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.

She has been having her period for a year now. No I haven’t unfortunately but I did think the other day that she may be low in iron and the tiredness paired with the lack of sleep could be contributing to her low mood

Removing a bedroom door is abusive. I see you realised but is quite damaging.

I have already explained what I think. Try reading posts, instead of banging on about the same thing.

And yes, referring to people's comments as 'inane' is precisely the same as calling their views 'inane'.

You know that. You're just embarrassed to discover that other people actually notice what you post and how it looks.

I have nothing to be embarrassed about, whereas you are rude and aggressive and seem to have appointed yourself as the thread police. You’ve made it your business to call me out on something that several other posters picked up and commented on in the same way. I referred to ‘inane’ in the context of carrying on the comments about the door long after OP updated and agreed it was wrong. You either haven’t read or haven’t understood what l’m saying, or you’re deliberately being obtuse. Either way, I’m not responding further because it’s derailing the thread.

It started with when she started using TikTok without enough supervision.

Thank you and I’m so glad to see your child is back on track. Must have been so hard to navigate when there was such a great lack of the damage SM can do

I have deleted the apps and blocked the ability to download / delete apps and access the internet browser. So it’s essentially an iPhone shaped brick. I left the maps, messages, Bible, audible, music and calling apps.

Did it though - whilst the effect of social media can be awful it doesn’t cause everyone to go down this path there is usually something else that triggers it

and I think you need to face the fact that there is more going on

I am sorry you are going through this, it must be very distressing.

But your daughter's comments about suicide and self harm are (potentially) an expression of deep unhappiness.

So imposing sanctions on her, or things that feel like sanctions, are only likely to make her more unhappy.

I think you need to spend more time talking to her, and find out why she feels suicidal.

Social Media is easy to blame, but teenagers have ALWAYS been prone to self harm, stress and depressing, long before the internet came along.

You need to tackle the problem, not the symptoms.

(And I wouldn't stress wildly about the vaping. It's a pretty normal teenage thing to try. My daughter tells me she doesn't do it and I actually believe her, because I do and she hates it! But she says most of her friends do it, and these are "good kids".

The odd bit of vaping won't kill her. But intense untreated depression sadly might.....)

You seem more worried about the vales than her mental health. She obviously is depressed. She has had suicidal thoughty. Yet you remove her bedroom door as a punishment fir vaping!
She neexs help.

How tech literate are you? There are many many iPhone browser apps. Not just one.

As others have said, it seems something has made her seek out this content, having SM just means she’s been able to. It isn’t the root cause.

Yes SM is the enabler and it allows for going down a very deep dark path

@pinkpeta bit it is highly unlikely to be what started this. Something else got her on that path and that is what needs solving and helping with

OP.. on a different note. I can't recall if you said any medical has been done, and you've said you're not sure if its related to hormones.. but on the off chance.. do get her bloods checked.

Low folic Acid, Low Vit D can all affect mood, and also there is the reality of PPD. I have had issues with very low mood all through my life, those levels have always been low, and taking supplements has helped keep it on a more even keel.. as has being on the pill to keep a lid on my PPD.
The difference on and off for my moods is light night/day. Off and low vit i want to end it, feel like i'm unloved, unwanted/useless. i'm severely depressed and incredibly angry on a scarily quick swing.. and have been since a teen.. on and good Vitamin levels, i operate perfectly normally.. the difference is scary.

Get it ruled out for her.

UPDATE
There’s so many comments to reply to but I just have 3 that I wanna address,

1. She isn’t a danger to the teacher. She felt like what she wrote was a joke and didn’t initially see how it could have been perceived. We discussed it and she now understands why it wasn’t a good thing to post.
2. She doesn’t babysit her siblings for more than a short time e.g whilst I was on the phone to the CAMHS lady. Prior to September, as I said, she has never been any trouble and generally been a level headed sensible girl, but I don’t push my parental responsibilities on her. She’s my child not my co parent.
3. I do have family support. Both my side and her dad’s side have been very proactive in trying to come together to support her. Aswell as my 4 closest friends, who she’s known all her life have also been doing whatever they can to be there for her. So I’m very thankful for them all. There’s a good village around us.

Lastly, and most importantly, the door is back on. She went to cadets this evening and didn’t enjoy it but we talked and laughed about why she didn’t on the way home. When we got in, we talked for about 2 hours about yesterday’s events. We apologised to each other. She answered some questions I had about everything that’s been going on and told me some things I didn’t know. At bedtime, she asked me to sit in her room with her while she read. So I did. I sat next to her bed at the desk. After 30 min, we hugged and said good night.

thank you for all the people who read and understood where I was coming from and saw my heart. Thank you for all the genuine advice and empathy that most of you have shown. Hopefully this will just be a story that we will be able to look back on feel grateful not to be in this predicament anymore, and hopefully (like some of you lovely ladies) we’ll be able to give others in this situation hope that it can get better.

Yes… and she can’t download any apps without a code that only I know. If she were to somehow figure out the code it sends a notification to my phone that I then have to approve. There is a very solid parental feature on the iPhone. I actually used to work in the Apple Store funnily enough so I think I’m tech savvy enough.
Ive already explained where it began. It began with her feeling insecure about her weight.

Yes there was the issue of her weight that she’s always had an issue with but social media use made that more prominent. She also felt like boys in her school didn’t like her because of it and social media affirmed her in these negative feelings.

Thank you all for your contributions (even the mean ones lol)
I’m going to mute this thread now. X