New to Mumsnet, at end of tether, advice greatly appreciated

[MilanX]

I would very much appreciate any advice other parents have on this matter. Our daughter, 16, has gone out of control. Not just teen angst and anger, but off the scale anger - perhaps has inherited my depressive propensity, and is acting out in the full.

Earlier this year, she became extremely moody, then violent (mainly towards me) and broke my finger. After enforced counselling and many months of work, she seemed to calm down but carried on falling out with friends at school because of her difficult, intransigent behaviour. She received outstanding GCSE results, is polite and well behaved out of the family home. Two weeks ago she started displaying signs of depressive behaviour again, becoming fixed on the idea of moving out of home (we needed to rent her room out in order to pay for a place for her to stay, apparently!). She became fixed on the idea that this is the only thing that would make her happy and solve her problems was to move out and be away from us and her younger brother. When we stood firm and explained this would not happen until she was 18 all hell broke loose and the violence towards us both reappeared to such an extreme that we were forced to call the police who arrested her for Common Assault. She is due to see a Youth Offending Team who will 'set her tasks to complete'. She starts a new school this Monday and seems keen for them not to know about any of this (clutching at straws maybe, but I'm hoping this is a sign she is in some way because she is ashamed of her behaviour).

She in no way demonstrates any remorse or takes responsibility for her behaviour and continues to be aggressive and remote. I'm at a loss to know how to cope with this, and feel like I have lost my child to something I don't understand or know how to help with.

Hi Milan. I'm sorry you're going through all that. It sounds really stressful, upsetting and difficult. You're in good company: there are quite a lot of us here who have had similar problems with our DCs, and people will be happy (that's not the right word, but you know what I mean) to share their experiences and advice.

In my DS's case, about 50% of the problem was personality and teenage angst, and 50% was drug taking, specifically skunk and m-cat. If you do an advanced search for my name, and look for posts 1-2 years old, you'll find my posts and see what happened and what other people said at the time.

There are two or three key bits of advice that keep recurring...

Firstly, detach and try not to get emotionally drawn in. That's obviously easier said than done, but it really helps.

Secondly, look after yourself: this is incredibly important - not just a 'nice' thing to do but a survival essential, giving you some energy to deal with all the awfulness.

Also, take all the help and support you can find, and look for more. It sounds like you have some - use them! The YOT team, for instance, offer parent support. There is also, potentially, your GP, school, counselling...

Other people will be along soon offering their support. Keep coming back; MN was a lifeline for me during the worst times.

"She received outstanding GCSE results, is polite and well behaved out of the home".
This bit stands out for me.

When did her behaviour change in the home?

Other questions, if you dont mind me asking.

What does a GP say, if she has seen one.
Could she be bullied?
Do you think she is worried about something?

Firstly Flow4, thank you so much for your words, and for sharing your experience around this matter. Your recommendation to detach as far as it possible is very true, I know it intellectually but am finding it extremely hard to do. You are also correct in saying that I'm not helping anything by not sleeping, eating and the rest but am finding it hard to switch off. I shall search out your previous posts and thank you.

Yellowballoons yes, at one low point DD did admit that she thought she might be suffering from depression so we went to the GP and are now on the waiting list for support from the SAFE team, they apparently need to see her before any type of medical or further counselling can be recommended. I don't think she's being bullied, we keep a close eye on her social media and yes, to a certain extent I think she is nervous (but not worried) about starting a new school. I don't think she is worried as much as wanting to leap into adulthood whilst not yet being fully able to.

DD has always been very independent, strong minded, bright, so it has never been plain sailing with her, but her behaviour changed substantially at the beginning of this year. We thought it might be the pressure leading up to GCSEs, then I went into a very bad depressive episode and the timing was explosive. My depression was, I'm sure, the direct trigger for her exploding, feeling she couldn't put up with it anymore, that she wanted a real, well, strong and capable mother.

hmm. I ma not sure if you are putting 2 plus 2 together op. Did she actually say that she wanted a well mum? In those words? Though the timing was probably bad for her.
But well done her for doing so well in her GCSEs while obviously feeling under lots of stress.

She may well come out of this ok. Glad that she doesnt want the new school to know.

It sounds to me, and I am no expert, that she is very bright, and is used to having some control in her life.
Then, at the beginning of the year, you were ill, and she had GCSEs coming up, she is bright, and she felt she lost some of the control over her life that she is used to having.

That may all be true, yellow; but it isn't normal or tolerable for teens under pressure to become violent and aggressive, to the extent that they break their mum's finger and need to be arrested. Something has gone awry...

It may be worth trying to work out the cause. It's certainly worthwhile if you think it's something you may be able to do something about (eg bullying, abuse)... But even if parents are able to identify clear reasons, and something can be done, that takes time... And meanwhile, you need strategies for dealing with bad and dangerous behaviour now.

Sympathy for you Milan. I'm sure you have gone over it already yourself, but what was going on in the early part of the year when DD got worse? It may not be ANYTHING to do with your own depression, but it would be very easy (for you) to think that.

Any change of friends? Is she going to her new school with a bunch from her old or is everything new for her now?

You say it escalated two weeks ago - are you tracking her diet, menstrual cycle, things like that? Might help to keep a diary or brief note when incidents occur, then you may spot a pattern.

Thank you again, all of you, I cannot tell you what your support is doing for us right now. Flow4, watchingout, yes, she was unhappy and felt very restricted at her Catholic, rather draconian school, especially in the last year when she, I think, saw the end was in sight and she was on to pastures new at a more liberal, adult school. She did start falling out with her friends, complaining that she had no real friendship groups to show for the many years at her secondary school. She is the only girl amongst her friends to go to this new school, which I'm sure must be frightening for her. I am also, watchingout, aware that she becomes very difficult the week before her period, but as flow4 says, it's out of proportion to her extreme aggressive, violent behaviour.

Yellowballoons, unfortunately, yes, she said in no uncertain terms that she hates my depression, feels I am selfish for ever having children and passing on the gene to her, doesn't recognise it as an illness and wants a mother who doesn't go to pieces. I've done a lot of work to try and manage my depression, the last very bad episode was 7 years ago but of course she, understandably, just sees a mother who on occasion descends into a very dark place.

I could be wrong, but I am pretty sure that even though you get bad depression, that in no way means she will even get depression at all.
Does she know this?
She may well have gone overboard with being frightened about it all.

Children can be very angry and judgemental about their parents' perceived weaknesses and failings, including illness, mental illness, disability, relationship breakdown, etc. I'm pretty sure their negative responses are fuelled by fear: they want their parents to be invulnerable super-beings capable of protecting them from every harm and bringing them every delight, and they don't like it when we're not and can't.

It takes some maturity to realise parents are human too, and to accept that parents don't have to be perfect: 'good enough' is, um, good enough. :) Teenagers don't always have that maturity.

To be fair, us grown ups often struggle with that too! IME, it is very common for parents to feel guilty about their own 'shortcomings'. On a bad day, personally, I have felt guilty about being a single parent, having my children by two different dads, being depressed, and having a long term health problem that is limiting my mobility... On a good day, of course, I know none of that is my 'fault', and that it's all part of what makes 'me', and I feel strong and proud of myself... But on a bad day...

The trouble is, teenagers are often very skilled at scenting guilt and weakness. One whiff of you feeling guilty or vulnerable about something, and they'll poke at it with a big sharp stick! If your DD is anything like my DS, Milan, she may be angry and nasty about your depression because she's scared by it, and she's testing to see if you are too. The more confident and strong you get, perhaps, the less she'll feel the need to 'poke'.

The other possibility (and this came up for another poster recently, but I can't remember who) is that if you have been very ill, she hasn't had any emotional 'space' to act up or be a pain or have any problems of her own for a while. Now you're getting better, maybe she does, and maybe she has a bit of a backlog...

Of course I may be totally wrong, but it's probably worth considering :)

What she needs (don't we all?!) is better emotional resilience. It took me years - decades! - to realise I didn't have to make everything 'better' - which was an insurmountable, distressing problem because I already knew that was impossible - I just needed tactics to deal with how I felt when things were 'wrong'. Your DD, it sounds to me, needs better strategies to help her deal with her fears, and especially perhaps her fear of being depressive 'like you'.

You sound very sensible Milan. Personally I have found that dealing with my own depression (and other issues) has given me a lot of insight and understanding. I bet the same is true of you, even if it doesn't feel like it at the moment. :) Good luck with it all. :)

DS 14 had a few very angry tantrums in which he lashed out at his dad.
this is how we dealt with it: once a strong anger comes up we immediately go into different rooms. either our son goes out or we do go out. Nobody goes near him when he is angry to pre-empt the possibility for violence.

Secondly, we started as a family to do a loving kindness mediation for 15 min every evening. It has worked absolute wonders. It's been 8 weeks since the last tantrum and DS is changed beyond recognition. He is hardly angry at all any more and so funny and nice I can hardly believe it.

I realise that not every family and teenager is willing to meditate together but I will be posting it here just in case it will help someone.

Couldn't your daughter go to a counsellor of some sort? Maybe all she needs is to talk to someone...

How do you mediate, Palika?

What is a "loving kindness mediation" - any online info? Sounds good.

I'm going to go against the grain here and say that it may be an idea for her to move out.

She has been at a 'draconian' catholic school and has realised she doesn't even have any friends to show for her 'sentence' there. She may be at boiling point and desperately needing some space just for herself.

It is hard living with someone with a depressive illness. I am in no way blaming you - especially as I've had long-term depression myself. She is also very bright, which can be isolating: a gift/curse/burden/blessing. It may take her a while to fit into her skin and to find like-minded people - hopefully, a good uni will fill that gap for her, if not the 6th form she is due to start.

I would give living on her own a go and see how it goes. She may tire of it quite quickly lol, especially if things look up at the new school and she feels she's getting some space to be herself. However, if she does come home then there needs to be an absolute zero tolerance on violence. She must be very clear about that if she sets foot in your home again.