Ruining our daughters holiday

[ThatElatedGreenAnt]

Our daughter (19) had her drink spiked over xmas in a club and ended up in hospital.

Thankfully her friend group as soon as she said she felt weird rang us and an ambulance to the club. We met her at hospital and it was absolutley awful. She didn't know where she was who we were etc.

Anyway she's currently on holiday with her friends (same group) and me and dad cannot stop panicking, messaging her etc to the point she's called us last night saying we are ruining her holiday by checking on her so much, which I think we probably are. She's taken all the bits dad has bought her (drink covers, special straws etc) but we are both just acting completely insane about her safety.

We have said today we will only text her in the evening once she has messaged us, but has anyone got any ideas of how we can calm the fuck down. She's there for one more week but we are literally driving ourselves insane.

I understand, and have a lot of sympathy for you, but you must let her be.

The reason I rarely tell my mother if something goes wrong in my life is because if I do, I have to deal with her excessive reaction as well as my own stuff and it's just too hard.

I know it's difficult but try to support her and let her get on with her life rather than forcing her to support you. Look to others for your own needs.

Think rationally - If she’s going to get spiked again then she’s going to get spiked again. You messaging her every 5 mins will not make a blind bit of difference to this.

Also, as @TooManyCupsAndMugs said, the fact it’s happened before is, in a way a good thing, as she will be hyper aware of it happening again (unlike my DD who only says “yeah yeah” when I tell her to watch her drinks 🙄).

Calm down, let her enjoy her holiday.

This

I am sure she is being very vigilant. She's with her friends and trying to have a nice holiday, but she can't do that if you are constantly messaging her. It won't achieve anything anyway, other than put your own minds at rest in that moment, so that makes it about you feeling better and not her. Probably if she doesn't reply you start worrying and messaging even more, or calling her?
Of course it's natural to be anxious but the fact that it happened before will be making her take a lot more care.

I think acknowledging you are being ott is most important step. You just need to do whatever you need to do to prevent yourself texting. Meditate, distract yourself, text you dh instead and have a whinge about how hard it is. Anything apart from contacting dd.

As pp said she is with friends who did the right thing when she was spiked and after that happened I expect they have all become extra vigilant regarding drinks and anyone appearing spiked. I would probably say or write that to myself everytime I am tempted to text.

Hi op. I can identify with the worry as it’s a new stage of life when they go travelling with friends but you have to trust them. And you do get used to it. I felt terribly anxious when one of my DDs travelled long haul the first time she did it. She did it again last year and I was fine. So you do get used to this change.

Also, you don’t want to give them the impression that you don’t think that they are capable of looking after themselves. As that will undermine her own confidence.

I think you could try and keep in mind that the very friends she is on holiday with did the right thing when your daughter was in danger and are therefore very likely to do so again should the need arise. And odds are it probably won’t, especially as they will be very cautious now.

Also, I would use this as a catalyst to think now about your own life and maybe think about things that fulfil you and bring you happiness. This level of anxiety is not balanced and it would perhaps be beneficial to bring more enjoyable things in to your life? So you can occupy your mind with more positive thoughts ?

Finally, it’s unusual for both of you to have this level of high anxiety. I can appreciate it was very scary indeed for you to undergo that awful experience of seeing your dd in hospital like that - and thank heavens she was ok in the end - but it is more usual perhaps for men and women to deal with these things a bit differently. Was your dh over-protective before this incident I wonder?

This.

She has told you very clearly that you are ruining her holiday.

Your daughter is not there to manage your anxieties for you. That is your job. What do you think you're doing to her anxiety levels by mithering her constantly?!

Find something to do so you're not constantly thinking about it and stop texting your daughter.

Your feelings are understandable but your actions are not. It is not for her to deal with your feelings in this situation. She is trying to move on and you are stuck in the past incident. All of this is understandable but I can see how she will feel traumatised by you trying to drag her back to where you are. Have you thought about getting some counselling to talk through what happened before?

Your daughter is getting on with her life after an awful experience. Be proud that you brought her up to be resilient and strong and respect the fact that she is rebuilding her life and is moving on.

She has learnt from the experience, and you should too, your lessons are that you have to realise you can’t protect her from every eventuality and that she can manage her own life and problems.

Tell her to text you twice a day, to prevent the contract from you. Just 'OK', in the morning when she wakes up and at night when she goes to bed. And don't contact her yourselves. But warn her that if she does not do that, you will be bothering her friends via texts or phone calls - usually the prospect of being embarrassed like that works like a dream and she will text you twice a day

I'm sure it's not as easy as the ppl on here are making out. Hope youre all ok!! You too op. If someone did that to my child I'd find it hard to not worry all the time too. You're a good mum and I'm sure now your daughter has spoken to you, you will back off. You're clearly listening to her so give yourself a break . Your daughter knows you love her. Talk thru your worries with your husband when you're feeling anxious and im certain you'll figure it out. Wishing you all the best and wishing the safety of everyone out there with regards to this disgusting spiking of drinks situation.

You have to try and back off OP; if you carry on it will actually just drive her away. She’s having a holiday and her parents are hounding her with a traumatic memory!

Of course you’re worried but trust me, once something like that happens to you you are so vigilant about it. It sounds like she has a great group of friends too, who acted so quickly at the time, so she’s with good people!
Why not try a daily check in; it’s been a long time now but I used to send a quick ‘morning, all fine’ text home and then another in the evening. Try and stop any negativity coming through, lots of ‘have a great time!’s is what she needs!!

Thanks everyone. I'm very aware we are being OTT. We've been fine whilst she's gone out again in the country but now she's abroad we've gone a bit mental (we are aware we are being OTT as well) but it is her first time abroad alone as well so I guess that's added into the mix. Dad is very over protective anyway so I think he's just really riled up now. We have booked to go out this afternoon and apologised to her and said we will back off. She's sent loads of love hearts back and some photos and said to us she appreciates very much we care but she wants her sane parents back 🤣. Thanks everyone. X

Good grief. What would you be like if she went away to uni?

My friend's daughter was spiked on a night out. She's a police officer.
Fortunately, like your daughter, she has good friends, they realised what had happened, and looked after her.
You can't do any more than you've done, and l imagine she's anxious enough without your input, understandable as it is.
As PP have said, if this carries on it's going to seriously affect your relationship with her. Trust her and her friends and let her enjoy what's left of her holiday.

Your DD sounds lovely , she has good friends , has made the decision to go on holiday so getting on with her life and enjoying it .

And ....she's sent you a very positive message - with hearts so you know you;re out of the doghouse !

It is hard . My DC are adults and I worried about both ( as men can be spiked too) .

If I was her I would have blocked you.

Please please do not ask her for nightly / daily updates and reassurance. She is with friends who have proved themselves sensible and responsible.

A 19 yo should be able to enjoy an independent holiday, message normally and spontaneously if they want to send you a picture or something, without the burden of managing your worry.

You have been selfish. It isn’t ok to excuse this with being ‘caring’.

But I hope you are feeling reassured that you can calm down and all have a good week.

OP I think you have to tell yourself that no news is good news. Presumably at least one of her friends has your number, so you know that if there are any problems they’ll contact you. So with every hour that passes and you hear nothing, you know she’s fine.
Also, does she post on Instagram? That might be a way you can see she’s fine without contacting her directly.

Well done op!

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head there. It’s a big adjustment when they go abroad for the first time, even when they haven’t had a horrible incident like spiking happen to them!

You do get used to though and you don’t worry as much.

Also, many of us have dhs who distract or reassure us, but yours seems to be doing the opposite! A very good idea to go out and focus on other things for a while ; hope you have a great afternoon!

She got spiked once so you think she’ll get spiked this time? It doesn’t make logical sense.

Your poor DD. I can completely understand why you are so worried and appreciate why you are contacting her, as well as the fact that you recognize that you have to stop.

I agree with the PPs though about how you are making her feel worse in an attempt to make yourself feel better.

We went through a quite traumatic incident as a family and I could not tell my mother as I could not deal with her reaction.

She would not have been nasty, but concerned and worried and I would have ended up calling her every day to reassure her. I was at the absolute limit of my emotional range and I just could not deal with being her emotional support and hearing about how she could not sleep for worrying about us.

Her reaction would have come from a place of love, but the reality would have been that it would have made things a lot worse. I did not want to talk about the issue every day. I wanted to move on and gradually build up the positive moments in each day.

I found out later that someone had actually told her after the fact, and she asks pointed questions which I find very upsetting. We dealt with the situation in our own way and do not need reminding of it.

So please, understand that this is your problem. Your issue. And leave her alone to deal with it. She knows that you are there if she needs you.

You say you cannot stop yourselves, you can, it's a choice. A hard one of course but a choice. You aren't doing it for her, you are doing it so you don;t feel the feeling of terror that you have inside.

Christ yes op do that, make her responsible for your feelings. With any luck she will then meet a bloke that does the same thing, that usually turns out well.

What you obviously must not do in this situation is act like an emotionally mature adult and recognise it's not your daughters job to manage your feelings.

^^ I think this is a really good point to take on board for anyone parenting teens and young adults; not specifically addressing op here but more generally … but important to note that not only op’s dd, but her DD’s friends also felt able to contact her parents in a crisis, which is how you want it to happen.

It’s possible though to be so anxious about your dc that they don’t dare tell you anything for fear of your reaction. Or they don’t talk to you and ask advice about anything that’s controversial or worrying if they know you can’t control your own fear levels.

Sometimes they need us to be calm grey rocks or sounding blocks on to which they can offload and project their own worries.

I confess I got this very wrong in the early part of my parenting. And everything being on line doesn’t help as once they get a smart phone; so much of their life is cut off to you in a way, so you worry more ! So you have to instill the trust and responsibility before that point. It’s a fine balancing act and far from easy.

But warn her that if she does not do that, you will be bothering her friends via texts or phone calls - usually the prospect of being embarrassed like that works like a dream and she will text you twice a day

Good lord, how to fuck up your daughter in one easy lesson.