I’m really struggling with one of my DDs. She’s 16, in the last week of her GCSEs. There’s so much she’s unhappy with:
she has no idea what she wants to do as a career - she thinks it is completely unfair some people are just born into money and don’t have to work, whilst she will have to ‘slave herself into debt’ (her words not mine) to stand a chance of getting a decent paying job. She has hardly worked towards her GCSEs, despite us trying to encourage her. She does enough to pass and that’s it. She’s always been like this.
she only has one friend - a friend she doesn’t confide in because the friend lost her mum to cancer 2 years ago, so she feels selfish sharing her own moans. Prior to Covid she feel out with another girl she had been close to, and this girl turned everyone against her so she’s really down to one friend. They barely see each other out of school.
She has dreadful eating habits, and is now carrying too much weight and her skin is awful. We can’t even mention any of this, even in terms of her feeling better if she ate more nutritious food. She just yells and gets really upset.
Not a day goes by where she doesn’t come and say how down she is, but gets furious if I try to ask her why, or try to suggest things for her. She’s started a part time job in a cafe but the temper before and after make it almost not worth it (I think it will do her good to have a change of scenery and speak to people). She refuses to quit the job if I tell her she can if she wants.
As a family we’ve had some traumatic stuff over the years - been in a major earthquake, I had a heart attack, husband was possibly going to get kicked out of his job - could it be PTSD? I have got doctor’s appointments for her but she point blank refuses to actually speak to the doctor.
What can we do? She says she just wants comfort, not solutions. I’m happy to comfort, but it’s tearing me apart and pulling me down horrifically having her constantly loudly verbally unhappy and negative towards everything. I try saying ‘that must be tough’ etc. but it feels like empty words, and to me doesn’t solve anything. I honestly do not know what to do.