In despair - can't go on

[minifingers]

:-(

Many posts on this board about dd.

She went to stay with my mum and sister for 6 weeks at the start of the academic year after some violent outbursts which ended in us getting the police involved.

Things had been a bit better since she got back, but the last few weeks she has started to become more and more difficult with me again, and started getting into trouble again at school.

The long and short of it is that she is verbally abusive to me pretty much every day at the moment and it's destroying me emotionally to the point where I'm starting to feel ill and unable to function as a parent to my other 2 younger dc's.

This morning she asked me to buy her a McDonalds for breakfast. I said no - there was bacon and eggs, bread, yogurt, porridge, flour for pancakes. I told her to make her own breakfast. This precipitated an hour of verbal abuse - I am tight fisted, poor, pathetic, a loser, friendless, lazy, my work is worthless, nobody likes me, I'm useless to everyone.

I try to detach and ignore, but she will follow me around insulting me.

She bullies me and shouts me down, refuses to comply with any requests, constantly reminds me that she can do what she likes when she like, and there is NOTHING dh and I can do about it. She often tells me to 'shut up', makes obscene comments (in the car on Wednesday she spent 10 minutes telling me how she had sucked 5 men's cocks and fucked 15 boys one after another - all rubbish but just said to disgust and distress me. I am pretty sure she is not having sex with 1 boy, let alone dozens), shoves past me in the hallway of the house.

She shouts at me and abuses me if her uniform isn't ready in the morning (if I haven't remembered to hang it out to dry after it has been through the washer), tells me my cooking is disgusting and that the house is disgusting because I'm lazy and useless. She berates me for not having a full-time job or much money, laughs at me, tries to play DH off against me. Says he could do much better than me and that I should just leave.

The abuse is pretty frequent and almost always starts in response to me saying 'no' to her - no you can't have a sleepover on a school night, no you can't have money for the kebab shop, or if I ask her to do something she doesn't feel like doing eg get up in the morning, do some homework, whatever.

She is aggressive, nasty and disrespectful to some of her teachers at school as well, and is currently facing a possible permanent exclusion for disrespectful and disruptive behaviour.

She has a rationale for it all: apparently I am abusive to her because I let her sleep on a new mattress on the floor for several months (was trying to sort all the children's beds out - new bunk beds for the little ones, and she didn't like her old bed frame as it is old fashioned, so I dismantled it ready for storage). She also until recently had no door on her bedroom - it had come of its hinges after she tried to slam it in DH's face a few months ago and he pushed it. Her room is at the end of a long hallway with no other rooms going off it so she still had some privacy. Plus her window is cracked after his cousin kicked a ball into it - not so that there are holes in it, but the glass is crazed in one of the 4 squares. Also took her curtains down to wash and haven't put them back up (no privacy issues, her room overlooks a private garden) and sometimes condensation goes a bit mouldy on her window frame. None of these things are great but the rest of the upstairs of the house is worse. It's a biggish Edwardian terrace and quite scruffy - there is so much to do that we feel overwhelmed by it. Never the less - her room is decent by the standards of the other bedrooms. We put new laminate flooring in about 2 years ago, all the (sadly single glazed) windows were refurbished 3 years ago

[FunnyFestiveTableRunner]

I take it DH isn't DD's father? Is there an issue there do you think? Or did they have a good relationship before she hit her teens?

[Stropperella]

There may well be undiagnosed SN. Or there may not. But either way, doesn't a line need to be drawn somewhere? If your own health is suffering, how are you able to do your best by your other dcs? I have made it clear to my dd that I have my limits and if she wants to continue to push it further than that, we will all pay the consequences, one way and another. It remains to be seen what the outcome will be...

[RandomMess]

Maryz I think your advice is spot on. You need that boundary in place and to enforce it.

[monicalewinski]

Mini, I only saw this thread because it was in active - I've just read it all and everything's pretty much been said, freezing's post at Sat 14-Dec-13 18:37:42 is really good and makes a lot of sense.

Please don't give up, teenagers can be horrible - their world revolves only round themselves.

I also want to apologise to you - I had a snap at you on an AIBU thread yesterday because what you had said annoyed me, I've never seen posts about your daughter because I don't come onto the teen threads but I've seen on this thread that you've posted about her before. If I had had any clue that you're having such an awful time I would have bitten my tongue yesterday (no excuse, I am genuinely sorry for being rude).

Hope things can be sorted

[minifingers]

Monical

[minifingers]

But I am giving up.

When I said this can't go on I meant it. Either she goes or I will split the family up and go myself with the two younger ones. I can't live like this.

[Travelledtheworld]

Mini I am so sorry you are having to cope with all this.
I have no experience of this. My teens are kind and loving, though lazy.
Do you think she is mentally ill?
How old is she?

Hand holding.....

[sparklysilversequins]

I've said this before but I think it sounds like she has Aspergers or PDA and you, OP are her trigger. In my house both my dc have ASD and my dd is definitely triggered by her brother . He is gentle and quiet and she is screamy and loud and he gets it in the neck from her A LOT. Have you ever had her assessed?

[Travelledtheworld]

Will your sister come and take her away, just to give you a breathing space. When she says she won't go, what is her justification for this ?

[MumOfTheMoos]

Oh Maryz, that's a great approach, I wish my Mum had been able to do that with my sister - instead we always seemed to be trying to appease her (although I think the police may have been called out - then again, that could have been to deal with my Dad ).

Still, many years later my Mum, my DSDad, my DH and my DS are all gearing up for a lovely, lovely Christmas together so all this awfulness you're currently going through won't last forever. It just feels lime it will now.

[MumOfTheMoos]

Mini, then do it, you don't have to live like this and trying to accommodate it will not work.

What does your DH say?

[Xmas2013MN6233]

are there other children in the house?? our whole family was dominated by one resident teen, it was only after he was forcibly removed by the police the final time, that with time we came to see how much, he wasnt violent or aggressive unless he was challenged, however he did no chores, earned a fortune and did not contribute to the house, did no washing, no cooking etc, but it was a gradual thing, so we were all just used to it.

We eventually stopped asking for him to help or do anything, he grew older, so there were no "rules" about coming in times, at one point I found my small one in his room playing with steriods, nothing, because there was no point.

We had stopped expecting anything from him over a period of time.

It took him to physically assault me in front of DH while I had a baby on my hip for me to actually take the step to kick him out, and even then, he was back for tea a month later although I never allowed him to live with us again.

We were all, me, DH, the other children, victims of his domestic violence and I wish with all my heart I had thrown him out sooner, he rarely actually hit anyone, because I had had him removed by the police, when he was younger so he knew I would - but the I fucking hate you, I am going to smash your fucking face in, etc, etc, those just meant we didnt ask him to do anything, ever.

Sad thing was it all seemed like it was lovely - when really its not normal not to be able to ask a 19 year old to unload the dishwasher, he either totally ignored you - or he kicked off an raged if you pushed him.

CAHMS are a useless waste of space - I warned him if he threatened anyone I would call the police, and I did, it worked for a period of time, but it all came to a head when he started bringing his rude girlfriend into our home who also did nothing to help - after a year I started biting back and his true colours showed.

When I first called the police we were offered counselling which we never took, they took it very seriously, because they said it would help to prevent a downward spiral.

This is the stuff I can tell you - there was far worse that I was not aware of at the time - this is the tip of the iceberg.

If I had my time again, I would have thrown him out years before instead we let him destroy our family.

I agree with Maryz about setting rules about being abusive, but you have to be clear what you do consider abusive, so for example if you wont be sworn at that has to be the rule, then call the police, also I did find a rolling programme of pocket money dealt with school - so 1 suspension, a days pocket money, 2nd suspension, 2 days, 3rd, a weeks, 4th 2 weeks, with no money its hard for them to actually go anywhere.

[MumOfTheMoos]

Artex

'Not ideal'?

It doesn't sound like you have any experience of what it can be like living with a family member like this.

[Xmas2013MN6233]

he did get himself an amazing job (all down to pulling strings by me) but it didnt get us anywhere - looking back I cannot understand why we all took it for so long

[ivykaty44]

don't make everyone suffer - as it still will not be right - so best pack up her things and take them to your mums and change the locks

your dd is trying hard to be top dog, the lesson she needs to learn is she is not top dog and she will not learn this if you break up your family for her

[minifingers]

Artex - if I showed you a picture of her room you would be surprised by how nice it is. She's got farrow and ball paint ffs, new laminate flooring, and the mould is what you get in any Edwardian property which is centrally heated when you refuse to open your bloody window every now and ten to air the flaming room out! If I thought her health was in any way affected Id buy a dehumidifier, but she's fine. As we all are.

Incidentally, DH is her biological dad and has been an absolute fucking SAINT towards her, despite at time extreme provocation...

[Xmas2013MN6233]

we used to call it DAD ON A STICK

he wanted him and DH in a flat on their own, so he could walk all over Dh, he tried his absolute best to split up our family.

When he was in a flat with DH, when he was only 10/11 he was absolutely out of control, never there, refused to abide by rules, just used to go over the back wall of the flat.

Its a miracle we are still together, but I was bloody determined not to give him what he wanted. My younger children deserved me and their father togehter.

[Xmas2013MN6233]

mini - dont worry, unless someone has experienced it - they have no idea, no idea at all - how do you deal with someone who acts like they hate you, when it breaks your heart and no sanctions at all work x

[RandomMess]

I honestly don't want to really imagine what it is like absolutely bloody awful to live in that kind of atmosphere. You wouldn't tolerate it from anyone else so why would it be more bearable if it's your own child?