Holiday with adult daughter has become tense and difficult

[Holidaymiserymum]

I am on holiday with my daughter who is 22.

We have not been on a joint holiday just the 2 of us before but she had no one else to come with as none of her friends have money, and really wanted to travel across some parts of Europe. She has travelled before with friends but one of these trips went wrong as they fell out and she had to come home early

The trip has been very expensive and complex with travel arrangements and before hand she did a lot of research on the main destination and I helped with most of the bookings

The first location wasn’t DD’s choice but it was just an overnight and a day, so I accepted up she was hot, tired from travel and keen to get onto the next place

She went to bed at 6pm and I went out alone in the city, which was fine but a bit of a shame I tried to make the best of it. She said she didn’t care about this place but it was beautiful.

The second day we went to a different city. We walked around and she liked it but by 7pm she was tired and wanted to lie in bed.

There wasn’t as many places to go on my own in that city and our hotel was further our, so I stayed in the hotel from 7pm to 10am the next day. I did ask if she wanted to watch anything or play a card game together she said no I needed to entertain myself. I had so many hours with not much to do, I am not one for TV shows or games but I did my best to entertain myself but I was disappointed. The next day she said she would have done something with me but I fell asleep. Yes I fell asleep at 11pm after waiting hours for her to get off her phone.

We travel to the third place, this place is really lovely and what she wanted to do, with lots of activities (rural) but she is moody, rude and snappy. I call her out and say pls don’t be snappy at me be polite, she storms off. I chase her and say let’s sort this out. She is even more rude and I tell her off and say that’s enough. She is upset by this as days I am making her feel like a child, which I understand but we try to make the best of it.

She won’t come to the shops for food, or eat the food, she won’t really commit to making plans or decisions and is just sullen and sulky.

Today we have plans, she gets up late, is moody, walking slowly, won’t chat so I ask what’s up, she said nothing. I eventually ask if I am annoying her, she said I need to take hints when I should stop talking (general chit chat). I walk off ahead to give her some space so I don’t get irritated and say something I will regret, and she turns around without telling me and buggers off for the day alone.

We have been texting since and we just can’t seem to sort it out. her endless horrible moods are causing so much tension and I am completely to blame and she’s done nothing wrong. I do try to ignore the moods but we are trapped together and she is just picking on everything I say or do. It feels like she hates me. I ask her if she just wants to go do her own thing, if so just to tell me, but she just keeps taking me round in mental circles that I am ruining her trip.

I have the hire car, if I go home and leave her she is stuck here. If I wanted a solo holiday I would have chosen one where all the activities weren’t joint ones! I am just sitting at our apartment now not sure what to do.

I can do find things to do by myself for the rest of the trip but it’s just such a shame. I’ve tried calling a peace truce but then she gets into a weird mood again and I am treading on eggshells and being inadvertently irritating (just by asking a simple question, or observing something)

What do I do?

continue in silence?
go home?
find other accommodation?
go do my own thing the whole trip?
keep trying to sort things out with her?

I am at my wits end

Great update OP am glad you have both enjoyed your day 🩷

Lovely update! Hope it continues

That's a huge relief to read. At least one day of the holiday has been saved. Hoping you also have another good one today.

@Holidaymiserymum

So glad you finally got a good day! It sounds like an absolute shit show in the most part! I’d be so cross!

Does she have autism and PDA by any chance?

Defo don’t repeat for a long time, if ever!!

I hope the journey home now at least will be tolerable.

🤞

She had noone to go with. She fell out with friends on another trip. I think you can see why. I think you're gonna have to grin an bear it if she has no other means of getting home. She sounds hideous and incredibly rude. Has she some ND tendencies? Is she like this at home. Atleast you know NEVER to go away with her again. In the meantime judt do you own thing where possible and dont engage her in conversation or ask her whats wrong.

When you mentioned about she wouldn’t get off her phone all day, she is using it at night too when she reckons she’s having an early night. She’ll regret it. Hide her phone. RL is more fun. It’s normal to do this these days and at that age/be moody etc.
Anyway really glad you updated. What a relief. Enjoy the rest of the hols.
Phones are ruining fun and living in the moment- it’s sad to see.

Glad that things have improved and that you're getting on.

I backpacker for 6 months by myself at 23 - if she hasn't got the personality to travel with others, she should consider a solo trip next time.

If she stays in hostels she'll meet up with people to maybe go for a drink with in the evening, so need not be totally solitary.

Good to hear. It sounds as if she needs to be allowed to feel more independent

’DD mostly eats beige food’
You say she is shy and has no idea how her communication comes across and you’ve had to compensate for her ,

come on @Holidaymiserymum do you honestly mean to say that in 22 years you or those around her have never once considered that she might be neurodivergent?

fucking hell, every single one of your posts is like an ND bingo card.
poor girl.

look into autistic meltdown, it’s a thing.
you need to learn everything you can to ensure she doesn’t further miss out on the joys of life that she so obviously wants to be part of.

If the daughter is neurodivergent there is a reasonable likelihood that one of her parents is too and having read this thread/about the interactions, I wouldn't be overly surprised if her mum is neurosivergent herself.

I didn’t want to say…
honestly @Holidaymiserymum once I found out why me and my kids found life so challenging, it suddenly became less of a challenge.
obviously diagnoses doesn’t fix things but educating ourselves, understanding why we react a certain way, about sensory processing, demand overload, anxiety etc means we are forearmed and apt to be kinder to ourselves and to each other.
even just learning the subject without seeking a diagnosis is better than nothing and may help transform your daughter’s life and your relationship with each other .

Good update OP. Looks like there is light at the end of the tunnel and that taking a big step back did the trick.

Someone suggested hiding her phone PLEASE don't do that! it would undo all your good work.

Not long to go now, sounds like it will be pleasanter for you. Best of luck

She acts like this with her mother because she can get away with it and end up coddled. The daughter knows not to try that on at work, or I hope she does, unless she wants to have 45 employers before she's 30.
As another poster said, she sounds like a spoiled brat and to that I add, ungrateful, coddled and self-centered.
There are always a bit of tension when travelling together but this is beyond the pale and totally inappropriate on the daughter's part.

@Holidaymiserymum
I'm glad you had a good day with your DD. I do hope though, that you understand that she really needs to change her behavior if she ever wants to make some deep friendships or have good relationships with others.

I hope you have many more fun days with your DD and you can sometimes agree to disagree about things and then move on.

@Holidaymodeon She may well be ND, but her Mum can't really ensure that she's never in situations that she finds hard to deal with. She's an adult, she makes her own decisions. She obviously wants to go on holidays as she's been with her friends too.

It does sound as if holidays and the changes they entail don't suit her though so the OP won't organize another one, but she's otherwise limited in what she can do. At 22, her DD is in charge of her own life.

Education is key at any age. Knowledge is power. Forewarned is forearmed and many other seeming trite phrases which have a lot of truth in them.

Op’s daughter has been on holidays with friends which ended in disaster so despite wanting to go, there’s clearly a disconnect between the fantasy and the reality.

expectations need to be lowered for everyone. Aim high for whatever she wants to do but have strategies in place to ensure that she can do the things she wants and don’t plan anything for the first couple of days while she decompresses

The next holiday could go so much better with a few agreed strategies in place .

travelling with ND people can take a lot of forward planning, a LOT of compromise and a lot of plan B/C and being prepared and happy to spend some time alone if the person is overwhelmed/ dysregulated or in meltdown mode.
something as simple as not choosing a completely rural location so you can safely go off on your own at any time, nice places nearby to eat or nice hotel restaurant and accepting that some nights and mornings are better apart.
aim for one or two activities/ trips and plenty of chill time and plenty to see and do around your accommodation.

ensure beige needs are catered to at any age.
keep favourite snacks in your room to avoid further crashes when blood sugar levels plummet too.
Try not to get angry and take it personally, anger just shuts people down even more, especially if already overstimulated and stressed.
if she is nd and undiagnosed she might already carry a lot of shame about herself and why she finds things like this so hard compared to her friends.
Having a go at her is only going to compound that. She’s crying because she knows she’s making it a shit holiday but she was too far gone to fix it on those early days and has no idea how to articulate things that she doesn’t even know because she’s never been given the tools.

@Holidaymodeon I doubt that they'll be going on holiday together again. @Holidaymiserymum says that her DD has friends but none of them had the money to travel this summer so I expect she'll make her own arrangements in future.

Fair.
Is still worth learning this stuff anyway if she was indeed dysregulated and overwhelmed, whether with friends or parents.

It is worth OP’s daughter learning this stuff and finding solutions.

She is an adult and it is on her to make things work. The world and - in particular her friends and employers - will not pander to her. Whilst from a legal perspective she may be entitled to reasonable adjustments from organisations, the reality is that she won’t be able to go around making demands. She will need to find a way to manage herself.

So if you realised that at age 22 your child shows traits that could mean they may have a neurological condition that hugely impacts their life, you would not show any compassion by making an effort to explore it together?

theres some real cold hearted ill informed people on this thread.
I am shocked and saddened by how ableist this society is.

Glad you had a good day together. Blimey sounds like an intense trip.

Not if she was being as rude and selfish as the OP’s daughter. I would want to see that she understood how badly she was behaving and that she, as an adult, was taking steps to address it.

Those attempts would of course have my support but it would need to come from her and she would have to show genuine understanding that her behaviour is problematic and needed to be addressed by her. I would not tolerate being treated as the OP has been and would be less than impressed with the daughter showing up with a list of further demands of me.

You cannot expect the world to mould itself to these demands. Whether or not it is the nice thing to do, it is unlikely to happen in reality and we do ND people no favours by suggesting that everyone is going to bend over backwards for them.

Eg if I was a friend of the OP’s daughter, I would be totally uninterested in spending my hard earned cash and annual leave going on a holiday with her which revolved around her and where I had to “lower expectations” of her behaviour, do nothing for the first couple of days, spend time alone, eat beige food and miss out on the more exciting and interesting things a holiday can offer.

OP’s daughter is already finding this out the hard way. She needs to find the compromises/solution, not everyone around her - suggesting otherwise is doing her a massive disservice.

Edited. Sorry - I see this has already been gone over.

On the car hire front - only a couple of countries require you to have held a license for 2 years before you can hire a car, so it's normally dependent on who you hire from, though generally cheaper to go with a 2 year restriction. Was she upset because you had the option to get a car she couldn't drive but didn't, or was that completely outside your control?