dd loathes me

[humanheart]

does 'relationships' include relationships with our kids?

dd is 25 and almost phobic about me. i can't understand why we can't just get on (but maybe I'm talking rubbish here). I'm not sure what to do as she constantly sets me up (I walk into it every time) and has a profound hatred for me. she knows what to do to cause me maximum pain and, as she sets the traps that I walk into each time, she looks the injured party. she has hurt me very much indeed - can't go into detail - yet her campaign shows no sign of abating: it looks like this is a pattern for life and she needs to scapegoat me in order to feel settled in herself. that may be ok for the short term but it definitely isn't ok for the long term - for either her or me.

she is psychologically vulnerable and now and again pulls out the "I'm going to kill myself" card. It is impossible not to respond as that is a terrifying prospect to me as a mother. I know she's got me dangling on the end of a piece of string but I have no idea how to alter the dynamic. I am dragged this way and that, she infects a wide circle with her hatred (of me), constantly setting me up. It seems that the only thing I can do to minimise the damage is to bow to her demands. I haven't so far but the pressure is unrelenting and I am getting ragged (though often resolute and ok too, not ultimately bowed by it), not to mention lacking in support (thin on the ground) as I do so look like the villain a lot of the time.

HH, my abusive H died whilst I was still with him. DD was 11 at the time.

Occasionally DD literally 'morphs' into her father before me, mirroring language, put downs and behaviours ( aggression ) of her father and directed at me. It takes all my strength sometimes not to respond to this behaviour in the same way I would have with H. But I absolutely refuse and am now showing her there are other ways that people communicate with one another that are far more respectful.

I also get the feeling, from things she has said to me that she also understands how difficult her father was (as she grew up he started to control her ) and she has a sense of guilt that she has been freed from this by his passing away, however, she mirrors him to 'honour' his memory.

At some stage I am going to ask my DD how she felt when her father and I 'argued', but when the time is right.

This is only my opinion of my situation.

I think what BRAD said above has a lot of truth in it.

Your DD has to understand how much you love her, but also there are boundries.

I feel very sorry for her too! BIG time. but letting her abuse me is not the answer.

thank you so much for your replies. without gushing too much, thank you from the bottom of my heart. this situation has been so terrible that you (I) can't generally air it. It has also been longstanding ie years and YEARS of abuse from ex, now dc (won't go into the other 2 at this point...) Yes I do think this is the fallout from an abusive marriage/relationship - the kids catch it to varying degrees. don't want to sound flippant there, just obvious to me that that is what happens.

yes, the catalyst has been ex dying so suddenly like that - high drama. did I want him dead? no. did I want him to leave me alone? YES. so, a bit confusing - unbelievable joy that I was at last free of his RELENTLESS abuse (like the terminator, he just never left off and endlessly morphed into yet more abuse); but also tremendous sorrow for all those left behind, but most of all, my kids. dd said, in those totally weird hours after the news, that she was glad my suffering was over. bcs suffer I did, and that was obvious to anyone who had a pair of eyes. her eyes were old enough to notice by that stage, and she was angry with her dad. never got to resolve that with him! (though who am I kidding? he was an ABUSER and would have done the same to her - in fact, was already gearing up with the exact same stuff...)

yes, I have had a lot of therapy, all through those half-baked years. a lot of it tosh it has to be said but enough to understand the themes. can't afford any more - could never afford the good stuff. I also attended coda (12-step codependency support group) for a few years. like any addiction, it is lifelong. I slip back...

there's more I@d like to say but need to print out this thread first. one thing I will say though: I am tired of abuse. I have had more than my fair share and am thoroughly sick of the relentlessness of it, how it has jumped through all my key relationships, now my children. I don't want to sound pathetic but I am bone tired of it. I know enough to understand it but, infuriatingly, that doesn't get rid of it. it marches on. I love my children enough to stay committed to working on whatever it takes to foil it (if you like - it is, actually, pretty dumb) but tbh I need a break, some time to myself. I will never leave her - that just isn't an option - but a big break is called for here. she's also gagging for it I think. I think she also wants to launch and doesn't want 'me' hanging on to her coat tails. in her mind that is - re she feels a lot of guilt/responsibility about me, despite all my considerable efforts on that front to disabuse her that I am not her responsibility. and whoever said she is pushing to break me - that's exactly it. she is consistently astonished that her considerable efforts have not smashed me to pieces (but has no idea that they have on some level). I think she identifies 'me' with sorrow and pain and suffering; and she's had enough of that, is not interested that I have had all those and still battle the effects, and doesn't want to associate with it in me - which is fair enough, I really don't blame her. so she wants to obliterate [it in] me, destroy me. though needs me too (and of all my children, she needs me the most), which is a struggle within her. she won't hear that I am ok - I truly am, battered half to death but essentially really very ok. she can't compute that somebody who has gone through all I've gone through could possibly be ok (maybe it will be an inspiration to her at a later date lol). I think she fears that she will have my life and it terrifies her. but my life isn't hers and hers isnt mine.

sorry about dense ramblings (but so GOOD to get it out!)

(btw I'm very sorry to hear of the horrific abuse suffered by one poster at the hands of her parents. made me cry!)

She's 25... does she live with you? How old are the others?

Just another me, me, me post, in the offchance there's a similarity in the stories that helps. I grew up viewing my mother as an evil witch who just made mine and my dad's lives so bloody difficult with her incessant nagging and arguing. Now I'm 30 I can see the truth - my mother was constantly at the end of her tether with my dad's alcoholism, and her fault was to sometimes turn all of her pent up frustration towards me (he wouldn't participate in arguments, instead going out to hide in the shed, leaving her alone in the house with me, and as I was already quite happy to have a screaming match, that's inevitably what would happen). After they split, I initially still thought he was brilliant, and got angry with her for always bitching about him, when he never said a bad word about her.

I can see the truth now because throughout my 20s my relationship with my father disintegrated, as I saw exactly what my mother had had to deal with. He's now out of my life. My relationship with my mother is still a difficult one, but it's better, we don't argue (much) anymore, and she's a very big part of DD's life.

Sadly it sounds like your DD wasn't able to see your ex's faults for herself, but hears about them from you. That's not the best way for her to discover them - unfortunately she'll shoot the messenger.

hh -I had a long chat with my DC last night. She is 17 and longs to go to uni and leave the miserable past behind but is also weighed down with concern for me.

She feels responsible for my happiness but also knows she cannot make me happy. That knowledge means she gets angry when I'm unhappy - so recently when I got sick instead of caring for me, the burden of feeling like she wishes she could change things, made her lash out...then the guilt of knowing she had ...eats her up....... vicious circle.

I am clear with her that she has her own life and is not responsible for me. She feels concern for the youngest DC and the fact that ex is still being awkward but that conflicts with her love for him.

The way forward (for me) is to give her permission to love her Dad and have the relationship she wants and for her to accept we each have our own history with him and don't have to agree on it

Your exs death has caused this. Sorry that counselling hasn't been complete answer but it isn't is it? It's just intervention to help you see a way to resolve it....and then life goes on and there is something else!

thanks so much again for replies - really helps.

she doesn't live with me. younger sibs all moreorless flown. I rarely see her, she is very busy and lives a long way away. she hasn't come to my house much since i had to have her arrested a few years ago (extreme violence) and she spent a night in a police cell and left with a caution (which was not my choice - the caution that is). she has never forgiven me for it, says I betrayed her and she can never trust anyone again. she talks often of not being able to trust anyone she loves because of me, or that night.

extreme violence towards me

Wow Human heart. I think she's a narcissist. She expects you to bend over so far backwards to accommodate all her needs but she never even acknowledges it, never mind feels any gratitude. It's almost as if you only exist in the form o her coping mechanism. Being horrible to you is her valve.

It's the toughest dilemma of all, because when it's our exes behaving just like this we can (sometimes, hopefully) understand that we have the right to walk away. And even when people's mothers are narcissist we can suggest that they cut contact, but what the fuck do you do when it's your child???

It'd be good if she'd go to counselling with you. Is there ANY chance of that? If she believes she'll get a platform to berate you then she might be lured in.

You don't deserve this.

she talks often of not being able to trust anyone she loves because of me, or that night.

And then what do you do? Do you say sorry? Or say the caution wasn't your fault?

Because she needs to understand the whole incident was her fault. It didn't happen to her, she did it!

If she can't wrap her head around that, maybe Valium's right.

I also think the counselling might be a good idea.

Gosh! I'm speaking as an observer here, but from how I read it, the abusing has just passed from father to daughter. You need to break the cycle again. It may well be the hardest thing you have to do, but I think you need to break contact. When she wants you back, you have to be in control. Set the rules and see she sticks to them. If she threatens suicide, I'm with the poster who said to call the emergency services. Suicide threats and failed attempts are quite common in the older generation of my family where there is a history of abuse. But in general, I feel that they are more a cry for help from a wounded soul. If you want to die, you don't tell people. You kill yourself. She is your daughter, and you love her, but she is abusing you. You have to stop this now, and look after yourself. Letting her continue is not helping you or her.

her father was a narcissist and yes I have noticed the similarities (hands sweating as i type). realised this about a year ago and went into meltdown. right now, can't fully face it iyswim? just can't BEAR that it is repeating itself - and not just repeating itself, but in my dear daughter (and she IS dear to me). as you say Valium, what do you do when it's your own child?

I didn't break the cycle the first time saggy - he died, that's what got rid of him. there really is not much you can do about a narcissist except protect yourself to the best of your ability with endless (exhausting) strategies up your sleeve.

however (backpeddling furiously) she has had a very different childhood to her father's (which was frighteningly toxic in a very unusual way). ok there was endless shit endlessly going on (re her dad) but she had a mother who knew enough to support her, who put healthy pegs in place that endure (that type of thing does) even though I was half dead a lot of the time (outwardly - inwardly I was alive and awake). can't go into detail and don't want to sound like a drip/fantasist (knowing how hard I find it to face that my daughter may be a narcissist). the conclusion I came to with ex is that he wasn't human. I spent a lot of years convinced there must be a human being in there somewhere but eventually conceded that the narcissism was so powerful that whatever humanity may have been in existence in him was entirely drowned out by the condition. maybe I didn't love him enough (NOT codependency alert, just true, and neither should I have) but I do love my daughter enough. I'm not saying I will give up my all for her, but as a mother there is a quality in which you give up your 'life' somehow for your children. ok, sounding rabidly codependent here... but what I am trying to say is more along the lines of unconditional love. I know that sounds foolish. with a husband, you are not there to save them but you are, and can, with your children. THAT IS NOT TO SAY that you lay on the ground like a full-blown martyr: 'saving' [bad choice of word] can be from a distance, rigid with boundaries; more a heart default. I will never (never!) give up on her, even if I don't see her for n years and she destroys herself (please God, no). I have held boundaries (re police) even though all hell broke loose and still does. I have held and held and held boundaries, though the storm rages and rages. she wants to destroy me, to break me down, but I am not destroyed. nothing like actually. she ups the ante, I am not destroyed. she tries this strategy and that strategy, I am not destroyed. I know she is astonished that I am not destroyed (though the shredded heart - well, I don't let her know about that. you don't let a narcissist know they've hit the bullseye).

as for counselling. dear God, had a few horrific experiences of that (in which a kafka nightmare unfolded, with the counsellor blaming me, the evil mother, and heavily encouraging my kids to boot me out of their hearts and minds. I can honestly say we've not been the same since - we were doing ok up to that point and I only arranged it bcs kids were bereaved and I thought it was a sensible precaution, given the history). It was only at the tail end of ex's life that I finally alighted on the information about NPD (narcissistic personality disorder). I got there purely through my own extensive research, turning over every stone until I found it and had a eureka moment that I'd found a name for exactly what I'd experienced with ex. and it was a little-known condition then, nobody had heard of it. I knew no-one else who had ever coined the phrase, let alone knew anything about it (let alone a therapist who had any clue about it - remenber, I couldn't pay for the good stuff). now i've recently come on this site and am astonished (I'd say 'delighted' but you can hardly be 'delighted' about something like this) to see it is a phrase/condition that is fully understood and has become part of dv parlance. fantastic. knowledge is power and all that.

therapists - hmmmm. done a LOT of harm in my experience (the family therapists mentioned above being the thin end of a horrific wedge). I've spent my own sessions training therapists about NPD ffs (and paid them at the end of it!!). I just don't trust therapists to have enough sense/training - I don't find them very intelligent I'm sorry to say. they can be a bit thick and see a bogey where there isn't one, but miss the elephant by a mile. sorry, jaded.

i appreciate that some could read this and think yikes, OP MAY be evil. WHO CAN TELL . therapists can't tht's for sure.

No, you're patently not evil!

I'm sorry you had a bad experience with a therapist. Don't write them all off though. Perhaps you should start with it being your therapist and your children joining you?

That is why you need to have therapy via your gp, private counsellors are not psychologists/psychiatrists, which is what you really needed/need.

As her Mother you can have a relationship, you need to work on yourself and your boundaries and have some nhs therpay probably long term, your gp can help with this.

Take a look at this from an american website called parenting the at risk child. Obviously HH's daughter is grown up, but there's a bit in here about the inner triangle that kind of strikes a chord for me. I think my daughter's triangle might be a bit ,,,,, impaired

here

Some of it is about impulse control, which sounds like it could be relevant to HH's daughter. A person with a fully developed inner triangle (to use the American websites jargon) shouldn't be attacking somebody and then feeling NO remorse, and blaming the person they attacked for daring to find their attack unacceptable.

HH I am very grateful to you for opening this subject as I can see it relates very strongly to the situation I have had.

I have had a difficult time with my daughter and her father definately had NPD. As he died just as she was/is turning into a young woman I can only hope that with a lot of love and patience and often restraint on my part that I can guide her; as I said in my previous post upthread, she displays behaviours of H.

We had an incident recently where she verbally pushed me to my limits, telling me that I was a no good mother/useless, and I am lazy. She was so angry, I became angry back and she screamed that she wanted to hit me; I put my hands over my head and told her to. She hit me several times and eventually stopped, she was sobbing. I sat and cuddled her and told her it was allright. We discussed the incident and I told her that I don't want to have angry exchanges with her. We did a lot more talking that evening that I won't go into here however the incident seemed to break something that was remaining underneath. She had cut herself off for several months, however she is now coming out of her shell. I know this is going to take a lot of work.

I apologise for not having anymore advice for you, I just understand a bit.

People here are giving thoughful advice

the kafkaesque nightmare was NHS (camhs) Brad! imo they see too many awful situations and can end up viewing everybody through a distorted lens, suspecting demons in the coat cupboard and under the sink. the 'therapists' who saw us were all of 24 and 28 and had a very obvious 'mother' prejudice... well, I could go on, they were truly truly appalling. nightmare material. I advise people who are on a stupidly long CAMHS waiting list to not beat their breasts in despair as it could be a blessing in disguise.

a long time ago, a GP saw dd and immediately put in motion a referral to a team (team!) of psychiatrists etc. dd had just passed her 18th birthday so I wasn't party to what was going on. it made me very nervous and I sabotaged it really, was the bottom line (though I saw the GP at my ds's oboe recitals for the next few years, as her son was also an oboe player). i think of that now and wonder what she saw that made her move so quickly and with such urgency. well, I do know, and wonder if I made a huge mistake. but I didn't want dd getting caught up in that system. on her records? serious mental health issues? I know a woman who has had a very serious mental health episode lasting a few years; now she is much better but has recently dramatically lost weight and the mental health professionals are convinced she is sabotaging her food. she isn't. ie get in that system and you can't get out. someone said on here recently "the more you struggle, the tighter the coils". I just don't trust them - they frighten the bejesus out of me.

though I get your point brad. hard to trust people though.

i'll look at that link Valium (when I've got the courage!)

HH - either your daughter has mental health problems or she doesn't (and I think we know she does). Running away from a diagnosis won't change the issue.

sorry, more from me. I know I'm posting - and writing - a lot but it's been a long time..

what you have to say merrywidow is interesting. I have wondered about letting dd let me have it. you know, safely (somehow!). ie letting her just get it out. i did a group therapy course once (one of the many lol) and we took a bat and beat some big cushions, screaming whatever came into our mouths about the person we had chosen to let it all out about. it was interesting - interesting to hear what we said. I chose my dad, then my mum (as we all did of course), and it turned out to be very healing and cathartic. my dad picked me up from the station and I felt confused that I may start screaming obsenities in his face (gulp) but nothing like that happened - it was very peaceful and ordinary and there was my dear old dad, driving along... I look back and see now that that was a turning point in our relationship. I had a controlling dad (you guessed huh).

i've been very controlled with dd (with all my kids) probably bcs I've done a lot of therapy and know the 'talking' rules. as a result we can talk through some very difficult things and they can say what they like but I guess I insist it is controlled ie respectful, not abusive. I wonder if i may have driven my kids nuts. maybe they need to scream a stream of 'nonsensical' obscenities in my face and beat the shit out of me (somehow)? in my defence, I had to be controlled myself. things were too awful and frightening, my mental health hanging on a thread bcs of the endless, terrifying abuse that not a soul understood. (actually, maybe people - professionals - did understand but I couldn't talk about it, couldn't even find the words bcs it was so frightening. I was very frightened.)

btw longtall re that night: I tell her she was going to kill me (no question) and that I would do the same again (dial 999) if the same situation arose. I have told her that I specifically requested that she wasn't given a caution but she won't believe me and uses it as a stick to beat me with. I just repeat that it wasn't my choice, that the police acted over my head. I tell her that she did it and that I was protecting myself. and would do the same again etc etc (well-worn track tbh)

maybe they need to scream a stream of 'nonsensical' obscenities in my face and beat the shit out of me

No, they need to know that they can't. What next, their future partners? Their children?

They must learn that other people are not there as punchbags.

ok good point. just trying to work it out from every angle here. I have never let them scream and rant at me abusively - though they have certainly tried. and I am like a parrot "you can NOT do that, that is NOT acceptable, you will NOT behave like that, stop it NOW. or plain LEAVE THE ROOM!" etc. I never waver, it's always the same, never changes. just wonder if I've driven them nuts with claire in the community babble. ds1 has wailed/screamed on more than one occasion, in obvious despair, "I really hate you mum!" but that's ok in my book. he wasn't saying you're a fucking bitch whore, he was saying I hate you. which is fair enough. of course he hates his mother sometimes - who doesn't?

HH, If I were you I'd stop defending yourself on that count (her ending up with a caution). If you carry on defending yourself and trying to reason with her it just feeds two erroneous beliefs she currently has 1) that she can re-write history and give it her own slant. 2) that she can let out her anger at life on you.

FACT she was physically attacking you!

FACT you can't control the police

Please don't waste your breath defending yourself anymore. Refuse to have that conversation with her. Refusing to have that conversation with her denies her the opportunity to give history her own interpretation.

I agree with longtall, what your dd needs to learn is that she must control her impulse to abuse you or attack you. She has the freedom to think whatever she likes but she does not have any legal or moral right to attack you or to scream abuse at you for hours.

I don't think you should see indulging this need of hers as some form of therapy. It's not. It would be perpetuating this dysfunctional dynamic between you which will drag you down and nurture her narcissism.

It wouldn't be doing anything to break the pattern.

Possibly you taking yourself out of her orbit for a year on a cruise might break the habit!!

I agree with LongtallJosie, she must learn that abusing other people is not a reasonable coping mechanism.

Please don't feel that you owe it to her to suck this up. Or that you are making the choice to suck up that abuse because you love her.

I don't think it's acceptable for your children to tell you they hate you actually. I don't know what to do about it though!!! But I think to myself when I hear that from my 8 year old 'you dont' know what hate means, you don't know what love means'.

From a child it is just inarticulate anger. Actually, from an adult it is inarticulate anger plus a desire to hurt you.

What age are your younger two boys? are they witnessing all this? Are you type cast in the role of emotional punchbag ?