My DD hasn’t spoken to me since early August 2025

[KJCP]

For years I would have said my daughter ( now late 40s) and I had a good relationship. She would ring me several times a week, send videos, ask my opinion about clothes she had bought, have a moan about work, friends etc and on Mothers Day would send the loveliest messages in cards. When she got married three years ago, she and her husband asked me and my husband ( her father) to go on a safari holiday with them ( at our expense!) but we were pleased to and had an enjoyable time. Then in July 2024 she was getting stressed about work and decided to see a therapist using the company’s health insurance scheme. The result was she was told to “set boundaries”. I was told in a text that my anxieties (???) were affecting her. I needed to address these “ anxieties” or she would cut all ties with me. Since neither I nor my husband had any idea what she was talking about, she cut off contact with me. ( she has sent the odd photo of holidays to her father but never to me) To say I am upset is an understatement. As my husband says we can’t force her to contact us but is this how my life will be? Has anyone had the same experience and has anyone any advice?

Just listened to Tortoise media podcast on this called Dangerous minds on bbc sounds. A young adult Dd cut out her parents for 6 years under the influence of a dodgy therapist. Not saying this is the case for this op but is worth a listen. The poor mum was at her wits end she was genuinely blameless.

1. good therapists shouldn’t give ‘advice’
2. you don’t know that was the ‘advice’
3. perhaps this was a realisation and conclusion DD came to after further exploration in therapy, which was her own decision.

this isn’t really the issue of the thread and there’s clearly more to this and the text than just DD going to therapy and putting boundaries in place’.

All this ranting is fine, but a decent parent would want fo figure out what was bothering them so much that they went NC with you.

Do you think your child has gone NC just for fun or because they have some serious personality defects to that they wanted to rewrite relationship history?

Which adult will go NC with a good parent just because a bad therapist advised them to?

There are so many dodgy therapists out there, the good ones are few.

Most just want to keep being paid so lead clients down the garden path, encouraging them to mull over and marinade in completely mundane life events/conversations.

Very few average people need therapy, it's been a successful con for those who couldn't make a living elsewhere.

Then that young girl was dumb to take such massive decision on 3rd party advise and not use her own brains. Her parents should also be blamed for raising such an immature daughter.

Only op can tell if her dd is also that kind of immature person to cut off parents for nothing.

I found therapy life changing as have many of my friends. It is a huge relief getting so many problems off your chest and sharing them in confidence.

I think op has disappeared because she has been asked one or two questions she finds uncomfortable. I would suggest her avoidance is probably one of the reasons for her problems in relationships. Sometimes you have to persevere with solutions and hear uncomfortable truths.

It seems to be fashionable to hold parents up to a pedestal worthy ideal, then flounce when you realise they are just humans doing their best too..

Perhaps the OP has been in the wrong. Perhaps the daughter is just a selfish individual who needs to give her head a shake. We won’t ever know. But the automatic reaction on these threads of always assuming the mother is evil is disheartening and frankly appalling.

Oh man yes. I took my DD to a therapist after a bereavement. One session the therapist decided she needed to express who she truly was and they'd decided she was going shopping to choose clothes to express what she wanted. Didn't consult me as to whether I could afford to take my DD shopping for a wardrobe that week. I just said, "Um, she already chooses all her own clothes." I withdrew her from therapy not long after that as the therapists god complex and assumptions got worse from week to week.

How nice that you’ve never experienced what it’s like to have a narcissistic parent making you feel like you’re going mad chasing and trying to satisfy them for an imaginary and unobtainable relationship.

Sometimes it’s the only way to save your own sanity.

I was told in a text that my anxieties (???) were affecting her. I needed to address these “ anxieties” or she would cut all ties with me. Since neither I nor my husband had any idea what she was talking about, she cut off contact with me.

So you didn't listen, ask questions, or change your behaviour? No wonder she distanced herself.

Therapists arnt always nice people my sister has therapy she now blames her parents and me for everything that went wrong in her life but she was actually the one my parents favour (still is) im the one they rely on when they need something she is the one they (especially my mother) take out and treat they expect very little from her and everything from me she takes out a lot of resentment on me for my perceived slights claims to be used abused and hard done by if you believed her she is always helping and picking up the pieces in the family the reality is i haven't seen her since July she hasn't babysit since 2018 still claims to do it

When my dad passes im out of here

That can actually happen. Adult children can have personality defects or have issues that twist things in their minds. Sometimes driven by mental illness. If parents can have those issues, they can also occur in any adult - and every adult is someone's child.

Those who don't have toxic parents can't possibly understand what it's like for those who do. My parents would probably say that for years we had a good relationship, then I had a fairly abrupt personality change and almost completely cut them out. What actually happened was that I had a fairly miserable childhood being controlled, coerced and neglected by them, I put up with them in early adulthood for the sake of peace and tried to put my childhood behind me, but when I had my first child I could no longer just not think about it, and the more I thought about it, the angrier I got, because I looked at the child in front of me and wondered : how could anyone behave that way to a child? Their "good relationship" was me biting my tongue and repressing years of childhood neglect and unhappiness. My "abrupt personality change" was simply the trigger of having my own child leading me to process what they'd done and think enough is enough.

Actually most parents make mistakes, some are bigger than others, and can damage children. A good parent will always be accountable and open to hearing how their parenting and choices have impacted their children.

Parents have been adults throughout the child’s life and therefore are responsible - the child however is not - because for much of their time they were too young to be responsible for anything.

The onus is always on the parent to remain an adult and accountable.

I have also seen plenty of poor 'therapist'

it is unregulated in the UK, there are amazing, good, bad and frankly dangerous 'therapists' out there.

Well, according to MadamTwoSwords you're just an adolescent too. The absolute ignorance of some posters.

I find it a uniquely privileged position that someone can say they ‘may’ have been abused. And that they still see their parents, and anyone whom was severely abused is apparently childish for choosing to protect themselves. Oh the irony of that post!

I am also amazed on threads like this, always a strong support for the daughter who must have a dreadful parent.

Yet these people are parents, but don't see that they could be doing anything wrong with their children. Mums especially seem to be held to a higher account, when they are just flawed humans like everyone else.

Every parent had a duty to behave like an adult and ensure their ‘flaws’ do not damage their children. Minimising poor parenting and abuse, and reducing it down to just being human is absolutely disgusting.

My daughter is likely ASD/ADHD and as her mum that was difficult to manage, especially in the days when it was not acknowledged and understood. We are in contact but had some difficult times when she was late teens. Not sure of your details of course but just a bit of this mums perspective.

@KJCP what was your relationship with your parents like? I wonder whether we are all doomed to repeat these cycles, and even when we think we are breaking the generational trauma we are just in a different phase of it.

My DM is v difficult and has been cut off by two of her dc for years at a time, very LC the rest.
I have maintained our relationship, with difficulty, and look at my adult sons and wonder what the future holds for me.

A challenge for you- what are you feeling about your current situation with your DD? You had a ‘good relationship’, you are now ‘upset’, but what does that look like? What exactly is bothering you? Can you spell out what you are upset about? When my DM describes her upset it really illustrates the root of the problem, imo.

That's completely irrelevant to my point though.

It was entirely relevant, most healthy children do not suddenly become mentally ill and ‘twisted’ out of nowhere. They may have experienced ACEs of some description, and yes as a parent you are responsible for your children and their well being.

Mental illness can be genetic. I don't think you understood my point, however.