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.

She will be scared too. It's her it happened to, and it's so difficult to put yourself back in that situation.

You do not need to be making her any more scared. You are not helping her. You are damaging her.

She has learned ways to protect herself (however much she shouldn't bloody have to!) and she is a lot safer. She's learned the hard way that people in this world are cruel and ruthless. She is trying to get on with her life, and you absolutely have to let her.

Hi OP. What a terrible thing to happen. It will take a while for everyone to settle after such a horrible incident. I agree with others about her being sensible and with good friendship group. That should help. So I'm going to give you more practical advice.
Try to allocate short periods where you pledge not to think about your daughter on holiday. E.g. say I'm not going to give the anxieties about the holiday any headspace for 30 mins. Then any time you find yourself thinking about it immediately stop and distract yourself. Tell your husband to do the same so you are both blocking any thoughts at the same time and supporting each other. Go a walk, for lunch, anything. You can do this! You know you need to for own health, sanity and enjoyment 💪🏼

I work with university students, many of whom are excessively anxious - the most common cause of which by a country mile is an excessively anxious parent.

Anxious parents directly or indirectly teach children that the world is a big bad scary place, people are inherently hostile/untrustworthy and they don’t have the skills to cope with adversity.

As parents is our duty to take responsibility for our own thoughts and feelings and not allow them to lead to behaviours which impact our children. We don’t need to speak every worry out loud to them, or seek reassurance constantly by checking or monitoring everything they do.

Fair play yyo you for backing off a bit, but dont be looking for daily updates etc.while she's on holidays r ever tbh. She's an adult.

If I was her I would have temporarily blocked you by now until I got back. And told you about it so you’d know why you don’t get a response.

trust her and trust her friends. They realised she'd been spiked, arranged an ambulance and called you.

They are all aware of the issues. Back off and trust them.
Of course you worry, but you need to keep that between you.

Im sorry for your frightening experience but the fact that you are BOTH like this is very extreme and you should seek professional help for your anxiety

Remember that all the panicking in the world will not keep your daughter any safer. She has learned a massive lesson and it’s over to her now. Easy for me to say I know. I needed to learn the same lesson when my DS started doing drugs and really crazy stuff when he was about 16. I had to let him find his own path. I supported him to get some help, some advice and some proper support. that’s all I could do. That’s what you can do for your daughter and sounds like you have done this already. Now time to leave her to it.

This. Totally understand how you feel, I'd be exactly the same. You've just got to be grateful that she is wirh responsible friends and just try and keep busy until she's home.

It isn't easy when you've had a scare like that though. Please ignore posters sneering and mocking .

PS i agree re the anxiety which is a big disabling for you both. CBT was an enormous help for me as I was like this too (like you with good reason!). also anti anxiety pills helped 🙂

I was spiked once. It was horrible and took a while to go out again. The last thing I would have wanted would to be constantly reminded of it.

Alternatively, they had a very bad experience and it is absolutely understandable that they are worried so give the op a bit of slack rather than telling her off, hmm?

Many overly anxious students that I know are anxious because of the very poor support that they get from university staff but i digress.

You really need to try and stop and keep the anxiety to yourself as you are passing it on to her.

It’s completely normal to feel this way . I sympathise - different situation but my 18 year old is autistic and started to do some journeys alone ( to and from college and the odd bus into town ) . I am so worried but I have to let them go a bit . I was like this - texting and calling constantly - and I noticed they were becoming more anxious. I track them and then just try to keep myself busy .

Your daughter will be on alert anyway - she would not have enjoyed the experience so won’t want it happening again. As hard as it is to accept , we simply cannot keep our children safe all the time. Keep your phone on , have an agreement to check up at a certain time and then just try to keep yourself busy .

“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.”

Get a life. Literally. Go out for long walks, launch a DIY project, meet up with friends, anything that distracts you from being THAT parent. Maybe some therapy?

@ThatElatedGreenAnt 100% YABU.

She is clearly with a sensible group of friends who recognised something was wrong when the spiking happened so should there be the highly unlikely event of it happening again, then they'll know what to do.

Let the poor girl enjoy her holiday.

Your and your husband's anxiety and catastrophizing is you and your husband's problem. She has asked you to stop.

It happened a couple months ago and here you are bringing it up to her with your check ins multiple times a day.

You and your husband need therapy. This is not a healthy response.

These responses don’t make any sense to me.

OP has had a fucking terrifying experience with her dd getting spiked and being in hospital.

This happens all the time. My 18yo is a first year student and in freshers week, someone got spiked at a pretty tame on-campus event that was only for first years! So it was another 18yo that did it

OP I would text an apology to your dd and ask her if she could just text you the word “ok” at the end of each night.

We have said today we will only text her in the evening once she has messaged us

Cant you see that even that is going to feel claustrophobic? She’s never going to be truly relaxed on holiday, because at the back of her mind she’s always going to have your expectation of a message at some point every day! Try and rest assured that her friends have her back. It sounds harsh, but you need to leave her alone! It’s not a holiday for her if she’s having to manage your anxiety. Don’t make her message you every day. You will stultify communication between you, if it becomes a duty. Let her spontaneously contact you when she wants to, to send a photo or say what s nice time she’s having. And if she doesn’t, it’s only a week!

When mine were away at university, I got twitchy if I hadn’t heard from them for a couple of weeks and would message on some pretext or other. Just seeing it had been read was enough! As with so much of teen parenting, you have to feel the fear, and let them do it anyway….

They don't 'need therapy'. The dd ended up in hospital it is absolutely understandable that they are anxious.

The op knows they need to stop panicking, she is asking for strategies on how to cope not multiple tellings off.

Getting professional help is a strategy to cope with future incidents like this. People understand why she is scared but this is not a good way for any of them to live their lives. Anyone who has had a traumatic experience has to find a way to cope with it

And what pray tell would professional help offer? They would agree that yes they have had a very worrying experience and it is natural that they will struggle for a while but strategies such as relaxation exercises and distraction would help.

I'd try physical activity op, lots of walking and or running/cycling with a loud playlist.

And therapy is how they learn to cope without making their extreme anxiety and catastrophizing their daughter's issue too.

They're being wildly unreasonable, they're ruining their daughter's holiday, they're bringing up an incident that is over two months old to her multiple times a day.

I think there's also control issues underlying some of this behaviour. All this needs to be addressed with a mental health professional to get insight into their behaviour and techniques to help them.

Therapy can help you work through your trauma and change your thought processes around it so it no longer takes over your mind.

Worst advice I think I’ve seen so far on MN.

@Gloriia Was there any need for the snarky “pray tell”? People are just offering different solutions in an attempt to help OP and her familty