Is it ok for parents to respond to suicidal teenager like this? (Trigger warning: suicide attempt)

[trixies]

Hi all.

Hope that this post is OK. Long-time lurker on this forum.

I'm currently working through some childhood stuff with my therapist. One thing that I'm coming up against time and time again is my feelings about how they handled the fact that I made a serious attempt on my life at 17. At the time I was too frightened to tell either of them what I'd done (they were emotionally abusive and functioning alcoholics and I was scared that people at hospital would ask questions about my home life). I was really sick for about 2 days but my parents just ignored it.

My mum found out later by snooping and got really angry with me for doing it. We didn't speak about it again until we had family therapy nearly 20 years later. Her reasoning was that I was going to uni a few months later and so she assumed I'd be OK.

I only found out my dad actually knew about it at the family therapy session. He'd never spoken to me about it.

I'm now NC for a variety of reasons but I just can't get my head around this. Part of me is so angry that my parents thought it was ok to just leave a teenager in this mess, and part of me is just like, well, they probably did all they were able to do and what's the point in dragging it up now. I didn't tell them when I was sick, so there was nothing they could have done etc. etc.

This is tearing me apart, 20 years on, and it just makes me so sad and angry with myself that I can't get past it.

Has anyone been through anything similar, on either side? How did your parents handle it or how did you handle it with your child?

Thank you all. Sorry this post is so depressing.

Sorry to hear this OP.

No it’s not ok for parents to do this. No wonder you are hurt and angry all these years later.

In time perhaps you may be able to accept that your parents were very far from perfect, we all are in some measure, some more than others. I’m not sure from your OP whether you feel their behaviour was directly targeted at you/they wanted to make you feel crap, or they just didn’t know how to deal with the situation?

My parents did some pretty crap things which I was very angry about for a while. I’ve since realised they genuinely thought they were taking the right course of actions and there was no malice. It’s helped me be more at peace. Hope you get the same too.

@Illstartexercisingtomorrow (amazing username btw) - thank you so much. That helps.

Oh, absolutely it wasn't deliberately targeted - they just didn't know how to deal. My mum didn't really enjoy being a mum - she often said if she'd had her time again she wouldn't have done it. It just didn't play to her skillset at all.

I've found a lot of comfort in accepting that they weren't equipped to be parents and that's just how it is. I just can't seem to apply it here. I'm still too angry. Maybe in time I'll get there.

I'm sorry to hear of your experiences, too, and glad that you feel more at peace.

It sounds like they were very self-centred & this is yet another incident that shows how self-centred.

Please don't hate me for saying this, just that part of reason I think it haunts you, could be you still hope (believe) they could have done better. They could have noticed, cared, asked, realised, taken care of you. Especially could have done better if they loved you. So their failure could mean they didn't love you.

Reality is probably that love doesn't always work so well. Love is there but it often doesn't stop people being selfish and all their other personality defects from dominating their behaviour.

Sounds good you went NC. You deserve to protect your sanity. It's not your job to fix them.

Not as serious as ignoring a suicide attempt, but my parents did ignore the fact I was having serious mental health problems in my late teens/early 20s. When I was about 20 I had what I now know to be a bipolar 'high' and threw out all my belongings...my parents didn't try and stop me and let my belongings stay outside in black bin bags until the rubbish collectors took them away. I was left with literally just my clothes.

I was diagnosed as bipolar at 23 and my mother didn't acknowledge it until 3 years ago...so that was 25 years of pretending. Like your mother, neither of my parents had actually wanted children in the first place. They ended up having 3 as my mother is Catholic. My father finally got a vasectomy after my younger brother was born...

I'm 52 and still am staggered at how they could have just let me lose all my belongings. It must have been so obvious I wasn't well. I don't know if it came from a place of malice...I just don't think they cared.

@lljkk Thank you for your response. I think your explanation is definitely part of it and I'm glad that you raised it. I think it's hard for me to reconcile the adult thoughts (they were way, way out of their depth) with the child thoughts (even taking me to a hospital and leaving me there would've been something).

Your comments particularly about love being dominated by other personality defects is so wise, too - I need to think more about that. Thank you, again, for your thoughtful response and your tact.

@noirchatsdeux That is terrible, I'm so sorry that you went through that. It's so far from ordinary behaviour that it's no wonder you feel so shocked even now. I think it's difficult to understand how anyone could just sit by and let that happen. I wonder whether, like my parents, they just buried their heads in the sand. Absolutely not a justification, it doesn't make it any less awful.

On the other side of this. When my DD attempted to take her own life through an overdose, she called me from the hospital. My first response was absolute panic, my second response was anger my last (and still now) was helplessness. I'm not saying it's the right response and me and my DD have spoken extensively about that time and why she did it, her MH issues but also my response. My anger was in response to the terror and desperation I felt in the situation and how I'd let her down and was how it manifested itself. I was angry at myself.

I come from a family of poor communicators who's first response was always anger, not an excuse but a reason. Now I handle it better. Do you think any of these feelings could be what your parents felt? I just remember trying what I thought were so many things to "solve the problem".

@KittyVonCatsworth Firstly, I’m so sorry to hear that - it must’ve been very traumatic for you both.

Yes, it could well have been anger. I suppose the difference is that your DD felt able to tell you and you’ve had those difficult conversations with your DD since. That’s so important and demonstrates real emotional honesty and trust between you. I don’t think my parents knew how to do that. A part of me knows that nothing is gained from me being angry about that but another part is struggling not to.

No, it's not ok. You needed care, support and a space to be heard and understood. It doesn't sound like they could give you that. Whether it's out of choice or incapacity it doesn't matter. The younger you still needed those things you didn't get, still wants those things, still feels the same way.

I remember the first time my partner asked if I was ok because I didn't seem myself. I cried and cried because from my childhood I didn't know someone could tell, I didn't know that they could care enough to ask and I didn't know that someone could genuinely want to listen. My partner took an active role and spoke to drs on my behalf to get me treatment, I didn't know I was worth fighting for. I hope someday you have a relationship (if you don't already could be a friend, partner, colleague etc) where you can feel seen and heard. I know i's not the same as your parents suddenly changing or going back in time but it's validating in a small way.

@colourmeclear Thank you so much for your response. I'm really sorry that you went through that, but glad that you have such a lovely supportive partner. I hope for that for me one day.

Stay nc. That is horrific. I hope someday you find closure and Im sorry the system failed you 💗

I'm nc with my mother.

I had a stash of pulls as a teenager that I'd kept for suicide. My mum found them, threw them away and then denied all knowledge of it. No argument just, "Don't be silly. I didn't do that."

I know she found them - I can still picture the pot they were stored in and where they were hidden today.

She had no concept at all of me being a whole person with feelings. My state of being as a fully functioning separate human was an inconvenience to her. It wasn't concern that made her do this but a desire to keep her life straightforward and easy. She just didn't want to deal with either my emotions or the reality of my life. I'm also nc because that was something that never changed.

It wasn't OK for your parents to do this and I'm sorry you experienced it. It makes sense that you're still struggling with it because your needs were not met at the time and, as you are nc, are unlikely to have ever been since.

I'll probably get slaughtered for this, but forgiveness is the key. Forgiving someone isn't about 'letting them off' or accepting what they did was ok. It's about deciding that you don't to carry something that causes you hurt and damages you further.

I am no contact with my father. I forgave his selfishness and neglect and womanising ways many years ago because it would have only hurt me to hold onto that.

As said some parents are not equipped to be parents. They can provide the necessities but beyond that have no real understanding about the emotional supports needed.

I wonder if at your core is a feeling they didn't care enough to do something to help you? This can then become did they ever love me at all?

I didn't attempt anything but I was suicidally depressed and anxious as a teenager and was frequently ignored, left alone and treated with contempt for taking up their time and energy. It really messes with your sense of self I think and the more I look at it the more I realise this was their general attitude to me, not just when so was mentally ill. I do wonder why they had me, I know I was unplanned but sometimes I wonder why they bothered if this was all they could offer. The impact on my life has been massive. All I can say going forward is that I try to not pass this down to my children. They were very much wanted and hoped for. I hope they never feel like too much trouble. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

I just wanted to offer my current perspective on forgiveness, I respect the views of the above poster but I don't forgive my parents one bit. We take on the responsibility of parenthood and we are entrusted with another's soul, someone who never asked to be born. We never talk about that though, we discuss birth, feeding, nappies, sleepless nights, and the terrible twos but how often do we pause to consider we hold the power to make or break a person. Why can't we start owning that? As you can probably tell, I am furious still!

@swordofgryffindor Thank you so much for your kind post.

@14tealights I'm so sorry to hear of your experiences. I think we share a very similar story, and I really hope that you can find peace in time.

@windmillwhirl I'm so sorry to hear of your experience with your father. I certainly won't slaughter you for your views - everyone is entitled to them, and forgiveness is quite a polemic issue. My view on my parents is that they loved me to the best of their ability - the problem being that their ability was far too limited. I think, for me, I'm in the process of trying to accept what happened and to take ownership of every aspect of my life without them. That's maybe quite similar to what you call forgiveness? I, personally, do not forgive them - there would need to have been an admission of fault and an apology for that even to be possible for me. But I am working hard to accept the reality of my situation and to know that it doesn't define me.

@Leafy12 I'm so sorry to hear of your experiences. I've also had difficulty with this line of thinking, particularly as my mother has said to me on several occasions that if she'd had the choice again she wouldn't have had children. A child does not ask to be born, and I think like you there's an absence of this type of thinking on the parent's part. I've seen a lot of people justify bad parental behaviour with "nobody knows what they're going to be like as a parent until they are one" - firstly, I'm not convinced that that's true. I don't have children because I suspect I'd be incapable of fulfilling their emotional needs. Secondly, even if you can't be certain, you can have a fair idea - and it's then your responsibility to weigh up the consequences of proceeding. I agree with you entirely.

OP I had the same situation with my parents, at exactly the same age as you. I know the deep pain this causes, I know it well.

I found normal therapy just did not work.

Instead, I went to see a child trauma psychotherapist, who helped me go back to the place I was in, and relive it, but with a different outcome. An outcome of love, support and assistance.
The reason why you keep going back over and over again sounds to me a lot like unresolved trauma, and PTSD which can manifest for decades. It is a memory that keeps coming back, probably being triggered by something you are not aware of. You need to find the right person to help you through this properly, take your time researching and talking to them first before committing.

What I can tell you from my own experience, is that you will probably never fully understand or even forgive your parents for letting you down so badly, and you don't have to. This is a perfectly normal reaction.

Your parents couldn't cope, for whatever reason, they just couldn't/didn't deal with it. Some people panic and put their heads in the sand, others pretend all is fine, some react with anger and outrage from fear, others are gentle and will help.

The chances are that your parents were not doing a great job for a very long time looking after you, and supporting you. For you to get to such a crisis point without any help in place is also a failing on their part, unless you were seeing counsellors and getting support at the time. The warning signs must have been there.

You are an adult now, and can take care of yourself and you no longer need to look to them to help you/parent you/protect you. Really taking on that adult feeling of responsibility of being responsible for yourself is part of the recovery. You are no longer a child that needs them. That was then, this is now. Embrace the now op. The competent, responsible person you are now, start trusting yourself again

I asked my father twenty eight years later why he did not care about me as I lay in the hospital SCU, he told me it was because the nurse had confirmed it was 45 odd paracetamols I had taken and not the 50 I had said it was. So that is okay then, for my father to walk out and leave me there. It is not easy to come back from an explanation like that, even so many decades later.

As I say, the focus needs to be not on what your parents did or didn't do - that is something they to live with not you, but what you can do now to comfort that child in need, to love that child you once were, and to try and minimise the damage they have caused so you can live a happy and fulfilling life now op. Be your own parents. Be your own champion.

@trixies, thank you for understanding. I thought I'd risk saying that as I had a hunch you might 'get it'. I also get tired of hearing that stuff about parenting, I guess we speak from bitter experience. For what it's worth, if you ever change your mind about being a parent, you may well make an amazing Mum precisely because you are doing this work. At least you will go in with open eyes. Take care.

So sorry to hear all these awful stories. My mum had an abusive childhood and went NC with her parents when I was about 10.
She strove very hard not to repeat what they did and in that aim she
succeeded but it's clear she was very damaged by what happened to her.
I think acceptance is the word I would use rather than forgiveness.
Accepting that they weren't capable of being the parents you needed, nor will they ever be. That none of it was your fault, only an understandable response to your upbringing.
I wonder if you are finding it hard to move on from your anger because you still hope deep down that one day you will get the apology and understanding from them that you deserve?
My mum said that when the decision to go NC was taken, she still felt frightened of her mother and still hoped her parents would see the error of their ways. Eventually my mum came to accept that they would never change and the only thing left to do was let go of it all.
My mum really changed for the better after that.
It takes time to get to that point, I really wish you all the best for the future, and hope you don't mind me putting my two penneth in.

When I told my mother that I was so unhappy I wanted to die, she told me not to talk like that or I'd be 'locked up in a mental hospital'. She was an emotionally abusive alcoholic. When I told my dad that I felt there was no meaning, purpose or worth in my life, he told me that my purpose in life was 'to go to school'. I hated school. School caused much of my depression and I'd been school refusing for years.

I've had a lot of therapy since. One of the things I realised was that I was in so much pain as a teenager and I desperately, desperately wanted someone to help get rid of it, or at least to understand. I know what a cliche that sounds, but just someone saying that they understood why I felt so bad, and that there was so much more to life than the little mould I was trapped in and didn't fit. Some way out. When you're little, it seems like your parents can fix anything. In therapy I figured out that mine were not emotionally or psychologically equipped to help me. They didn't know how. My dad probably wasn't trying to be cruel and dismissive, he'd probably never thought about the meaning of life beyond being 'normal' and doing what everyone else is doing - especially if you're a 'child'. My parents told me much later that they didn't really see children as real people. That explained an awful lot about my childhood.

The point is not that they weren't hurtful. They were. It's that for me, the residual grief over the way they reacted to and treated me at my very lowest and most vulnerable moments started to diminish when I realised that they were damaged people themselves who probably didn't know any better. That helped me to forgive them - for most of it, anyway. I'm sorry for what you went through, OP, and I hope the memories get easier to deal with over time.

I found being a mother has been the most wonderful thing too op, I am aware of my potential flaws/triggers and worked carefully to give my dc a happy and lovely gentle childhood, and they are nearly adults now, so it has been good. They have shown me what love, unconditional love looks like, so don't dismiss motherhood simply because you feel you are not good enough.

I felt better that all kinds of people are parents, psychopaths, murderers etc you do not need to be father and mother christmas to be parents - there is no special licence, and some people are just not cut out for it, at all, and don't have the skills or ability to be decent parents. Your parents and mine for instance, it is unlucky for us that we did not get the kind and loving parents that we very much needed, but there is strength in surviving this kind of thing. resilience and an appreciation that after all we have been through, we are more than capable of dealing any difficulties and challenges life might throw at us. We are survivors.

@Summercocktailsinthesnow Thank you so much for your kind, thoughtful comment. Much of what you said resonated with me. I've long suspected C-PTSD but am currently struggling to get the NHS to engage - their current line is that they won't allow me to see a psychiatrist as my symptoms sound like trauma, but not PTSD-trauma. I'm considering whether or not to go private. I am in therapy but I do wonder whether it's treating the right thing. I'll look into the type of therapy you mention.

But, again, thank you - your post was so compassionate and wise. I'll come back to it in the future, I'm sure.

I'm also really sorry to hear of what you went through, which sounds absolutely dreadful. I hope that you also can be your own champion.

@leafy12 Thank you, that's kind. As it happens I'm not able to have biological children, and I'd be very hesitant about adopting, given that many children in the system have pre-existing trauma and therefore particular emotional needs. I've made my peace with it, anyway!

@fyredraca I'm grateful to you for sharing your mother's story. I'm so sorry that she went through that, and really glad that she's come to a peaceful place with it. I really recognise the point about hoping for an apology and being afraid, still, of your parents. That may well be at the heart of what I'm struggling with.

@CthulhuChristmas I'm really sorry to hear about your experiences - they sound absolutely awful. I'm glad that you've been able to reach a more peaceful place with it. I agree with a lot of what you said, about recognising the limitations of your parents (as opposed to how you see them as all-powerful in childhood). I hope that this is helpful to me in the long-term. Thank you, again, for sharing your experiences.

I have waited my entire life for an apology or acknowledgement that did not come. I found it hard to imagine how they could live with themselves every day, but they do, and they have made their peace with it (easy for them, not being on the receiving end) so why am I the only one still suffering?

You may feel you have been left with the burden to carry. It might be easier to put it back to them, where it belongs. It was THEIR failing after all, not yours.
Their adventure into parenting has largely been a failure, and as sad as that is for the young you, it is not your burden to carry, it is theirs. Give it back. Reframe it in your mind. It is often our expectations of what could and should have happened that cause us pain.

As long as you are living your best life now, you are a decent person, you look after yourself with care, that is all that really matters now. We can not rewrite the past, but we can damn well make the present one that is worthy of us.

It might sound a little cliche, but it really worked for me more than anything else, living in the now (Eckhart Tolle) I am sure you have read it, it really helped me feel grounded in the present, and honestly it felt a relief to escape the past.
Why not read his book (again), and practice just enjoying the moment, you don't need to think about the past, nor the future, but just what you have now. I felt a certain mental load was lifted when I started to live like that again. It would be a shame to allow what happened to you whilst you were young cast a long shadow over your life now.

Wishing you the very best op

Similar here. Was really badly let down by parents for several years in my teens.

I came to realise as an adult that they simply weren't able to be present for me due to their own issues and problems, they dwarfed their capacity to cope. Do I wish they'd been different? Sure. But I suspect if they could have been better, they would have been.

There's nothing to forgive for me, they didn't not be there for me 'at me', they just weren't capable due to the experiences they were dealing with at the same time.

I do think things were different then. There's a bigger focus now on teenager and child mental health. Back then (almost 20yr ago for me too) the school seemed pretty nonplussed about a 13yr old showing up every day with an arm full of cuts, missing school, attending drunk etc. I had one counselling assessment and then nothing else came of it. I was very much left on my own to deal and cope with several very traumatic and difficult things going on from 12-18. These days I think things are very different. Not excusing my parents or yours, just saying that things were viewed differently. I daresay back then it was likely viewed as teenage histrionics and dramatics and some parents might have felt the best approach was to try and avoid feeding it and giving it too much attention (that wasn't the case for mine, they were just too focus on their own issues to be able to notice or see what they were doing to me).

The past is the past, you can't change it, all you can do is try and learn to live with it. Too much time ruminating over it and everything that went wrong isn't always conducive to good mental health.