To feel sad for DD and irrational hatred towards others & what life has done to her!

[Bitteritsnotfair]

As we entered lockdown, DD was in year 9, good circle of friends, exciting times ahead of her. Lockdown changed all that.

She became extremely stressed over school work, but did work hard (nothing else to do!) so the only bonus is that her grades improved but her mental health definitely started nosediving (as I know many others did) She maintained online contact with friends, and her closest friend started sending disturbing messages about how she was going to kill herself etc. DD did her best to support her while struggling herself, alerted me, who contacted her parents who got her the psychiatric help she needed. Friend seemed to recover quickly and was keen to start going out as restrictions started to lift. DD, however, had developed crippling social anxiety, said she'd forgotten how to talk to people. She'd reluctantly go and meet friends but would have major panic attacks beforehand and increasingly avoided going.

Back to school, many of her peer group had changed after so long apart and friendship group dwindled, bestie in particular started socialising with others, clearly frustrated that DD no longer wanted to hang out (which is totally understandable for a teenager!), although she was well aware DD was struggling mentally (I spoke to her mum often who I know discussed it with her). I felt sad that DD had supported her so well when she was struggling but got nothing in return. DD said she'd realised bestie actually wasn't very nice, accepted they'd drifted apart and made attempts to make new friends. Bestie didn't like it, despite having new friends of her own, and would sabotage any friendships DD tried to make. Turned out she'd been doing this since year 7 but more of a problem now that DD had few other friends. DD and bestie barely speak now, bestie has blocked her on social media but not the remaining few members of the original friendship group who DD still hangs with at school but isn't too fussed about as little in common with apparently.

DD is sad, lonely, anxious and depressed and is now embarking on counselling. I pray this will help as she enters 6th form, she can make new friends and start enjoying life again.

She's not going to prom (fine) but I feel so sad for her that her school days have ended up like this. Bestie is obviously going with her new group of cool friends and the thought of witnessing that makes her want to vomit apparently!

This morning I dropped her off at school for an exam and ex-bestie walked past with her boyfriend and big group of friends laughing and joking, DD walked in alone.

I know it's irrational, but a red mist descended and I felt utter hatred for this girl, for the Covid situation which has affected so many like DD and fucking life in general!

Ah op how very very hard to watch as a parent. The pandemic has had a horrendous impact on our children. I have teens too, and we have been through everything you describe too. So I understand everything you are saying. It has been utterly heartbreaking.

We have seen the children's friendships disintegrate as well, and more fallings out than usual (and usually there are a lot) but it has been very hard for all of them. I hope the counselling will work for your dd, is she having CBT? That is especially good for anxiety and particularly this kind of anxiety.

Your dd has something very powerful on her side, a mother that loves her and is committed to supporting her is a massively comforting and wonderful thing. And a family that love her and stand by her.

Have you considered moving her to a different sixth form with new friends? I would think a new start would be so healthy for her, and to get away from a crowd that sounds like it is really toxic. Many students move around at this point anyway and she will have a fresh start. I would move her out, or another two years of this could happen.

As for the prom, does she have friendships outside of school? Can you organise a weekend away for her, a night out. SM needs to be switched off the last thing you need is tons of photos feeding in all night. She won't be the only girl not going and it is just one night, but I understand how upset and worried you are

OP

The lockdown was very very difficult for many. However, as you say, your DD can now also recognise that this friend was isolating her for a long time.

Oh OP YANBU I would feel the exact same. I hope your DD gets the help she needs and as PP it's great she has such a caring mother.
Is the college your DD going to different than the once her ex friend is going to? It could be a good fresh start for her.

God it is so hard. I recall the start of secondary school - we went to look around and I noticed the ringleader of a small groups of boys who were taking the piss out of my son. I’d known they were teasing him a bit at primary but hadn’t witnessed it properly and he always shrugged it off to me. When I actually saw it (it was very sly and ‘men girls’ in style) I genuinely could have punched the lad and am ashamed to say I gave him a look that definitely could have killed and they stopped. Son seemed mostly oblivious and found a better group of friends over the years but yes I recall that white hot rage.

Covid has been so tough and has affected the kids so much. I’m sorry your daughter is experiencing this, but people do grow apart and hopefully as sixth form kicks in this other girl will mature and your daughter can focus on these new friendships she has been building?

If it’s really too much for her though would you consider looking into a different sixth form? Hopefully counselling will help and I think you need to keep encouraging her to socialise with other people as well - this girl doesn’t sound nice, but equally it does sound like your daughter has removed herself from friendships rather than being ostracised.

I'm really sorry OP, although this often happens to groups of friends at this age regardless of covid.

I went through exactly the same thing at your daughters age (30 odd years ago!) where two girls in my friend group took a sudden dislike to me and because they were 'queen bees' I ended up being ostracised by most of the group (the others didn't want to risk falling out of favour too)

What really helped me was leaving school and going to college for 6th form, I made a whole new group of friends and found my confidence again.

Poor kid. I know how it feels to have an anxious dd.

A good therapist will absolutely help so do pursue it. That can unload in a way that they can't do with us.

Three children, all adults now, all long over the heartbreak of school friendship breakdowns. Looking back, I can make allowances for their friends - they were only kids, they didn’t know etc - but inside I still seethe with silent fury and even sometimes plot revenge. Completely irrational, but I think it’s just one of those parent things.
I do hope you are able to find a way to ease things for your Dd, you both have my sympathy.

💐💐for you and your daughter. Hope she finds her tribe very soon.x

Is there an option of a different 6th Form? My child went to a 6th form college and it was absolutely the best thing we could have done. Fantastic teachers, much better environment, whole new peer group.

I’m so sorry your daughter is going through this. My own daughter is 2 years younger and has also struggled immensely with her mental health since the lockdowns. I don’t know if this would have happened anyway but it’s devastating to see our children suffer and also the unfairness of how they’re treated by others when we know they’d never mistreat these people.

I hope things improve in time for your daughter.

Your poor daughter but try and keep a lid on your feelings and focus on the future.
Is she going to a different sixth form to this girl? If not I'd seriously consider it as I think a fresh start may be a lot easier for her.
This is a good time for her to change things. Differences between childhood friendship groups become more obvious and it's a time for changing things up.

I'd try and take her out as much as possible. Book a cheap premier Inn in a university city she might fancy and have a girls night away (Sundays are usually best). Try a get her excited for the future and all that it might hold for a quiet, hardworking girl. And just give her a general sense that there's life beyond school cliques.

I would also encourage a part time job. It will test her but it did me the world of good in coming out of my she'll and learning how to put on a work persona. It also introduced me to a slightly older group and less of the school girl drama which I could never be bothered with. It sounds like she's quite grown up so might really flourish in a different environment

Teens can be so horrible to each other and the lock downs without face to face contact have not helped at all.

My DD is younger but returned to school to find her long term best friend no longer wanted to be friends with her. It was very hard for DD and hard for me to witness so I do know a bit how you feel.

As others have said there's no point dwelling on it. You need to empower your DD to move on to better things.

A different 6th form or college would be a fresh start.

A part time job could broaden her experience and allow her to mix with a different group of people.

Voluntary work, doing something worthwhile and that she enjoys, could boost her feelings of self worth.

It will be good for her to get her exams out of the way and then decide the direction she wants to go in.

Hopefully, becoming an older teen at college or 6th form, will mean less of the volatile friendship and queen bee rubbish.

I think mixing with more emotionally mature peers will help.

My DD is the same age, and a fairly similar thing happened to her, with her group combusting last Sept, and her starting from scratch.

I would say you are focusing on the wrong thing, but you know that. What this girl does or doesn't do is both out of your control, and of no use to your DD, since she has no desire to be her friend in any case. If she can move schools, do that, or else help her to create new friendships.

watch out for loneliness as well op. Which will only make her MH worse.

If you can invite kind friends, family and neighbours over that she knows well, and get her socialising in a low key way where nothing is expected of her so to speak. Every weekend try and organise something for a few hours, so she is becoming more and more exposed to different social situations, play them down. Aunt Batty is popping in for tea or Betty next door is coming over for tea etc. Just announce it, don't ask her, and gradually she should improve and broadening it out to other people's houses, restaurants and a theme park etc perhaps.

A local job would be beneficial as others have said, even in a charity shop steaming the clothes, so she can get her confidence back slowly and without pressure.

School can feel all consuming - especially if that is her only form of interaction. I would be encouraging outside sports/hobbies/dance class etc whatever she is interested in to help her further.

I hear you and hope that you can find a good solution for your daughter come September.

We're in the same position. Queen Bee decided she wanted my DD out of the group so they're all been ignoring DD for over a month. Kids that have been her friends for 5 years. This week, in-between morning and afternoon GCSE exams my DD is going for a walk alone and then sitting in the school toilets to avoid them in the exam queue and school bus.
She doesn't want to return for 6th form - her plans have all changed based on the power and shitty behaviour of one girl. One of the others in the group said to her that she doesn't want any hard feelings and then made a sharp exit as Queen Bee arrived.

We can only be there for them, access support and fight their corner (whilst wanting to give the perpetrators and their parents a HUGE piece of our minds!!!).

Mine will find an alternative place for A levels and I hope that you DD finds a place where she can feel comfortable and make some nicer friends. Sending you support. xxx

Thank you so much for your kind replies, I was thinking I might get flamed for spitting venom at an innocent child! We also have no way of knowing that this wouldn't have happened if lockdown hadn't occurred, though it definitely didn't help!

DD doesn't want to go to a different 6th form though we did consider it. She doesn't see why she should, this is one of the best schools in the area that offers the A levels she wants to do. While ex-friend and presumably most of her new group will be staying, she doesn't care. She's not scared of them, they are not bullying her (unlike @Bogofftosomewherehot DD's so called friends, they sound vile, I'm so sorry). She just has no interest in being friends with them and certainly not rekindling friendship with ex-friend. She says she's realised she's not a nice person and regrets wasting the last 5 years on her, especially now she's woken up to how damaging the friendship was long-term. It's sad the friend didn't return the support she gave to her, but it just confirms her feelings about her. On the other hand, I don't blame the girl for finding new friends, DD openly admits that she repeatedly refused invitations from her, although she was well aware DD had MH issues.

She has said she would like a job for the summer so am actively helping with that. We will do some nice things over the summer and hopefully she'll return to 6th form with more confidence. It's a big school and there are many in her year group she's never spoken as well as kids coming from elsewhere so hopefully she'll meet her tribe!

It will settle down in the sixth form. The girls tend to mature and start behaving more like adults, and they will be very busy doing A levels and working hard.

I imagine the other girl feels rejected and hurt, and is trying to 'show' your dd that she doesn't need her and has other friends. Underneath there is probably some hurt feelings there. I say that as it might help your dd to understand the other girl's position, if she feels that your dd has been unkind and dropped her (she was suicidal at different points you said) so it might be six of one and half a dozen of another. I often find this with teen girls, there are immense areas of grey!

Encourage dd to be nice and civil towards her old friend, and not to judge her too harshly - it has been a really difficult time and a good friendship of five years is never wasted, and she continue looking out for new friendships that she is more suited to. Just flagging it might be the anxiety making her feel worried about a new sixth form, and not because she likes her current school so much?

I hope it works out well, and you can plan together a happy summer that will encourage her to blossom and recover her confidence.

So so tough op and I think this age group were among the hardest hit by lockdown.

I think it's worth helping her remember that her friend is also a teenager who has had a very tough two years ...only because anger can eat us up. Its a classic age fir friendships to change.

The best time of my life was going to sixth form and getting away from the bitchy atmosphere of a girls school.

Looking back I can see we were all responsible. There is no demons and angels really. But I totally sympathise witj rage about lockdown

OP - I have no advice, but just wanted to tell you that you are not irrational at all! This is your dearly loved child. You’re quite right to have a red mist after everything her beastie (sp deliberate!) has put her through. The only halfway useful thing I can say is that it won’t always be like this. Counselling will help. Other girls might arrive for sixth form. There will be different friends after school and in University. I know this doesn’t help now, sorry 😣

I honestly didn’t realise it at the time, but my daughter looks back on her 6th form experience with sadness. She had a close friend at the time who seemed to be struggling with friendships. My daughter really supported her as a certain group of ‘popular’ girls were really not nice to her. My daughter was popular but not fussed about being considered one of the ‘in’ crowd. They spent a lot of time together at school and outside. Then apparently this friend managed to be accepted by the ‘popular’ crowd and just dropped my daughter. She says she had no idea why and it knocked her confidence, especially since they were both in a small subject group. Fortunately my daughter did have a few other quite close friends, one in particular who remains a very good friend 20 years later.
I really feel for you and daughter but perhaps all you can do is encourage other friendships and activities which would help her develop more self esteem and confidence. Not easy I know if they are possibly going to still see each other every day. As we go through life we realise that some people and friendships just fade and we only realise this when we look back in later years.

Yanbu to feel that way. Its painful to watch your child experience that. I went through the friendship loss at that age, my best friend took a dislike to me and her cronies joined in. I was isolated but then developed other friendships - ones I still have many years later.

Looking back I think it had to happen. I was different from my former friendship group and they knew it - I found my tribe in the end.

Growing up can be painful, she's lucky to have a mum that fights her corner x

More support here, and I think you may well find that your daughter finds her tribe in 6th form. One of mine struggled hugely throughout secondary until 6th form. Bright but not sporty which wasn’t too cool, but the maths/further maths groups in 6th form turned out to be their soulmates. They are now very late 20s and still meet up with the same group of mates when they are in the area. The division into subject groups in 6th form can be a real blessing for kids that struggle with friendships.

Such a tough situation but this is no friend! I t does sound sad but I am glad for your DD that she can now move on to sixth form and ditch this toxicity. I couldn't have been more miserable around my school prom and I am sure I wasn't alone. And nor is your DD. It's such a tough age but a new start is around the corner. A holiday job sounds great as it will give her purpose and self esteem.

This exact thing has happened to my dd too. Her mental health has become so bad that two weeks ago she took an overdose. Last week her group called her, all together, and basically slated her and sis they didn't want to speak to her again. It's led by two girls in particular who have done it in turn to every girl in the group but no one dare stand up to them. I've been very close to going to their houses this week and telling them exactly how vile they are. But I know it would do no good.
Just have to focus on trying to get dd better-but all she can focus on is being upset about these girls -who don't deserve her time.
It's so bloody awful.

So glad to have found this thread. Going through something very similar with daughter constantly in all weekend with no plans and me just feeling so sad for her.

hugs to you both