My heart breaks for my DD’s Long standing friendship difficulties

[shmiz]

This literally breaks my heart
it’s like a physical pain
i hate to think she feels this pain too
i hate that she hates herself for this
15yr DD
difficulty maintaining friendships has been a constant theme
knows lots of people through school
lots of out of school activities over many years
never really anyone’s best friend
always on the periphery
at times hostility / meanness towards her
active excluding of her at times
she’s often lamented that shes the problem
and in distress asked why do people not like her
for many years i would say keep trying, you will find your people …
year 10 now and it hasn’t happened
shes started therapy now
I hope it helps
I don’t know where I went wrong
but I feel such a failure for not being able to resolve this for her
I don’t what I am asking from you
ive read so much regarding mental health / interpersonal functioning / teens
I think I’ve just hit the point where I am aware of how problematic it is, and realisation of how utterly powerless I am to help her resolve this
sorry I’m emotionally splurging and just reaching out

Yes agree -
oversensitive to rejection
then is unengaged / distant which perpetuates not resolves the experience

A piece of advice I found useful was ‘look for the ones on their own’. It’s hard to fit into an established group, but the lonelier ones often have a real lot to offer, given a chance. Your DD may well find a kindred spirit on the periphery.

I wouldn’t move school in the middle if GCSE.

Im nit sure I have some proper advice but one if my dcs struggled a lot with friendship. Still does Tbf.
But between 15 and 18yo, many things have settled down and he has managed to find a group of people he is confortable with. The key has been to find an activity that would bring similar type if people to him - in temperament and interest. And to continue to guide him in reaching out and keeping those relationship.

Just to say it can get better.

Btw, not wanting to diagnose etc… but is it possible that she is on the spectrum or do you feel something else is going on?

I would do some reading into how autism presents in verbally fluent, so called high functioning girls in case this is relevant to your daughter.

Same. Mine was OK until the end of Primary then all the other girls seem to have overtaken her with regard to social understanding and complexities of girl friendships. She's in a constant state of anxiety over whether such and such is still her friend, she's seen as an easy target for ridicule because she gets so upset, and it can make her really poorly.

It's such a worry and I don't have any advice because we're in the middle of it too 💐

Autism is one option to consider.

Another thing you might want to look into is adhd. I was diagnosed as an adult, and didn't connect it with my social challenges as a teen for quite a long time, but then came across something that says rejection sensitive dysphoria is very common amongst people with adhd, and it made me wonder. I am still hyper sensitive to any perceived criticism but have learned strategies to deal with it. Is she OK with organisational stuff, OP?

I'd make the point - why foes it matters that she's on the parifery?

She has friends, lots of them, in lots of different circles. I'd make her see that that's enough. She's not found 'her people' yet. So what? Lots of people don't at school. It doesn't mean anything.

My eldest DD didn't find her people until college. She then went from parifery acquaintance to social butterfly.

I realised aged about 30 that 'my people' don't exist. I like to be alone, or with my husband. I realised I was an introvert. That'll be why I never did the girlie nights stuff at school. I'm no less a person for it.

OP I never really had real friends at school, always felt in the periphery of groups, spent a lot of time mooning around by myself. It was really tough and I felt very lonely at times. I don’t really know why it happened for me like that. I am not autistic.

This did all change for me when I left school. I did a gap year and went to university and I still have friends I made at that time. I have many friends now. So it could be something she is doing or it may not and she hasn’t met the right people yet. COVID has been so hard for them too. The best you can do is give a a secure and caring home life.

She’s veryPeriphery
it means she mostly has people to talk to
but will never be included in activities outside school or club she’s in
that makes her more of a cling on than someone in the wider group .
She doesn’t want to seem desperate or needy and fears being seen Alone
so it’s a frightening zone to be around in

OP - I feel your pain. My DD can be the same.

When I step back, I can see things that are going wrong when she socialises in groups. She is lively and likes to be with others, can be great fun, but can also interrupt and not listen enough, which is really annoying. She also doesn’t really have siblings, so is used to being the centre of attention at home, and not used to being teased, so can take offence too easily.

As she’s got older, she’s realised this and is actively trying to moderate her behaviour. I wish we’d been firmer with her when younger. We are now working on being a better listener and being easy-going, and things are definitely improving. The How to Win Friends book is great - if she won’t read it, it’s helpful for you to do so and discuss strategies. Good luck!

Great post!

@shmiz

sensitive to any perceived criticism or being excluded

This could be the main reason for your dd's difficulties, if indeed she actually has difficulties.

Alternatively, you might be making a mountain out of a hill. The language you use is almost pathologsiing completely normal every day experiences.

Out of interest, are you a counsellor or mental health worker? The language you use when talking about your dd's experiences is very problematising.

• interpersonal functioning
• emotionally splurging
• highly disjointed contact with others
• gets more paranoid / anxious / distressed
• highly involved in out of school activities
• I am big on emotion regulation skills
• cognitive restructuring
• spotting dysfunctional thinking styles
• am aware of managing mine and coaching her with this
• i don’t emotionally splurge or role model poor regulation skills at home

It's like she is your mental health project and you act like her counsellor not like her mum, it's very analytical and I'd say uptight way to speak about your dd's difficulties. Or is this an American thing?

• how utterly powerless I am to help
• I feel such a failure for not being able to resolve this for her

^sounds a bit like saviour complex

OP, as you are struggling with your mental health, are you getting the right support? If yes is it working? I fear you are jeopardising your dd's resilience by making her experience sound wrong and dramatic. They are very normal and ordinary.

What sort of eprsoanility does your dd have? Is she loud, confident and bossy? Very shy and never speaks up? Argumentative?

Also, I suggest ditching those self help books!

Go and have some fun do some activities with your dd, be mindful to not patronise her, breath down her neck, be overbearing etc. Instead, try and have a positive atmosphere at home. Calm and grounding.

Does your dd have any significant hobbies?

I know this gets mentioned a lot but I do often wonder - when a child really really struggles socially like this - could your daughter be autistic? My child is which is why I recognise the signs.

Have a look at the literature around girls and autism.

Anyway - if not, she may have been particularly hard hit by lockdown?

I don't know why but I thought that as soon as I read your post. She is 15 - so - was early secondary in lockdown? A particularly sensitive time for starting again/ making friends - she would have just left behind one group and not quite started again

You mention nursery and infants - friendships at that age are simple - as girls get older, they become complex. My ASD daughter began to struggle in later primary.

The most important way to approach issues like this is that she believes it can change ie. she does not start to think that 'it will always be like this' - people's lives change massively all the time and remember she is a young person her whole life is ahead of her.

So - let's say she was hit hard by lockdown - that's bad luck - and perhaps that contributes to what sounds like quite bad anxiety?

You say she worries about being on the periphery - this is something my autistic daughter does - the autism means that she really struggles to grasp the different levels of friendship.

So my child will feel 'ignored' or left out or anxious in a situation - where i would just understand that I was not YET part of that group and that it would take many many conversations/ small moments/ shared experiences before real friendship arrived.

Could you do some CBT for your daughter - let her see that there are pragmatic reasons so far she has not made friends but she literally can begin tomorrow with a fresh start - but she has to understand that friendships are made of lots of tiny steps and you can't back off in panic if you don't click immediately.

Are you sure that this is periphery? Maybe because my dc have siblings but they don't tend to socialise that much outside of school at least in term time. Even in the holidays it is often me promoting them. One does a lot of socialising online, one has lots of work/hobbies and one does meet up with others but in lots of different friend groups/ activities, so perhaps just sees a friend once in a holiday. They also spend a lot of time together doing things. To the external observer in one friendships group it might seem that they don't want to meet up, but actually are just really busy.

Could some of it be that she is picking up on your anxiety about her not meeting up with others? She doesn't need to be in the centre of a friend group.

Sixth form might also mix things up a little, depending on how it is structured where you are. Here there is a fair amount of movement, plus you are studying subjects with like-minded people.

@STEMAndStuff
I’m not american
You are very insightful !
your posts have made me smile today as you have held a bit of a mirror up and I’m going to chew on that - and try not to overthink it -thanks 😊

Are you on the autistic spectrum, op? It reads as though you spend a lot of time analysing friendship as a concept rather than intuitively feeling it, and I just wondered if that was the case.

I can see, reading your timeline, how this may just be bad timing and covid lockdowns. Year 9 is the worst year for girls - bitchy and friendship groups break up and reform a lot. So if it was lockdown then year 9, not too much to worry about. Unless, as she is, she sounds distressed. So hopefully counselling will help.

Incidentally we have always discouraged close friendships and encouraged being friendly - better to be someone who can talk to lots of different people at school than someone in a clique. Who cares about best friends. Be the person who knows lots of people and is friendly with them. Your daughter could reframe friendships that way with support.

I just watched a film called Eighth Grade with my dd, currently on Netflix. It's about what you've described, a young girl not quite found her tribe, feeling lonely and excluded. It's a good watch with a happy ending.

You seem quite intense OP from your posts, the way they are written are a little strange, as another poster said, perhaps you just need to focus on spending nice times with your DD as that is within your control to make her feel happy and secure at home and not having to worry about things.

Don't take this the wrong way but you are way... Too...intense. I wouldn't be surprised if this is obvious to your daughter, and impacting upon her behaviour.

OP, I could have written your post when DS was that age. He was desperate to be liked and included which made his behaviour too full on or performative. he felt there was something wrong with him.

There was nothing wrong with him except him believing there was.And him wanting to be liked. As soon as he started doing CBT it taught him he's fine as he is, it's OK if others are indifferent to him, or sometimes ignore him, that these aren't indicators of anything wrong with him.

He learned to be happy in himself and to be himself, to feel less emotional about rejection. And as soon as that happened, his social skills and his personality blossomed and he has made so many friends that he can't keep up. He went in one year from sobbing every night at having not a single friend, to texting me and saying, I have been invited to seven parties tonight, what should I do?

I'm telling you this to give you hope because I know how you feel. I felt ill, physically sick for him for years if I'm honest. And now he is fine. it can definitely happen, but your DD needs to learn she's 100% fine as she is, not everyone will like her and that's fine too, people actively disliking her if she's done nothing mean is entirely a reflection on them not her. Her situation can change at any time. DS's did.

At his lowest point, I encouraged ds to enjoy friendships of all different types, shallow and shortlived, unusual, from all sources and people he thought he had nothing in common with. A group of people he thought were very different from him ended up being his close friends, and an elderly man who shares a niche hobby with DS has become not only a good friend but a mentor - and introduced him to some great work contacts.

Can she start to enjoy really casual friendships, hang out with people who are kind, even if she thinks she has nothing in common, join some outside school clubs - a youth group, church group, sports, music or drama group where she can meet new people, especially after a bit of CBT so she can practise new more relaxed attitudes to making friends.

She'll get there. to her and you!

sorry for the essay - your story touched a nerve!

Thank you @SoWhatEh
i really appreciate your sharing this 👍

My dd struggled with friendships all through school, she is diagnosed with autism/Aspergers. When she has had close friends they have been male and likely on the spectrum too. She didn’t really make many friends until her last year at 6 form where she made 3 or 4 close friends, she’s still friends with them now and is at uni, at uni she has a large group of friends and is now much more confident. Dd was always very intelligent and I guess geeky and didn’t have much in common with a lot of the kids at school. Going to uni has totally changed her and changed her choice of friends. Hopefully eventually your dd will find her people/friends.