Struggling with having a teen daughter who is struggling/having issues ***SUPPORT THREAD***

Wow. These replies make me feel partly horrified that others here have had to put up with such comments and partly relieved that it's not just me. Misery loves company!

You all give me some sanity. I often think my DD has a nuclear self destruct button

@resipsa
Can you try to emotionally detach from her?
So when it happens just think of her as Andrew Tate / Trump / Corbyn 😆 or whoever you dislike talking.

@SeulementUneFois I think that I now have but it was too late IYSWIM. She had already seen me burst into tears. This week has been so depressing. I have drawn away from her for self-protection but feel like a terrible mother. She has had all sorts going on that we'd normally discuss - friend issue, cancelled tournament, academic assessments, a fall at school - and we are barely on speaking terms because I can't get past it. The urge to flee is greater than ever!

@resipsa please don't think you are a bad mother!
You are not meant to support someone no matter whatever horrible thing they do, just because you are their mother! Otherwise that would be the case for anything anyone does,

And least of all if what they do is to you.

You are a person.

If this was anyone else, it would classified as abuse - emotional and psychological (and sadly sometimes physical). Even if the abuser had mental health issues.
And you know what, even if society doesn't want to think about it - it is abuse. You are being abused.
Child to parent abuse is taboo, but it's clearly real.

Hey Sock, and everyone.

Same here - Easter Hols means happy girl. Amazingly I got her to the Art Therapy room last week - she was refusing to go, and it took about an hour and a half of intense appealing/reasoning/explaining - she was trying to hold me to a transaction of 'I'm only going to do this FOR YOU if it means I don't go to school' etc and I managed to word my around it - I was so flustered that she was potentially going to refuse and I'd taken the day off to take her - but I got her there, she was polite and spoke to the SW who met us - and was then a complete cow to me afterwards.

So we're back today at 3 to meet the actual therapist - I've given her loads of warning, she knows she's going and then I've said I'll get her a couple of tops afterwards. She's still in bed but we'll see.

Also - I get a text from CAMHS to book a telephone appointment! So that's in 2 weeks - must mean our referral has been accepted??

Hope everyone else doing ok x

Name changed

I have a depressed 15yo...

She's not been to school for...18 months or so. Fuck knows if she's doing the online learning that school have worked so hard to put in place. I don't think so.

She's not spoken to us since last night. Doesn't eat. Doesn't sleep. Spirals into SH regularly. I worry about her all the time.

She rarely goes out, but we can't leave her either. So neither do her dad and I. We have almost no time alone together. No sex life. No date-nights.

She's adopted, which is the only way we've been able to get any CAMHS support, so has been having weekly therapy for a long time - we've had therapy of various kinds for years - and is on Fluoxetine, nothing changes. Nothing improves. There's no relief from this, ever.

It's awful. It's not how I imagined parenting.

I love my child, so so much. But I don't like the pall of sadness that hangs over our house.

It's heartbreaking.

Hey @SockGoddess and everyone - welcome @StopfordWife
She did manage the second art therapy Sock, and that was just to meet the therapist. She didn't want me in there which was totally fine - she was in there for about half an hour and I was thinking, brilliant, she's engaging with someone - but she came out like the grungy angry little weirdo that she is, bitching that she didn't like the woman and doesn't want to do this. I've told her she's got no choice if she wants support with staying at home.

These Easter Hols have been ok in that we've just left each other alone - but last night she started, 'what's happening, are you going to force me back, you're hiding something from me, I'm never going back etc'. I'm feeling anxious today. I've got to email the school in the morning, update them and rearrange the TAC meeting that was due this week but I need to make it next week - her first session therapy session is on Thursday, then we've got CAMHS on Friday.

@StopfordWife I hear you. It's the powerlessness we feel watching them 'self-destruct' - if our parenting efforts with them worked we wouldn't be in the situations we are with them, but it doesn't, nothing works it seems. All I'll say is that you have to look after yourself too, you're doing the absolute best you can and you are powerless right now. This is her life and her journey and the older she gets, her responsibility. I've been kind of saying that to my daughter - 'what do you want for your life, you need an education you know this, your life is up to you not me I can't live it for you and you can't spend the rest of your life hiding in your room'....You're in the right place with us Stopford

I've had the anxious questions about school too and telling me she's not going I'm dreading tomorrow. Life is so hard.

E has exams coming up and hasn't been in school for two months. She's spent the Easter holidays in her room sleeping or watching tv. Yesterday she sent me texts saying she didn't know how to get back to school and that she has 'fucked up' her life. Also that she's done no revision so she thinks she will fail her exams . Now she won't talk to me about any possible solutions - to be clear we aren't forcing her back to school we had got to the point of assuming she'd leave and have a reset period before maybe going to college in a year or so.

Just don't know how to get her to talk to me 🤔😢

Sounds like lots of us are having a tough time

We’ve had an okay but very quiet holidays. We just don’t go anywhere.
we tried to go for one day out and we lasted 20 minutes and had to come home (90 minutes there and back). We did try again and had a nice day out (had a bit of a comedown the next day). But that’s it. It’s sad as our holidays used to be a nice mix of busy/chill.

shes had a bit of a cry about tomorrow even though she knows it will be fine, she’s only in for a short period of time. I’m going to have to chase the SENCO about her EHCP which they agreed to go forward with months ago.

Thanks @Shitsandwiches - yes, the powerlessness, absolutely. I feel at fault, or to blame. Intellectually I know it isn't my fault. But emotionally I feel as though everything I've done is wrong. And I can't go back and change it.

She says the right thing at the right time to therapists but none of it matters because she doesn't follow through at all. It fries my brain!

Ah well. I wonder if she'll talk to us today.

Good luck everyone...

haha yes @SockGoddess I think we are all just talking about the same child on here!
I look at her hating everyone like it's her self-protection in hyperdrive. It's like she's voicing the inner critic and projecting it onto everyone else - we're all shit, she doesn't trust any of us - if she keeps voicing that then she feels safe and in control and pre-empting what she thinks she already knows.
I've got to go back to a timetabled way of living - meal plans up on the white board in the kitchen, school online timetable being followed at home.
So many people have told me (and on here) that this will get better - that they completely despaired of their teen and now they're happily at Uni or wherever. I personally can't see that at the moment but don't give up hope.
I'm not nagging, I'm just giving her space and will ask every night how her day went, what did she do online etc. I don't ignore her speaking negatively about people, I always challenge it and voice the other person's perspective and that people are not All Bad or All Good - she's very black & white. I know it falls on deaf ears but I'll just keep going with that.

Yes good luck with today and the week ahead everyone

I hear you ! I want to be a nice mum but it's so hard when you are abused daily. I hate feeling like this.

Thank you all for the kind words.

It's almost 5pm, no sign of her, no word.

She went to see a friend on Friday, was ok on pick up , switched as soon as she got home. I wonder if something happened. She was fine and then she wasn't. It's not a friend I know or who's parents I know.

At some point she'll appear and just sit in silence, zoned out and jumping her leg (which I know is something she can't help but my god it drives me demented!). Husband wondered if she'd taken something. But I'm fairly sure she hasn't.

At some point she's going to want something. And then she'll talk to me/us. I'd like to be seen as a bit more than a local branch of Amazon...

Good luck with tomorrow everyone. May strength be with you.

Dreading tomorrow morning.

Dd is claiming she is going back to her psych and us but the proof is in the pudding.

I'm expecting a no but it won't stop me feeling shit about it

Good luck all.

I feel very ashamed but I've bailed out this morning. I'm suffering with a terrible migraine and can't face the battle to get her to school.

Hope others had a better morning?

No luck today. I knew it wouldn't happen. What was hard was how sad and ashamed dd looked. I wish she would just give up. It's sixth form there are other ways now that would be better for her