DD being ghosted by flatmate but still living together. WIBU for her to move out? Should the flatmate move out?

[Fluffytowels24]

Wasn't sure whether to post here or on the SEN board. DD is autistic, adhd, dyspraxic and dyslexic.
She's had to drop of out uni for a year due to MH issues. This includes the trauma of being bullied very badly at school.
DD met her friend, L, 3 years ago when they were freshers. They 'clicked' immediately and bonded over both having anxiety, as well as loads of other things. L is from our home town and it turned out they had a mutual friend although they'd not met till uni.
This year DD and L decided to move into a 2 bed flat, after both of them had lived in party houses. L was the first person DD told about having to drop out for a year, and L was really supportive about this, helping her look for jobs etc. L had deferred for a year last year and this is now her final year.
Their flat was meant to be a kind of safe haven for DD, somewhere she could heal before going back to uni next year.
About 10 days ago L started being very off with DD, barely speaking to her. DD, L and a few others went out for Halloween and L started acting normally towards DD, so DD assumed that whatever had upset L had passed. But then when they were back in the flat, L started shunning her again. She's absolutely ignoring her: won't say good morning, if DD tries to make small talk L literally ignores her. DD has messaged to ask L what is upsetting her, please can she tell her, and that she's very sorry for whatever it is that has caused her to start ignoring her. But L just reads the messages and doesn't reply.
When a mutual friend came round, L behaved completely normally towards him, then promptly went back to ignoring DD after he had left. So I don't think that L has gone into a severe depression.
DD is obviously really hurt and confused by this. She has written notes to L which L has totally ignored, leaving them where DD has put them out (e.g. in the kitchen).
DD has wracked her brains and really can't think of anything she has done to upset L. They've not had an argument or anything. DD is a good flatmate, she cleans up after herself, doesn't leave a mess etc. She and L spent a lot of time making the flat nice and homely when they first moved in. But now DD doesn't want to live there as she's got to share with someone who's literally ghosting her, but living with her.
They haven't lived together before but they went backpacking last year and had a really nice time; they seemed to be compatible in terms of sharing space, drinking levels, going to bed at similar times etc.
I am not sure where we can go from here -
DD has come home for a long weekend as a friend from school lost her mother and she had to go to the funeral. She doesn't want to go back to the flat now. (When DD told L why she was coming home, she just said 'OK' and didn't say anything about the funeral)

The lease is till June. I think it would be very unreasonable to expect DD to live in this environment for the next 9 months, being shunned and not knowing why.

If anyone has been in a similar situation I would really welcome any suggestions. Many thanks x

@Figsonit this is horrible, horrible advice that will likely cause way more stress for every single person involved.

Really? To ask L what's going on would be damaging? You're being dramatic.

Selective mutism.

From Wikipedia:
Selective mutism is an anxiety disorder in which a person who is otherwise capable of speech becomes unable to speak when exposed to specific situations, specific places, or to specific people, one or multiple of which serve as triggers. This is caused by the freeze response

I'm not diagnosing L but it is a possibility and just putting it here as you were not aware of it.
My dd is autistic and has this but we didn't know for years what it was until we heard about selective mutism on a news programme.

Of course I only have one side of the story.... I can't very well ask L for her perspective on how things are looking - I wish I knew what she was thinking then it might be easier to resolve this horrible situation...!

That's fair. DD has suffered from selective mutism on and off and her sibling also has it.

I think DD needs to ask her face to face; that is the crux of it really... and then she can see how L reacts and if L still just ignores her, then DD will just have to calmly advise that she can't live like this and is moving out - if possible, get out of the tenancy but stay in the city by renting elsewhere, but move home otherwise although she wouldn't like that much!

This is what is starting to worry me the most. All of DD's friends where she is living are quite new friends that she's met at uni. She hasn't known any of them for 10 years or more like her childhood friends, who'd just laugh if someone tried to badmouth her and turn them against her.
These friendships are more fragile and easier to manipulate. * *

@Mummyoflittledragon those situations both sound horrible 😕 the pack mentality scares me. It is very easy for people to turn on someone to remain in with the in crowd. This is what happened when DD was bullied at school; there was 1 kind of leader and she would constantly play games with the others, they all wanted to be on her good side and eventually the leader decided who the 'weakest link' was and DD became a sort of whipping boy for the group and was eventually shunned. The others in the group would fall out of favour with the leader if they associated with DD (the leader monitored social media for 'likes' etc.). It was extraordinary to watch it happening; how this one girl who was only about 12 managed to orchestrate this entire campaign of hate against DD.

@Fluffytowels24 You should bear in mind it's possible L is also neurodiverse and struggling. That doesn't mean you have to be okay with a situation that is upsetting and triggering for your DD, but you should be more wary of letting posters on this thread push you into dramatic overreactions. It is infinitely more likely that she is just struggling with her own stuff than that she is some evil plotting witch. You can't advise and support your DD well if you let yourself be swayed by people who have no real stake in the situation and are just here because they want AIBU drama. As someone who can understand both positions (ie I have been bullied, ghosted, and have dropped contact / ghosted others due to extreme stress in my own life when young, though I wouldn't handle things the same way now) I find it really concerning that you ignore comments that show any empathy for L and don't feed into your anger further. I'm not even saying you're wrong to be angry! It's natural that you are. But building this conflict more and more thanks to to goady posters will not actually help your DD. Major friendship drama is very destabilising and can take years to recover from, speaking from experience. A calm outcome is what you should aim for, not to try and "win" in a big dramatic confrontation with L.

OP is not responsible for what other posters write. You can report posts to Mumsnet if you think they contravene the posting rules/guidelines.

She is getting helpful advice from a lot of posters so this thread has been worthwhile for OP who is desperately worried about her own daughter's mental health. OP hasn't said these horrible things about her daughter's housemate. She is trying to find a reason why this is happening and help with how to deal with it.

The silent treatment and shunning from her housemat is horrible behaviour and two weeks is a long time to suffer this without it having a detrimental impact, particularly considering what OP's daughter experienced at school.

I don’t hate my ex for wanting to end our relationship
I hate him for the way he went about it, which included not speaking to me, not acknowledging I existed, but behaving like nothing was wrong if anyone visited.
This was over 20 years ago and I can still feel the visceral reaction to just recalling this.

L may have her reasons for wanting to end the flat sharing, it may be that the OP’s DD did something that triggered this.
But L’s way of handling it is cruel and damaging to the DD’s mental health.

i don’t know what the answer is but I would want my child out of that environment even if they didn’t have MH beforehand.

This is so horrible and must be very distressing for your daughter.

I remember going to a festival with two friends when I was 17. One of them just took some kind of dislike to me while there and started to exclude me and barely speak to me. To the point they walked off and left me on my own when I was zipping up the tent. It was all fine as I made some other friends.

However, not knowing what the issue was very distressing. To this day, I still have no idea what it was that I did or she perceived that I did and I still think about (which is very sad!). I think she had an issue with boy she liked speaking to me, but I have no idea really!

We all went to all girls schools aswell so maybe it is a pattern.

Thank you for writing this.
I have found this thread incredibly helpful and yes, I am desperately worried about DD. Xx

Sorry that happened @Loub1987. I am glad you made new friends!!! Sounds terrifying. Its the not knowing that is the worst; although as PPs have said, L is clearly not wanting or able to explain why she is ghosting DD so we need to just move past that and look at the practicalities going forward. X

Ok so you do understand, contrary to what you previously posted.

Op I get that you are upset and concerned for your DD, it's very distressing and as you've said your DD is autistic so she has extra challenges.

However I don't understand why you are so quick to assume L - who was up until a couple of weeks ago one of your dd's closest safest friends - has evil intent, and you willfully refuse to see she may be struggling herself with the very same problems your own DCs experience.

I understand people with no experience of autism or selective mutism assuming L's motives are intentionally against your DD but not for someone with a ND dd.

You want people to have empathy and understanding for your DD but you yourself don't have any for L. I get that she might be being nasty and vindictive but since we don't actually know that for certain, isn't it worth really seriously considering other options that have nothing personally to do with your DD?

Selective mutism would not account for ignoring messages and notes though. I am so sorry for the bullying your dd suffered at school. That sounds horrendous. My dd is 16. I would be horrified if she were involved in something like that. As is, she has in the past told me about any potential bullying of classmates.

It's odd, when a woman posts her DH is giving her the silent treatment he's labelled abusive and she should leave but here we have a woman and she has selective mutism, ffs stop twisting yourselves in knots to excuse shitty behaviour because it's a woman.

I'm not saying she has selective mutism, I'm saying it's a possibility and if that's the case then the way forward and plan of action might look different than if it's an evil witch playing games.

I'm not giving L an excuse but the op is desperately trying to understand L's behaviour, I'm offering an alternative.

It's worth considering alternatives given we're talking about young people with histories of MH issues.

With respect, I'm posting on her as DD's mum. She is my priority right now, not L. I don't want to get into a bun-fight about how I'm not seeing this from L's perspective or how I'm ignoring the fact that she might be ND as well, or how I'm not taking her feelings into consideration. That isn't why I posted! I posted because I wanted advice about my daughter who is quite fragile and the moment and in a horrible situation that most people would find extremely disconcerting.

I don't need scolding from a complete stranger!

I politely replied to your post about selective mutism but it really isn't some kind of "gotcha!". I considered what I know of selective mutism and I don't think that this is what L has (she speaks in front of DD quite confidently, at normal volume, just not to her. As PP has also said, selective mutism wouldn't explain why L is ignoring the texts DD sent her, or the notes). I also don't think L is ND, from what I have seen of her (and we've been for meals and hung out a lot over the years; as well as me hearing all about her from DD). I wasn't going to write this because the next post will inevitably be "who are you to say L's not ND?!" Again, L is not my priority here. I don't wish her any ill-will, I just want to sort out this fucking mess and make sure that the fall-out is as minimal as possible for MY DAUGHTER.

I'm not wilfully ignoring anything; I've read all of the posts and have had some really great advice. So thanks to those posters, very much indeed x

It's good to know that there are some nice kids out there 😀 I wouldn't wish the bullying DD went through on my worst enemy, it was absolutely awful 😢

Thanks - have spoken to DD and she is going to try to actually speak to L and ask what is going on, and if L continues to ignore her, she's going to explain she can't live in this environment for the sake of her mental health and will be seeking to sub-let / re-advertise the room ASAP.

I'm sorry your ex was such a pig and I'm glad that he is your ex 😁 x

Keep us posted OP. DD has an army of mums who are all worried about her and wishing her well.

This type of thing happened to me a couple of times when younger and I was baffled. Both times it was within friendships that were quite emotionally intense, and probably too intense for me. I unwittingly didn’t live up to an expectation that I wasn’t aware was there. I failed a test of some sort and they clearly felt I had let them down. I think I probably have adhd as well.

Thank you very much, that really means a lot 🙏❤🥰 xxx

Sorry that happened to you. I have been ghosted but as an adult. It's horrible!! 😔 It makes you question yourself; which is the worst thing.