To think meanness is a mental illness

[jenny69xx]

I am very worried about my 20 year old DD. She is very careful with money to the point were I think it may be a mental illness. She works full time and takes home around £300 a week. I take a small sum of £20 a week in board. She has been working for about 18 months after finishing A Levels. She is responsible for her own travel, clothes toiletries, social life. She does not spend a penny if she does not have to. Her clothes are often worn and she will not buy anything if it is not on sale. She steals my make up, deodorant etc. She looks a mess as she refuses to “waste” money on haircuts. She would rather walk the 2 hours to work than pay for public transport or run a car. She has no social life and has gradually lost all friends as she refuses to pay for drinks, meals out, taxis etc, even a bottle of wine to take to a party. Christmas gifts from her are very mean and often she does not even buy so much as a card for mother’s day etc.

She has thousands in the bank, which is great, but I am very worried about her. My father is incredibly mean, to the point of embarrassment and I am seeing the same pattern emerging. We have always been very generous with her and she has never seen us struggle for money so I have no idea where this comes from. It makes me very sad to see friends children on holiday, in nightclubs, driving cars. She should be living life!

It started at school with her saving her lunch money rather than eating and it has snowballed from there. After the upbringing I had I feel meanness is absolutely the worst trait to have and I am at my wits end. I have no idea what to do or how to handle her.

jenny - be honest, if someone else was writing all this, what would you say to them? You really are not doing yourself any favours love, she is taking you for a ride. Rolling her eyes and calling you lazy? Not on.

The OP needs help. Her daughter is abusing her.

Taken to an extreme I can see how this could be a form of mental illness, like hoarding or any other form of obsessive irrational behaviour. Of course it's great (to a point) to be sensible and non-wasteful with money but if it goes beyond the limits of normality then it's a red flag. Especially as she's not even spending it on herself!

You need to start playing her at her own game. Lock up your stuff, tell her her housekeeping has been raised. If she complains (and she will) then tell her the £20 pays for her share of bills but from now on she buys and cooks her own food AND KEEP YOURS LOCKED AWAY. Just buy her small token Christmas and birthday presents from now on - she is an adult who works full time after all - she is not reliant upon you for the things she wants and needs. Stop inviting her out and offering to pay, don't let her take financial advantage of you any longer.

How she chooses to spend (or not spend) her own earned money is up to her, but she should not be taking cynical advantage or you or her boyfriend in order to be able to save all her own money for herself - that's just nasty and parasitic and selfish.

In the end you'll be doing her a favour - at the moment you are enabling her to think that real life can be saving everything you earn. It can't.

Definitely get her to move out. She is an adult and needs to learn how to behave like one.

At the moment you are her cook,cleaner and PA! Seriously let her get on with it and stop putting up with moods and backchat.

You will be richer, have more time and won't have to live in atmospheres.
She sounds a bit of a bully/pushy character who takes advantage where she can.

You have done your bit.

I second the suggestion of keeping 'rent' at £20/week but henceforth it only pays for her share of utility bills. Cooking and laundry services are withdrawn, you make meals for yourself and DH, she fends for herself. This will mean getting another fridge (because I doubt she will be able to resist helping herself to your food) - is there any scope for a mini kitchen being set up near her room, to try & make her area as self-contained as possible?
Having an adult child living with you requires a shift in attitude by all concerned.

Agree with the posters who say to put up board or move out.

She sounds spoilt and manipulative, that could be nature over nurture if it's a family trait. Maybe a trip to the gp together if you're concerned about it being obsessive behaviour.

Good luck, I hope everything works out for you both.

I disagree with smiles. I think there are serious problems here. Meanness, as severe as hers is, is a very unattractive quality.

Getting her a fridge and separate kitchen area would be making the OPs house into student digs walkacross, but then she is still behaving like a stereotypical student.

Why should she lock up her food in her own home? FFS. Her dad is sick of seeing his wife treated like this and her enabling this abuse. Calling your mother fat and lazy whilst freeloading off her is not a mental illness, it's vile behaviour.

She is able to hold down a job and have a boyfriend, she can pay full rent, council tax and board, too.

Jenny I sympathise. My brother and sister are like this. They let saving money get in the way of living their lives. My dsis is on medication for MH issues and dbro is self confessed "fucked up". He is nearly thirty and blaming my parents for all his problems.

My dsis got better with age, eventually all her friends and family got wise to her and call her on her behaviour so she will stand the odd round or buy a Christmas present. It's still the old adage about. Blood and stones .

Dbro is getting worse with age. It's a shame for him but we've had to stop worrying about him. He's still living with my parents and sponging off them. I think my parents should have kicked him out years ago. He's recently started to ask for a loan so he can buy a house outright as he doesn't see why he should pay all that interest on a mortgage!!! He doesn't see that my parents need money for their retirement and he won't acknowledge that they deserve the benefit of years of hard work. He thinks he has an entitlement to their money!!

Your dd isn't ill but she isn't shaping up to be the person you hoped you'd raised. This is an awful thing to face but stop worrying that she is never going to speak to you again if you try and get her to face reality. All you are doing is prolonging the agony and enabling her awful behaviour.

You need to get tough. Actually I'd recommend you seek some counselling about it. Try and get some support either professional or friend/ family who can help you. You need to tell your dd you love her but can't stand by whilst she lets meanness ruin her life. And she needs to learn to pay her own way.

Incidentally stop worrying if she wants to save every spare penny, use loo roll instead of pads, walk to work, never go out etc etc. This affects her comfort not yours. Just stop being the mug who caves in and rescues her. She needs to learn herself that there are better nicer things if she loosens the purse strings.

if she won't do anything to earn her keep. If she's also going to take what she can from those around her without reciprocation then she has to realise that it alienates those who love her.

Meanness alone is not a mental illness but your daughter sounds in a bad place. You sound lovely but I think you are enabling her behaviour to continue. I agree you need to put firm boundaries in place. She may not thank you for it initially but when she steps away from the situation, hopefully she will realise what a mess she has got herself into.

It sounds terrible. My brother is really tight, but only with spending on himself- he's generous to the point of stupidity with other people- he has MH issues and these traits definitely have been exacerbated following periods of stress.

I think you need more frank conversations with her, do not allow her to turn it round onto you, if she tries that again, you could firmly say "we are talking about you, and the way you spend money- this is my home and my choices, if you wish to make those choices you must get your own home" and repeat. Don't engage in pointless arguments about levels of tidiness.

The alarm bells for me are: the stealing, lack of hygiene, no friends apart from BF.

I don't think you charge her enough board. A percentage of all bills, plus housing, plus food is more than £20 a week. She should be contributing more to the running of the house, not hoarding it in her bank account at your expense. If she makes a fair and realistic contribution to the household it might help her to see the value of money and what it's there for - achieving a decent standard of living and paying one's way

A relative has v similar traits. Won't put heating on sits in 5 jumpers yet she is v well off. When her relative ran out of money once - had a child - she gave them one pound to help - to last three days! And made big deal of it.
This person has OCD and other m h issues and money to her is about fear - parting with money makes her feel. Out of control.anxiety.
This well off person gave my dc s Used colouring book s from charity shop to my dc when visited us .
Id say she needs help.wd yr dd do similar?

DH's uncle lived alone all his adult life in a crumbling comfortless house. Never went on holiday, dressed in worn out clothes. He would walk two miles on arthritic feet to save 5p on a bottle of cheap lemonade.

He left about £250,000 in cash alone. A great deal of his estate went in inheritance tax. On the plus side, we are having quite a lot of fun with our share of the inheritance.

I think tightness can definitely run in families; DH's Dad and Aunt are similar. I am very quick to remind DH about his uncle when he starts showing tendencies.

Interestingly, DH's tight family all have issues with extreme house cleanliness and very much staying in your comfort zone. I agree it is possibly an OCD/control type thing.

Jenny, I can't think of an easy way to put this. If your daughter posted on Mumsnet, do you think we might say her father abused her growing up?

GarlicJulyKIt where on earth did THAT come from? She's a spoiled, entitled lazy brat and her father's pissed off with it - so he must be at fault? I'm astounded.

Jenny, I'm so sorry you're going through this. Your daughter is being very unkind (actually I agree with the others who have said she is abusing you) and selfish, but her actions are isolating her from other friends - and quite likely her boyfriend - and may become more and more extreme if left unchecked. People may say about not cleaning her room but I wonder if you left it do you think you'd have a rodent/insect infestation? I knew of a woman who refused to shower as she didn't want to spend money on water (tbh, there was a diagnosed MH issue there) and I worry for you that your daughter may end up going down that road. This post is in no way meant to worry you, I am agreeing that there is something so different from the norm that it seems to be a mental health problem. I hope it all works out for you.

I agree with Flouncy - bit of a leap isn't it Garlic? Thought never occurred to me. She's just an indulged, not very nice sounding person. Some people are just like that

@TinklyLittleLaugh Sounds very much like my grandmother. Lived like a pauper and left her £250k home and £150k in savings when she died at 70. My father is very similar and also his house is spotless, doesn't like people in it. A hereditary element has crossed my mind. My brother is also similar with the OCD and tightness. Buys awful gifts. Would never buy a round etc. His wife left him due to it.

@Garlic If I thought that was a possibility for even a minute my husband would be out the door.

I think when you don't even buy essentials such as sanitary products it does hint at MH. This article likens extreme miserliness to hoarding:

Stinginess- the Sickness
On the other end of the spectrum are the selfish, greedy people, the ones that are pained by the thought of giving. They believe that they deserve the world; by sharing with others, they feel that they will have less for themselves and can't stomach that thought.
Greedy people may or may not have money, but this is not relevant at all to their feelings. Even if they had enough money that they were literally tripping over their gold and jewels, if an emaciated beggar knocked at their door, asking for a bite to eat, these stingy people would not even be willing to give their stale old bread to keep the beggar from starving.

While not so common in its extreme form, stinginess is a sickness that is all to prevalent in the world at large. It can afflict the rich and the poor, the young and the old. It is an addiction to money, an unhealthy connection to money that you can't bear to see it go towards others.

Taking stinginess one step further is miserliness. Dictionary.com's definition of this word: "a person who lives in wretched circumstances in order to save and hoard money." (I'll be getting myself into trouble here because some people might think I fit this definition, but I'll deal with that a little further down.) Note the word hoard. It means saving but with an extremely negative connotation.
Miserly people are stingy to the nth degree. They are so addicted to money that they can't bear to spend a cent, not even on themselves, and hence live in wretched circumstances. They just want to watch the money pile up. They collect money the way some other people collect junk. It has no use to them; they just need to accumulate it and watch their collection grow. These people are obsessed with owning money and not even with the luxuries money can buy.

Why should she lock up her food in her own home? FFS. Her dad is sick of seeing his wife treated like this and her enabling this abuse. Calling your mother fat and lazy whilst freeloading off her is not a mental illness, it's vile behaviour.

The two aren't mutually exclusive. You can have vile behavior because of a mental illness. MH turns most people in unreasonable little shits, that's part of the illness. But just because it's a MH issue doesn't make it excusable or even acceptable.

OP needs help, and her daughter needs help, but not at the expense of OP. OP needs to detach and let her daughter get help and be there as a cheerleader for her daughter if she needs it.

Meanness does run in families, not surprisingly.

But the main issue here is that whether or not your DD is ill, she's not very pleasant to be around, for herself or for others. Meanness is terribly unattractive, and it has already damaged her life quite badly - right now, it's only set to get worse.

I don't think you'll get NHS help for this, it's not serious enough. But it is serious. DD will never get a grip on the situation to change things - why should she - so you'll have to. Follow the practical suggestions about charging her rent as above, for example. The only way you can change her is by changing her circumstances, and stop enabling her. This will not be a pretty process by the way - she'll turn nasty on you, but persevere.

Sorry to be gloomy, but watch out for stealing. People who are very mean tend to start by freeloading and then move onto pinching things from work, friends and family, shoplifting, etc.

I too think 100 pounds is fair. I've heard that method suggested on MN before. One third to save, one third to spend, one third for board.

For that 100 pounds, she gets a roof, hot showers, heat, food. She'll complain, then encourage her to be on her own, and see if she can rent a place, pay for utilities, food, out in the big wide world for 400 a month.

In fact, maybe you should charge 150 pounds so she will get fed up and leave.

Also, don't do her laundry. She needs to share housework and cooking too. If she objects, there's the door. Little kids eight years old can run washers and dryers.

She is showing a lot of eccentric behavior. If you made her buy and cook a meal, expect the cheapest things she can find. Out of date food, dented cans, not much of it. She would probably boast about how little she spent.

Try to find it within yourself to not be her enabler.