To be concerned about my daughter

[kimmybus]

She is in her 20s and doing nothing with her life.

She left school at 18 and that was it. She has suffered with depression, anxiety, panic attacks. I dont know how I can get her to snap out of it, weve spent thousands on private therapists, she has been on different medications, we brought her a dog to give her some company. Nothing has worked and its getting a bit tedious having someone who is miserable all the time.

She started volunteering for a local organisation about six months ago. She gets on well with her boss but she is using her. She changes her hours every week for when its convenient for her. So some weeks she will work every hour under the sun and others she will be sat at home 5 days a week.

She is also very overweight. She is on a diet but whenever I see her she is eating crisps, sweets and wonders why she is big.. She complains she hasnt got a boyfriend and she cant see why that is.

She is also very secretive. She never tells me where she is going and takes hours to go to the supermarket or out to buy a bottle of wine. She very occasionally goes out and socialises but otherwise sits in her room doing nothing. She smokes and we have warned her about the implications of this but she doesnt listen.

She wont get a proper job. She wants to stay volunteering as her boss as filled her head with an idea that she will get a job. There is possibility of this but it is a slim one. She is living off some money she was left by family member who died a few years ago and a small amount of benefits. We dont charge her rent, pay for her food and brought her a car.

Im just disapointed in her. She wont do anything with her life. She complains we favourtise her sibling who is very different to her and has had a succesful career after going to university which we wanted for her. We paid for private education and she threw it away. She wouldnt go to school because she was getting bullied because of her size but the solution was in her hands and she just chose to stuff her face instead because she says it helps her cope.

How can I get her to finally stop and get a hold of her life?

If you think it is Dumde just report, whoever wrote the OP obviously has problems, they're not going to write all that just because they're on a Friday night wind up.

I really hope this is a wind up, or reverse.

I agree with what many of the others have said. She needs unconditional love and nurturing, not harsh judgement.

I'm afraid there is also a hint of narcissism in your post. What your DD does with her life is not for you to choose. You have no right to be disappointed in her. Be careful that you don't expect your children to reflect glory back on to you - that shouldn't be their role in life.

All we can do as parents is to give our children the best start we can - by loving and nurturing them, by giving them opportunities to grow their skills and confidence, and by encouraging them to develop their own unique personalities. But we don't get to define what makes them successful. Ask yourself why you feel volunteering (giving freely of your own time to help others) is such a failing compared to working for money.

Please, help your DD to feel valued for the individual she is, and please don't ever compare her unfavourably to her sibling.

Your poor daughter.
She probably thinks you don't love her because she's fat.
She might be right.

Hope this is a reversal and not real, because otherwise your poor daughter. She is ILL. Would you tell someone with cancer that they're doing nothing with their life?

I've been in a very very similar situation to your daughter and it is so hard. I am in paid work but still need support for my mental health issues in the same way someone with any other chronic condition needs continuous treatment. The thing that made me get better was increasing my self-esteem and support network - your belittling of your daughter is only making her more ill.

By the way some antidepressants can lead to weight gain - I jumped 3-4 dress sizes due to citalopram - but funnily enough I think being not-depressed and fat is better than being depressed and slim.

Good grief. I started off feeling for both you and your daughter. Then I reached your last paragraph. Now I just feel for your daughter.

I can't believe you really thought about that then posted it. It's incredibly unpleasant.

Obvious reverse, why op? If want support just say don't wind people up.

Whether reverse or not, voluntary work is extremely useful in maintaining good social contact and as a precursor to paid work. DD should feel very proud of herself for doing this.

I apologise if I am coming across as too harsh. Im just increasingly frustrated that she has barely done anything with her life for years and she is just wasting it. I dont understand her illness because I havent experienced it myself so I cant. I just feel she uses it as an excuse to live in a bubble and not enter the real world. Me and her Dad wont be here forever and its sad that she is still living at home at her age with barely any social life and it seems she doesnt want to change that despite saying she does. Since I posted this she has been downstairs and got a huge slice of cake and a bottle of coke to take to bed with her but will complain tomorrow because she cant fit into nice clothes and that people take the mick out of her.

She is being used and she cant see that. Why wont she just move on? I cant support her forever.

I hope this is a wind up thread.

If not I agree with other posters that it seems very familar...depressing that your attitude towards your poor kid is still blinkered and downright damaging.

Even if it is a reverse I don't think she's written it to wind anyone up.

Obviously I don't know if this is the case but sometimes it's difficult to talks about distressing things that have happened to you straight out, or she might want to see if posters agree with her parents that she's a disappointment and total fuck up.

If she is testing the waters she should be heartened by the overwhelmingly positive responses she's had confirming that she's ill, she isn't crap, and her parents have been/are very unreasonable to treat her like shit on their shoes.

Are you actually reading what people are saying to you? If she had broken her leg, would you ask why she can't go for a run? She can't "just move on" because she has A MEDICAL CONDITION THAT PREVENTS HER FROM DOING SO!

"Im just disapointed in her. "
Your disappointment comes through very, very clearly and is probably the reason she is depressed.
I really hope this is a wind-up.

people take the mick out of her.

Who takes the mick out of her?

Oh it didn't cross my mind that it was a reverse! I was suspicious of it being some bored person starting a bullshit thread in faux innocence about how unreasonable they were being...

If it IS a reverse then OP - it's not you being unreasonable, it's your bloody parents.

Oh, x posts.

Fuck knows then.

By the way you're posting without acknowledging anything anyone's said I can't see you ever changing how you think about her.

Your lack of empathy glares from your posts. Were you wanting a clone of yourself?

I realise this isn't helpful but I just can't get past 'favourtise'

i think you've had a bit of a hard time on here. I have no idea what it's like to see your child suffer with depression, it must be hard to watch and even frustrating at times. So I do feel for you, but I think you need to work on your compassion.

What seems obvious to you (get a job, exercise, eat less, try to be happy etc.) might not seem obvious or be possible for her. It sounds like you feel she's choosing to be this way rather than this just being the way she is.

If I were you I would try to encourage activity, not for her to lose weight, but to occupy her with something not stressful. Activity plus fresh air can release endorphins. I'm not saying join a gym or run a marathon, but can you take the dog for a walk somewhere nice regularly, or take up a hobby together (or on her own if she prefers). I think if you can find a way to be together and learn to enjoy her company, you might find that you both improve.

You need to come to terms with the fact that she might always be overweight and she might never be the person you wanted her to be, but she is a person in her own right, she is who she is, try to find the good and appreciate her for who she is.

The job of a parent is not to mould our children into the person we want them to be, but to give them every support and encouragement to be the best them they can be. Your post sounds like you have a fixed idea of who you would like her to be, and it seems like she can't be that person.

OP, if you're that hung up on what she eats, then why is there cake and coke in the house?

Join Slimming World, fill the fridge with free food and lead by example.

Am I honestly supposed to stand back and let someone use my daughter as free labour telling her she will eventually get a job? Because I dont think it will happen. She will stay there forever. She needs to get a proper job. She has no prospects at the moment. We are talking over a 5 year gap on her CV.

Oh, and I grew up with a narc mother who put me on my first diet at the age of 4. I look back at my childhood photos and feel so sad for the little girl with the healthy, strong body whose self-esteem was destroyed by a woman who was determined to have a starved waif for a daughter.

I went to a school reunion recently and a friend gave me back my school blazer which she'd borrowed 30 years ago. It's tiny. My 8 year old boy put it on and it didn't even look stupidly big on him. My poor little 11 year old self was told she was fat and ugly and guess what she grew up into? Yes, a fat woman.

Well done OP, you've created the fat daughter yourself.

I'm cross now.

Get over yourself.

When I taught I once had a parent tell me her older daughter was a delight, then followed up by saying that her younger child was "so lacking in social graces... so difficult to love"
It appears she wasn't unique in her lack of empathy.

As someone that struggles with the issues of your daughter, I have to say that it's disgusting that you are disappointed in her for having these illnesses, depression, anxiety, panic attacks. Do you have any fucking idea how hard life is for her?
Have you ever felt like you just don't fit into life? Because everyone around you is so fucking happy, but no matter what you can't just snap out of it? That you don't even have the energy to pull yourself together and get through what anyone else would call a normal day? To not be able to live life because of anxiety? have you ever had a panic attack? Where you feel your whole body stiffen up and you can't breathe?

And as for being fat because all she does is eat... I also have this, have you ever felt like you have absolutely no energy and you've eaten loads to try and recoup that energy? It's something I've figured out I do, I'm sure my body is trying to find the energy I'm lacking but it's mental and the food doesn't help it. A lot of people do eat more because of depression.
A lot of people actually self abuse with food.

Even if you didn't feel the way you obviously do about her, she would probably think it anyway, but if you've given her any reason at all to believe that you feel the way you do. Which I'm gathering you have, it's probably done nothing but make her feel even more worthless.

Give yourself a pat on the back for that one.

Maybe the best thing you can do is pick up a book, read about depression. Read about anxiety and read up about compulsive eating. Until you've gained some insight into the hell your daughters life is, maybe you should stop telling her about the life that she should have. Or how you like your other child because their life is nicer.
Maybe your daughter didn't hope to spend her life the way she is. Most people don't dream of growing up being depressed living with their seemingly bitter mother.

Sorry that I may seem quite harsh but I'm genuinely insulted that you can think so badly of your daughter, when I know firsthand mental health issues are destructive to life, and they effect every single part of life.