I don't know why I'm posting but I'm struggling and feel like I just need to get it written down and out there.
My year 13 DD was a happy girl, a chatterbox and always kind and caring. From 15 she's changed and I'm finding it really hard. She's argumentative, sullen, so moody, angry, short tempered, and just oozes negativity. She doesn't seem to have any glass half full in her at all, criticises everyone around her apart from a small few in her friendship group.
She was picked on/left out quite a lot at school and this falling out with friends was a constant thing throughout school.
Since year 11 we started to notice changes in her concentration at school and struggles she was having with studies. In year 12 I started to notice she has a trembly leg. She has now been diagnosed with ADD.
A few weeks ago I noticed her flinch and said "what was that", she shrugged and said she just shuddered. After sitting with her in a restaurant over the weekend I think she has developed a tic.
In the ADD assessment they have said she scores very highly on the depression and anxiety scale. She was shocked at this and has said she doesn't think she is depressed.
She has put a couple of stone on since year 10 (she has always had quite an issue with sugar and seeming to want more and more even though we didn't have anything in the house, she would go to grandparents and raid biscuit tins etc). So she has no confidence, thinks she's fat (she's a size 14), hates the way she looks. Won't let me take photographs unless her hair is a certain way and make up is done.
Is obsessed with her phone.
I just feel so sad - it's like my happy girl pre-15 is quite broken and I don't know how to fix her or what has caused all of this. She has so many tendencies now, noise, sensory issues, texture issues with food - in the ADD assessment they asked if she had ever been tested for autism but there wasn't anything there before 15 years old - she was absolutely care free.
She's had covid (so did everyone else), and a traumatic death of an adored grandparent. Could either of these cause these kinds of changes or is it just "that's the way it is"? I find myself grasping at straws, like is it the covid jab that's done this?
I arranged for her to have some counselling through the GP but she just seemed to chat about everyday life with the counsellor and came out wondering what the point was.
She doesn't self harm (which I'm grateful for).
She's so awful sometimes, opinionated and "she knows best". I feel like she's patting me on the head saying "oh bless mother" - quite condescending. I sometimes don't want to be around her.
Then I see these teens who seem to be confident and smashing life and I can't help but wonder where I've gone wrong. Is it me and something I've done or not done.
Sorry for the extremely long post, I just needed to get it out 😔