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 suspect op is reading and not posting because hitting a toddler IS abuse.
Ignoring bullying for so many years is neglect.
A pushy sixth form probably could have been avoided, and only added to her dd's problems.
If you add in the mental health problems that have developed, the minimising of hitting and the obvious 'my version differs to yours', there is plenty of scope to see why the dd has cut contact. For her own preservation.

You can only have your reality denied to you so many times, before it becomes very detrimental to ones health and well being.

@StalkedByASpider
Thank you for that post. At last someone was able to articulate better than me what was going on.

I'm truly sorry for those who have had traumatic childhoods. I work as a mental health nurse, a career I've had for several years. Every day I hear stories of truly difficult childhoods, and the long lasting difficulties this causes in adults. I know it often requires years worth of psychotherapy to undo. But (and I know others disagree with me) there wasn't any trauma in our childhood. It was fine.

Absolutely. Stuck out from the start than zero evidence of what the DD wrote was given.

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.

Won't something like 'she said we hit her/she said she was unloved and ignored' I'd not remotely outing.

With respect Spidey your posts stood out to me too, because you are so rigidly defending your perfect childhood and so resolute that anything could possibly be wrong. It is quite frightening to read. Please read them back if you can.

I imagine your sister has long long given up trying to tell you her view and experience, if your posts on here are anything to go by.

Surely as a mental health nurse you know as well as anyone that if someone like your Dad for instance has had a terrible childhood, they will very often go the other way. They won't be able to stand conflict, so resentment and silence takes place instead of airing greviances. They may over compensate in a millions ways that feel harmful the child on the receiving end. My dh grew up in a house very similar to yours, and he can not and is not allowed to express emotion, anger and can not easily confront anything. For a child and later an adult child to feel muzzled is also damaging.

All childhoods are damaging in some way or another, we are all human and mistakes and failures will happen to all of us.

This rigid thinking that your childhood can not examined that your parents got it all right, your sister is completely wrong sounds so unhealthy to me.

It is okay to hear her out, respect her views and agree to differ.
Your whole family won't collapse if you allow your sister a voice and an opinion.

It sounds to me like it has been drummed into you how much your dad has overcome to achieve this family utopia without actually acknowledging some of the costs his children may have paid for his strategies and management of his pain. I believe trauma can be inherited and passed, and there is a lot of research and work going into the subject now.

Don't dismiss people, even if you disagree.

All childhoods are damaging in some way or another, we are all human and mistakes and failures will happen to all of us.
Quite. But how we deal with that, at a vulnerable age when anxious to detach from family life, assert our individuality and impress our peers, can sometimes have devastating consequences.

This rigid thinking that your childhood can not examined that your parents got it all right, your sister is completely wrong sounds so unhealthy to me.
I don't see any rigid thinking from @Spidey66 or claiming a perfect childhood. She's just saying that her sister now views things very differently, which is extremely relevant to this thread.

hitting a toddler IS abuse

There's an interesting article on that here.

Read back all of Spidey's post she is quite insistent her sister is wrong, and her family are 'fine'.

But it is no one's right to say how another views their childhood, the pain they have suffered, and to dismiss their feelings in such a way. There is no need to necessarily agree but you have to allow people the space to hold their own opinion and view and not close them down. It doesn't matter how outlandish the claims, it should still be met with respect, openness and a degree of kindness.

IF someone is going around making up lies and stories - which is unlikely unless they are very very unwell, then they sound damaged in a different way and that also requires the same response. To listen, respect what they are saying and be compassionate etc. The fact is many people see the same childhood in a thousand different ways and come to completely different conclusions. One person's childhood idyl could be another child's nightmare. It is to do with perception, and perception influences and informs behaviour.

Views are subjective, childhood reality is in fact subjective.

Read back all of Spidey's post she is quite insistent her sister is wrong

I just read back all of Spidey's posts and she is quite insistent that her sister knows her own mind better than you do.

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

I’m seeing some red flags for undiagnosed autism here. Such a common scenario for a girl. Autistic young people can be socially naive, easily led, and prone to rigid/literal thinking. I can well believe a piece of advice from a counsellor being taken to the extreme in this way.

I have never said my childhood was perfect, not at all. Of course there were things that were done wrong. Nobody is perfect. I have repeatedly said it was 'normal' and 'fine' in that it was uneventful. There was no abuse, no trauma, no poverty, we were well looked after and were brought up to have a strong work ethic and to consider others. The only thing that pissed me off really was they brought us up RC and I am very much an atheist!

Yes there was mistakes. We were spanked a couple of times early on which was common then (early 70s) but my dad didn't like doing that as it reminded him of his own dysfunctional childhood, so he worked on alternative punishments for when we played up.

Yes I work as a mental health nurse and I hear every day stories of terrible childhoods, and people with severe mental health difficulties damaging future generations. That is perhaps why I can compare and contrast those with clearly dysfunctional childhoods and those that yes are OK. Mine was nothing like that.

I am certainly bowing out of this. I am fed up with being piled upon and people wanting me to rewrite history and make out i had a terrible childhood. Cos it wasn't.

Spidey

"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"

Here is an example.

And again, I didn't say she was wrong. I said that she sees the difference between our dad's dysfunctional family, and our own functional childhood. What she was describing as a dysfunctional family was his family (my dad's) not ours. I don't know why that is so hard to understand????

Yes she was wrong in describing our dad's childhood and family as ours!!!!

Bangs head on table.

20 years ago, she told us she thought our family was dysfunctional

The very essence of dysfunction is when someone's view and feelings are closed down, and in your own words spidey this is precisely what happened to your sister.

You also call her 'attention seeking' elsewhere on the thread, and over and over again repeating she knows she was 'wrong'. That doesn't make her actually wrong though, as she is allowed to have any opinion she likes about her experience and childhood whether you like or not.

Are you sure you are not defending your dad's memory or protecting your mother at the time? You don't seem very neutral on the subject.

Therein lies the misunderstanding.

I don't think your sister was saying her childhood was the same as your fathers, she was saying it felt dysfunctional to her (in a different way) and believe it or not she IS allowed to think and say that.

She may not have been beaten all day and sexually abused, but for her, it was dysfunctional in another way.

Why you can't see that is really worrying given your profession.

I give up.

You're all right, and I'm wrong, despite the fact none of you even know my name, let alone my family. I am clearly in denial about my deeply distressing and unhappy childhood.

🤣

I give up too...

So depressing when Mumsnet just turns into a pile-on like this

The very essence of dysfunction is when someone's view and feelings are closed down
Deeply ironic!

No one on here from what I can see, has asked Spidey to revisit her views and call her family not fine. Her view that her family are fine is hers to keep and if she does want to challenge any part of her narrative, that is really a matter for Spidey.

On the other hand, her sister's feelings and views have been closed down, repeatedly.

That is dysfunctional.

Oddly that in an effort to stop her family from being labelled anything other than perfect, Spidey's own actions have been extremely dysfunctional towards her sister.
So in fact, you could say the curse and trauma lives on because it has already caused division and difficulty. People should have the space to speak and be heard. Even if it is hard to listen to. As a functioning person most people need to feel that is there, and in families all views and feelings carry weight and are valued.

Are you absolutely sure she isn't having a psychotic break because of suddenly starting weed? It is pretty common.
Luckily normally easily fixed if you get help quickly.
Particularly affects young adults who haven't used drugs before.
Personally, I would go and see her and take to a doctor, after having been in a vaguely similar situation

They have not been closed down repeatedly though!!!!

She said it 20 years ago and this was discussed with her at the time and she was talking of Dad's family and childhood, not hers, which she accepted. My words are being completely twisted. But if others want to put their own spin on it, go ahead.

If it is a psychotic break then they will accuse people of the oddest things and also themselves. It is heartbreaking. Please get your child to a doctor.

I agree with you @Alcemeg, the insistence that @Spidey66 is wrong and that her sister has been shut down and not listened to is bonkers.

It's almost as if it's not possible for someone to mature and view things differently, or to be later able to view the wider picture.....and realise they got it wrong before.

The idea that others on a random social media thread insist they know better than the actual poster what transpired is mind-blowing. If anyone wants use their psychic skills to let me know next week's Lottery numbers, I'd be grateful.