AIBU to tell my 19 year old she has destroyed my mental health?

[Applepea1]

Yeah I know I probably am, she's my daughter, she's a teenager, she's vulnerable. But for the last few years everything has revolved around her, school issues, friendship issues, anxiety issues, we put everything in to her going to Uni last year and then she didn't go, plan was to save money and go this year. She's saved no money and she's just lost her (dead end) job, apparently because she's no longer needed but I think the persistent lateness, unreliability and rudeness can not have helped. I'm not with her dad and my partner doesn't really get involved. So the last few years I've gone downhill, so much crying and screaming (to myself) I am always a pretty anxious person anyway but now I am thinking about suicide a lot. The only thing stopping me is my younger child, I no longer care much about anyone else.
This afternoon I've scheduled a 'chat about the future'. Should I tell her how I really am or continue to try and be supportive and cry it out later? I actually feel like she's been abusing me, she's gets so rude, shouts, tells me I'm stupid and crazy, everything I do is wrong etc.

Im going to go against the grain her and say that a degree of honesty is needed with regards to how her behaviour is making you feel.

Don't phrase it the way you have here but yes you should absolutely tell her that her nasty behaviour to you is making you unhappy and is putting you in a very low place. She is a fellow adult now, you don't have to pretend adults don't have feelings, and the things you mentioned in the last paragraph of your post are in no way acceptable from someone of her age.

Call her out on her behaviour, but don’t blame her for all your MH issues.

Don’t blame her for your MH issues, if anything that would make her worse and isn’t fair if your already a anxious person. You can’t blame her for that.
But yes have a chat with her, tell her she needs to find a new job and start being more of a adult or move out and grow up.

What she needs is boundaries which you lay down and stick to. No, I wouldn't tell her she's ruined your mental health/life but I WOULD be telling her how things are going to be from now on.

She is over 18, she's an adult. She was supposed to be saving...why didn't you ask for rent from her money and put it aside for her as her savings?

She needs to move out, get another job, take responsibility. Tell her you are tired of her attitude and you are no longer going to put up with it. Give her a month to move out. Don't sit there letting her take the piss, expect her to help around the house, be out job hunting, paying her way.

Once my children had reached 18 they were expected to be adults. They could stay at home if they were working, paying me rent (and contributing towards council tax), doing their own shopping, cooking and cleaning (including laundry) and helped me out when needed. If they didn't like it they were free to move out. Needless to say they moved out as soon as they were able....

And yes, we do still have a really good relationship now....

Even though it may be true, I definitely don't think you should say that to her. Imagine all the negative things that children directly or indirectly contribute to - we certainly can't tell them that we blame them for these things. Blame like that will stay with a child forever.

Find a different way to convey the way in which you need things to move forward - there are good suggestions above.

Hi OP. If your partner isn't supportive then why are you with him? Is he making it worse? Where is her dad in all this?

Mine are young primary ages and they scream and fight and BY GOD does that affect my mental health. I have an important interview tomorrow and my hair is greasy and I've cried all day today. I have no preparation.

I tell my boys it's making me feel sad when they scream and fight and hit me and demand from me, it makes no difference. Their dad only cares about himself - so I can understand if your DDs dad is the same!

I was a horrendous teenager but I didn't mean to hurt my parents. I just felt so angry and confused all the time and didn't know how to deal with it. I was really depressed actually. I hated it. I never knew what to do with my life.

You need some more support for you OP because it sounds like you're her support and there is no one for you. I totally get this. I've just applied for counselling because I'm heading to a seriously dark place now. I'm quite proud I've done that! Maybe you could too?

I think telling her that her struggiling with life has had an affect on your health and she needs to work out what she is going to do next, and then you need to get yourself to the Dr your life sounds fraught and you need support.

Thank you for your honest replies. It was always her own ambition to go to university, I think her anxiety held her back. She's had professional help in the past but has refused to seek help recently.

No I wouldn't tell her she has destroyed your mental health, but I would be clear with her that her choices have an effect on more than just her and that she cannot continue like this.

She didn't suddenly behave differently, her inability to budget, time manage, communicate with friends would have been taught and directed by the adults that brought her up.
She's having a hard time with the transition time between adult and child as it appears she hasn't been taught the skills of being independent and self reliant.
Give her a plan, help direct her to a future goal (travelling? Career change?) and state that by a deadline she will no longer be living under your roof and ensure she's paying rent until such time.
We're all human and so is she, she's not going to get it right each time and you need to direct her in knowing how to brush herself off and try again/something new.

You need (in your own time and space) to move from thinking about how you feel, to what you want to do.

Then talk to your dd about your practical plan for the future - how much you can and cannot support her finincially, whether that's conditional on her going to uni, keeping a job etc. Keep it factual, keep it calm. Tell her what's happening. Listen to her, then repeat calmly.

Do not on any account try to connect her behaviour to your mental health. That would be very cruel and will destroy your relationship.

You need help with your mental health. Not from her.

What does she want to do ? University isn't for everybody it shouldn't be a goal if a kid isn't going to get anything out of it.

She is 19 not 9, she needs to realise her behaviour impacts on you, if she is not told she wont know, so tell her. Dont have a go but just tell her firm plans have to be in place and she must be pro active as of tomorrow morning. Give her 3 months to shape up or ship out. I had the same thing with one of mine, the best thing that ever happened was that i opened the door and told him to go. That was the day he started sorting his life out, now he thanks me for it

If she's left her job and has no savings she's reliant on you. So offer consequences. Rude to you means she doesn't get to share in the takeaway you ordered, she can make her own dinner. If she doesn't go to college or work, no spending money.

You should not tell her she's ruining your mental health, you like her less than her sibling and that you are having suicidal thoughts. She doesn't sound any worse than the average stroppy teenager tbh. Certainly sounds similar to me at that age. Leave her be. Stop worrying. She'll find her feet. Focus on getting counselling for you to work out what's at the root of all this, you sound very depressed. And don't let her get away with rudeness. Everything else will work itself out.

You are both struggling.
Dont blame each other
Speak to your therapist first and role play how the conversation will go.
You can evict her but where will that leave you and her?
Your MH is yours and hers is hers.
Blame doesn't resolve either.
Work on your boundaries and getting yourself in a good place.
Maybe see if dd can stay elsewhere for a while? Volunteer role?

Where is her Dad in all this? Is he partly to blame for her behaviour/mental state? Does she have contact with him? She does have two parents, why does it always seem to be the mother who sacrifices her needs and wishes whilst the father's life just carries on as normal?

Where's your DP in your life?

He might not get involved in parenting your dd but, as your partner, he should be supporting and comforting you, striving to make you happy.

If your mental health is suffering and you can't cope you can put limits on what you can do to support her but it would be unreasonable to blame your DD for your mental health as that isn't her responsibility.

It might help you both if you took a step back - put faith in DD to sort it out and give yourself some breathing space. Good luck OP.

I think there's a balance to be struck between telling her exactly how you feel and telling her nothing.

She is old enough to hear that her actions are having an impact on you so I would say that the situation is making you very unhappy. Telling her you are suicidal and your mental health is ruined would be a huge burden to put on anyone, let alone a 19 year old.

To give you some hope - she sounds very much like my younger sister. Everyone else in the family went to university and we all just assumed that she would. When she first decided not to she phrased it to my parents as a "gap year" but she just moved from dead end job to dead end job. She then got pregnant and had my nephew at 20. From 20-24 she did nothing. She was a good mum but had no job and lived entirely off my parents. Luckily my parents could afford it but it was really hard for them as my father was going through really difficult times with his business and they had both been looking forward to the freedom you get when your kids move out. This was not helped by the fact that my sister was so rude to them any time they suggested that she do some education (which they offered to fund), or an apprenticeship or a part time job or anything that would give her some independence in the future. She would scream like a grumpy teenager whenever she didn't get her way.

BUT at some point something just clicked. She's now been working for the last year in a job with prospects, doing really well, taking courses to get a better position and getting great reviews from her managers. We're all so proud of her for getting her act together. She's even started paying my parents back, admittedly she owes them the price of a house so it's going to take forever but it's the effort that is important. Hopefully your daughter will have a similar click point at some stage - and as she's not a young single parent hopefully that'll be sooner than my sister did - there is light at the end of the tunnel.

You mention that your daughter has anxiety issues, my sister was just the same - putting yourself out there by applying for university or a better job can be really hard for people with that kind of condition. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't push her to do it - you should - but you also need to recognise the limits to what you can do.

All that said, you also need to take care of you. You need to support your daughter but at 19 it's her that needs to make the decisions and implement them, it's not your job anymore so you need to stop putting so much pressure on YOURSELF for HER to get it right. I'd suggest calling a dr to speak about your suicidal thoughts asap - my DH went through depression including suicidal thoughts a few years ago and the NHS took much better care of him than I could.

Please take care x

Tell your GP how you are feeling and get help for yourself.

She does sound anxious and hard work and needs help for herself but you can’t help her while you need help yourself. I would leave this chat for now other than to say that she needs to make a plan for work or education and should seek help from outside to formulate her plan.

Your partner may not want to be involved but perhaps would protect you in agreeing house rules which include no abusive language or shouting will be tolerated. At 19 she is still young but an adult and her life isn’t going to improve until she learns some key boundaries.

Get counselling for yourself and whatever help your GP offers. That’s the key here.

I wouldn't put up with that behaviour. Either she changes her ways or she's out. Have a word with her dad.

You have my sympathy OP.

@Applepea1 You absolutely DO have my utmost sympathy. Teen girls can be a bit of a pain. Moody, sullen, cheeky, lazy, grabby, and entitled.

Mine (now 26,) was a lovely child (and lots of fun to be around) right up to about 13 y.o. THEN she started to get a BIT like yours, (sulky, bratty, cheeky, entitled, awkward, and bit of a PITA!) Except she did go to uni, and stayed there and completed her degree. And she has had a job for most of the time since she was 16 (albeit sometimes only 6 to 8 hours a week while at uni.)

Like your DD though, she had a couple of jobs at uni, and lost them as they didn't need her anymore, but we KNOW she was ringing in sick half the time and letting them down coz she couldn't be arsed to get up!

We did spoil her a bit (as a child,) and didn't make her do much in the house, so it's not entirely her fault, but yeah she did become a bit lazy and grabby by her mid teens.. Not HUGELY, but a BIT. And when she lost her job (2 of them!) she kept running out of money as her student loan wasn't lasting, and she kept asking us for money.

It was so stressful as she was on the phone in floods of tears, and we couldn't do anything but help her (that's how we felt.) So we bankrolled her £100 to £150 a few times a term.

We have always been on a bit of a low income, and so we struggled. She got quite a decent amount of money at uni via her loan and grants and bursary (coz of us being on low income at the time,) and yet she squandered it.

The crunch came when she had £100 off us, and came home 2 weeks later with a nice shiny tattoo on her thigh. 'I've had this ages' she said. I presented her with a pic I took of her last time she came home (6 weeks earlier) withOUT the tattoo. Me and DH decided she would get NO more money now. Cheeky little shit.

She never asked us for any more money though LOL. We have always, and WOULD always help her, but dishing out 100s of £££ that we cannot afford, just to have her spend it on tattoos. Fuck that! She had had a couple of other (smaller) tattoos a few months back, but claimed her 'friend paid for them.' When we thought about it, we realised that was probably a lie.

And also, we had a few quite big issues with her at school (on and off for about 3 years!) With a few girls bullying her for seemingly nothing, and also her falling out with a couple of her friends. I had their mothers having a go at me, we had to get the headmaster involved, and the police a couple of times when one mother chucked a rock through our kitchen window. Fucking awful.

I always got the worst vitriol from the mums, not DH. It was me they gunned for. Even now, on the rare occasion I see one of these women, they glare at me - 11-12 years on! Thankfully, we don't live in that same town now, and rarely visit it, so only see them maybe 2 or 3 times a year.

NOW though........ our daughter is a vibrant, intelligent, hard-working, successful post grad, who is on twice as much money as us, she has visited 20 different countries in the last 5 years, and is now living with her boyfriend, and climbing the career ladder nicely.

She is strong, independent, and such a warm and lovely young woman who would do ANYthing for me and her dad.

SO... I am sure it will get better OP.

But, yes it is bloody hard going when they are between the age of 12-ish and about 20!!! As I say, teens can be a PITA, bleed you dry financially, and can be cheeky rude and moody, but they do grow out of it (Most of them!)

You do need to tell her that she HAS to stay at uni, or get (and keep) a job though. And please don't tell her she is making you suicidal or depressed, just that she is making you very unhappy and sad (I think they may mean the same thing!!!) Maybe see if you can go out for a little lunchtime meal and have a mum/daughter chat, and be really nice but firm with her.

Yeah 19 is not a child anymore, but it is still very young. People need to cut the daughter some slack. Children don't suddenly become wordly-wise, emotionally strong, independent career women (and men) as soon as they hit their 18th birthday. It's not as easy as it sounds to just 'throw them out!'

But yes, something needs to be done to help the OP (and her DD, and the whole situation.)

Also, OP, make an appointment with your GP to discuss your low moods, and see if you can get help.

Good luck. I really do wish you well