sailors789@aol.com
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Need Words of Wisdom for Coping with My Daughter - 2007/04/01 12:28
I'm turning to this forum for help with my 17 year-old daughter and I'm wondering if some of you can help me figure out what to do.
I'm a single mother who has raised my daughter alone since she was 18 months- old. She has a troubled relationship with her father, but otherwise I provided her with a stable, loving home. She was a dream child until she reached the age of 15 or so and I never had to set down rules or even suggest that who she was or what she was doing needed improvement.
At about the age of 15 she bonded with a boy in an intense relationship. He was a nice boy and his family embraced her warmly. But as she drew near him, she and I grew more distant. Part of the problem is that at just about the same time, I experienced some severe career challenges (I was fired and then sued by former employer who attempted to enforce a non-compete in my contract -- things ended up well but it took all of my energy and resources to fight for the right to work.)
My daughter's boyfriend broke up with her about a month ago and is now quite happy dating other girls. Toward the end of their relationship, my daughter began exhibiting rage -- at him, me, my parents and siblings -- and stopped paying attention to her looks.
My daughter is now unable to see that this boy has moved on, and continually calls, emails and requests that he see her. Each time she approaches him, he's very clear that the relationship has ended, but he doesn't refuse to talk to her -- online, via email or IM, but not in person.
At first following the break-up, I was comforting to her, listened to her and generally tried to guide her to the healthiest strategies for coping with this break-up. But, I met with massive anger -- screaming, shouting and character attacks. Our relationship was not good to begin with because of the distance of the past 18 months or so, but her rage has made any form of communication almost impossible. This rage seemed to be coming on even before the break-up and I'm starting to worry about a true mental health problem.
She is in therapy with a psychiatrist and I particpate as well. But she's very busy with many activities and the meetings so far are only scratching the surface (we've only met with the therapist four times over the past four weeks).
Here's the real problem: my daughter feels extraordinarily sorry for herself and won't accept any reaction from me that isn't pity. I'm generally an optimistic person and despite all my problems that I mentioned with the lawsuit, I managed to find the positive elements in my situation and that carried me through.
But any sense of optimism or perspective I manage to convey to my daughter about her situation (and there ARE a lot of good things to come out of her break up, and I think that she was capable of loving so well for so long says many good things about her), is rejected by her. She wants me to concede that everything in her life is awful, that she's alone in the world, that everything in the world is awful. Unless I do that, we have knock down drag out fights and she screams and is generally out of control.
Tonight she finally wore me down and I toldl her that I feel extremely sorry for her about her rotten life (not in a saracastic way) and I have to say, I'm now getting depressed myself.
The other part of the problem: She lies now about contacting her ex-boyfriend. After he broke up with her, I suggested that she give him space and not contact him. Each time she approached him, he only rejected her further and she of course broke down and functioned badly after each contact.
After a while I got exasperated with her inability to see that he's gone. He even posted a photo of himself on his facebook profile holding hands with another girl, something which destroyed her for a couple of days.
But she thinks he's the only person who loves her and she won't let go. She lies to me about her contacts with him.
I realize that the break-up, my problems and her bad relationship with her father are enough justifications for her self-pity, rage and inability to let go of this boy. I don't know, however, how to keep all this from getting me down.
She and I can't talk about much of anything. College is coming up and we're having an extraordinarily difficult time discussing this -- we're going on school trips starting on Monday and I dread spending time with her.
She lies to me and won't accept anything less than total pity, which I must admit I find so unappealing, and it's damaging my feelings for her. Moreover, I think her friends are starting to leave her because she's so dependent on them to listen to her pain, but then she turns around and calls her ex-boyfriend and is generally rebuffs their support or advice.
I'm at a complete loss in terms of knowing what to do. Her therapist is helpful but it's such a slow process and it doesn't help me cope with her issues in the short-term. I guess I need to find my own therapist, but believe me it's hard to find time.
I'm hoping someone can give me some thoughts that help guide me through this difficult time. I need to hang together if I'm going to help her, but the constant fighting, the rages, the lying and the attacks and her demands that I accept her very dark viewpoint are wearing me down.
Sorry for taking so long. If anybody has any ideas, I'm all ears.
Thanks.
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admin
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Re:Need Words of Wisdom for Coping with My Daughter - 2007/04/02 15:05
You may have heard this time and time again, but it’s true… you are not alone concerning what you are going through with your daughter. You should be commended for the patience that you have shown so far and the fact that you have analyzed your situation to the point that you understand how important it is to even talk to someone yourself (ex. your own therapist) But you are correct, the process of getting into the raw emotions of your daughter and dealing with them can take quite some time even with a therapist. It’s natural for you to want to find a way to help deal with things now. From the description you’ve given your daughter appears to be struggling with the negative mindset. She may have placed her self-worth on her relationship with her boyfriend and now that it is gone, she truly believes that she is worthless. This does take constant reassurance and positive affirmation on your part (which is exhausting against her firm belief in the negative) but you must keep at it. It’s the way through. You mentioned an example of a time where you grew tired and agreed with her self-pity, without knowing at first glance you can actually take this kind of situation around to your advantage. You say that only when you agree with her self-pitying does she stop fighting against you, if you find yourself agreeing in tiresomeness take this moment to try and twist the information around. Use the quiet moment to talk with her again, communicate, and slowly… talk about her first, little things about school, hobbies, etc. and then go into the real issues, but subtly.
It may be hard to understand at this time, but when a teenager’s self-worth is placed on another instead of one’s self what she actually needs to do is rebuild her self-image. This will take work for your teen, and for you as well but you can persevere.
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sailors789@aol.com
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Re:Need Words of Wisdom for Coping with My Daughter - 2007/04/04 10:40
Thank you so much for your insightful and good advice. It is very tiresome to fight her pessimism and I actually get physically drained. I also find that despite trying to maintain my own sense of optimism, I am absorbing her negative feelings.
It's nice to hear, however, that it's just going to take time.
I appreciate your time and advice.
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catherineg
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Re:Need Words of Wisdom for Coping with My Daughter - 2007/04/19 06:56
hey,
so ok. you've heard the adults point of view, and now maybe it would be constructive to get some advice from someone your daughters own age.
or maybe not.
so feel free to ignore this.
in reference to the breakup thing:
first thing. teenagers can love just as deeply as adults can. it sounds like you're no longer with paige's father. (if i'm wrong, just view this as hypothetical). when you split with this guy, you were probably a little on the upset side. maybe it's to a bit of a lesser degree, but you should take into consideration that she's not just being clingy and immature and unwilling to let go. maybe it's that she was deeply in love with charlie and now he's gone. shes hurt, probably pissed off, and damned upset. paige has good friends who will help her through this. don't feel like it's your responsibility. if she asks for your help, by all means give it, but the reason you're getting anger from her is because you're making assumptions and it doesn't seem like you're on her side.
most likely, all she needs is someone to get mad with her.
you don't have to say that her life is just one long saga of hellish events. next time she brings him up just say something along the lines of "the dumbest move he'll probably ever make is leaving you. he's a fool". try to steer clear of the ever-popular "you're better off without him," because that may not be true, and will probably just piss her off.
and i just got distracted by a shiny object.
so i've lost my train of thought...
blast.
well, thats all the important stuff anyway.
eh.
sorry if it sounds like a bit of a rant, i vaguely sympathise with you, but more so with paige. i know you think you're concealing these feelings towards her, but chances are, shes picked them up.
keep that in mind i guess.
if you've always been there for her, it would be quite a shock for her to read something like this.
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