Friend brainwashing child into 'mental illness'

[Jollyjupiter]

My daughter had a sleep over at our house with her friend (my friends daughter).
Both are 6yrs old.
My friend has suffered from 'mental illness' for as long as i've known her but has never seeked professional help, yet she considers her anxiety, trauma responses to be all consuming. I've g
ot to the point where i simply change the subject.

However, her 6yr old is now openly telling my daughter she is anxious and cannot do certain things as she finds them 'triggering'. This language has obviously been picked up at home.
I do not want my child to hear such words as at 6yrs she does not need to be around this.
Aibu to start to stop these playdates and sleepovers?

Would you find a friend with cancer draining?
Would you find a friend with a brain tumour draining?
Would you find a friend with the after effects of a stroke draining?
Would you find a friend with dementia draining?

Why is it acceptable to speak like that about someone exhibiting symptoms of a mental illness? You should be ashamed to think it's ok to speak like that.

The only people I wouldn't want my child around are people who see someone suffering and treat them like it's their own fault or that they are doing it for attention. Bigoted, narrow minded & intolerant individuals.

Shame. On. You. To live in 2026 and still not understand the importance of 'be kind'.

You never know what someone might be going through. One day it might be you.

The impact from the neurotic and entitled behavior. Mental health may not be someone’s fault, but it is their responsibility. Others aren’t in fact obliged to suck up poor behavior because of ‘mental health’.

OP would be doing herself, and her daughter, a favour by stepping back from these people.

Would you talk about dementia that way?

'Dementia may not be their fault, but it is their responsibility.'

The brain can become sick the same way you can break a leg. Once the brain is unwell it can be extremely hard to get help.

It is not easy to recover from a mental illness. No easier than it would be to rid yourself of long covid or chronic pain. Even once you find the strength to seek help there is no magic cure. The path to recovery is very long and involves steps forward and back.

You aren't obliged to be around behaviour you don't like. However, to see a 6 year old living in challenging and difficult conditions, and to react by shunning them is remarkably heartless.

And for you a stranger who knows nothing about this person and what they've gone through to encourage further suffering for a 6 year old child? Shame on you.

No wonder why so many kids grow up angry and turning to a life of crime.

That shame can keep on flying right on by me.

Op’s friend has never sought treatment for her issues, yet instead expects those around her to pander to them. Now her child is exhibiting those same behaviors.

OP has zero responsibility for these people, moral or otherwise.

Dealing with a loved one or close friend with dementia is extremely draining and it's completely OK to acknowledge that.

Your barking at everyone "educate yourself!" just reminds me of all the conspiracy nutters during COVID - it really doesn't help your cause.

My wonderful mother was bipolar and sectioned many times from when I was 8. There were several incidents of police involvement due to extreme manic episodes.

I lived with "trauma" from those early experiences and did get "triggered" by things as an adult, but those are words kept between me and my psychotherapist.

I have never had a lot of money, but I paid £75 a session for EMDR and threw myself into it. It was life changing.

I am a very empathetic person, sometimes too much so, so I can't carry the burden of someone else's misery if all they do is wallow for years on end.

I have a few friends with mental health issues and I've seen them get help (which IS available) and work to overcome them, with varying degrees of success. I will always be there for them.

One friend, however, sounds like @Jollyjupiter's and has spent decades wallowing in her anxiety and I have to limit the time I spend with her. She throws hundreds of pounds at gadgets and snake oils but thinks GPs and Therapy are for idiots. She can be very draining.

Don't tell me to educate myself, and if you want to know what happened to #bekind, it disappeared up its own arse, closely followed by anyone who can't cope with reality.

This woman does not have "extreme" mental health issues.

I'd be distancing my child from her and her mother. Its about protecting her from negative influence, which this is.

I feel sorry for her daughter though. It's a form of child abuse to instil such thoughts into her head at such a young age.

All I read from this is that when you were 8 you needed kindness, a role model adult and breaks away from your family. You needed help.

Yet here is a 6 y/o in the same situation and you don't think she deserves the same?

You totally miss my point. Of course living with someone with Dementia is draining. As is cancer. As is person recovering from a severe stroke. Do you go round publically bashing them? Do you cut people off because they are unwell? Do you expect them to get better in a vacuum without support or help?

Half the worlds population will struggle with their mental health at some point in their life.
Thats not a conspiracy. Thats something deserving of kindness.

Not everyone has £75 a week. Go and read the cost of living threads if you don't believe that. But it's irrelevant why the mum hasn't got help (or if OP really knows the reality). This is about the daughter.

Sorry have you met this woman?

Let's hope you aren't one of the 50% of the population who struggle with their mental health at some point in life.

Or perhaps more importantly, your child doesn't have a mother who is.

Change is hard, the world is tough at times and kids need to learn to be resilient so you are not being unreasonable to limit exposure to your daughter

It’s quite revealing isn’t it, how quickly some people realise they can use anxiety to manipulate a situation.

I have suffered from crippling anxiety in my life and the only way to get through it was to work very hard on playing it down and overcoming it. CBT helped. I would never have intentionally used it to get my own way, I was terrified of it. I was terrified of what it would stop me from doing and from when a panic attack would come on. It took me ten years to get over it.

If you tell yourself you’re anxious you become anxious, and that’s what this child will do. it will become extremely difficult to outgrow this habit because you need a mindset shift to do so and she’s not exposed to people who model that.

I personally have seen it among DDs friends too and it leads to highly manipulative behaviour in friendships. DD knows that I have actively moved her away from friends with anxiety because they more often than not project it onto her through possessive behaviour either of her, or of others … meaning they leave her out.

Your DD can still be around her but I would actively look for other activities through which to foster stable friendships and positive experiences. I do hope the girl gets what she needs as this could honestly become a blight on the rest of her life. As for the friend, again you need to see her doing something positive about it. If you don’t, perhaps worth considering whether it’s time for you to gently move away too.

I agree. I already work FT and have to parent my own child, I wouldn’t be taking on board someone else’s child education too.

@Jollyjupiter I wouldn’t ditch the child entirely but I’d definitely limit sleepovers and probably would rather have all play dates at my house.

I grew up with an undiagnosed (at the time) MI mother and it was very, very difficult, but ultimately it’s not your burden to take on. Sometimes I could pick up on friends’ parents being a bit off and I didn’t really understand why, but i definitely do understand now as an adult.

And tell your friend exactly why.

It’s not irrelevant that the mother hasn’t got help. Her failure to do so doesn’t bode well for the future.

OP I’d speak to the DSL at school but I’d also limit play dates and scrap sleepovers.

You called the OP ‘horrible’ based on her initial post alone. I am not sure you are modelling ‘kind’ behaviour at all. You have not even tried to look it at the situation from the OP’s point of view or understood her concerns for her daughter. So much for empathy, hey.

Oh for goodness sake she doesn't sound horrible at all, just concerned about her daughter.

If the girls go to the same school, I’d contact the Safeguarding Lead and report your fears for this child. The school will know what to do.

In the meantime, perhaps parents back playdates etc, but don’t cut her off completely. Be kind without overburdening your own DD.

I would do the same OP. I dont want my daughter exposed to all that anxiety crap so young! The kids just using it to get her own way and there is nothing wrong with her, shes 6!
I wouldn't want my child hearing words they shouldnt even understand at that age.
Poor kid is a future PIP claimer in the making for her 'anxiety'.

Mum was "extremely" unwell and police attended with the ambulance when she was sectioned. She didn't chat about it with her friends for years before that happened.

I would absolutely end the friendship. Now I have all the sympathy in the world for people who are diagnosed with an actual illness, physical or mental, and who are doing their best to recover and cope with life. Your friend is not one of those people. If your friend indeed has a mental illness she needs professional help which is beyond what you can provide. Your prime responsibility is to your child.

At one stage one of my children was in a social group where this sort of triggering behaviour consumed them. He was refusing to go on in this school play for some ill defined reasons - and he needed to do this to pass the course - and his young friends were flitting around being supportive of this. I told him to get his cloak and get on stage right now unless he wanted to fail the subject for the whole year and even if he could do it later it would just be worse than doing it now. He got out there and turned in a blinding performance. I think a few of his friends had to resit as they were so distracted by the fact that one moment he was a cowed mess and the next moment he was nailing it. I was glad that that was the final year of secondary school because I had begun to realise that although these were lovely kind young people this was not a healthy group for my son to be part of.

I think it is important to teach young people that it is okay to feel uncomfortable or insecure but you just carry on. I still think my advice to my child about a music recital was apt - keep going, don't cry and get through it.

Dementia is a terrible and totally inapplicable comparison. Cancer is probably a better one, given the huge variety of ways it can affect people.

Supporting someone with cancer can be draining.
Supporting someone recovering from cancer can be frustrating if they don't access the support available or do the difficult things that can aid their recovery.

I've got a relative who has been in remission from his cancer for a decade now. The treatment was very hard on him, we all gave him as much support as we could. After treatment he was given lots of advice and support on how to deal with the fatigue that was one of the lasting impacts for him and on how to build up his stamina again. For a variety of reasons - all of them understandable given the extremely stressful experience he'd been through - he didn't take that advice, and over the last decade his mobility has become worse and worse, he is enormously frustrated and upset about it, and is it draining on his family, particularly his wife? Of course it is. And while the situation wasn't his fault, he does have a degree of responsibility for where he is now. I have empathy for him, but also recognise that he is not solely a victim of bad luck.

Having a mental illness does not mean that the people around you cease to have valid feelings. Having a mental illness is absolutely horrible. It's horrible for the person experiencing it but it can also be absolutely awful for the people around the sufferer. And it's ok to recognise that - and actually giving people credit for sticking with a friend despite the fact that doing so can be incredibly draining at times, rather than dismissing them as "horrible" for being privately honest about their own feelings and the impacts it has.

And I say this as someone who looks back with horror and huge gratitude at the impact that my own mental illness had on people I care about, and how they stuck with me anyway. I would be a selfish monster if I didn't acknowledge that my illness was draining on them and that they made a huge effort for me.

Bloody hell can you hear yourself?

'All that anxiety crap'

'A pip claimer in the making'

You seem to be implying that everyone who claims PIP, certainly for mental health, is swinging the lead?
People don't have mental health problems just to be annoying.

Re the OP, there is surely some middle ground between the OP basically parenting the other 6 year old and allowing herself and her daughter to be manipulated on one hand, or utterly shunning her on the other? Why all the extreme suggestions? There will be many many other people in her daughter's life who will have mental health problems (or other problems!), she can't avoid all of them!

OP, as others have said, it is possible to have reasonable boundaries that protect your daughter but don't involve trashing the friendship and abandoning this other poor girl. No sleep overs, occasional play dates only at yours, and don't allow 'i can't because I'm triggered' to become an excuse. And share your concerns with the school DSL so they can support the child and the mum too.
Edit to add: don't be afraid to create some distance from the mum if her needs are more than your capacity.

Did you respond to the right person?

I first posted on page 2 after OP had already given 3 or 4 updates. I didn't say she was horrible (I did say she should be ashamed which I stand by).

Peers have a huge effect on children, bigger than their parents in the end.

Avoid.