DD wants to cut ties-Says her childhood was toxic

[SadandStressed3]

This is long, so my apologies.
I’m in a horrible, stressful situation with my 19yr old daughter. Basically, she feels that she had a very unhappy childhood and now doesn’t want to have a relationship with us (apart from us continuing to support her at university and keep her during holidays from university 🙄) She does not keep in touch whilst away and when home, spends the entire time in her room. I’m just going to give a brief overview so as not to drip feed.

She is the eldest of 3 with a 5yr gap and essentially says she feels like we ruined her life by having the younger two. Apparently this meant no time for her and less holidays. She said she had to listen to us saying we couldn’t do stuff because of money but yet we chose to have the younger kids. She said it was toxic due to arguments and stress. There was an awful 2yrs after the youngest was born where I had hideous PND but still had to try and cope as we have zero extended family and DH was working away through the week. There’s 18mths between the younger 2 so DD would have been 7-9yrs during this time.
When she was Y5 we put her in for grammar entrance (she’s exceptionally able academically) She passed and went to an all girls grammar. She hated it and we let her move to the comprehensive for Y8. She hated that too but still came out with 4 top A’levels.
There has been lots of teen drama and she was under CAMHS for a year. This was counselling and I was called in for the last 10mins of each session to be told how awful I always made her feel. How she was belittled and unloved and how the younger two were treated more favourably and how I gaslit her. She complains that the younger two have more relaxed rules on bedtime and internet use (probably marginally true but not by a significant amount) She’s also very angry that family holidays can now be more teen focused whereas when she was their age, we had to accommodate younger kids. To me this is all just what happens when you’re the eldest. Every year, I’ve made sure her and I had a weekend away just us. I’ve also taken her shopping for clothes and when she was 14, we completely redid her bedroom allowing her to choose and putting in a make up desk etc. If anything, she’s probably been over indulged a little.

It breaks my heart that she refuses all contact when away and lives by this narrative of having had a toxic childhood. I work in child safeguarding and thus deal with kids daily who really have experienced toxic situations and it frustrates me and upsets me so much to hear DD say such things. Half of me wants to support her and acknowledge, as I have tried to, that there was a very difficult period when her siblings were young and the other half wants to tell her to stop wallowing in self indulgent MC bullshit. Obviously the latter isn’t ideal and I do push that away. As things stand, she’ll finish next year and we’ll never hear from her again and I’m desperate to sort this out beforehand. Well done if you’ve got this far. Any advice is very welcome.

@Scattery and others that feel ASD might be at play here, would you explain a little more please? Genuinely interested.

My MIL would write something similar I’m sure about my DH who has gone NC. But when you listen to his side you realise how bad it was and how his mum can’t accept his version of events.

I bet that’s what’s happened here. You are belittling her even now, rather than trying to be open and see her perspective. You’re close minded. I doubt your side is anywhere near the truth.

It sounds to me as though your daughter may have an Attachment Disorder. Was this ever considered when she was younger?

It's not the daughters job to validate her mothers' mental struggles from when she was a child. That's called parentification, even now as an adult. It remains a parent-child relationship. I think you are massively unreasonable in expecting the daughter to validate her mothers mental struggles from years ago when she herself was a child.

As a mother, she ought to seek help from a therapist to process this time of her life and understand how it may have affected her three children differently. It would also help the mother understand what it may have done to her, how it has shaped her and perhaps come out the other end.

I am on the fence with the finances. To me, making sure a child can get educated is the bare minimum. A child can appreciate that they have had a safe home and were looked after etc., but it should not be held over their heads.

As a loving parent, I'd immediately go to therapy. Perhaps firstly to figure out how to deal with the situation and once that's kind of sorted dig deeper and reflect if I wanted any chance of fixing this relationship and seeng my future grand children.

@Cowboybuilderwoes, please don’t say things like, I bet that’s what’s going on here.’ You are basing that on nothing. I’m not concealing anything. I may not have got everything right but there has been no horrible events or nasty things that’s I’ve conveniently ignored.

This sounds like a good suggestion. You may have had some failings in her eyes but you weren't out to hurt her and were doing the best you could.

For what it's worth, I said a lot of similar things to my mum as a teenager. I snapped out of it at 17/18 because I wanted to go off and live my own life and was on my way to doing it. Suddenly when I was relying on myself I understood that you can't have everything you want all of the time. I still wonder how the hell my mum coped and have apologised countless times over the years.

For context so nobody misinterprets- I didn't move out because I was forced to or throwing a tantrum. I always wanted to travel and left school at 16 to save then was gone by 18.

I was very severely ill when my kids were 13. They didn't get much attention from me for a while.

And yes, they do describe it as toxic.

You might consider that the word implies intent but the youth of today definitely do not.

Also, I am genuinely shocked that your daughter actually cut herself and it was described as not self harm. She literally harmed herself. How the FUCK could that be dismissed?

Sorry but I am genuinely really really upset about that.

It's not the DD's job to do anything but I don't think the parent-child relationship is meant to stay one sided forever... 19 is perhaps a little young to demonstrate such empathy but I don't think it is abnormal to hope the DD would one day try to understand and appreciate what her mother went through...

My DD sounds like yours. She tells me about how hard done to she was(and still is) and how unhappy her childhood was. But when asked to elaborate she can’t or avoids a discussion. She never mentions girlie nights on a Thursday from the age of 5 through to her teens, or the undivided attention her father gave her and the masses of wants that she got. She remembers the time I slapped her (but not the why) she screamed into my face if I “didn’t have the common sense to have an abortion when I was pregnant on her brother then I should have given him up for adoption”. She stopped all contact with me for 18 months when she went to Uni except for when she needed me to sign the grants form. DH gave DD everything she ever asked for, including a flat when she went to Uni so she wouldn’t have to pay rent etc. When DH and I got divorced she went worse, even hit me and I had to throw her out of my house.

My advice would be let her disconnect but you keep sending notes or text and try phoning her. Because when she comes back to you she can never blame you for becoming estrange as you’ve tried to maintain contact.

DD lives 4 hours from me and we get together 4 or (5 times a year and we text/phone. This works for us. She is now 36 and I love her (though I don’t like her all the time). She says she didn’t want children because of me, but strange how things workout, she is a stepmum to a 4 year old and is now realising how difficult being a parent is. Maybe as her daughter gets older me daughter will forgive me - I don’t hold on to that but it will be a life bonus if she does.

I'm sorry all the posters have been so unkind. She sounds completely entitled and unaware of how good she's had it. I also suspect ASD aswell, and suspect that as an NT child she's quite hard work. I think you've tried hard, and done nothing wrong. I'd know because ds1 (who loves me a lot) was hard work and almost broke me many years ago. Don't let any nasty posters persuade you otherwise.

@Mrsttcno1, I absolutely have listened. I listened in CAMHS . I listened when she said she was unhappy at school and of course we allowed her to move. I listened when she said I spent all my time on the younger ones (this isn’t true but I listened nevertheless as it was her perception) and made an effort to do more stuff with her both organised and ad-hoc.
I still disagree with calling a period of time when a parent couldn’t give 100%, toxic. It wasn’t great. We didn’t go away that year. I wasn’t bouncy mummy for 2yrs. I didn’t go out much at the weekends. But nothing was toxic. She was loved and cared for. She was kissed and cuddled and read to and told she was loved etc. I appreciate you disagree so we’ll just have to agree to disagree on that. I have absolutely listened to her side of it. She actually doesn’t particularly focus on that time at all. It’s more broad in her mind and black and white. Her life was good then I chose to have two more children and her life was never as good. 😔

@namechangeagaintime It would probably also require the daughter to work through her own past and how this time has affected her and heal from that. It sounds like she might be getting into a period of her life where she needs to address her childhood and get some support.

I am not sure how what you say is going to be possible soon though if the mother continues to belittle her like she does on this thread. She even said it would have affected the youngest the most and so on... totally not open to imaging how it might have affected an older child who didnt just need food and sleep and being held but needed actual emotional support.

You also dismissed her depression. Also using the term "teen drama" dismisses her feelings and emotions. Which isn't supportive, caring or loving.

As a parent of a child with depression it's heartbreaking to see it dismissed so easily. Depression is serious as it can lead to self harm and suicide idealation or suicide planning. To under CAMHs it serious for any child and their family.

If this was my daughter I would LISTEN without opinion and offer uncondtional love for the wounds to heal. Ask her she how wants to communicate and respect that.

I would also recommend therapy for you, to allow yourself to heal from PND and the trauma you've been through. Having a child with mental health illness is traumatic and you also need support. Take care.

Camhs was still hard to get into 6 years ago. I have a similar age child who accessed it at the same time. That they discharged her means bey little, that was their standard offer then.

@Twatalert no, I said the youngest was neglected more. They were a baby so I just saw to their basic needs so I could give the little emotional headspace I had to the older two.

And I have not, and never will belittle my daughter.

Sounds like she’s being dramatic and wants your attention in a way. Give her the space she says she wants and she’ll probably come crawling back.

You’re invalidating her feelings and seem quite narrow minded in your post. I’d reach out and see how far you get if you say you want to listen. Parenting isn’t always easy, I think this approach may help more than just cutting her off as some suggest.

@Sunshinedayscomeon all if my friends with teens talk about teen drama. I have made very clear that that was a reference to the constant angst over friendships etc. Same as with most teens but perhaps amplified in my daughter.

@SadandStressed3 You get so hung up on the word toxic. You put in so much effort to tell strangers on the internet how your daughters experience and feelings are wrong. Why?

Do you as a mother not wonder why she feels the way she feels? Maybe you both can't quite figure it out, and that's ok, you can both accept help to figure it out. Instead of saying she's wrong and things did not happen the way she says they did, why don't you ask yourself what you might be missing? What could you do to work to understand your daughters experience? Could you at least try and accept what she says instead of completely denying it? Are you able to close the gap between what you remember and what she remembers?

FFS 1/2 the people posting clearly can't even read. Nowhere did OP dismiss her her depression. And the word 'drama' is being misquoted and used out of context aswell. Read what the OP actually wrote.

Is she depressed, she seems to have a very negative view of an upbringing that didn’t seem too bad, it might not have been a perfect childhood but whose is

I think you need to write list of reasons (bullet points)why you think her childhood was fine, list everything from very early on where you potty trained her, had sleepless nights when she was sick, etc, etc, right up to now financially supporting her, give her the list and tell her that her childhood may have not been perfect but ye did the best ye could, ask her then to respond with a list of reasons why she though it was a bad childhood and when it is done ye can sit down and discuss each point and take it from there

I think she needs to see the list as she probably Dosen’t think of things that ye did for her over the years and may be focusing too much on a few bad points

This all sounds so difficult OP. As an estranged daughter I was ready to be against you, but honestly you don’t come across as hiding anything to me.

There is a huge culture at the moment that encompasses blaming others for our feelings, exaggerating trauma, etc. It’s everywhere on social media, and a lot of therapists seem to have gone down the pure affirmation line. I can see how that would combine with some of the genuine gripes she has, and the tendency to difficult relationships and depression, and add up to her thinking it’s all your fault and NC is the answer. I am no expert on autism but what you say is ticking all sorts of boxes for that too.

All I can say is respect her boundaries and make sure she always knows you love her. She’s got to make her way back to you, you can’t force it.

You said that you were able to pull strings at Camhs to get her seen so I am not sure if you are a clinician or not.

So I apologise if I am teaching you to suck eggs, but you might find it useful to read up on autism in girls.

This is a good introduction

www.verywellhealth.com/signs-of-autism-in-girls-260304

There are also some good books - I found Aspergirls useful, and neurotrubes is also good if a heavier read.

I have an Audhd daughter. Your DD sounds like a carbon copy of my DD in many ways.

@SadandStressed3 You belittle your daughter and her experience all over this thread. All over. Much of what you say is not objective. You use a certain type of language that makes your daughter come across as a complete idiot that's misremembering the past, making up her feelings, put on a show for attention and you tell everyone here that what she told you 'as her reasons' cannot be trusted.

You lack self awareness and are not interested in solutions. I think you just want validation from strangers for your own struggle and have no interest in understanding where your daughter might come from. You sound indeed toxic, I know you hate the word, but that's the word I am going to use.