Late night essay incoming...
I am low contact with nearly all of my family, except for one relative who married into the family, who I get on with really well and is now separated from my blood relative.
None of my blood relatives respects me, except maybe a few of my cousins who I don't see very often because of being kept apart growing up due to family distinction. Always really warm to one another when we've seen each other when visiting another elderly relative who sadly passed recently, but wouldn't stay in contact much due to age differences and respective parents not getting on so well, so never forming that bond. As some of my cousins have gotten older, that lack of respect towards me has rubbed off on them from the older generation and they've said nasty things about my character which are just made up and because I'm a scapegoat for a lot of narcissistic personalities in a dysfunctional family- I was always the bright, happy one who loved everyone unconditionally and made the effort to go and see everyone, despite them being diatant from each other and hateful about one another, but since I've gotten older that made it easier for younger relatives to pick on me in a group, as I was the common ground between them all, as they didn't know each other that well. I don't know if that makes sense.
Anyway, I know keep myself to myself and have very few friends because I went travelling to get away from it all, and all my healthy relationships I made when I was older and more healed and able to pick better people (not always, but the majority were decent) are with people who are abroad from when I travelled.
Sadly I don't think my DD has seen many people treat me kindly and warmly. I'm a single mum and left her dad when she was a few weeks old and not seen or heard from him since. We only see relatives occasionally but she hasn't seen them treat me with kindness whereas they treat her very well, so I guess that's why I kept up some minimal contact.
I don't have any good friends here in the UK as all my old friends were toxic towards me as I guess it was easy for bullies to befriend me as I was vulnerable growing up due to abusive household. It's been hard to meet good people since I'm looking after my child 24/7. I don't work as my child struggles with full time school. I have therapy btw and it's helped me loads and made me take a step back from socialising to figure out where I've been going wrong with past relationships. I seem to have picked up bad habits since returning to the UK and only can find single parents friends whose lives are ridiculously chaotic, and although kind to me, seen so distracted by their chaos they can't engage in any proper or meaningful conversation, but the children all get on, so I indulge in these group meetups sometimes for the sake of my child. I completely stopped meeting up one on one with any of them though as it was too painful as they talk about only themselves. In a group I can just be in the group whilst they talk over one another.
So coming to the crux of the issue. My daughter has zero respect towards me. I have strong boundaries with her. Won't tolerate the disrespect and there's consequences for her behaviour, but it's just constant all day long. She has some kind of undiagnosed autism or ADHD or both, so I'm mindful that she can't tolerate frustration or negative feelings and give her space to let out those feelings and won't allow her to hit me (even though she manages to every single time). But it's almost like there's also something else psychological going on, like she's been taught that she can't trust anything I say or any boundary or prompt I give her. She refuses absolutely everything and will even promise to me that she won't do xyz again and will promptly do it. She seems to think I'm an actual emotional punching bag. I reiterate to her over and over again that I'm not her slave or emotional punch bag and follow through by removing her from whatever of mine she is trying to break or removing her from the door if she's hurting me or trying to antagonise me. It's been like this since she was a baby. One time when she was starting out walking, she came up behind me whilst I was tidying up and grabbed me from behind by my hair and pulled me down to the ground, then walked off. I'm covered in bruises. Say for example she's snuggling me but digging her elbows into me and hasn't realised, I'll say 'dd that hurts can you move your elbows please' and she'll just grin as though she's pleased that she's hurt me and will dig in harder and then I have to fight her to remove her elbows from me and put her onto another sofa. Tried reward charts, tried early help, tried taking away screen time until behaviour improved. It never has worked. Anyway, I know kids who struggle see their parents as a safe space, but this feels too far like she's actively enjoying upsetting me and sees me as a complete idiot. She's called me a fucking mummy before repeatedly every day for a month, after I once accidentally let the f word slip, but saying f* sake on a particularly gruesome day. I never even said f-ing so I don't know how she even created that sentence. I told her it was a bad word and I had said it by accident in frustration and it was wrong of me, but she still persisted. Even when the local newspaper said they would start fining for swearing and I told her, it didn't stop it. She just eventually forgot after we had a holiday.
She has a good life. Sees friends, cinema, rainbows etc, holiday once a year. I don't over pack her days. We have lots of chill time. I offer her to read together, she doesn't want to. I started playing a bit of Roblox with her as that helped us to bond whilst we were playing as two different characters on desperate devices, but as soon as I get off, the hate starts again. Anyway, I'm just wondering if she's picked up on the fact my family don't really like me and are somewhat disrespectful of my boundaries in person on the few occasions I interact with them. She does go to my mum's some weekends when it gets too much and my mum is lovely to her (but not me, but I limit the interaction with my mum to about clothes, things for her bag, how shes been over the weekend and just hand her over, chat briefly and leave, before any hostility comes out towards me. My DD has said her grandma is nice to her and plays with her a bit and is always giggling when I call up to see how she is. Oh yeah that's the other thing, she's an absolute angel for everyone else and really good and going with the flow and following that person's rules or routine. If DD were kicking off and another person in a group were to say 'come on DD shall we make a bracelet?' DD would be happy to go over and join together and make bracelets. But if I suggested it, DD would say "no, I hate making bracelets" (when I know she loves it). She's only happy doing things with me if it's her suggestion- which is usually screen time, going to get McDonald's or hide n seek. All of which I have to limit. I can't play hide n seek all day.
No hate please for the essay, I've had a really rough week with DD and I'm on the edge.