unsure where to go with daughter

[Mummiehunnie]

I am a single parent and the youngest has always been hard work, this has been noticed by everyone who has seen her in action, it was always worse with me than with her father however she was the same with him when he was around. He is the most controlling person going and he could not control her either! She is good at school! I took her with the ex a few months before he left to see the gp to get a referral nothing happened, I took her privately and asked if she had adhd or something they said as she sat in school she did not... ex blamed her behaviour on me, our other child is normal range of behaviour...

I am sick to the back teeth of being beaten up, I am sick to the back teeth of being a slave to her physically and emotionally... I feel trapped and the situation is bringing me further down...

I have escaped abuse from other people and I feel I am trapped with her, there is no one else around, they were all abusive and would not help anyways, I have begged twice for social services to take her on short term care, they say they would go to the family, if that happened she would just beat me up more...

i am having therapy for the abuse from the past and the therapist knows the situation, she is trying to help me build up my self esteem.

I had a ed psy come for two years to the house, dd would not engage, I worked on myself...

A friend once suggest dd had oppositional disorder, I am worred getting her counselling as I am scared she will say something wrong, for example if you go on the computer once for half an hour when she is watching tv she will say I am on the computer all the time.... and I am worried that someone will believe her. I am also scared as ex told lies about me to the authorities in the past... I feel trapped I know she needs help, I feel if I get her help she will hang me, and I am sick of being hanged for other people's issues...

I have to go to bed now Mummie, but I would really like to talk to you some more tomorrow if that's possible.xx

She plays netball team at school, when selected, have taken her to various different sports things, including running club she stops wanting to go after a bit... she is good at sports too! I take them swimming, that is something I persevered with for her whole life it took me seven years of her nearly drowning me to get her to let go in the pool, I started when she was 4 months on and off with lessons as a baby and family swims after, when she managed to start to let go it took a year for her to be able to be in a state to go for proper swimming lessons, which she did, eventually she grew tired of that also, thankfully she managed to go long enough and had the coincidance of year 5 swimming so she is really competant at swimming and we go as a family when we are able to, have not been in a long time due to mobility reduction, I was not able to go, and no one to take them! that was one of the things I was upset about with ss, I said there is no quality of life for them sometimes as it is just me, and they put me in touch with young carers man is coming out at some point, sadly all they offer is a twice montly few hours meeting thing in a hall, it is better than nothing! one thing the ss lady said was that some of dd's anger towards me may be for me being responsible for giving her the genetic condition, i asked her if that was the case and she said yes... so I feel bad for that for her, that she is carrying anger and guilt at feeling that, I am ok with the fact I know someone gave it to me like the shape of my eyes and it is no one's fault so I don't takethe blame on!

She had this weird primevil fear of the water, from four months she would scream and go nuts at going in the pool, the only reason she liked the bath is that it was shallow, it was the not feeling the bottom that she hated, of course I did not know that at the time!

I kept taking her when she was four months for the course as I did not realise it was fear, I thought she was co incidently in a bad mood, so did not book another course. I had another dd so I took them both with freinds, alone or with exh some times for an activity when they were little, as like most parents I wanted them to learn to swim. She was ok with the pool as long as she was clinging on me to me or the exh, she would nearly drown you if you tried to get her to go on arm bands and swim free from you.

No my children do not care for me, I would not let that happen, they are classed as carers though! all I want them to do is look after their own mess now they are of an age where that should happen and I am progresively getting worse overall. The condition is not something that shorterns your life, it affects your quality of life, it is not a well known condition, i don't want to say what it is!

They are classed as carers as someone in the family has a disability regardless if they do anythig other than get affected emotionally by it, of course all three of us have the condition!

are they both untidy?

does she earn pocket money?

oldest a little, nothing out of the norm really, and will tidy up if I ask her to, the youngest don't want to post right now about her mess really.

Yes I pay them for doing certain things, more so for the bigger things! Also for going to school, i have given her high value rewards, as she refused to go at one stage it went on for about a year, she would not move schools for a long time, eventually she decided she would, we looked at some and she made the choice of the school she moved to herself and they are very good with her, the last school was as unhelpfull as a chocolate t pot!

yes in touch with support group, thing is with it they meets are not often, and are not easy to get to, but have internet access!

I realise that, it was a way of describing the way she would react if you tried to get her to go off on arm bands, she would drag you under, I know and knew as time when on that she felt scared, i had not seen another react like that before or since, it was extreme!

I am finding your comment at the moment more challenging than I am comfortable with today, i need to look at them tomorrow dittany when I am in a better frame of mind aand work my way through what is releveant and not to me and my dd, I take your point that the adults were there to support her etc, i get he feeling you think I have no empathy for dd, it is the opposite infact, I had far too much empathy for her and let her away with too much as I felt too sorry for her...

Dittany, I think you are right, that anxiety plays a big part in issues dd has, she is anxious about things other people would not be and it has been an ongoing issue, she had the strength to walk months before she had the confidence to do so, she would stand in the middle of the room from sitting and then sit back down again!

I can't make my brain work in a way it is not able to work and connect things that I could not make sense of alone, I also have dyslexia so my brain does work differently to the "norm" what ever that is in certain ways, no one else was able to put all the dots together either... just because certain reasoning or understanding was not there does not mean that I have no empathy for people, lack of understanding of a situation and lack of overall sight yes, I feel like in the past few years I have been learing another languauge with regards to undersanding things like projection/transferance/gaslighting/healthy boundaries etc, and I have done the best I could have done, look I feel like i have to defend myself right now, with you, which is not helping me tonight, maybe tomorrow I will feel differently.

Seperation anxiety was there long before we knew about the condition, it has been long term issue with her!

I know you are well meaning and helping, that is why I need to look back at this thread again tomorrow when I am less raw!

"a very controlling man could not control dd as a child himself, he said months before leaving when we both took her to the gp he felt a failure as a parent, yet he then would quickly blame me and kept demanding I attend more parenting classes which I did, it never occured to him to attend any, nor I, I took on the blame, things would be diffent now..."

There's a huge difference between controlling someone and maintaining 'discipline' in a family. Controlling is always abuse. Maintaining discipline involves fairness, leading by example, teaching and patience. Controlling is based on fear of the abuser and it destroys confidence in everyone in the family. It also interferes negatively with the relationships among the family members.

Children who have lived with a controlling adult do not have any idea how to behave when the controller is gone and depending on how badly they have been affected, they feel like orphans almost, with no-one 'in charge' in the way they have been used to seeing their alpha adult. Usually they have no confidence in the non-abusive parent and they have absorbed the lack of respect for this secondary adult all their lives.

They usually have a huge amount of anxiety as Dittany says. They cannot trust. They don't trust the alpha adults or the second tier adults, and they divide the people in their world into those categories all the time. The anxiety and inability to trust express themselves in hostility and overt displays of fake strength towards anyone they perceive as lower in status than alpha, and quietness and compliance towards any person or institution (like the school) whom they perceive as 'alpha'. Above all else, they have a highly developed survival instinct.

When you don't let them live with the consequences of something, for instance, going to school wearing a dirty uniform, and instead spend days trying to get them to give you the uniform for washing, you are creating a situation where the school is taking the place of the abuser in their lives and they will perceive you as being afraid of the school and behaving weakly in the face of it in the same way that you were afraid of your Ex. You have to let them bear the consequences of their own choices, without threatening.

math thank you so much for explaing that for me x i could kiss you, it is so difficult for me to see a way through some of my problems, where as others it is so much easier sometimes...

I will speak to the therapist next week and then school if we work out a way to go forward and see if overall the dirty/creased up unform (there are some luch issues also) is the way to go forward....

dd was very scared of her father!

Math, what do I do if she refuses to go to school, it is me that will end up in prison if that happens, I have had the threats already from before!

Hello Mummie...how are you this morning? Is the school involved in your daughter's problems? Are you disabled Mummie? Can you get out of the house?

Good morning getting, how are you? I am feeling a bit sensitive still not tearfull or as bad as I did yesterday, I don't have much time to post today, am just sitting with a coffee and breakie for now!

I have spoken to the school about some of it as part of why dd attacked her sister that time was due to bullying in the class and dd taking her feelings home with her, it was not just dd it was three others also that were being picked on, they would go from one to another and take it in turns to pick on the three of them, one mother did nothing, another later complained, I was at the end of my tether a few weeks ago with it all, as I was trying to get the school to keep a lid on the bullies so that dd did not take it out on us at home!

Yes I have mobility problems, it is irratic, sometimes I am housebound, I was for a while, am getting better now at last again, and mobility is improving!

Do the school know the full picture with your daughter and what she is like at home? I talked to my DC's school a lot when I left their father, and found that they were very helpful.

Surely if you are in dialogue with the school about this then there is no way you will end up being prosecuted for her non-attendance.

I do think you need to try and get some more confidence in yourself as a mother and as a person. DIfficult I know, but even if you don't feel confident, you will have to try to fake it for your daughter. I can see that if you are not so mobile or agile then she can get the upper hand, but you are the adult and have more life experience, so should be able to take back the power from a ten year old.

But I do think you need some proper help from experts. The school may be able to help you with this.

There are also some excellent sites on the net with advice ...I found that some of the sites that dealt with co-parenting along with a personality disordered parent were very helpful. Even if PDs are not involved here, the strategies you can learn are very good and effective.

And have you had help for your own issues after being abused for so long? Perhaps some psychotherapy might help you with your self-esteem and confidence. But your GP should help you with this.

Please keep posting as there are lots of very knowledgable people on this site who can really help you. Have you posted for help on the lone parents threads? They might be useful for you, lots of issues on there with parenting problems and solutions.

xx

First school were unhelpfull and the sort to look down on you and treat you badly for telling them, second school have been supportive, she changed schools when she would not go the first one anymoe.

It is the council that persecute not the school, they told me I would get a massive fine and prison sentence... and they have sent me two letters now over attendance, and ex got them and used it as a way to abuse me and threatened to repot me to various agenacies, I asked ss at the time if he had repoted me he had not, he had taken me to court in past and told lies it is all very scary for me!

The scchool did look into helping they made some calls and told me that the way the system works they can't get help themselves that it would have to be via gp, and i have been there before, dd does not want to see cahms again and you can't get her to do things she does not want to do!

The other parent might as well be dead, he has a new life he has no interest which is probably for the best! I have ordered a load of books the other day, will google some of the things you say later when i have time.

As I said in past posts I have started to see a psychologist, the gp finally listened to me after years and I got to see one just before the summer holidays, there is only so much you can do an hour a week!