DD 18 hates me

[Puddleduck2013]

DD has always been high maintenance and is currently on an ND pathway.
As her Mum I have literally always done my very best for her and accommodated her every whim.

last year her father and I divorced and I have been plagued by guilt probably resulting in poor boundaries and expectations.

she has exceptionally poor emotional regulation, going nuclear in a heartbeat, causing conflict and chaos in her wake.

i have mostly ignored her outbursts (which i take responsibility for) but last week there was an incident where a line was crossed and had the power to rip our family apart,
it was her birthday and against my better judgement j agreed to attend a family meal with ex, It was always going to be a difficult evening but I thought it went as well as could be expected and looked like DD had a great time.

next day however j was bomabard by messages from DD and ex accusing another family member of being rude to ex and how it had ruined DD’s birthday. I saw nothing of the sort, in fact quite the opposite and suspect some sort of manipulation from Ex.
I had demands from both of them to confront this family member with threats that if I didn’t they would..
as far as I’m concerned even if such an incident did happen Ex was quite capable of dealing with it himself but clearly the 2 of them wanted to drag me into it.

j am so upset; have told DD I won’t be getting involved and yet again she has exploded at me, I am the safe parent, her father has very little to do with her yet somehow I am the villain. I have been called every name under the sun today and have had enough.

I can only take your word for that - again I have no knowledge of this professional or why she apparently felt you in particular needed to hear that.

You've provided no additional information to back it but again just by citing this professional I don't know and can't verfiy in any way.

I can only say again it's not something that rings true for our experiences of AHDH nor what any profesional as ever said to us or to our wider family nor have I read it on here before - sometimes younger emotionally yes that young no.

I'm not saying you are lying - I am saying perhaps it was context specific to your child and your situation and may not be as widley applicable to all kids with ADHD.

Personally an 11 year old behaving like that would also get not just be tolerated and firm and loving guidance would be applied at 18 or 11. I suspect Op need some support and strategies - and best ones I can suggest are to wait it out and to see if there any tips in book/websites around communcation with ADHD teen girls - there may be something that helps - start parenting like they have it and see if it helps. RL support to get though the outburts would also help - I know from experience- but harder to just magic up.

My child with adhd is much younger but it is clear that the worst of the behaviour is caused/triggered by anxiety and stress. He can’t cope with those feelings and then they trigger the poor behaviour.

I’m wondering whether a similar thing is happening for your daughter? And that it’s the stress of dinner out with you and dad after the divorce which has caused this outburst, rather than the thing itself.

If that might be the case, and obviously with the benefit of hindsight, the two things which I might have done differently were refused to do the meal and responded to the messages with something calm and reassuring like “don’t worry, dad knows relative well, he can call them for a chat if he’s upset that they were rude”.

Her behaviour definitely escalates under stress or where she feels out of control. Ironically it was at her insistence we attended this meal as a collective and play happy families, thereby engineering a stressful situation. All the adults had reservations and I should have stuck to my guns for separate celebrations.
I haven’t had one word of thanks, rather a barrage of abuse and an attempt at damaging one of my most important relationships.

as she gets older she becomes more extreme abd her behaviour more concerning.
I have booked for us to go away for a few days next month and I am on the verge of cancelling. My words seem to have no impact, so maybe this would make her think.
she keeps telling me she’s an adult now and can do what she likes - time I start treating as such. I won’t be her whipping boy anymore.

She referred to the ND ‘population.

I don’t really give a fuck if you think I’m lying or not. You weren’t there.

But you must understand that it can’t possibly apply to every single ND child? It might be common but it’s not a definite for every single child with autism or ADHD. As evidenced with people who have diagnosed ND children who have been immature for their age. I have a niece with ADHD who is 14 and acts 14. I’m not saying the professional lied or that you are lying. Just that what she said is not true of my ADHD niece and therefore ‘all ND children are a third of their age emotionally’ is clearly not true.
most/some/often but not all.

I don’t really care one way or another.

Please can we keep this on track? I really value peoples thoughts on how to handle my DD whether this is ND or not 🙏

How are things tonight?

It’s probably best you stop posting then if you don’t care.

OP, how is your daughter doing today? Will she talk rationally when she’s calm about her behaviour or not?

God I’d have some rules about the way she talks to you in your home. I’d say as you rightly state you are an adult so you don’t have to be here if you don’t like it. And actions have consequences. Don’t get drawn into stuff that isn’t yours to solve. Part of being an adult is doing the hard stuff.

I do use the MN «Don’t talk to me that way » on occasion.

She’s taken off for a friend’s house. she’s blocked me and I don’t expect to see her until she wants something- could be days

When she comes back and wants something- will you give it to her?

i want to say no and be strong

i have had an horrendous few years, much of which is still ongoing. She ifiesbt know all the detail but I just want scream at her to show even a small bit of kindness. She is so focused on herself not a thought is given to anyone else (unless it involves ‘offences’ towards Ex 🙄)

Have you read up on ADHD/autism and how to support? That’s where you need to start.

Whether your DD is 18 or 12yrs in emotional maturity, I would not accept her behaviour. I have DC and DH who are neurodivergent and we have very firm rules on how we treat ourselves and each other and have stuck with them since the DC were born. We modelled the behaviour we wanted to see.

However, I’m guessing this behaviour from DD has been around for many years so won’t be easily addressed if she has learnt and developed that way of communicating her needs and emotions.

I hope she comes around soon and cools down. When all of this has quietened down you might want to have a talk with her, preferably somewhere neutral, about how sometimes people can use as a mouthpiece by people who are more than capable of speaking up and sorting out their own problems.

My DM is very probably ND, both me and my sibling are, and I sometimes have to have this conversation with her when she’s been ruled up by someone else so that she will do their dirty work for them.

God, OP, you have my sympathies - I saw a lot of my own DD in what you described, she’s always mortally offended about something and then resents me because from her POV I’m not in her corner.

I would try to consistently reinstate boundaries. It will be a hard one (I’ve had a lot of pushback from my DD) but worth it, ND or not.

Thank you @PanicPanicc
can I ask what boundaries you have? I know it’s ridiculous but I literally feel I have none with DD, she bulldozes every attempt I make and with no other support I feel I’m starting from scratch

Could she have another conditionn impacting her behaviour? Safe parent or not, no one should be exploding at you or manipulating others to not like you. Reminds me of someone I know with a personality disorder.

Lets not start with the sen i get fed up reading on here.
It sounds like she had been pampered all her life and not heard the word no.
You need to put her in her place yes dear you have issues but you dont need to act like a twat.
Ive seen it in real life the more parent tell there kids they have problems or issues kids then play on it as a get out im right card and parents use it as a pass for there behaviour.
Until they cant cope or they met the real world and others wont take the crap and give a good parenting lesson in the street.

There i said i`ll go back under my rock.

Honestly OP I’d ignore her for a bit and let her calm down. Dd has ASD and could be like this. I remember when she was slightly older she fucked off to a friends house and didn’t come back for five months and I still to this day don’t know where she was or who she was with. She’s 24yo now and much better. Has her moments.

I honestly think it’s a lethal
combination of teenage girl, over indulged and ADHD.
I normally do ignore but she went too far this time.
I do feel a shift though in that if she takes off then bon voyage! Her behaviour makes me feel sick with anxiety.

Sorry name change fail

@Puddleduck2013 in my case DD was great until about 15 - after that she changed a lot, mostly as a reaction to bullying in HS so I tried to be as supportive as I could, but at some point it started going from being supportive to enabling a little dictator.

I let it slide more than I should (trying to overcompensate, I think) and I started realising I was in trouble because she took a gap year that and was dragging her feet on everything. Plus constantly creating drama with my family and even at my workplace where I got her a temp job. She isn’t always wrong, but her reactions tend to be completely OTT and disproportionate.

My boundaries then became: I created a sort of rota to try and get her to do some housework, asked for a little contribution since she’s at home 24/7 eating like a teen boy (she fought me on it and it’s a very minimal contribution) and ultimately if my partner moves in next year (as planned) she’ll have to suck it up.
She implied she’d move out and as much as it hurt me my answer was “if that’s what you feel you need it’s okay”. She’s 21 now btw and I’ve been with him for 3 years, I’m not just grabbing a man off the streets and she likes him, she’s just mad at the idea of having someone around because I’m usually at work so she has the place to herself all days + some weekends and can play pretend without any of the responsibilities of paying for a household.

(There is a chance DD is ND but she hated CAHMS and refuses to follow up. Regardless, ND or not if they’re capable enough, we can’t let every behaviour slide imo)

If her dad is so great then she can go and live with him.

My God @PanicPanicc you could be describing my DD, except she has always been a handful. Little dictator sums it
up perfectly.
Her behaviour has got worse since learning to drive and becoming a young adult; literally does whatever she likes including some pretty risky behaviour IMO but I have less and less input or influence over what she does.
she is terrible with money and although earns a good amount from her pt job, can’t spend it quick enough. Anytime talk about budgeting/saving she just rolls her eyes. Again stupidly I have been paying half her car insurance but that’s going to stop. I am just enabling her poor choices and certainly don’t have money to waste.

ive been so scared of standing up to her (divorce guilt and other historic shit), living in fear she would leave I have swept too much under the carpet. I need to calmly explain she needs to act respectfully towards me even if we disagree and that’s the expectation for living in this house.
I almost want her to strop off to her Dad’s and see how that works out for them both!