I removed her bedroom door

[pinkpeta]

Background: My eldest is 15. We’ve always had quite a close relationship. She has always been able to confide in me about almost anything to the point where her friends always seem shocked because some of the things she tells me, they wouldn’t tell their mums. We spend a lot of time together and she’s generally been a good kid. Never really given me any trouble.
I have also worked from home most of her life until mid 2025 as she’s more independent now I felt like I could work outside of the home. I ended up having to work 7 days on, 2 days off (but worked locally so I could come home on my break)

When I started working outside of the home, she was fine initially but started spending more time with friends and a cousin that’s the same age as her. She went to her cousins one day and secretly created a TikTok account. Around that time she had also complained of not being allowed to manage her devices herself. So I allowed her to take control of them in the hope that she would learn to manage her own screen time effectively. That was all in Aug. By end of September she had started SH. When I asked her why she just kept saying she felt sad and didn’t know why. She told me in December. Her attendance and punctuality dropped to 83% as she wasn’t waking up on time and was constantly late to lessons. I left work in Jan and around that time she told me she had tried a vape. I didn’t tell her off. I asked her a few questions times which she answered. She assured me it was a handful of times and that she didn’t like it so didn’t see herself doing it again.
Then I saw a message to one of her friends where she had told them she tried Mary Jane. We have had many many conversations about this in the past and she’s well aware of the dangers. She was always very anti smoking and always told her friends who vaped to quit.
When I questioned her about this she began to say she has been having thoughts of unaliving herself.
I contacted the GP and a private counsellor.
At the end of the week a teacher called to tell me she spotted her vaping after school. Again when I asked about this she started to say she didn’t care about herself anymore and wanted to unalive.
2 weeks ago I had a look on her TikTok at the content she was liking and looking at. It was very dark content featuring pretty girls around the same age as her, with sad music and writing centred around SH and Suic… There were so many posts like that. And we know what the algorithm is like, when you like something it’s only going to keep showing up. She had liked hundreds of those sorts of posts. she also made a very concerning post about the teacher who had called me about the vaping.
I took her off all socials, changed passwords and usernames. I also confiscated the iPad and restricted the phone. When I told her that she wasn’t allowed on socials anymore due to the nature of her post, she cried, went to school and on her way, messaged her cousin to say she was going to end it. I had to contact the school and they took her out of class. When asked she described what she had planned to do. I had to go and get her and take her to a&e. CAMHS spoke to us both and discharged her.
Since being off socials she has generally been much better but yesterday we spoke to the CAMHS lady and she did an initial assessment and it seemed to make her slip back into the sad state. Her friend was here doing her hair and I was in the kitchen. I had a sudden feeling that I should check what they were up to.
I walked into the room and I felt like she was hiding something, I found a vape tucked under her shirt. I also cleaned her room 3 days ago as found 2 others hidden in socks.
When I was on the phone to the lady from CAMHS, I had asked her to watch her younger siblings and I believe she was vaping in front of them. I didn’t speak when I found the vape. I just went and got the drill and removed her bedroom door. Again she began to tell me she wanted to unalive. I’ve noticed she tends to express this when caught doing something she shouldn’t be. She cried a lot for the remainder of the evening and barely spoke to me today. For the first time, she didn’t hug me or talk to me before she left for school, even though we spent an hour with me helping her do her hair.
Not sure what to do about it all. Exhausted.
Hands down worst Mother’s Day 🥲

if you’ve made it to the end of this post, I greatly appreciate you.

I don't think taking her bedroom door away is the right punishment for vaping tbh. My dad did this to me as a teenager and it was awful.

You're doing the right thing by removing her tech though and keeping her off social media.

Sorry you're both having such a hard time.

Where is she getting the money from to vape? That stops immediately.

Fair enough to restrict social media and access to funds.

Put the door back though. She needs some privacy.

Gosh, from the tread title I was sure I was going to disagree with you, but my heart goes out to you. I don’t have much in the way of advice so I will leave that to the more knowledgeable but that sounds incredibly difficult

It sounds like a very stressful situation all round. But given how bad her mental state sounds, I’d choose my battles and put the door back on

Put the door back on. Regardless of what else is going on, a 15 year old girl is entitled to privacy, such as when she is getting dressed.

Something jumped out at me here. She has had a massive change of character and has told you that she doesn’t care about herself any more. I think you need to explore carefully when and why this changed: it is often when a young woman experiences sexual assault. Everything else could then be a reaction to this. You mention a ‘concerning’ piece of information about a teacher. Please consider that all her transgressive behaviour might not be mental illness or ‘bad’ behaviour but a reaction to a traumatic event, which will need quite different handling and treatment.

Self harm, suicide and hard core drugs are being mentioned but somehow this is all about vaping. What sort of self harm are you talking about ? Seems like a lot of started with you when working in the new role… is this coinciding with her being out more or is she going out because you’re not a home much? Thats not a criticism by the way im
juts trying to understand if she’s alone a lot otherwise. My other thought was whether there were other family members giving you any support because it sounds like a lot to deal with in your own. ( the door needs to go back on and I think that was an unnecessarily humiliating thing to do )

Removing her door is appalling. She’s a teenager and needs privacy

Removing the door is an awful thing to do. I understand you are worried about her but you want to build and maintain trust in your relationship not destroy it. If she is feeling low she needs care and concern. With boundaries too, but supportive ones.
You can’t make her stop vaping you can only make it clear that you don’t approve . Many teenagers do things their parents don’t approve of . It’s part of testing the boundaries as they move to become independent. Helping her with her low thoughts is much more important than policing this.
I think punishing her by removing the door and her privacy will majorly backfire on you.

It’s horrible worrying about them self harming but unless you’re going to be removing the bathroom or toilet door too (obviously not) then removing the bedroom door will make no difference whatsoever.

Oh what a tough time you are both having. I agree that removing the door is not the way to go. But I can imagine the feelings you had in the moment, of anger and fear that you can’t get this under control.

You are in such a difficult time, because she’s not mature enough to manage all this, but does need to have a degree of control. It sounds like her steps towards independence were going well, so maybe you should reflect on, what was the step that she’s not yet got the skills to manage. Something about the ability to recognise how the things she chooses to do are affecting her MH maybe? You can pinpoint it. Plenty of adults do things that are bad for us and retain bad habits for years, until we reflect and make decisions not to. I think you need to put the door back and have a good chat. Going for a drive or a walk is a good idea, less face to face and intense. Let her know what a good kid you think she is but acknowledge what’s gone wrong and ask her how you can work together to get back to helping her learn to be independent in a safe way. Listen to her ideas and tell her kindly but clearly where her ideas won’t work for you, and be clear on your rules and why. Ie no TikTok because of what it shows you and how it influences you. But one day soon you won’t be able to prevent this so talk together about how she can learn the self control to stop engaging with something that harms her.

im not sure if that helps, just some thoughts. Happy Mother’s Day. Try to get yourself a bit of a break today and settle your nervous system back down after all of that!!

My daughter went through a time with SH and one suicide attempt (not genuine, more of a cry for help). CAMHS were OK but like everywhere in the UK, they are hugely underfunded.

Rules we put in place, with back-up from CAMHS:

• All knives were put in a padlocked toolbox
• Removed her razor from bathroom. She had to come ask for it if she needed to shave legs etc
• Occasional spot checks in her room to make sure she hadn't procured anything sharp from elsewhere (rare, mainly when she was in a particularly low mood)
• Bedroom door was to be left open when she was in her room
• Medications including paracetamol etc was stored in a locked place
• She was classed as 'code red' in school, which meant she couldn't leave the school grounds without written authority from me. So no more popping into town with friends etc

We were, of course, called the worst parents in the world by her. But improvements did come around quicker once these things were put in place. Frankly, I think she had to be inconvenienced in order for her to engage with the help being offered.

Just to add context, her bedroom is at the end of the corridor so no one in the house would really be able to see her in her room unless they were actually going to her room.
But I agree that the door should return. It was a hasty move. I had no intention of keeping it off for a sustained amount of time.

She has been getting her friends to buy them for her. I never give her cash and her card is linked to my account so I see her transactions. But recently she’s always buying her friends things so I think she buys them snacks etc in exchange for the vapes. She also claimed the two in her room weren’t hers.

Removing her bedroom door is awful! She needs her bedroom to be private and safe.

I would be worried about her mental health and her social media use but personally I think you're massively overreacting to the vaping.

I know someone whose abusive ex removed all the upstairs doors. Including the bathroom. It's not a good look.

Put her door back on.
Ban social media and stick to it.
Keep taking her to appointments/therapy.
Are the friends/cousin a bad influence? Did her behaviour change when she started spending more time with them? Are they trying to help or making things worse?
I don’t know what to say about the vaping, if she’s clearly not quitting, could you “allow” it but only in the garden or similar so she feels it’s one less thing to be secretive about. Vaping is not the worst thing happening in this situation so I wouldn’t die on that hill.
It’s her mental health and school attendance you need to focus on.
I hope you figure this out OP and your daughter feels better soon x

I really feel for her and for you.

I think removing her door is awful and a mistake. She needs her privacy. The background you give makes me worry too: She has always been able to confide in me about almost anything to the point where her friends always seem shocked because some of the things she tells me, they wouldn’t tell their mums.

If her friends are shocked by how much she tells you, that is not necessarily a good sign. It could be she feels pressure to share things when privacy would actually be more appropriate.

Was she over 13 when she started her tiktok account? I understand you might not want her to have one, but the platform allows users over 13. It's really tricky because I do get that it can take people into horrible content very easy (and obviously did for her), but I think the problem with making everything feel transgressive is that children start assuming they have to hide and keep things secret.

I can see you're worried sick about her and the self-harm/suicide posts, but it is possible that, being a teenager, what she has understood is that you're just angry with her, and the anger is about the vaping/the post she wrote about her teacher. She may feel she's primarily 'done something wrong' and is being punished, rather than that you're primarily worried about her and about what is at the base of this? I agree with a PP that it might be something has happened that has really upset her.

She's being a moody teenager. That is totally par for the course, you're over reacting and making more drama

I noticed the behaviour change when she got on TikTok. This is all so unlike her. She’s been a happy go lucky child until September.
when trying to navigate this time, I’ve done some research on the effects of social media on teens and so much has come up about teenage girls specifically struggling with mental health as a result of using social media.
there was a docu a few days ago on channel 4 called Molly vs the machines and the content that Molly looked at is very similar to what my daughter has been looking at

In a sense she is being punished because what she posted about the teacher was quite shocking and honestly… it would be seen as a crime. If that post had been seen by another parent or a staff member, she would have been excluded and for sure gotten herself a criminal record.
although I didn’t want her to have TikTok, I made a deal with her that if she kept her screen time to the limits that were set and kept it up for a month, she could have it. But she bypassed this and i still let her keep it

Thank you