Feel guilty about what 19 year old daughter said to me

[sickout]

My 19 year old girl is regularly ride, verbally abusive and can be downright nasty to me and her siblings.
Dad left a few years ago and she's never recovered.
She refused school, refused to get out of bed, refused to do chores .
It has been a horrendous time.
She is now in a place where she still Ives at home and is about to do exams.
I can't believe she is actually doing them such was her anger and school refusal.
She refused counselling or any intervention besides the GP who basically told her to pull herself together or take the support offered.
Her anger and refusals have never stopped her from socialising, holidaying or spending time with friends.
Believe me, I tried everything to support and manage her.
She had turned into her father.
Lacks empathy, selfish and very aggressive and verbally abusive at times.
But only to us in the home.
My other two children have SN and they simply irritate her. She has no input into family life unless it involves holidays, nice food etc r whatever she wants to do.
She is a taker.
It saddens my other children and I very much.
I have tried discipline, taking money away, taking phone away, talking, asking her aunts to talk to her , school involved , GP, psychologist etc .
Nothing has worked.
She is so untidy and has no respect for the home of anyone's belongings .
I love her of course but at times I do t like her behaviour. I'm disappointed at times and she can shock me .
When she is verbally nasty, I feel triggered . I freeze normally. It's like being squared up to by her father . My youngest child with an has started to do the same .
Last night she started again and out of nowhere I said that I would not tolerate being verbally abused by her , that she had turned into her father and that she needed to leave my room.
She was visibly shocked and very hurt.
It stopped her in her tracks .
She cannot stand him either and his verbal abuse and shouting and criticising frightens her.
I feel absolutely awful.
She said that it was a terrible thing to say and she was very hurt.
What do I do here ?
The truth is that she is a carbon copy of him and all the family therapy and work has been centred on dealing with his anger and emotion outbursts and negativity .
Thanks

To be honest this is actually really common when an abusive parent has left the home. Often children and young people really struggle to adjust to the calmer atmosphere in the home and they can find themselves subconsciously recreating the tension that the abusive parent brought to the household because when the house is tense it makes sense that they feel tense inside. Their circumstances match their feelings if that makes sense. I would link her in with a woman’s aid worker. You've been on the receiving end of her father's abuse and I'm so glad you're free from that now as you deserve to be, but he's made her witness to it and there is trauma that comes along with that. Your daughter will have really complex feelings about her father leaving and it sounds like she's bottling it all up and it's overwhelming her. She's over 18 so you can't force her to do anything but I would go back to her. Ask her how she felt about what you talked about and what she thinks she would need in order to feel happier at home. I'd tell her you love and support her but that you're all equally responsible for making your home a happy and safe one. I'd suggest counselling or if talking is not her thing then some other sort of outlet like gym/art/ music etc etc and you'll support her to engage with that. You've all been through a really horrible time and it's important to acknowledge that you'll all process it in different ways at different paces.

Some of these responses are bizarre. She is an adult making the lives of her mum and siblings a nightmare. By the sounds of it she is acting like her father, why shouldn't she be told this? She obviously needs a reality check before she carries this behaviour into a relationship and parenthood.

SN cannot and should not be used as an answer to bad manners or bad behaviour, if that was the case nobody would be responsible for their actions. If we allow SN to be the reason for everyone's behaviour we won't need Courts or law's, we can all do and say as we please.

The only useful basis for any worthwhile life is truth.

You can love her and still hold a mirror to her behaviour (do it calmly and with love)

You can hold a mirror to her character as it currently is and still show understanding that she has absorbed his style of emotional expression and attitudes because she was a developing person when his influence was strong.

You can sympathise with that harsh reality even as you draw her attention to the fact that this is not set in stone and she could change it. If his influence is not what she wants to shape the person she is, the only person who can change that is her and it will require some effort to break long standing habits - she might need to leave home to break free from the dynamic of old.

You can recognise the effort and desire has to come from her and still cheer her on and encourage her if she chooses to try.

I hope things improve, awful that his legacy is this, but she's young still and there is reason to be hopeful.

Yes it will have been hard for her to hear that, but that doesn't make it abusive, sometimes we have to confront a horrible truth even if it is painful, it isn't your job to protect her from pain at the expense of understanding her reality which she can shape differently... If you criticized a quality she neither chose nor could change (like if she looked like her father for instance) that would be different.

I thank those for their advice to sit with her today and talk about it but I would still like some recommendations for how best to deal with this explosive anger, rage, disrespect, lack of care or empathy for anyone but hwrsefl ?

I used to have an explosive temper. Through therapy what I realised was that every emotion was expressed as anger. (DM was the same, so I learned a the knee really.)

Then when I would feel the anger rise, I knew enough to recognise that there's usually always an underlying emotion triggering that response. If I can identify that, and consider it for a few minutes, the anger seems to evaporate. So if I see my anger as say, feeling taken for granted, jealousy, hurt, fear, stress etc, I start to explore why I'm feeling that emotion. It usually tied back to an insecurity within me rather than what the other person has said or did.

The times when I am genuinely angry, I control it by stepping away to think about how to construct why I'm angry in my head, how to articulate why I'm angry. By that stage I can usually communicate it calmly - and then if it gets heated I park it and return to the conversation when I'm calmer.

It's not 100%, but 95% of the times I would have previously gotten angry I genuinely don't any more. And the other 4% it's controlled and calm, and maybe 1% I might let rip but whoever it was bloody deserves it

Well said @Ilovetea42

@sickout I genuinely believe that you acted absolutely as best as humanly possible in the horrible abusive environment that your husband is entirely responsible for but I think you are underplaying the impact that their father’s behaviour would have had on your children and the trauma they experienced. Entirely your exs fault btw but the trauma is clearly there.

When people talk about inter generational trauma they are speaking about exactly what you are experiencing. Likely your ex experienced similar shit in his life and now your DD is reacting to the same in her life.

You could not possibly have protected your kids from his failings, my MIL thinks the same as you as DHs father was abusive but she is not correct, her 3 children have trauma responses resulting from being in that environment.

So to answer your next thing your I think your DD needs trauma informed therapy to process and learn how to regulate her emotions.

It makes sense that someone who has been verbally abused as a child then turns into a verbally abusing adult. This is not her fault and you need to make that clear. But you also need to make it clear she needs to change for the better.

You sound surprised she has turned out how she has and that she is the root cause of this. Your job is to build up her self esteem not tear it down.

The way I'd approach it is to sit her down, talk to her about her father's abuse and recognise that she was a victim of that too - whether she was directly a target or whether she witnessed his behaviour growing up. Then explain that it is not ok that she is replicating that behaviour and that is simply not acceptable. Recognise the trauma but hold her accountable for her own actions. I hope you manage to find a brighter future for all of you.

Her reaction shows you said the right thing. Looks like she doesn’t want to be a carbon copy of her dad but the teenage strops have gone on for long enough.
Shes 19, an adult. She needs to recognise that.
Can you take her out for coffee without the other children, tell her you were proud of her as a child and you want to be proud of her as an adult. She’s the second adult in the household, the DC will take the cues from her so you and she need to work together. Say you’re calling a truce and the agreement is no verbal abuse. If there’s a problem one if you says a phrase that means you’re unhappy and need time out or a chat. My DH had PTSD ( services) and this worked when he was stressing.

I think you should clarify that she is acting like him to you, that you feel the same way he made you feel. I think you need to separate her behaviour from who she is. She isn't a carbon copy of her father. She Is angry and acts like him.

I don't know you, or your ex or your children but some of the behaviours you've described and the other information provided are making me wonder if it's worth you looking into Autism, it's thought to be largely hereditary, often displays quite differently in females and is also different from how it affects/displays in every individual.

Autism also has different profiles such as PDA, which can make it very complex, it can stop people with it even doing things they want to and generally will appear as rebellious/naughty because demands & expectations including perceived are refused/ignored.

This combination would explain the school refusal, the outbursts, the similarities with the father, also your other children having SN and big changes can be a catalyst.

Perhaps look into it before taking any action as if this is the case it could be more fractious to discipline as you might a neurotypical person.

This is worded better! Totally agree with this. I do think you're 100% right to say she needs to move out, for both of your relationships and for her independence etc. Not because she is a carbon copy of her dad.

Nobody has said it's an 'answer' to bad behaviour. Where SN exists in siblings, it is a higher possibility that other siblings may also have SN, as yet undiagnosed. Undiagnosed conditions perpetuate unmanageable behaviour (the symptom). If you want to manage the behaviour, you need to understand what causes it first and foremost. It could of course just be entrenched personality and learned behaviour. Either way, though, you can only treat the behaviour when you understand the cause. A 19yo who demonstrates this level of aggression and dysfunctional behaviour and emotional dysregulation has unmet needs that are unlikely to be 'corrected' through punitive measures - especially as she is now an adult.

Gosh you’re living up to your username there aren’t you? Of course it’s not damaging! It’s just the reality and she needed to hear it. I am also wondering if she is an ASD ‘masker’ because it would explain her behaviour. But even if she is, she needs to hear that her behaviour is not acceptable.

@ChopperC110P

she isn’t a child though
she is at an age wherein if she cannot behave she can move out

19yo with two SN siblings and a father that walked out refused school, is now behind in life, and is resentful and lost her way. Good job OP you show her!
She's been an adult for a whole year, it's obviously all her fault now.

What has been said has been said and you cant take it back. I once said I thought my then husband had some behaviours of his father early in our marriage. From my husbands point of view I could not have said anything more offensive. At the time I didn’t realise he thought so badly of his father and I hadn’t meant it to be the ultimate insult, but more of an observation. So I can see how absolutely wounded your daughter would be.

Two points to mention. She is at the age when many stroppy teenagers behaviour could be similar to your ex, but she will most likely out grow some of them.

Also there is a danger that if you pigeon hole her as like her dad, this could become a slightly distorted lens thatyou will always see her through, and she may never see away of getting out from under it.

we can only be pushed so far, before we sometimes say things we regret. As some posters have said this maybe awake up call she badly needs. Or it may not.

Whatever, you need to handle the next few conversations very carefully. Some 19 year old girls can be very fragile.

Best of luck.

Of course it's not acceptable behaviour from her, OP.

However I'd be very careful about saying 'you are XYZ' to her - you are a taker, you are the same as your father, you are selfish etc. She probably has low self esteem relating to what happened with her dad. She probably thinks he was a bad egg and she's made half out of him so maybe he is too. If you believe bad things about yourself, you start acting badly too.

From you, she needs boundaries and to be told when she steps over the line - but also love and belief that she is a good person, just not doing the right things right now. So more 'I know you're a good person, I want you to stop this behaviour so we can enjoy spending time together' and less of the 'you're a carbon copy of your father and there's nothing you can do about it'

I think she had to hear that. Hopefully it will make her think of her effect on others (‘my father scared me so maybe I’m scaring my siblings’ etc). It seems likes the truth so it had to be said.

I, too, think you did the right thing. She’s an adult, albeit a young adult and she needs to know that this behaviour is absolutely not acceptable. With regards to your younger child, hopefully he will see that you’re dealing with your dd and stop behaving badly himself. I would have a chat with him now while he’s still reasonable and tell him how much it hurts you.

I expect those contributors know little about the psychology of trauma or abuse .

I have to say, I think the opposite is true. I certainly cannot imagine any trauma trained mental health professional talking along the lines of the "Yeah, you told her, well done. Chuck her out, the nasty little madam" posters. Can you?

You got really angry, understandably. She's pushed you beyond your limits. You do not deserve to be abused by her. You are both massively damaged by an abusive man, and now he has you turning on each other. This seems like a lose-lose situation for you and your DD, and it feels like he would somehow be 'winning' if your relationship with her broke down.

I think you've had some good advice about using this moment as an opportunity to start building bridges and working out how to move forward with some very clear boundaries in place.

You may have given her the wake up call she needed.
you often hear of men 'turning into their fathers' but not so much daughters.... but she needed to hear it.
And she needs to understand her behaviour is abusive.

Honestly I wish my mum had said similar to my sister.

But she didn’t and now she’s a 50 yo woman who won’t take responsibility for herself, lashes out at any unsuspecting person who happens to cross her mind when she’s throwing a fit, and at the root of it is a deeply ugly person on the inside.

I think it hit home for mum when she was dying and I made the comment that once she was gone I got to wash my hands of of my sister (which I have largely done for the past 12 or so years anyway) I think she envisioned some type of great reconciliation after she was gone. She didn’t have much to say when I asked her what I would get out of it besides belligerence and being used. She couldn’t argue that I was wrong and couldn’t offer up a benefit.