmful and dangerous and will not be accepted, so a suitable punishment should be enforced. I am and a little bit as to how a 5 year old can remember what meds she took and dosages.

Sorry-I was annoyed and wrote in haste-terribly badly written-hope people can make sense of it.

I don't think people should be saying that a doctor definitely wouldn't give the advice stated by the OP. There are good doctors and bad doctors - it's entirely possible that the OP has the latter.

It's all very well saying that the OP should behave as if she has 2 dc rather than 1(and it sounds like she has tried), but I imagine it would be very hard to view a child as 'yours' when that child has been consistently nasty to you for 7 years and is now also nasty to your child. Given that the dsd is only in the house for one day per week, you wouldn't feel like a parent to them, because you are not.

If someone asks the op how many dc she has, why wouldn't she say one? She does only have one. It's her dh who has two.

I think that part of the problem here, is that the dsd has been allowed to get away with nasty, rude behaviour all of her life. The father should have stepped in years ago, to put a stop to this. I agree that he needs to be spending more time with his dd and insisting that she gets some help. Her behaviour is not normal. She may grow out of it, otoh, she may not and if left may grow up into an angry, resentful, damaged young woman. No one wants that.

I feel sorry for the dsd, in that she probably has her mum dripping negative comments into her ears and combined with lack of attention from dad, it's all having a horrible effect.

But from the OP's pov, can you imagine having someone in your house who you know has tried to harm your child? I think, for me, I wouldn't take the risk and would insist she saw a doctor first, to assess whether this is likely to happen again. If the dsd was her own child, she would be able to insist on getting help asap. As it is, she has to rely on a hostile exW.

This thread is a great example of how adults can totally fuck up children.

I haven't read the whole thread but what is the father doing in all of this. So far from what I have read he has his daughter for one day and was upstairs vacuuming and it is the Step Mum who is trying to get her to bake cakes.

What is Dad doing, where is daughter Dad special time? Seems obvious that the child is attention seeking, in all of the wrong ways but attention seeking never the less.

Find out why, then you'll find out what to do about it. Ostracising her is a cruel and extreme punishment, all I can see that doing is screwing the poor kid up even further and I'd wager the adults in her life have already done a pretty good job of that already.

My parents were both married and had kids prior to having me and my db and neither had their kids living with them. My older siblings visited. I recently got back in touch with my sister who is only 4 years older than me and we are both now around 40. She was very mean to me (putting fags in my mouth, telling me the devil was going to get me, lots of teasing etc) when we were growing up and we hadnt spoken since I was 16.
She was very apologetic when we met over 20 years later for her behaviour and understood if I hated her. I'd had many years to reflect on what happened to all the children and recognised they were all innocent in what was a shambles caused by the adults. My mother hated my father's children, as he did hers, and it wasnt so unacceptable then to show this hatred openly. Both of my parents went out of their way to be mean to their partners children.
On meeting my sister, now in her 40s, she explained how her whole life had been affected by what happened. We are in touch now and trying to build a relationship completely separate of toxic parents.

What has happened OP?
Did you take her to A+E?

exotic I 'd disagree, you cannot turn on your feelings like a tap, you need to get to know each other first and build up a bond and relationship, the love that you have for your child can be different than for your dh/dp, step child whatever. You might not love them the same, but be fond of them and care for them deeply, this especially if the stepchild is older, and already has a mum/dad on the scene.

Regardless of what you decided to do for Christmas Day, this little girl needs to have some help, and the adults concerned need to seriously look at what is going on for her, and what it is they are doing that makes her feel the need to attention seek this like.

If it is because her mother is feeding her all sorts of rubbish about her father and the OP that is going to be a difficult one to deal with. If it's because she doesn't see her Dad enough and her Mum is obstructive to more contact then that too will be hard to deal with - but it has to be tackled in some way, because this little girl is clearly experiencing troubling emotions that she has no way of verbalising, and is shouting out for someone to take notice of that.

I think your anger though Iloveagoodroast is perfectly understandable, and in your shoes I too would be doing everying to protect my biological child. I think that's an instinctive reaction.

No piglet, I am just a mother who would want to protect the 5 year old, and have the 10 year old properly accessed. Being a step child wouldn't make a difference. I was wondering what I would do if a child who lived in my home tried to harm another child, and I only know one thing. I would be sick with anxiety over it, and seek professional help right away. I would have taken the 5 yr old to the ER. I didn't say have her taken away by anyone, or locked up. But I cannot look at it as a normal harmless act of sibling rivery.
I am sorry some of you think my dh and I are cold-hearted, unfeeling persons.

I don't get how calm so many of you are over this. I actually have a headache, and am going to lay down now.

I agree with your there iscream she does need proper help, the whole family does, this has been going on for some time so why was help not sought earlier. I am not saying this is normal sibling behaviour because it is not!. I personally would find it very hard to love, let alone bond with a child that has consistantly been mean and nasty to me and also to my dd. That is why the whole family needs help, and the father needs to play more of an active role in his dd1 life, why should it be left entirely up to the op to try and work things out, and to do stuff with her, that her dad should.

and to do stuff with her, that her dad should.

And from what I've read, that seems to be at the crux of the child's problem, she is going to see her Dad not her Step Mum. Her step sister has Dad 7 days a weeks she just has him for one, so where is the effort on his part?

Thats right, he is her daddy, why should op bake cakes and do things with her that her dad should. DSD comes to the house to see her dad and to spend time with him mainly, so that one day he should go all out an make it special for her.