I cant handle my DD's behaviour anymore :-(

[littledoctorwashu]

I am currently sitting here in tears after literally losing it at my DD. She just kept telling me "I am NOT eating my DINNER! So there!!" She flooded my bathroom and sat on the toilet for 20 minutes to avoid her dinner etc.I eventually just sent her to bed and shes currently quite happy.

A bit of a background. My DD is 6 next month. She was born 3 months early after me being abused by her father, physically and emotionally. He left her life after being sporadic when she was three. Not after he said he didnt want a "retard" baby. Anyway, she used to be fantastically well behaved. But then she started school last year and her behavior was so bad in school they literally couldn't cope. he upturned tables, gave her teacher a black eye and would just scream constantly. This behaviour started leaking out into our lives at home. I then lost my baby at 5 months pregnant and my ex left us the day of the funeral and never came back. She was gutted. I had just moved to a new area, so decided to move back home (300 miles away from where we were). My DD was having assessments etc done for ADHD and ASD, but we had to move back to our own area, and CAHMS etc have been useless. In 9 months we have had one visit and even at that, it was a case of, "we'll go into school and observe her there" and nothing has happened.

her rudeness and tantrums have gotten unbearable. I am constantly screaming at her. She tells me she doesnt like me. Today she fed her hamster a penny while my back was turned, trashed her room, woke me up at 5 am by screaming, threw tantrums and answered me back all day and told me she "didnt love me anyway". I grabbed her to put her back on the naughty step and her glasses caught a bit of skin next to her eye and cut it a tiny bit, so now I feel terrible. I am at the end of my tether and I have gotten into the routine of smacking her as this i the only thing that works with her slightly. :-( I hate myself after it and quite a lot I think she would be better off without me. I am sitting in floods of tears after being exhausted for days and dont know what else to do. I know people are constantly judging me, but they dont know what its like living with her behaviour.

Breath ... and stop.

Your DD needs you. Yes, you have been through crap but is this the Mum you want to be?

Nobody here will support you blaming your child - see her and listen to her.

Little - don't mean to sound preachy - this is how I get through every day.

littedoctorwashu I just wanted to say that I've personally found advice from most MNSNers to be invaluable, you've come to the right place for information and support.
I would really look into the hypersensitivity issue.

It sounds like you have been through some terribly hard times and dealt with massive upheavals which anyone would struggle to cope with but on top of all that your dd has extra difficulties too.
Like polter, I have experience of special needs and that is a huge challenge even with a supportive dp, I can only try to imagine what it might be like to deal with this as a lone parent.
Breathing is good advice, whenever your dd presses your buttons just focus on your breath. And focus on your big goals rather than the day to day struggles. I think the most important lesson I learned as parent to my ds was that I didn't have to 'win' all the time. The super nanny techniques where I was trying to force ds to comply were resulting in both of us losing every time. There were no holds barred with ds' reaction to the consequences. I would end up in tears and he would never do as I told him to. In any battle of wills he always wins.
So, the collaborative problem solving technique from The Explosive Child really helped. If you PM me I can send you a brief outline of the technique so you can get going before reading the whole book.

I find if I get angry and shout with my asd son it just makes him play up more, my most effective thing to do is completely turn my back to his shouting and screaming he will throw himself on the floor kicking and screaming f he cant have he own way but trust me most times turning my back on his demands and not tesponding in any way at all makes him stop within a couple of minutes. And if he's doing something to be deliberately naughty for attention, it's like sometimes he wants me to panic and Make a fuss he likes to watch me react I take away something and do like a calm okay, that's fine, no biscuits today..... And I quickly get a hug and a big sorry! I also count to three, as "I'm going to count to three then you sit up to the table or I'm going to be cross" then slowly one, two, three... When I get to three nine times out of ten e will do as he's told and if he doesn't I say, calmly, okay I'm cross now and I'm sad. This works too. Trust me don't go mad and shouty your giving her attention she's trying to get a reaction from you, if you stay calm she will get bored of trying to get a rise out of you! I got into the whole shouting and occasionally smacking thing with my kids when i was at the end of my tether a while ago and felt so shit that I made a decision to deal with it differently and I'm so glad I did good luck xxx

Hugs. My middle son is placid but my eldest is strong willed. I found with him no amount if screaming, shouting threats worked. I did find that reasoning when he was calmer worked. So when he got wound up I did the 'remember when we talked about this?" So you need to find a method that fits her. You have tried x, it's not working out, just onto z. Don't beat yourself up. You tried it, you know it's working, move on to the next step.

And remember you have stood by her through worse, you can stand by her for this. You are her world

Thanks for your advice to all. Yes, I will take these on.

I feel much better seeing as I got outside to a disabled club my DD goes to and got some adult contact.

So many of the parents there seem to "get it" too. :-/

Are you American? I only ask because of the Americanisms you used in your post. Not that it matters.

You don't really have a choice but to cope.

Anger just fuels anger - you need to get subtle and clever.

Try whispering rather than talking so she has to concentrate to listen to what you are saying. She can't shout and scream if she needs to be quiet to hear you.

Walk away. Tantrumming is no fun if you have no audience to tantrum to.

Do the obvious - reward good behaviour but you do not have to put up with bad behaviour merely because your DD has a certain diagnosis. You should not treat her differently. You need to get her to accept that behaving badly will not be tolerated - disabled or not..