AIBU to be ready to just give it all up because of childs lies

[FP239]

I am a mum to 5 beautiful kids. Me eldest was a picture perfect kid until around age 11. Then the lies started right after the transition from juniors to seniors.

They have been unable to keep long term friends and flit between groups, are outcast for bad behaviour/compulsive lies and it goes on and on. My heart breaks as I love them so much and they seem so miserable. They have told social services I am abusing them all and need to be arrested/sectioned for their safety. Told school they are a full time carer for me and my other children. Ruined any family trips/holidays that we have been on and had other people constantly comment to me about their bad behaviour and lack of respect towards me. They took themselves into hospital after hearing voices and refused to leave the bed for 5 days . Told the doctors I detest them and they wished me dead ( never ever possibly true) .Eventually the mental health team said they didn't believe them as the story changed every two minutes and depending on who they were talking too. Diagnosis-attention seeking. I had to redo my whole year at uni as the stress over my exam period meant that I was useless for the month.

They have claimed to have cancer twice, then been victimised and horribly bullied due to this and threatened suicide constantly. Lots of risky sexual behaviour like sending underage naked pics of themselves while a sibling was in bed next to them.

They lie horrifically to immediate family members knowing that I will find out within hours and have to go through damage control. And my partner is as soft as jelly and when I raise an issue, says that we don't know the entire story and need to speak to our now 19 year old child to find out the truth. They will say that the family member is lying and he will believe it totally. I finally got them an appointment with mental health and told them EVERYTHING. Got a diagnosis of emotionally unstable border line personality disorder for our adult child and got sent home. No therapy, but can apply for a 6 week course of CBT with a trainee. They wont engage in it.

My life feels like its in ruins. My best friend of 24 years has just been in touch and my 19 year old has been going around saying they were in a nightclub with them and they were doing hard drugs and were embarrassingly drunk at 4am. Not true, I know she was at home watching love island. Everybody has been very tolerant over the years but now these rumours could very seriously affect my friends business and her credibility within her field. I am literally at my wits end with this shit. Its getting to where I have bursts of pure rage over the friends and opportunities that my child and their illness have caused me. Why cant they just NOT LIE?! We have been told time and time again its attention seeking behaviour (for attnetion from other people, not just us) but I can't take it anymore. They can not hold down a job for more than 6 weeks and lurch from disaster to disaster.

I am fed up it. My life is a constant tense wait for the next massive drama they bring home, the next fight I have with my partner and my own mental health is in absolute shreds. I don't know what to do. But my instinct is to get our little rental property empty and send my partner and our adult child to live there to give my younger kids some peace and respite from this non stop shit storm. My partner and adult child will say I am out of order and abandoning my parental responsibilities. WTF do I do? This is destroying us all.

So, AIBU to send them to live apart from us for a while. Has anybody ever experienced anything like this?Any advice at all as I am at breaking point.

If that were my daughter and I had money tied up in an additional property, then I'd be seriously contemplating selling said property.

The sad fact is, she ain't going to get the long-term support or therapy that she is in dire need of on the NHS. Privately, you are looking at LOTS of money.

Hey Cock less of the "head out of your arse" shite. It makes you sound like a twat. Or a cock for that matter

You're the one condemning an entire generation with no evidence whatsoever. You're the one having a meltdown due to the OP mentioning gender neutral language, and then extrapolating a whole load of BS from there.
I'd suggest starting the twat-hunting a bit closer to home.

Yes please take graceful up and pm them. You yourself will need support to in turn support your child. Think of it just like a physical ailment, and try not to personalize the behaviour that is designed to lash out at you. You'll need the thickest of thick skins here, but a helpful way to frame this is this isn't your loved one talking this is the disease.

They are in a space where the truth of what happened is so monumentally painful all these constructed lies and the reality that creates is actually preferable to facing it. So that begs the question what trauma was so bad?

Rebuild that credibility as best you can and plan for these outbursts as best you can. I think you are right in identifying your partner may be inadvertently enabling her so it really is best if you take this on yourself.

Oh op. I don't have much advice as this is out of my league. I just wanted to add my sympathies this all sounds so incredibly difficult

I think you do need some space. Just some respite for yourself (you'll be no good to anyone if you're shattered)

I'm sorry your gp can't help more. It sounds exhausting

I think the evidence is pretty, erm, evident. Look around you. Anxiety, depression, self harm, the list is fucking endless and widespread amongst this generation. All of the above was practically unheard of in my time. Can't speak for you of course, but I'd imagine it was less common for most of our peers.

What has made the current generation of teens and twenty-somethings the way they are? And no, you're absolutely right, not all of them, but, by fuck, a lot of them. Us that's who. Us. Pandering and normalising and accepting a lot of things that I don't agree with. And be under no illusion, I don't expect you to agree with me, but this is my opinion, take it or leave it.

Building them up to believe they are the best. They don't even have to try. They are just the best because they are them. Such bullshit. Then they get into the real world with an air of entitlement and expectation that doesn't come to fruition and they realise hey, I'm not actually the best. And then the bottom falls out of their worlds.

Our fault.

Ffs she is ILL. Not weak not attention seeking ILL . This poor mother and especially the child need SUPPORT. I am so angry and disgusted with some of these posts that I must leave now before I say something I will regret. OP remember this is not your fault nor is it your child's. yet again PM me if you want but I can no longer follow this thread.

*"
Or could you put an add in the local paper with a photo and a line underneath saying

I AM A LIAR. To shame her and let people know how she twists things."*

TOTALLY VILE, Oliversmum. Let's hope your own kids never need any "parenting"

I think the evidence is pretty, erm, evident. Look around you. Anxiety, depression, self harm, the list is fucking endless and widespread amongst this generation. All of the above was practically unheard of in my time. Can't speak for you of course, but I'd imagine it was less common for most of our peers.

My God, your ignorance and lack of empathy is shocking. I suppose poor mental health is just an indicator of poor character then?

OP glad my comment re Complex PTSD was helpful. Just so you are aware, there are people, even professionals, who still confusingly refer to BPD and Complex PTSD as two separate disorders. This isn't strictly correct. It was the American psychiatrist Judith Herman who first proposed referring to BPD as Complex PTSD as she understood that it was mostly traumatised young women labelled with this disorder and it was doing them a disservice. Some NHS trusts are better able to offer trauma related treatment than others.

To the poster that suggested that there might be an attachment disorder going on, there is an argument that attachment difficulties play a role in a great deal of mental health conditions so I would always say it is worth looking into also (but then I am a great proponent of attachment disorder).

Hands up, I do not belong on this thread. It is not the forum for the topics I've brought up perhaps. I believe in everything I said, but this is not the place and I don't kick people when they are down.

@Graceful, you are absolutely correct. I think you'd be better placed to hang around her and I'll bow out. I don't have the tolerance or the belief in her illness that you obviously do.

OP, I hope you find a way to make it work for you and your family. All of you.

I meant I am a great proponent of attachment theory - John Bowlby was an amazing man

Will she ever discuss her behaviour? Or is in denial/ don't mention it? Does she admit she's lied eventually or just create new ones?

It's really sad because I would say something pretty horrific has happened to her but no one will believe her if she ever does discuss it. Sorry if I'm wrong but she sounds quite fixated with your DH would you say that's correct? If so I don't think sending her to live with him is going to change anything. I think she needs to live semi independently or with you all. She's 19 and I know she's your child BUT is it practical for her to live with your DH forever more? It's sadly sometimes about who shouts the loudest with services stretched at the moment you need to fight for support if that means calling every day so be it.

I think the evidence is pretty, erm, evident. Look around you. Anxiety, depression, self harm, the list is fucking endless and widespread amongst this generation. All of the above was practically unheard of in my time. Can't speak for you of course, but I'd imagine it was less common for most of our peers.

Many people were simply shut away in asylums or hospitals where they weren't seen or heard. I think it might be that people are thankfully more able to talk about it more now without fear of, ahem, judgement. Mental ill health runs back in my family generations. It existed but no one talked about it. People suffered terribly, had terribly sad lives. I believe we were worse for this.

I have been the youngest sibling in an almost identical scenario with my elder sister.
It was not good, fucked me up for years until I had counselling.
Am NC now, so is the rest of the family. Much more peaceful.
She is an adult now but still acts much the same, very sad as she has children.
Very difficult situation and my DM was in an identical quandary to yours OP. No easy answer.

Reborn - these aren't new issues but previously these children/adults would have been sent to an asylum forever more, away from society. The deinstitutionalisation of individuals with mental illness/ learning disabilities has only really been going on for 30 years. So it did happen in "your day" you just didn't see it.

I have no interest in debating something I find interesting and would happily be educated about with someone who can't see past their own nose. Fool.

Jesus, it's all about you, isn't it? It's the OPs thread, she's very concerned about her children, yet you think you're entitled to a debate and an education? For someone who's had a meltdown about the entitlement of the young, that's dreadfully ironic.

chirpy I had a dx of complex PSTD. I do not have BPD.

katie they will likely not even have linked the earlier trauma to their current behavior. In fact if you knew what it was and point blank said it to their face they would be very unlikely to even identify it as traumatic. Yet the effects are bubbling up all over the place.

How truly horrible for you. Does your daughter believe the lies or know she is lying? Does she ever show remorse after it's all over and it becomes apparent that she was lying?

This sounds such a hard situation to be in, and you have my sympathy.
I have to say though, it sounds an odd arrangement for your Dp to have moved out into a separate flat with them in the past, and is considering doing the same again even though it didn't work last time. Doesn't that put your relationship at risk? Why does your partner not seem to see the same problems that you so clearly state there are? I don't understand how your partner could fail to acknowledge the the huge extent of the lying? Sorry to be very blunt, but a great big red flag is waving at me about the possibility of long term sexual abuse.

Are there any mental health services for 16-25 year olds that you can re-engage with now, with a view to your 19year getting independent accommodation of their own, (maybe assisted/supported?) on the grounds of their mental health issues. The same service should be able to offer some sort of help with claiming benefits, and possibly community worker to monitor mental health issues.
Have you pushed for an up to date psychiatric assessment through the NHS and review of the medication? There may be medication that they will give now, that they wouldn't have given a younger person.

Also reborn i suggest you watch "silent minority" on YouTube it's a documentary about the asylums from 1981, will be quite an eye opener.

Chirpy Bowlby had a point but he is also the reason abused children are forced to stay with abusive mothers.

It sounds so very difficult. If she was raped at the age of 13, I would imagine that much of her behaviour springs from that trauma. Poor girl.

How did she receive the diagnosis of BPD? Do you think the diagnosis is accurate? Of course, I know you are not a professional but diagnosing mental illness is not an exact science.

I would offer her as much support as possible in terms of therapy and counselling. I know you have said she doesn't engage in therapy but I would let her know that it is always available to her. But I would probably be taking steps for her to move out of the house. She is your child (and always will be) but she is not a child. It sounds as though it might be better for all concerned, not least your younger children, for her to have her own space.

Katie I worked at that hospital in the 80s.
It was just as depicted and the majority saw it as acceptable.
There residents (as they were called) who were born there.
There were wards for children
It seems unbelievable that there were places like that in living memory.