Physically attacked my DD16

[Awfulmother1]

Nc, feel disgusted and hate myself. I seriously physically attacked my DD16 yesterday causing her ear to bleed where she had earrings in. I'm vile, not fit to be called a mother and should have never had children. I'm ruining their lives. I'm a piece of shit.

I am not defending the DD’s behaviour.

I am shocked you continue to double down suggesting the DD has contributed to driving the OP to lose control. It sounds like something an abusive man would say “you provoked me!”. Absolutely unjustified. The DD’s behaviour is disgraceful and inexcusable and ditto the OP’s behaviour but people are going out of their way to excuse her.

I give up. I’m out. Terrible thread.

Not the case. I work on an acute mental health ward and no we dont take phones away unless the patient is calling police etc constantly or being abusive to others Even then its a last resort . As a previous poster said chargers are kept in the office as they are a ligature risk

Patients can keep mobile phones, chargers and laptops if it doesn't hinder their recovery, pose a risk to them or others and op is in a general hospital I think, waiting for a private mh health bed. She may have been seen by 2 doctors if she's being assessed for section and a mh social worker. Maybe she's being specialled, we don't know. Still a upsetting thread for a lot of people though and may not be true or exaggerated, who knows.

Loads of people are saying she isn’t to blame. Or trying to minimise what she did. Calling the dd a brat, saying it’s not to bad when it’s a woman attacking her kids, telling op to kick her daughters (actual children) out and so on.

Even the phrase ‘DDs advise of her mother pushed her to breaking point’ is minimising what Op did.

The dd clearly has mental health issue. She has no support. Op does have supports she had praised how amazing the mental health services have been to her in the last 8 years. Yet no word on any help she has tried to get dd or got her dd. So who doesn’t have any support?

If poor mental health and abuse towards the Op reduces Op responsibility for assaulting her dd, the DDs mental health and abuse towards the dd reduces DDs responsibility.

The dd is a victim of assault. The dd reacted to having something thrown at her, to scare her and then being attacked.

The op admits she never bonded with her and doesn’t get in with her. It’s clear she has been emotionally neglect by Op and possibly her father.

DD saying awful stuff to her mum is reactive abuse. She is reacting to environment the parents have created.

If being a victim of mental health problems and a victim of abuse means you aren’t responsible for abusing other people, then the dd holds not responsibility.

As the dd is a child Op has subjected to a toxic household, and ignored the fact that getting children support is the adults responsibility.

You can’t argue ‘poor op, bad mental health and abused so no wonder she assaulted her child’ if you are also claiming that a child with poor mental health and who is a victim of abuse is responsible for their own actions.

I want to start by making it clear that I absolutely do NOT condone OP’s behaviour, in any shape or form.

However, along with OP doing whatever it takes to make sure this doesn’t happen again, the daughter does sound like she needs to buck up a bit too. I don’t agree that it sounds like typical teen behaviour - yes, having a messy room might br the norm but absolutely not to the damage with the broken bed or the ruined carpet because of the curling tongs and then the water leak. I don’t know many people who would accept that sort of behaviour.

'not to the damage with the broken bed or the ruined carpet because of the curling tongs and then the water leak. I don’t know many people who would accept that sort of behaviour'

But it wasn't damage done on purpose. Yes if the dd had damaged things maliciously you'd have a point but many, many parents will have had scorch marks on carpets from hair straighteners or floods in bathrooms from taps being left on.

We need to be patient with dc but as I've said this household sounds so very toxic and dysfunctional it's no wonder that someone snapped at some point.

That said the throwing of the remote should have been the end point not the starting point for violence. I hope the op gets support from her mh team once home and that her dc get the support that they need too.

I might go against the grain here but had i been your daughter to my mum and dad I would have been shown the door. They never laid a finger on me but your daughter was long asking for it. I believe you are being too hard on yourself and too easy on your daughter. I’d look at how it got to this point. Not all teenagers are lazy and disrespectful of their parents. She probably thinks there no consequences to her actions and she can do as she pleases.
You have apologised, fine. Good on you. However you need to have a conversation with your husband and you two need to sit her down and tell her that her behaviour cannot carry on like that. You are feeling guilty now but things will only get worse if you let her guilt trip you. My opinion.

My son broke two beds within 18 months. Not intentionally, but pratting about and throwing himself down on the slats.

The first time, the bed was pretty old, so we gave him the benefit of the doubt and replaced it. The second time, the natural consequence was that he spent the following two years until he left home sleeping on a mattress on the floor. So we didn't "accept" the behaviour. We just didn't demonise him or assume it was done "in order to" upset us. He was careless, he broke something, there was a natural consequence, he learned. Same boy dropped his can of deodorant in the sink at his Nan's, and a huge chunk of the sink broke off. We paid for that to be sorted because it was just a pure accident, not "misadventure" like the bed. Of course he was mortified at having broken his Nan 's sink.

Other son spilt a pint of milk over his almost brand new (reconditioned) laptop that he had had for his birthday. Consequence was that he had no laptop for 2 years until he saved up all his birthday, Christmas and odd job money to buy a new one. Other than a few moments of frustration and upset at the time there wasn't much drama. We didn't go around telling everyone he had deliberately destroyed his laptop. It was an accident from being careless. There was a consequence, and he is much more careful with drinks around the laptop now.

It's the labelling of the child as deliberately destructive that is the twisted bit. Why would anyone deliberately burn their carpet? They wouldn't. It was misadventure. Consequence, they no longer have hair straighteners and have to help pay to replace the carpet. It doesn't require a decision that the child is bad.

Shame is a corrosive emotion that triggers fight back, bravado, swagger - because either my parent is stupid for their reaction, or I deserve it. And if you know you didn't deliberately burn the carpet, then you know you don't deserve to be told that you are bad or stupid for having done so.

It's a cycle, isn't it? No one is communicating effectively, no one is listening.

I burnt my new carpet with hair straighteners. Definitely wasn’t done on purpose. Should I have been punished by my husband seeing as strictly speaking he paid for it? Was I spoilt brat because I made a mistake?

The daughter wasn't asking for it. It sounds like a thoroughly miserable household and as others have said the dd was probably mirroring behaviour that she'd been exposed to her whole life.

People who are assaulted don't ask for it.

Then Op should also Buck up?

The daughter’s behaviour (or some of it) isn’t normal. She has been brought up in a toxic situation, therefore suffered abuse. She clearly has mental health problems as well due to the abuse.

If the teen can just ‘buck up’ surely Op can also just ‘buck up’?

Wow.

Do you tell women who are assaulted by their partners they were asking for it?

What about a 5 year old? Or 10 year old? At what point does assault become ok because you were asking for it? What age?

OP has done a wrong thing, but it's significant she is suffering from PTSD, and she needs help

Apparently, if your husband had hit you a bit, it would have been justified, because burning the carpet is obviously something only bad people do, and something that can only be done deliberately because the burner does not care about the carpet (that is actually their husband's property.) He would also have been justified in telling other people that you have disrespected his property by burning his carpet.

To be clear for OP: I am much more shocked at other posters justifying what happened than at what happened. You made a horrible mistake and have tried to sort it out.

@SwiftiesVSLestat no, of course I don’t tell abused women they’ve asked for it, or children.
I do not think it is ok though to normalise her daughter’s behaviour putting it down to typical teenager one. I mentioned on purpose that I do not come from an environment where physical punishment was used, ever. However op needs to look at what led to this situation and see her own shortcomings and her daughter needs to see her own as well. I am saying the 3 of them , parents and daughter need to move on from this in a mature way. Yes, this happened, the mother owned up to it, does it give a free pass to the daughter to get away with murder? If the op doesn’t realise it she is setting up an environment where the other kids will grow up and think their sibling’s behaviour is normal
too.

By saying ‘she was asking for it’ you saying people who are assaulted can deserve and ask for it.

Why wouldn’t you say it to an abused woman? Or a child? You are saying it about this child who has been assaulted.

Of course the whole household needs help. And yes, the teens behaviour is awful. But no one asks to be assaulted.

The Child has been brought up in a toxic and damaged household and will have mental health issues of their own and have no support. When did children who have awful upbringings ask to be assaulted by their parents?

When Op threw the remote, if the dd had jumped up and assaulted her mother would you say the Op asked for it? Op threw an object at her daughter to scare her, would that be asking for it?

From my post:

However, along with OP doing whatever it takes to make sure this doesn’t happen again

Did you have trouble comprehending?

You did though, you said the daughter was long asking for it, so whether you class 16 as a woman or a child, you absolutely said the daughter was asking for it.

Tell your family you're taking a step back from parenting, let hubby do it all.
You sound like a good mum apart from this.
We all make mistakes, learn from it, don't let it happen again.

@Blowingsteam

your daughter was long asking for it.

Sickening beyond belief.

I hope to God you're not a parent.

You poor poor woman.

Please tell them the truth of his abuse of you.

No access to any money.
Please keep telling them you will self harm if you are forced to leave the hospital.
Do not allow them to send you home to him.
You have been abused for years and you snapped.
God help you.
Tell them that he is financially abusing you for years.
God bless you.

@WorldLeaderPretend you’re 100%. Nothing affects someone’s mental health more than being told (or feeling judged) they’ve done ‘bad’ things on purpose because they’re a bad person or set out to be disrespectful or cause harm. It’s especially damaging if a parent feels this about a child. So, support for the DC’s should be a priority.

Shit happens, people are careless, lazy, forgetful, deceptive, rude, aggressive. But that doesn’t make them a bad person. It makes them someone who (with support if necessary) needs to hold themselves to account for their actions, apologise for the impact on others, take responsibility for the consequences, learn from the experience. And grow. TBF to OP, on the face of it, she’s started to do that. She’s having a breakthrough rather than a breakdown.

It’s tempting in these situations to get mired in fault and blame. Whose fault is it (OP, DH, DD)? What’s to blame (past trauma, toxic household etc)? But that doesn’t really matter.

What matters is going forward, not looking back. Via accountability, apology, responsibility, learning and growth. Everything is solvable and fixable. IMH (and untrained) opinion, that’s what OP needs to focus on. And that’s what her DH and DD need to focus on too. If they can all give themselves grace, respond with love, empathy and respect for each other and a desire to face life as a strong family unit (even if OP and DH don’t live together if there’s a risk of DA), it’s really not too late.

They just need a reset. It sounds like they’ve been juggling a lot since the first DD was born traumatically, with no family support on OP’s side. It wasn’t the easiest start or set-up. Self-employed people can’t usually take time off without losing income. It’s extremely challenging for someone with ongoing health problems to be a full-time home carer. The kids are now older and will become more and more independent. This means the hardest (childcare) years are over.

So (when she’s feeling better) OP now has the chance of her own life outside her home and caring for her kids. It doesn’t have to be paid work. She could volunteer or study part-time. This may help her find herself again, rather than being solely ‘mum’, whose main job is to ‘manage’ her kids and home. She can make her own friends, build her own life and get her confidence back. She’ll have more time to get treatment, get healthy and consider how to become financially independent.

When kids become teenagers, you need a reset in parenting. They should be treated, and behave as, young adults. Not ‘told’ what to do and ‘told off’ if they don’t do it, but expected to take accountability for their actions or face consequences. DCs gets basic pocket money in return for certain household chores while they get support and focus on school. But if DD1 wants more to spend, she has to get a part-time job. Teenagers can bring new parenting challenges, which OP and DH need to rise to as united co-parents, with equal responsibility, modelling healthy adult behaviour for their kids. Teenagers need a lot of love and humour. They need to see people being loving, respectful and calm to each other. They need regular on-on-one time, ideally with each parent.

Tomorrow is a new day and a new chapter. The first day of the rest of their lives.

God some of the comments on here are disgusting. The poor Op needs help not all the bashing - DD assaulted her but does that not matter! Have some compassion for gods sake - most of the posts on MN's are fairly unimportant ones but this is really serious for all her family - she needs help and has taken action - she has no-one to help or support her in real life so maybe a bit of sympathy and support from this thread would be better than all the comments about her behaviour and her poor daughter - that is not just normal teenage behaviour - I had 3 of them - it is spoilt and tolerated by DH who should be helping and supporting his wife! Shame on some of you. I hope Op that you get the help that you clearly need and have asked for - my thoughts are with you!