Estrangement from adult child

[DesperateParent]

I am trying to find some advice to help me with a really heartbreaking situation that has completely destroyed my family.

My darling DD1, who is at university, has decided to cut off all contact with me and her dad. This came pretty much out of the blue - one day we were exchanging jokey WhatsApp messages as normal, the next I got an odd message that I didn't really know how to respond to so I kept it light, then silence for a bit, then a nasty but vague email in weird formal language basically accusing us of abusing her throughout her childhood. She won't enter into any discussions, says she has seen a counsellor at university and doesn't consider us her parents any more.

We are totally devastated and have no idea what brought this on. Her email was vague, but nothing specific she says is true. We also find it hard to believe a counsellor would encourage her to cut herself off without knowing any background, but maybe that's what they do?

This all happened a year ago, soon after we took her back to university after the Christmas break, and I've been barely functioning since. When we left her at her accommodation, she was completely normal - laughing at me trying not to cry as I left her there, as usual. I contacted someone at the university whose name I remember being mentioned when she started who said he couldn't even confirm or deny to me that she was a student, but that he would always check on a student if a parent were concerned - hypothetically, of course. He was actually very nice while not being able to really tell me anything, but made it clear he would only be able to help if the student asked for help. We were hoping she would eventually recover from whatever she was going through and would get back in touch, but I got another nasty email the other day demanding that I stop sending her money. I presume she has managed to declare herself as independent as far as the student loans people are concerned and has told them she has no contact with us - would they just believe her without checking? We have been sending money monthly since she started.

She tells me in this email that if I reply she will block me - she 'requires' me to just stop the money as she demands. I don't know what to do - in a way she has given me an incentive to write back, as it makes no difference as either way I can't write again. She has already blocked me on WhatsApp and I don't know where she is living. Whatever she says or does, I don't want to stop supporting her as I'm pretty sure she hasn't thought ahead to the fact that she loses all financial support the minute she leaves university. Has anyone been in this situation? Is there any hope I will see my daughter again? Our whole family is in a complete mess because of this. DD1 will speak to her little sister and her cousin, but DD2 feels like she is walking on eggshells trying not to bring up important subjects, and I feel bad about her having to deal with this at the age of 16.

DD1 has a background of mental health issues (particularly in 6th form) and has always struggled to make friends and interact with other people. She is very unlikely to ask anyone for help and I don't know what prompted her to see the university counsellor. I seem to have spent 20 years trying to hold her together and fight off the bullies on her behalf - she seemed so well for the first year and a half at university, then this sudden change.

Sorry this is so rambling, I don't know where to turn.

“I feel very sad and guilty that she is taking money away from students who truly need it, when we've budgeted for supporting her through uni.”

This is a red flag 🚩

why on Earth would you give a feck about that in this situation.

I’m not sure why you’d be upset about her getting counselling when she’s had mental health problems. Why does that make you sad and guilty?

Because it's sad to see your child struggle? Wouldn't you feel sad if your child was struggling long term with mental health issues?

Parents can be strange though. My mother felt guilt when I needed support after a trauma. She said it made her feel like a bad mother. Weird.

That’s not what Op said tho. She said she feels sad and guilty that her daughter is getting free counselling when other kids need it more. Which I don’t get. Surely it’s a good thing she’s getting counselling.

.

You say this has destroyed your family. I hope you are putting it behind you enough to give DD2 the love and care she needs. She is you best chance to get back in touch with DD1 in the future. Don't let DD1 affect your relationship with DD2.

I'd be closer to your age @DesperateParent but I clicked on this wondering if it was my mum or somebody like my mum.

I feel bad for you but suggest that trying to interpret the original message is probably important. If you're in contact with her at all offer to talk and ask her to explain.

Only a few years ago but when I told my mother that she was hurting me (by glossing so dismissively over decades of projection) she denied it, attacked me for hurting her. My dad came over to tell me off for hurting her. I kept trying to talk to her and she was determined not to talk. No need for discussion as she was certain her perspective that i had hurt her was correct. I kept waiting for some indication that she understood that she hurt me but it never came. SHE is the judge of whether or not she hurt me and she did not so that's that. I'm also widely believed to be mentally unhinged in the wider family thanks to her smear campaign.

So, as others have said, the ''she's mentally ill'' thing just makes me feel she's saying something that isn't being heard. Not being heard and instead, being shamed for having an angry reaction to not being heard did make me feel crazy for a while.

I went to a therapist, she didn't tell me to cut off my family but she told me I was speaking a language they could not understand and she advised me I think to have bland conversations about the weather while I healed privately. That didn't work out. I am not playing the part that my family wrote for me if I get no say at all.

If you are in touch with your daughter tell her that you do accept feedback, and you want to understand how you hurt her so it stops.

What made me go NC, was my mum attempting to "keep it light" and apparently not know what I was talking about. What I really wanted (and would have made me for I give them) was for them to acknowledge my pain, show remorse and empathy, and be open to talk about it.

Oh I know @purplefacemask My mum's absolute determination not to have a real conversation with me has made me so furious. And then they judged me for being angry! But she is never going to hear me. Never going to listen. One of the rules of the dysfunctional family is NO FEEDBACK They are perfect and the victims of me and I'm mad and ungrateful and we must all play the parts written for us by Mum

All I wanted was one conversation where they expressed some understanding that they hurt me, that I could be hurt by them! But no. 3, 2, 1, Action The Play Must Go On.

Hmm, perhaps I misinterpreted the bit about feeling sad and guilty about taking money away from those who need it. I assumed it was about getting the free counselling but maybe it wasn’t.

I think it was a mistake to try to keep things ‘light’ when she sent an odd message initially.

What did her formal email say? Have you tried to address any of the things she said?

There’s one thing you can control here OP: do you or do you not respect her wishes and do as she has asked. That’s what it comes down to. Demonstrate to her that you respect her. Or, demonstrate that you don’t. Your actions here will speak volumes to her.

None of us can genuinely say whether you are in the wrong or she is. But I would strongly advise you to turn off the “we did everything for her” defence, and look back thinking “what if she’s right”. Maybe it’ll change things, maybe it’ll put you in a better place to connect with her if she decides that’s what she wants.

Some very wise advice here.

Op hasn't been back. I am not surprised.

Sometimes people do not want to look at the root and reason why their child is mentally ill, struggling, wishing not to speak to them. Even without knowing op and her dd we can see she is reluctant to even discuss the fact something may have gone wrong in her dd's childhood and/or her parenting. She is actively avoiding it.

She would rather label her daughter mentally unwell etc and look for excuses than face her daughter's experience/truth. It speaks volumes as to why op has been blocked.

Her dd will continue to be called names, her mental health will continue to be the blamed rather than look at the cause. Even the willingness to look at what might have gone wrong in the past would be progress. None of us are perfect parents. I hope her dd has good support in uni, nice friends and a good counsellor and her mother at some point has the humility to look at the past and make a genuine attempt at trying to see the past through her dd's life, and be open to talking it through.

*through her dd's lense.

I'm sorry you're going through this OP. Could there be some kind of outside influence...perhaps a controlling partner? Or maybe she's got involved with a cult of some kind?

I think you should respect her wishes and stop the money but you could write to her one final time (a letter in the post via the university) to say you love her, you miss her and you will always be there for her.

She would rather label her daughter mentally unwell etc and look for excuses than face her daughter's experience/truth. It speaks volumes as to why op has been blocked.

That's a very cruel assumption to make. Living away from home for the first time is an extremely vulnerable time, especially if you tend to have poor boundaries (OP mentions protecting her DD from bullying). It's the first chance you have to step back from home life and assess your life so far, and it's all too easy at that age for someone to distort the way you interpret it. The "weird formal language" of DD's letter suggests that someone could easily be putting words in her mouth. It's a real risk during this difficult time of uneasy transition into adult independence.

There are some very bullying comments on this thread. I think that's why OP has not posted again, not because she deserves to hang her wicked head in shame.

There are some very bullying comments on this thread. I think that's why OP has not posted again, not because she deserves to hang her wicked head in shame.

I couldn't agree more. There is so much projection going on here, it's not funny.

I've got 2 suggestions as to what it could be that is troubling her:

1. Could she be involved in drugs? Perhaps she's been hiding a habit/owes a large sum of money and her student loan pittance alongside any money you give her simply isn't enough. This could be her panicking and trying to find a solution to this, she is still young and her brain is not fully developed yet-perhaps she isn't thinking of the consequences. The requests not to send money to potentially invalidate her estrangement claim sound like they could be frantic.

1. You say she experienced mental health issues growing up. Could she have be hiding something that you were unaware of such as bullying or abuse that she perceives you to have done nothing about? I remember feeling extremely bitter towards my parents for not moving me schools when I was bullied profusely throughout secondary school.

This x10000000%

Thank you all for your comments and suggestions. I have had to step away for a while before reading them all and replying because this is so painful.

I'm sorry to those inferring things from me being vague about details - please don't jump to conclusions that I am hiding anything - it is hard to express a complex situation clearly while trying to be concise enough so that people won't give up reading half way through.

The things she has accused us of are lying to her, manipulating her and she also mentions hitting. She has never been lied to - we are very open as a family, talking about all sorts around the dinner table, and the only 'lies' she has ever been told are about father Christmas and the tooth fairy (incidentally, I came clean about these when she was in year 6, because she was the sort of kid who would argue they were real to her classmates and I didn't want her being mocked). We don't know what she felt was our manipulating of her, she won't elaborate or give examples. It could be things that other people would consider parenting. Other than the odd smacked bottom as a toddler, there has been no hitting. We are totally mystified as to where this claim has come from.

She was bullied as a child at primary school and I went in many times to talk to teachers. She found a strong group of friends at high school and when one of the primary school bullies tried to start again in year 11, she told me about it, laughed it off and said that she thought she was now 'un-bullyable' (her word). I was so happy about this outcome. She went to a hugely pushy 6th form (happens to be our catchment area 6th form) where she was split entirely from friends and struggled to make more. Workload was insane. We did not know it was going to be like this. Again, I went in multiple times with her to talk to pastoral staff when it was apparent she was not coping. I'm guessing workload is heavy at university, hence worrying about it triggering mental health issues. Problems seemed to start around January exam time last year.

For those telling me that I am not listening when she is telling me her issues, believe me I am, this is literally all she has told me and as I've said above, we don't understand the accusations. We have apologised for causing hurt, but as she won't respond to or explain anything we can't understand.

When I say my younger daughter is 'treading on eggshells' I mean that when speaking to her sister, she is trying to avoid mentioning home and family and the fact that DD1 has cut herself off - she is totally open and loving with us and is as bewildered by her adored sister's behaviour as everyone else. I would love, love, to speak to someone who could see things from DD1's point of view who may be more able to articulate her problems with us, but can find no one who is anything but shocked and mystified at what has happened.

We didn't rush to visit her in person when this happened because she said she would call the police if we did and she has threatened to cut contact with her sister. We just thought at the time she needed space to resolve a temporary issue so we tried to give her space, and we don't want her little sister to suffer in this. We don't know her university friends, or if indeed she has any - I so hope she has some.

When I look back at our parenting style, if I were doing it again, I'd probably be stricter with phones and social media use - we decided the best course was to educate her on the dangers (many dinner table discussions) and trust her to police herself, which I think she pretty much did while at home. I know people who don't let their teens on social media, don't allow phones upstairs and even insist on their kids adding them as friends on social media and tracking them. We would never have done any of that and I won't be following her now, although some mutual friends who know the situation occasionally show me, for example, a picture she has posted on social media of her out and about somewhere to reassure me she is OK.

For those saying me mentioning the money she is taking that other people might need is a 'red flag', that is just cruel and unkind. We have saved money for her to go to university and can afford to give it to her - hardship funds should be for those who don't have this backstop. Donating this money to a hardship fund is exactly what I have been looking at doing. We just don't want to abandon our dearly loved daughter and it is tearing us apart.

I still don't believe you and I do believe your daughter. Who I've never met and hasn't even had to say a single word for me to fully believe her.

You've put a lot of info in there that's not relevant but you've used it to try and show you're providing detail. You're not actually giving us much info at all about the actual issue. You've talked at length about your choice on social media use. You're using that to distract from the issue. You say her advising you of manipulating 'could be things that other people would consider parenting'. It's a sentence you've deliberately used to try and minimise what she's said. You've not mentioned her odd message or whether you ignored what she said. That's far more relevant than paragraphs about believing in Santa or her use of social media.

Oh for god's sake, now I know how witches got "caught" in medieval times. Dunking in the river, if she floats she's a witch, if she sinks she's dead.

OP, I hope you can find some way to maintain your thin threads of contact. It must be an agonising situation.

I wonder if she's being influenced by friends? Or if there's something she's studying which (she feels) has meaning for her (if she's studying psychology or social work or similar).

My family were very 'normal' and my childhood was fine, no issues at all. My sister went through a phase of deciding it was dysfunctional. Her reason for this was because our dad in particular grew up in a family that was abusive. My grandparents were physically and emotionally abusive and his brother sexually abused his daughters. But our dad was adamant he was not going to treat us like his parents did him, and went NC with his brother (though not his brother's wife and children, in fact one of my cousins remains one of my closest friends) as a result of the serial abuse. In fact both my parents were very kind and supportive towards us. My dad was dead by the time my sister was saying these things, but my mum was upset, though there was no cutting her out. I think she'd spoken to friends with dysfunctional childhoods and was feeling left out. 🙄

We did get through it and my sister did realise she was wrong.

Serial = sexual.

@Spidey66 more likely your sister decided that she could never get through to you, never be heard... so she gave up. All siblings have a different childhood. My brother thinks we had a great childhood. He might have had. I did not. But he does not see the things that were wrong because they didn't deplete him or denigrate him or upset him. Like my mother and father projecting suppressed emotions on to me. I was constantly called emotional or sensitive if I ever got visibly upset about anything. Obviously this did not upset or insult or inconvenience my brother, or seem in any way a ''wrong'' to him. He to this day sees it as my having been awkward and chippy and having played up and being deserving of the slap downs put downs that followed that. Your sister sounds like she's back in box. The only way to be in the family.