Hello. I found this site doing a Google search and the incredible support I’ve seen here has buoyed my spirits a bit. I want to share my story.
I am mom to a 19F. She is not diagnosed officially but it’s been discussed. In her former (important!) psych’s words, the diagnosis doesn’t matter, we treat symptoms.
She has always been… different. Unemotional and almost callous. From age 5, I was worried. At age 8-9, she was found to have drawn pictures of her killing me and at that point she began therapy which has been an on and off fixture in her life since. I (mom) have always been the main target of her anger which seems to be common.
She had a tumultuous childhood. I was a young mom, 18 when she was born. Her father and I divorced when she was four. My second marriage ended when she was 12 with domestic violence against me. I have made many, many, many mistakes that I own fully and have never made excuses for. While she has never been abused or neglected directly she witnessed things she never should have and it will forever be my greatest sorrow in life.
She is the oldest of six (four bio siblings, one step.) she has, at best, superficial relationships with them. Mostly the oldest two, her full siblings. Her half sisters and stepsister are treated with deep contempt most of the time. The older ones get the black and white treatment.
She will be 20 this year and she’s pregnant.
She was living with roommates (her choice because she felt she shouldn’t have to share a bedroom with a sibling at her age) but torpedoed that living situation over what is in my opinion a perceived slight that; while it is very real to her, was objectively something easy to sort out. She also quit her job of three years impulsively because that same roommate told her about another job she “could” get, despite my many warnings that nothing was guaranteed and… guess what didn’t work out. Her boyfriend works hard and is doing what he can to find them a place but I have given up on trying to help guide either of them on that task because I just get shouted at. So in the interim, daughter was invited back to my home with the boundary set that she could share with a sibling or sleep in the living room, and that she needed to find a job to continue to pay me back for the car I cashed out my 401k to buy after she totaled two cars in two years.
Here I am two months later. She quit therapy, she stopped seeing her psych. She has made no effort to find a job, instead telling me she plans on attending a CNA program (which I had to set up for her.) she bristles at any suggestion that she work in the interim because I do need the money she owes me for the car. All of this is bad enough but the worst part is, she is miserable. Genuinely nasty to everyone. She yells at my dogs, belittles her siblings, takes up our entire massive sectional. She has turned my living room into her bedroom, clothing and makeup and possessions everywhere. She literally does not leave the couch and huffs and sighs every time we use our living room for its intended purpose. She does not help around the house at all, basically. In two months, she has helped me tidy up twice - once so I’d give her money to buy hair extensions and once because I very firmly insisted.
I have had several talks with her. I have set boundaries for her behavior, outlining the actions I’d take if she continued on this path, and given her chances to improve. Nothing has worked. Everyone in the house is stressed and miserable. My husband struggles to maintain his composure because she is so disrespectful to me, but I have asked him to simply avoid her and let me handle it so she doesn’t have more ammo to use against us, and he has respected that. She treats him like absolute trash - he taught her to drive and has cared for her with the utmost love and respect in the 7 years he’s been involved in her life, even through her disdainful attitude toward him, understanding the scars she has from her childhood, and this cuts him deeply.
Yesterday was my tipping point. A small disagreement over money blew up and I finally broke. I’ve housed this girl, fed her, provided her with a car and gas, given up the main room in my home and walked on eggshells and she had the nerve to get angry because I found out she was hiding money from me and asked her for 20 for gas.”why should I give you money?” Was her response. It was a moment of clarity. Her behavior is harming her siblings and the adults as well. I had surgery in May, and my entire recovery has been spent not recovering, but instead managing her and everyone else to prevent conflict. She is using me and I am letting it happen. ENOUGH!
I am done. I called her father, out of state, and told him that he needed to step in and take her for a while because she could not stay here any more. (He has one of her full siblings living with him full time already, that child’s choice. I have our other child full time.)
Tomorrow she leaves. I feel guilty for the relief I feel. I thought long and hard about this decision and as painful as it is, she is an ADULT. She was previously independent! Working and living on her own. She can do it again, but the problem is; she expects someone else to arrange it all for her(her last job and started at 16 and it was a family friend who offered it) and even with support refuses to take action to help herself. I have to accept that I am now BLACK to her, a villain, playing right into the idea she is being abandoned. I told her in no uncertain terms, I love you and forever will love you but your behavior is harming us and it cannot continue, I’ve given you chance after chance, I’ve handed you everything I can and it is still not working. You are an adult and my responsibility now is to provide a peaceful and safe home for your siblings and I can’t do that with you here. She responded by telling me she doesn’t love me and will never forgive me, I can keep the hundreds of dollars of baby gear I’ve bought for my impending grandchild because she doesn’t want it; and that I’ll never see my grandchild. This of course hurt horribly but.., as much as it hurts, my own children are here in front of me. I will love that baby from afar and pray over them, but I will not sacrifice my own for access to her child that will be used as a pawn. The only way to win that battle is to not play, I fear.
Her boyfriend is here in our state, and now she will be in another state until he finds them somewhere to live, or he relocates up there which I doubt he will do. I am hoping this will motivate her to DO SOMETHING, anything, to improve her situation by her own volition. I know her father will not coddle her as I did far too much and this may be just what she needs… or it could go off the rails. I truly do not know and that’s scary, but I cannot control the outcome. She had the option to be respectful and decent here and could not find it in herself to be a functioning member of this household. She just never believed I’d follow through on my boundaries.
I am not sure our relationship will ever recover. I was WHITE in her world for a very long time, until she moved back in, and the horrible things she said to me today will stick with me for a long time. I will never stop loving her or rooting for her. But I can’t do it anymore. I am barely treading water in this season of life with teens and preteens at home, work, volunteer work and never ending health issues. I cannot manage her life for her too. And I’ve had to accept that I’ve played right into her internal narrative of persecution and abandonment and just take comfort in the fact that I was loving, logical, and ensured she had somewhere safe to land…
If you made it this far, thank you for reading. This was a lot to get off my chest.
