DD abusing me - distressed

[Minifingers]

Have posted about dd on parenting teenagers board under a different user name. If you recognise me, please don't out me, as dd sometimes searches mn to see what I've said about her. I don't think she has ever looked at this board though. I lurk on this board a bit. I thought I'd post after realising that what I'm feeling at the moment is not a million miles away from what what I read here from women in abusive partnerships with adults. I really need to off-load.

There's a special kind of sadness and shame attached to being abused by your young teenage child because underneath you are constantly asking yourself the question - are they like this because of the way I've parented them? And fear for them - for their future and their well-being. I strongly believe that behaving in a violent and abusive way doesn't just harm the person who's being abused, but in a spiritual and emotional sense also the person who's behaving abusively. That's really hard when you are a parent on the receiving end of abuse from your child.

A bit of background: dd is going to be 14 in August. Up until the end of primary she was a very easy and happy little girl. Unusually happy, confident and high spirited I'd say. She had a massive sense of fun and loads of energy, to the point that she'd always be the last child standing at any party or sleep-over. She breezed through primary in top sets for everything, despite being one of the youngest in her year. Her teachers LOVED her. She was very, very pretty too, to the point that people would stop me in the street and say what an adorable little girl she was.

Fast forward to year 9 and she's unrecognisable as the happy, lovely little girl we knew before. She's still sociable and has a lot of friends, including a couple she's known since nursery. But that's all that's left of what she was before. On the days she's not actively refusing to go to school (about 2 or 3 out of every 5 days at the moment - she just won't get out of bed), she deliberately makes herself very, very late. She regularly argues with teachers - just point blank refuses to do things she doesn't feel like doing at school, whether it's an assessment for PE, moving desks because she's been talking, whatever. She walks out of detentions if she thinks they've kept her long enough, refuses to do any homework, is MASSIVELY disrespectful to the teachers she doesn't like.

Obviously I've tried to do something about her behaviour. I've moved her school (she asked me to and I was unhappy with her old school), I have kept in regular touch with her tutor and her head of year. We have tried to put sanctions in place for bad behaviour (ie grounding and losing her phone) and made our expectations clear but we aren't the most organised people and her behaviour has been so universally bloody awful that it has got to a point where sanctions become a bit meaningless. And in the meantime she has become so angry, and so resentful of me in particular, and it's got worse and worse to the point where I can't see how we can go on, despite the support we've had from the school and from other agencies (CAMHS) to get to the bottom of her behaviour.

If you've read on to this point you might be thinking - So far, so typical of some teenagers, but I'm posting specifically because of her behaviour towards me and how it's made me feel.

Over the last few months she has become more and more aggressive towards me. She

• daily tells me I'm pathetic and a failure as a parent because I have an autistic child (her youngest brother who is 7) and a daughter (her) who has been referred to CAMHS and who I can't control
• tells me I'm old and stupid. Tells me constantly to 'shut up' and if I don't do what she says, says 'Are you stupid? Did you hear me? SHUT UP'
• tells me I'm a failure because the house is messy and because I buy my clothes in charity shops
• says that DH should leave me and could do much better than me
• walks into the bathroom when I'm in the bath, even when I have the door locked and have said not to come in - she sticks a card through the gap in the door and unlatches it, pushes her way in and shoots disgusted looks at my body. Says she needs to wash her hands and won't go downstairs to do it because she can't be bothered
• walks into my bedroom and pulls things off my shelves when she wants something of mine, without asking me if she can have it. She walks past me into the room, ignores me when I say 'what do you want?', literally physically barges me out of the way and laughs at me, just takes what she wants and walks out.
• she has locked me out of the house when I've stepped outside to put something in the bin
• she has trashed my room
• she body-blocks me in the hallway of the house, sticks her face in mine and shouts at me that I'm pathetic and scared to make eye contact with her.
• she gas lights me
• she tells me I should just leave and why don't I give up and move out
• she constantly points out that DH earns more than me and that therefore he is 'in charge'. I have pointed to her that this is not how finances work in a marriage (at least not in ours thank god). She ignores me.

..... and then yesterday she snatched my mobile after I refused to allow her something she wanted. When I tried to get it back off her she hit me around the face, knocking my glasses to the floor, laughed at me when I cried, and shoved me out the front door of the house.

She weighs 10 and a half stone and is stronger than me. I'm frightened of her.

I found myself sitting crying in the car and too frightened to go back into my own home. I ended up going around to my SIL's house. She came back home with me and persuaded dd to be driven round to my mums, where she stayed last night.

I don't want her to come home. I feel completely traumatised by the last few months - I have this constant feeling of exhaustion and a weird sense of vigilance - like I am living under siege. I suspect a year or two more of this and I'd have a heart attack or something. The atmosphere in the house is often awful and it's affecting my ability to parent my other two children.

And although I'm the one who is the target of most of her spite and anger, DH is also very stressed by it. He's a 45 year old manager and someone who I would have said had 'cast iron' good mental health. Yet she managed to make him cry last week. First time I have seen him cry in the 20 years we've been together. He's a brilliant dad, very patient and caring. He's made loads of time for dd the past year, knowing that she's struggling with growing up, taken her shopping, to the theatre and out to lunch.

I keep asking myself what I've done to make her like this. DH and I have been together for 20 years, and we have always been loving and respectful to each other, in front of the children and at every other time. We NEVER speak to each other in a disrespectful way.

I have not been a perfect parent to dd - I have nagged her too much about her lack of effort at school (and when I say lack of effort I mean lack of ANY effort, not a failure to reach some impossible standard of perfection), I have lost the plot at times and shouted and pleaded with her about her truanting and lateness. On a couple of occasions I attempted to push her into her bedroom when she attacked me. I should have walked away and shut myself in my bedroom instead of engaging with her physically. DH has admitted he's made mistakes with her as well, and has apologised for telling her she was a 'waste of space' (in fairness, this was a comment on her absolute refusal to ever lift a finger to help at home, including refusing to do even such basic things such as remove her plate from the table after eating, put rubbish in a bin instead of just dropping it on the floor wherever in the house she happens to be standing, or flush the toilet after she's done a crap in it). Can her abusiveness be our fault? Is it always learned behaviour?

How do I survive the next few years being abused and disrespected in my own home until she grows up and either leaves or stops doing it? How do I keep myself intact and strong as a mother?

If you've got this far - thanks! I'm going out to walk the dog (stress relief). Will come back and respond later if anyone answers this.

My first thought was sexual abuse. But again, my only reason for this is the training I had to become a foster carer.

Bipolar disorder often first appears in the teen years, but actual diagnosis can take a decade or more, i.e. it is only apparent in retrospect.

If you can afford it, go private.

I was similar to this in my teens tho maybe a fraction less bad than your DD. I was bullied at school and felt I had to be tough to fit in. I was angry at my parents for insisting I continued to attend school, for being eccentric and for not allowing me the full autonomy I felt I deserved (I was 15 at the time rather than 13). I couldn't stand the fact that parents and teachers had authority over me. I left school to go to FE College at 16 and thrived in the much more grown up environment. I also left home at 17 (still funded by my folks as in full time education) and distance helped me get on really well with my mum and dad. It took me until many years later though (age 27), to really understand what had gone on, how horrible and unjust I had been to them, and to apologise. Sorry, I appreciate this may not help you through the next 3-4 years, but I wanted to let you know it may not be forever, and it may not be anything terrible like sexual abuse, just exceptionally painful growing pains :(

Oh Mini I didn't want to read and run as reading your posts I feel for you.

Whilst there may well be issues going on around depression, identity, growing up etc it is no excuse for this degree of abusive behaviour. She's swanning around like she's the parent. I think you are 100% right for removing her out of your home. If you or when you allow her back I hope you feel able keep several boundaries in place like no physical abuse and follow through with sanctions.

Oliver James would be a very, very good source of help on this.

Excellent suggestion by Natmu and others. Your dd really needs the help of qualified psychologists.

Sorry to be a pain, but have you had her tested for thyroid problems already or not?

You're polite to her? Why? YOu don't need to be polite to her. No wonder she thinks she's running the show if you are sweetness and light, terrified to say something out of line

Dear Lord, you have to stop being a mouse. Act like you're the boss, not the other way around. Make statements. Not nice, not nasty, but straight to the point, no frills. eg 'Get up now' (no emphasis on any words) ie a flat statement. (yy I know she'll tell you to fuck off but I can't bear to think of you simpering away at her when she is a cow.)

She sounds like a nightmare. And yes, she needs to see a doctor. Get drug tested and so on.

I would get help for yourself - from yr GP, and crucially, from the rest of the family, esp your DH. You need a plan to deal with her - both of you.

Oh, and next time she attacks you call the police. Yep, you have to, for all sorts of reasons.

Dd has seen 2 psychologists and a consultant psychiatrist. We are under the care of CAMHS.

I model the behaviour I want her to copy so I try to be courteous. That doesn't preclude me from being firm or issuing orders. Makes no difference how you communicate with her in my experience. If she wants to do something she will do it no matter what my opinion or how I express it.

Cory - police have already been out to us twice. Will call them again if I need to.

No not tested for thyroid yet.

Mini, please get her tested ASAP! Xx

Hi Mini
My daughter previous "mother" emotionally and physically abused her before being taken away by SS so she has this to work through aswell as the abandoment issues of her other mum and trust issues with me although not her dad so much as she never had that role model from the information given by SS although we love her more than air as she is my daughter in every sense for us its very hard and CAHMs reckon she will never get fully over it all, its hard as CAHMS have said she may never get over the feeling that she is unlovable and its heartbreaking that she can't see how much we all adore her

Mini, I know that you have mothers instict that there has definately not been any abuse, I was abused from a baby till about 9 and had endless MH treatment but was 40 before I plucked up courage to get help for it.
Hope you are having alovely weekend.x

she knows perfectly well what cvilised speech is, you don't have to endlessly model it to her, it is inappropriate in the circs imo. a policeman approaching your flagged down car doesn't fall over himself being polite: he makes statements, reflecting his power and authority.

ime sexual abuse is silent and leaves absolutely no trace. my mother's instinct didn't pick it up at all, not the slightest hint. iwish i could say otherwise

Emotional abuse can be similarly obscured and similarly hard for a child to define.

springy - she gets told 'Get up, it's time for school'. She gets told, 'You need to get out of bed, NOW!'. She gets told, 'Go to school'; 'Pick your sweet wrappers off the floor and put them in the bin'; 'Don't swear'; 'Be respectful'. We don't cringe or put things ambiguously, but most of the time I try to keep my tone neutral and be polite, because I have learned to my cost that her defiance and rudeness feeds off my aggravation like a weed. The more angry and/or forceful I am, the more defiant and rude she is.

As for sexual abuse - really there has to be some evidence that this might be happening before you'd want to start thinking along these lines, surely?

As for emotional abuse - well sometimes I wonder how I'd feel about the way I've responded to her behaviour over the last few years. I know the 'right' way to respond to a child refusing to engage at school, refusing to do school work, refusing to go to bed/get up/go to school/, a child being aggressive, defiant and rude, isn't to nag, get angry, exasperated, to criticise, become depressed, to withdraw, but I've done all of these things at times, along with offering cuddles, trying to be consistent, offering a listening ear, supporting, trying to have time alone together, working with teachers,giving praise, consulting my GP. I've tried it all - some positive, and some strategies (shouting, pleading, nagging) in desperation that are probably the wrong way to deal with a situation like this. Maybe dd does see some of my actions and responses to her behaviour as abusive. I can acknowledge this.

Hi minifingers, so sorry to hear you are going through this. I agree with kotinka and chubfuddler - sexual abuse or something similarly very wrong may have happened, completely separate to your parenting of her. I say this because I was very similar to your daughter at 14, truanting, getting involved with a much older crowd/drugs/sex, and my negative relationship with my mother culminated in violent behaviour. Fortunately I had observant/supportive teachers, a local priest and other professionals who addressed the situation and I ended up becoming a fairly well-balanced, law abiding human being. I would suggest that your daughter starts intensive psychotherapy NOW - although this needs to be suggested by someone other than yourself, she is probably not going to listen to you as she may feel you didn't protect her, which is why she is so angry at you. Her rage is all she has to protect herself, and it will consume her if she doesn't find someone to listen, but it can also work out OK.

because I have learned to my cost that her defiance and rudeness feeds off my aggravation like a weed

yes, absolutely. I agree with you entirely - hence statements. Maryz described how her ds spend 2 years trying to catch her out, to draw her into conflict - you learn to be neutral when constantly bated like this.

I wonder if one just plugs away at the same old same old, when there is no discernible change. She knows precisely what is expected of her, you don't have to labour it. I don't know if you watched the Big C (canadian series about a women who discovers she has terminal cancer - fictional). When she gets her dx she tells no-one, but she changes, gets a glint in her eye. There is a fantastic scene where she squares up to her appallingly-behaved teenage son. [though the majority on MN would throw their hands up in horror at it, no doubt..]

re sexual abuse - no, I had absolutely no idea, not a hint, on any level. It was a tremendous shock when the truth came out. Unbearable.

I still think that consistent consequences are the way to go. They get used to the nagging, and the "get out of bed now" talk. I was there, did that.

They change pretty sharpish when you say " clearly you can't get up in the moving as you bbm on your phone in bed". Up tomorrow or its going. Then do it, for a week at a time.

Morning not moving

No child or adult is like that for no reason. I would suspect something awful at that first secondary school. Your DD is so angry, and she blames you for whatever happened. She wants to hurt you the way she was hurt. She is angry that you didn't notice her behaviour change, how unhappy she was becoming. She is angry that probably, when she tried to tell you, you were too busy with her brother. As time has gone by and she has struggled to cope every day with the effects of whatever happened, the strain of hiding this all day has come out as a worse and worse temper at home. If she was truly happy at the new school she would go.

YOU cannot fix this. Someone neutral needs to - perhaps her grandmother. They need to get her to talk, to trust again. Once you know exactly what happened and how she truly feels now, work can begin to help her, and to repair your relationship.

I agree with alikat724: "I would suggest that your daughter starts intensive psychotherapy NOW - although this needs to be suggested by someone other than yourself, she is probably not going to listen to you as she may feel you didn't protect her, which is why she is so angry at you." I don't think her grandmother can do the job a psychotherapist is trained to do. Keeping it in the family is not the way to go.