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

Good for you. You're not her punchbag.

I don't think you should have told her that she'd turned into her father. There are all sorts of complex physiological implications for your mother telling you that. You, after all, opted for her to have half his genes and his influence. Completely agree that you should confront her though but without those words. Criticism should be of her behaviour, not of her character.

Well done OP! If she is prepared to play ball then you can still be the supportive parent going forward, all you've done is give her the wake up call she needed. Hopefully she can get therapy and work through whatever is going on with her.

My pal had issues with 19 yr old not verbally abusive just not pulling weight at home. After many warnings she told him he had 10 days and on X day she was clearing his room out, changing locks etc and he would no longer live with her. She also said she loved him would always be there for him etc but didn't want him to live with her because of his choices. And guess what...he pulls his weight now and all is well

Seriously.

I would imagine the OP is pulling her hair out after all she's been through and is simply reacting to how her daughter has treated her!

Don't judge until you've walked in her shoes!

The person who loves her most - you - is the one best placed to challenge robustly on her behaviour. She doesn't have the right to go through life without ever having her feelings hurt while she tramples over everyone else. If she is turning into her father, who she thinks behaves appallingly, then she needs to be told this, so she can take stock of her behaviour and change it.

It is horrible confronting your child if you are a non-confrontational person. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. Don't back down or apologise for what you said. You can say sorry that it hurt her but nothing else was getting through and she needs to realise for her own sake, how her behaviour impacts on others, just as she feels how her father's behaviour impacts on her. Remind her she is not her behaviour. Behaviour can be changed. You love her, but you can't stand her behaviour and it needs to change.

She has, up until this point, been completely unthinking of how her behaviour is received by you and her siblings. She has no empathy for how you are all feeling. By pointing out the similarities in her behaviour with her father, she now has a reference point as to how she felt when she was being treated that way.

If this is true, stand by what you have said. She is an adult and needs to know how her behaviour is perceived and how it impacts others.

This is a critical time for her. She could well become a parent herself in the coming years and that cycle needs to be broken.

To all the people who are condemning what you said, your husband was a 19 year old once. Look what not addressing his aggression has resulted in.

A 19yr old who has spent the first 16yrs of her life in a domestic abuse living situation, has a history of severe depression (unable to get out of bed, refusing school), and erratic angry self-destructive behaviour should not be tossed onto the streets simply for this exacerbating and amplifying teen obnoxiousness.

The #1 symptom of cPTSD caused by childhood trauma is rage, which is what the DD is showing.

If you think “moving out” to the streets is the course a loving mother should take with a traumatised 19yr old struggling to cope, you are mistaken and your advice is both reckless and potentially life destroying.

Hi, OP.

Use whatever emotionally blackmailing language she uses against her. Oh, she feels hurt? How about YOU constantly feeling hurt, disrespected, humiliated etc. Maybe use the language first before she even has a chance to do it. No matter how you feel don't apologise or appear weak. Would she ever apologise? No, because she is always right. Also there is also the chance she will rub it on your face if you do apologise.

Excellent post.

You did the right thing. Let her think about it for a while. Sometimes you need a shock like that to really buck up your ideas. Be truthful with her next time she acts up, tell her her siblings are frightened of her, tell her she’s awful to live with, but that you love her and this behaviour can’t carry on.

You gave her tough love. Nothing to feel guilty for.

Fight fire with fire.
That's constructive way to create positive change. 👏 🤦

At what point does a "child" become a person who should take responsibility for themselves and their behaviour? If this was a male 19 year old being abusive to his mother would everyone just say its OK just keep supporting him as he probably just has issues or SEN? And when he then moves out he becomes abusive to his own partner and the cycle continues. Because, you know, its because of his SEN and upbringing that this now 45 year old man is abusing his wife in exactly the same way his dad (and him) did to his mother. At some point people need to accept their behaviour is wrong and they should be pulled up on it. So I don't see why because this is a female 19 year old that it should just be allowed.
There's only so many times you can have the gently softly conversation: "now darling I know you're sad about dad/school/insert other issue here and I know that's why you've just called me all the names under the sun but I still love you and I'm asking you nicely to please stop saying horrible things" all the while they're screaming abuse in your face on a daily basis and you're meant to just sit there smiling and saying please darling I understand how sad you are..... etc etc.

My father was a c*nt. I'm not I lost my temper with my mum once and she said the same thing to me. Our relationship changed that day and has never been the same since (decades later). My mother chose to marry the prick and allow him to make our childhood a misery I had no choice until I left home. In my experience my mother was too frightened to ever stand up to my dad. Once he died she then used me as a proxy to say all the things she wished she'd said to him as a way of kidding herself that she is stronger than she is. Think what saying You are like your father actually means - you are basically saying you want her out of your life.

I think you know it was wrong to say she is turning into her father.

No one turns into someone else. You are primed to see similarities and it's not helpful. She's not your husband. This is not your marriage. She can be a very unpleasant person in her own way without it being linked to someone she knows you dislike.

I would apologise for that part.

@Rafferty10 is absolutely right, @sickout - I think you have drawn a much needed and very important boundary.

Maybe you could say to her that you know she isn’t her father, and she hasn’t turned in to him. So you are sorry she is hurting but there is something true in what you said that she needs to know. That the behaviour can be similar, and the experience of being with her can be like the experience of being with her father. It sounds like she hasn’t fully realised she has become something she hates, maybe she thinks she comes over differently. But you can tell her, look, I know you and you aren’t your father, now is the time to change if you don’t want to be like him, and to take up some of the help that’s been offered to her.

This is toddler level psychology OP.
You separate the behavior from her ´essence’ as a person.
So absolutely tell her that some of her behavior is like how her father used to treat you. Tell her that you left her father because of the way he treated you, and that if she continues to treat people this badly then people won’t want to be around her either.
What’s her plan for next year? These things may well improve when she moves out.

The point is that her behaviour is just like her father's, and her behaviour is very much her cross to bear.

What you were really saying is that she was repeating his behaviour patterns not that she is him literally. You can make that clear to her.

When people are abusive they do need to be told they are abusive so that they can look at their behaviour and make a decision if they change.

I would suggest you offer her support to deal with behaviour. You could get in touch with www.respect.U.K.net. They have a programme to address CAPVA - ‘children and adolescent to parent violence and abuse’ called ‘Respect Young People’s Programme’ details here: https://www.respect.uk.net/pages/114-capva

"I feel absolutely awful."

Why?! You have done what is, in my mind, EXACTLY the right thing. You have probably invested in her future better than if you had bought her premium bonds. You have stopped her in her tracks and told her the TRUTH. It is SHE who should be feeling awful for what she has put you through.

Well done, OP, is all I can say. I think this was a very wise statement.

I think you need a calm, non-accusatory conversation where you point out a few examples of how her behaviour is like her father's, but put it all in the context that you love her and you believe she is capable of better. As PP have said, separate her behaviour from her as a person. Be prepared to listen to her and encourage her to express how she is feeling when she is so nasty to you, but also be prepared to ask whether she is aware of how much it hurts you and her siblings.

Well she's acting just like him, so I don't see a problem in telling her that at all.

What you were really saying is that she was repeating his behaviour patterns not that she ishim literally.

Well obviously because she couldn't LITERALLY be anyone else now could she.

No but there’s a difference between saying some has the same character as their parent or is simply echoing some of their behaviour patterns.