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 don't think so @Thedaysthatremain because his behaviour was odd, OCD, wildly attention-seeking. I know he couldn't help it but it was awful to live with. It did get better as he got older, and he turned most of it just onto our parents and mostly left me alone.

OP you sound like a really nice person and caring mother.

If your dd was bullied all the way through primary school why didn't you move her when it was obvious things were not going to improve despite your best efforts with the school meetings? To leave her there has been probably done untold damage her to her from a very very young age.

You mention she was also being bullied by the same people even at Y11, this is an incredible amount of time to be struggling with bullies, quite frankly she has done well to complete school in one piece and get into uni.

You then speak of a pushy 6th form. So from seven years old to age eighteen this has been one long hellish period for her. Most of her childhood. 11 years.

I don't know why your dd is so sad, but maybe she feels horribly let down that she was left to endure over a decade of this? With no friends and no one to turn to. Victims of bullies often blame themselves, and think something is wrong with them, and end up with serious mental health problems, low self esteem and confidence and it can be life long, even though it was not her fault.

If she is going through this now with her therapist this will be very painful, and maybe she can't speak to you now. It doesn't mean she never will, but she can't do it now. Unpicking all of the damage is very hard.

The hitting - maybe she has tied that up with her general feeling of childhood that she has been hurt, abused and mistreated. Are you sure you didn't hit her in primary school? It isn't okay to hit a child op, especially not a toddler.

The lying and manipulation could be accusations that you are minimising or not recognising the pain she has suffered/still suffering. So not actually lies, but by saying nothing was bad and it was all fine, it might be impossible for her to hear that and she feels you are not understanding or deliberately rewriting the truth. I am sorry it is so hard, and you are clearly so sad.

Why not suggest family counselling, so you can hear her whole story with professional support? She might agree at some point.

I also agree. The OP is concerned. Her comment about money was nothing to do with counselling but to do with her child accessing funds devoted to students who don;t have parental financial support, thereby reducing the funds for those who do.

But what I find most troubling is the daughter sendinga unilateral: 'don't ever contact me again' decree. And people call the OP controlling? How can OP hear her daughter's version of events if she's not allowed to contact her? And doesn't the OP have an equal right to be heard and have her feelings respected? Parents aren't perfect. We all make mistakes. If we have children who suffer from MH issues we can get over protective and micromanage and need to learn to step back. But that doesn't mean the relationship is irredeemably dysfinctional or that there is no love.

I think some counselling may give you some support, is that an option?

@DesperateParent thing is OP, very few people who've been NC'd think they have done anything wrong. They're almost always defensive and think the person who has gone NC is the one with 'issues', making stuff up, exaggerating and being unreasonable.

Over the past year your daughter has told you why she doesn't want to see you (you've lied, manipulated and hit), she's sorted out financial and emotional support for herself, is in contact with other family members and is socialising at university.

We need to parent out children in different ways at different times in their lives - now is the time for you to give her the space she's told you clearly that she wants. And, ideally, to drop your defensiveness and instead honestly look at what your part in this is, perhaps with a councillor. You can both love and worry about your daughter and have made damaging mistakes while you were bringing her up.

I think that when a child goes NC there can be a lot of shame attached to that for the parent, it's clearly hard for you to accept that your daughter is now a student who needs financial support from uni hardship funds or wherever. You could try respecting the fact she has independently sorted this out. She is looking after herself.

I get a similar vibe. The phrasing, the dismissal. Maybe it was easier for @Spidey66 ‘s sister to recant and toe the line. That’s certainly what I did for decades. Sometimes I tried to open a discussion with my sister, but was always forced down the road of it being funny, normal, not a problem. My sister, like your brother was also the ‘easy’ one, the one whose feelings were put first, who was supported and understood. I, on the other hand, was the cuckoo and expected to serve the rest of the family with my time, work and money.
It’s a strange thing to do, allege abuse and discuss it, only to say later that it didn’t happen and/or didn’t matter. Maybe it happens, but not that common I don’t think.

@IrisAtwood You are still not listening to me. Our childhood was not dysfunctional. Our dad's was, yes, but not ours. My sister acknowledges this, and trust me, if things were worse she'd talk about it. She certainly wouldn't ''toe the line!!!''

But you don't don't even know my name, let alone my family, so with all due respect, you don't know what you are talking about.

I acknowledge that. My post does not state that it is the case, but that there maybe some difference in experience and understanding.
it is also the case that sometimes - not saying that this is true of your sister - it is easier to ‘toe the line’ and accept the dominant narrative.
You fealty have quite a strong investment in having your construction of your family accepted, along with the justification of the change in your sister’s stated experience. It’s clearly more convincing to hear from people who have claimed childhood abuse and then understood differently. And there are not that many of those in the discussion.

My DD went NC with me for about a year when she was 18 but it was because we had a huge bust up about her choice of bf...she wouldn't listen but the situation she was in was making her MH worse. In my experience you really have to step back for a while, I didnt and it caused mayhem and took longer for her to come back to me. My DD did realise in the end the bf was not good for her but it's ruined her life in the long run 😔.

Hi op,
I was bullied very badly all through school by the children and in part by the teachers.
I say this because no one noticed I has asd so I was punished usually by humiliation for my symptoms which caused ridicule from piers.

I'm still tying to understand why my parents let this happen I have no GCSE'S and the trauma left me with crippling anxiety and I've never recovered into my 40s.
I haven't gone nc with mine but I will never understand why they didn't get me the help I so desperately needed.
I felt like she just left me there to drown while feeling embarrassed at my failings.
I don't know why your dd has gone nc but I suspect she feels let down by you and failed by the school but she can only blame you because she couldn't save herself and you didn't save her.

The bullying is difficult, for the longest time it was just normal to make bullied kids and teens keep going to school. It shouldn't have been the case, you'd be signed off work for less, but I get doing the done thing and wanting to prioritise getting an education.

I think you need to be prepared to talk about this at least.

Erm, just a reminder that the original post says this...
I seem to have spent 20 years trying to hold her together and fight off the bullies on her behalf

Can everyone please stop kicking OP in the head?

Yes @Alcemeg it does, but that's obviously a very different interpretation of her parenting than the daughter holds so I'd be wary of taking the OP's version on face value.

I wasn't trying to be judgemental, I just think bullying is one of those things where it seems like the consensus on what the "right thing to do" has changed a lot in the last decade or so. You can really try to do the right thing only for it to be seen as the wrong thing further on down the line and it's a tricky situation.

The amount of projection and merailing on this thread is unbelievable. 🙄

@DesperateParentit sounds like a terribly difficult and upsetting situation. I would try to keep the lines of communication open if possible, though I appreciate that may be difficult. Given her past mental health issues, you must be so worried.

I really hope this is resolved op and your daughter allows you into her life again.
The thing that I find worrying is that you said you smacked her bottom when she was a toddler.
That was not right, as I expect you realise now.
Have you apologised for that ?

Granted, but OP has also posted this:
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.
and
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.

This does not sound like the cruel and self-absorbed narcissist DM that a lot of PPs seem to have settled on as the only explanation here.

Respecting her daughter's insistence on NC must be agonising in a situation where MH issues are quite possible, even likely (per current statistics on students living away from home for the first time).

It's such an impressionable age, when we have to construct a whole new identity outside the home and there are all kinds of influences, including drugs and strong personalities and fashionable trends for victimhood. At that age, I had a very low tolerance level for the slightest imperfections and took a rather dim view of the way I'd been brought up. I also rather enjoyed a feeling of self-righteous indignation wherever possible.

I'm glad I got to realise, over the decades that followed, how blessed I was to have parents who cared so much about me. I used to be waaaaay more interested in listing their fuck-ups and blaming them for my failings 😂

OP, it might be that her choice to cut you out completely might relate to her constructing a rather fragile identity for herself, among her peer group, that might not withstand closer inspection if you were in contact. I wonder if you could get the message to her somehow that of course you will totally respect her need for NC/withdrawal of funding, but are so concerned to hear about her painful grievances that you hope she will feel able to express them in full to you one day, perhaps when she has left uni, so that you can properly apologise with no expectations or pressure to remain in touch.

It’s really not right and it was really strange how it was slipped in so casually. Hitting a child is reprehensible but a toddler? Fucking hell. And we are talking about this century.

Yes the casual hitting of the toddler struck me too, and speaks volumes.

This is my first comment on this issue but I wanted to respond to your comment. My mother will tell you she was 'always on the phone to the school' when I was bullied. She thinks she did something.

From my perspective, I was told by her to 'ignore it', I begged to change schooled repeatedly (never happened or was considered), I remember seeing something on a TV show where a character was bullied and commented on it and she denied my experience was that bad, which it was and the show was helping me communicate that. While my mother tells me she did everything to help, my lived experience of that was that she allowed it to go on. I still resent it a bit.

@Alcemeg I don't disagree with most of your description of this time in a young person's life and do think that the message you suggest OP sends is reasonable (so long as nothing else was added by OP!), however OP has shown that she doesn't honestly mean this...
'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'

• as there have been lots of us attempting to explain things from her daughter's point if view but she is refusing to engage. Having not been given unanimous backing, OP seems to have left the thread.

I read that as meaning someone who actually knows her daughter now, well enough to accurately convey her current state of mind. That's not you or other PPs, who can't possibly see things from her DD's point of view, because you've never met her! And you don't know OP from a bar of soap!

All we can do is project onto it all. I'm just saddened by how accusatory this thread has become and I don't blame OP for not wanting to come back to it.

Has it occurred to you Idreamofpizza that op might just be protecting her dd’s confidentiality or privacy by not revealing any more details. You can’t be certain about her motivations at all as you don’t know either party. I think it’s shocking that you are prepared to be so definitive and accusatory when no one can possibly know the truth here.

I know a couple, a parent of one of my niece’s friends, who were accused of abuse by their daughter. We were really surprised as we knew this couple had always been there for their kids. But we remained neutral as you never know.

It turns out the daughter was being manipulated by a much older bf she met at a gig while she was at uni, who left her high and dry and addicted, and it was her parents in the end who she had accused who nursed her back to good health.

Op I hope you are ok. No one on here knows what is happening in your family but I prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt and it’s likely you would not have posted at all had you not been genuinely concerned about your daughter.

I also think it is a shame that distressed parents will be put off posting on here in good faith and receiving good advice because they fear getting attacked on-line.

I can't comment on the issue as I have no experience of either end, but there are various situations in my family that I can't change and which therapy has helped me with- I hope you're getting some help for yourself @DesperateParent to this end.

@Spidey66 I can see completely where you're coming from, and also how these things happen. I think as teens and young adults, it's common to simultaneously want to rebel while also fitting in with the crowd you're in.

I've seen my DB undergo a number of transformations over the years depending on his circumstances and the company he's keeping. He never claimed abuse (although we do have a very dysfunctional family which none of us deny). But I've seen his personality change and his professed opinions/likes/dislikes alter and it's always very much to fit in with his current crowd. And I think this is the kind of thing that happens if a young adult is hanging out with others who all say they were abused/had terrible childhoods.

I don't think it's uncommon for young adults to see abuse/dysfunction where there isn't any if everyone around them regularly speaks about experiencing the same. It's not difficult to be influenced by others into viewing things through a different lens, and it's easy to be persuaded that normal teen conflict with a parent is somehow "abuse" or "dysfunction" etc.

In the past people have been maybe guilty of minimising more serious problems but I think today it's often the opposite, and it's quite popular to claim to have seriously suffered when perhaps that wasn't really the case.

Words like abuse and gaslighting are hurled around so frequently that they have become almost meaningless, rather than the powerful terms they should be.

I remember a post on here ages ago - the poster was a mum who overheard her teen telling her friends the most awful things about the abuse she'd suffered at her parents' hands. The OP was utterly horrified but realised it explained why the friends were very off with her. I think she eventually confronted her DD and the DD confessed it was to fit in, and didn't want to admit that she had a comfortable, loving and affluent home because it wasn't the done thing in her circle....!

So I think you're absolutely right - there can be an element of social contagion (which is also being seen in the number of teens claiming to be non-binary or trans - numbers increase within social circles). Young adults have always wanted to be different and to carve out their own identity and I think the way that many do it today is by driving a wedge between them and their very normal family life. Of course, sometimes the accusations are entirely warranted...but not always. And then you get posts like this with everyone piling onto the OP.

Telling her that she's lying, she's definitely hiding something and that her DD is right to call her abusive - it's not helpful. OP asked for people to explain how her DD might be thinking/feeling - making spurious claims about the OP doesn't help her in the slightest.