Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

I feel like my life is over!

114 replies

Melocoton · 12/12/2025 19:31

I am a single mum with a teen who is refusing to go to school as she has alopecia. I have to work and changed my job for a lower level job but which has better hours. When i get home, she has been in bed all day so I am cooking and cleaning and trying to do everything to keep the house clean and stocked with food. . I leave her craft activities as she refuses to do any school work ( GCSE year) and she wont engage with MH support on offer or wear the three wigs and numerous hats I have got her! I now find I cant have any friends over or go out ( I am a very sociable person and loved seeing my friends and family.)
I get that she is having an awful time and I am so sad for her but she is awful to me despite me trying everything. she has trashed the house and hurt me when she gets angry. I am sat crying on the sofa as some of my best friends are having christmas drinks this evening and i cant join them. she hates people drinking so cant have anything around her. I broke up with a partner of two years who I thought the world of as she refused to accept it and I cant date anyone as she wont acceot it.
I am
54 and appreciate I have to sacrifice things for her but I am also feeling so lonely and isolated.

OP posts:
HarbourClankCat · 12/12/2025 20:14

It sounds so difficult for both of you. As others have said, it also appears she may be trying to exert control on areas she feels she can control - including you. This doesn’t sound healthy for either of you. I think you need to start gently introducing some boundaries.

Is she a member of any alopecia online youth groups? I would imagine they exist snd might help gently start building her confidence.

A friend does a lot of work engaging school refusers in fun ways. Her opinion is that there is this huge push to get them out of bedrooms and offline immediately. But it’s often far better to meet them where they are through safeguarded sort of curated youth groups online that build confidence to meet ups etc.

Original poster
Melocoton · 12/12/2025 20:21

I really aporeciate your comments and its helped me validate that I need to take back some control as I have allowed her to have too much power for the sake of a quiet life! thank you all! I can also see that she needs to take some resposibility for whats going on and start being less demanding of me before it breaks me and I become bitter and resentful!

OP posts:
Original poster
Melocoton · 12/12/2025 20:22

I found a seventeen year old who also has alopecia and she has actually begun to speak to her!

OP posts:
Driftingawaynow · 12/12/2025 20:25

Regarding her aggressive behaviour, I really feel for you and strongly recommend You seek professional support for this which would be support for you rather than her so you don’t need to rely on her engaging. This was life changing for us. There are a bunch of organisations, but I recommend CAPA first response . The support they put in place would probably help with a number of things not just the aggression.

Pavementworrier · 12/12/2025 20:27

She sounds horrible. Don't give up everything for her because you'll soon have nothing.

CurlyhairedAssassin · 12/12/2025 20:30

Melocoton · 12/12/2025 19:50

its also extra worse as cant even have a single hlass of wine to chill out with as she goes mad about it!

Stop letting her control you. She needs to see that life isn't all about her. Sounds harsh but it's true. The more you succumb to her wishes the more stuck in a pit she is going to be. She needs to realise that things can happen outside her control but life still goes on and nothing bad happens to her. I feel you're just perpetuating her worries about EVERYTHING, it's almost as if by going along with what she wants is telling her that yes, she DOES have a right to be worried about it. Self-fulfilling prophecy.

Pavementworrier · 12/12/2025 20:31

I think her going mad about it would guarantee I'd be pouring myself a big 250ml Friday night red.

Shedeboodinia · 12/12/2025 21:12

Currently you are allowing her to control and manipulate you. It's no good for either of you to let it continue.
Bad things happen to good people even teens, she isn't the only teen in her school going through something terrible, albeit her hair loss is visible whereas bereavement or other things might not be. But it can not consume you both.
Get help yourself if she eon't get help, it might help her to see you doing it first

You need another person or you will end up in some weird dynamic where she never leaves the house and you are her enabler and slave.
Are there any support groups that you or she can join. There must be something. Mayne you can do together.
Even doing something like yoga or art class together, you dont have to be good at it, a beginners class you can do in something together to start the process of getting out the house and speaking to people?

Sciasca · 12/12/2025 21:27

First time poster here, I really feel for you & felt compelled to reply. I have alopecia myself (although it started in my early 20s so appreciate that I was not a teenage ball of hormones!). Developing alopecia is a blow but it absolutely does not give your daughter licence to be abusive, trash your house, or dictate how you behave in your own home. You’re being far too accommodating (too kind!), changing your life to suit this.
Your daughter can’t really refuse to ever again engage with the outside world; but just because she is choosing to (for now), she shouldn’t take you down with her.
I can’t speak to how to change her behaviours; physically, I don’t know the extent of her alopecia but the new JAKS inhibitors can be wonder drugs. But for you, life must go on, you’re in charge and she needs to accept that. Please go get a drink!

Evaka · 12/12/2025 21:32

Hope you're out with your friends OP x

Isayitasitis · 12/12/2025 21:34

Look up luscious locks they are an amazing charity for alopecia sufferers. The weaves and wigs they make are so real looking.

Original poster
Melocoton · 12/12/2025 21:34

I just got dressed uo a s she said she will make my life hell when I come back! thank you so much for posting alopecia sufferers she is about to start on Ciclosporin, currently sat crying my make up off again, my friends and a girgeius new love interest in pub and i am sat shaking!

OP posts:
Arraminta · 12/12/2025 21:35

In the very gentlest way, you're actually not giving her what she truly needs. Instead you're just giving her what she wants which is totally different.

Allowing her to dictate to you and call all the shots isn't actually helping her or even making her genuinely happy. Deep down she needs you to take back control and be the adult here. It will actually make her feel more secure and less anxious.

Quitelikeit · 12/12/2025 21:36

Send her to her fathers!

Why on earth do you allow her to speak to you this way?

AmyDuPlantier · 12/12/2025 21:39

Is there anything else going on here other than alopecia? Her behaviour is a million miles from normal.

Mulledjuice · 12/12/2025 21:41

Melocoton · 12/12/2025 21:34

I just got dressed uo a s she said she will make my life hell when I come back! thank you so much for posting alopecia sufferers she is about to start on Ciclosporin, currently sat crying my make up off again, my friends and a girgeius new love interest in pub and i am sat shaking!

She sounds like she is giving you a hard time anyway!

Go out - you need some time with friends and a change of scene.

PP are right. What are you going to do, sit in with her every evening til you die?

reversegear · 12/12/2025 21:45

Melocoton · 12/12/2025 21:34

I just got dressed uo a s she said she will make my life hell when I come back! thank you so much for posting alopecia sufferers she is about to start on Ciclosporin, currently sat crying my make up off again, my friends and a girgeius new love interest in pub and i am sat shaking!

Would that be something her father would have said? She sounds simply awful and she’s abusive. I think you need to get some support OP but well done for getting ready and please go out, can you confide in anyone what’s going on at home? It may help.

ComfortFoodCafe · 12/12/2025 21:45

Melocoton · 12/12/2025 21:34

I just got dressed uo a s she said she will make my life hell when I come back! thank you so much for posting alopecia sufferers she is about to start on Ciclosporin, currently sat crying my make up off again, my friends and a girgeius new love interest in pub and i am sat shaking!

Op if she carries on love maybe she should go and stay with family and give you a break? Can she stay at her dads? Does she have any grandparents?

Sagedragon · 12/12/2025 21:47

Why are you allowing you DD to dictate when you can have visitors or when you can go out? She I sold enough to be left alone for a few hours for you to meet up with friends.

MrsVBS · 12/12/2025 21:51

OP while your daughter is going through a tough time, you are the adult and parent, I’m always constantly amazed at the about of people who let their children dictate what happens. Yes it’s a shame your daughter has alopecia but that doesn’t stop you going out for drinks or having friends round. Set some boundaries and stick to them and don’t be a wet blanket.

user1496146479 · 12/12/2025 21:55

I voted YABU as you are for allowing this to continue

4forksache · 12/12/2025 22:05

I hope you have gone out. It’s hard but you can’t let her control you as she is doing. It’s not healthy to enable her by giving in. She needs to learnt the world won’t cave in if she loses a bit of control. Small steps at a time.

Frayededge44216 · 12/12/2025 22:33

Time for a bit of tough love op. It’s so easily done to identify with/validate/have such intense sympathy for teens that we go too far down the rabbit holes of anxiety and dysfunction with them.

I have huge sympathy for you as I let one of my teens take her anger and frustration out on me during Covid and looking back it wasn’t remotely acceptable. And it really got me down too. It didn’t help either of us is the point.

I know how it goes though. They are so up and down that you don’t want to set them off, so you accommodate and let them get away with things that in no way you would accept from a stranger.

Yes their brains haven’t finished growing yet, they don’t mean it personally, they are not fully aware of the effect their behaving is having on you and they need your love more than ever, but you also need to invite your friends home, be able to go out, and act as a good role model and demonstrate how an adult handles stress and enjoys life with positivity (within reason) and resilience.

Ultimately what you do , and how you live your life, is a million times more powerful then what you say.

mumofoneAloneandwell · 12/12/2025 22:38

Youre giving your kid too much power. Shes a kid and doesnt understand that you arent feeling strong within yourself

You will grow to resent her by doing this, when she is just being a teenager. She isnt forcing you not to go out or meet people, shes moaning about things that anxious teens moan about

You are the adult, not her. You can have friends, a life and she will fall in line once you start to get a routine going

Stop treating her like your enemy, she isnt forcing you not to do anything.

Best of luck with social services and cahms and her health journey

theriseandfallofFranklinSaint · 12/12/2025 22:42

Are you scared of your daughter @Melocoton? 😕