<p>Have been following this thread since the beginning and finally jumping in here. M3 I just wanted to say how sorry I am that you are dealing with this. I am living with a daughter who sounds EXACTLY like yours (except she has not used the F word at me, but who knows, that could happen tomorrow). My D is a year older, has one semester left until graduation. I’m not sure she’ll make it. I’m not sure my husband and I will make it. So much stress. She was home with us last year after a meltdown at school (I haven’t read your old threads so not sure what happened to your D but I have gathered similar issues to my D’s-anxiety, depression, self-destructive behaviors). This year so far has been a nightmare. She went back to school, has done little, passed all her classes in the fall after dropping two and manipulating her psychiatrist into writing a note to excuse her absenses, which some of the professors did. When she does her work, it is stellar, as it always was. But her attendance has been terrible. She has gone through every self-destructive behavior I can think of. She is medicated, but continues to struggle with mood swings, sometimes on an hourly basis. She had an accident with her car at school (out of state) before Christmas break and didn’t tell us. I learned of it when the insurance company called me. It was entirely her fault, but fortunately not serious. She did not work at her on-campus job at all during the fall, despite our agreement with her that she needed to work ten hours per week to make her car payments (which are also in my name so I was stuck paying them). She didn’t attend therapy even after I did all the legwork to line up a therapist in her area. After being hospitalized again in October, we lined up group therapy and individual therapy for her near her school (psychiatrist told her I should help her with this to make sure it was done), but she rarely attended either and eventually I called the therapist and told her I would no longer be responsible for the bills for missed appointments. So you can see, your story is VERY familiar to me. So I am so very sorry for the pain I KNOW you are experiencing because I am there too.
My D used to be a super productive, happy, high-achieving, talented young lady and also, like your daughter, is very very pretty, which in this case I think is not helpful to her because she uses that too. She is now someone I don’t even recognize. She can barely utter a word of truth. She is manipulative in every situation. She blames others for every mistake she makes. She uses others. She seems to have very little understanding of other’s feelings. She is skating by at school using her charm and a myriad of excuses, although her grades had been great for her first two years when she was actually doing the academics but was apparently falling apart mentally, until this past semester when they were just ok (mostly Bs). Other posters have suggested your D might have Borderline Personality Disorder. That has been suggested to us by psychiatrists in both hospitals as well as her regular psychiatrist, as probably what our D has, as well as probably being bipolar and having an anxiety disorder. BPD criteria I have read strongly resemble my D, and it isn’t pretty. You might want to research that and see what you think about if it fits your D. I do agree with many posters that either of our girls could just need some tough love though. How to know? But I have pretty much begun to feel that even if our D has an underlying mental ilness, like BPD or bipolar, at the end of the day, now that she is on medication, SHE has to make good choices! I can’t make them for her! And she has to WANT to make good choices, or it won’t happen. But it is emotionally draining to keep watching and hoping that she does the right thing, on a daily basis.
I have learned so much from reading this thread thanks to you and to all the CC posters who have tried so hard to give advice. I can’t tell you how this thread has helped me stay strong on some of my rough days. I have my own therapist too and she has helped me and continues to help me. My husband, like yours, did not really see the issues at first because he is not as involved in our kids’ lives as I have been, as the Mom. Our other kids (we have four others, three older sons, like you, and a younger D) did not really “get it” at first either, but now have seen the lies and the manipulations first hand so many times that they are firmly of the belief that it is our D who needs to change. My H and I had many fights over our D because he thought I was over reacting to things or imagining things at first, because she was many hours away at school and I couldn’t always pinpoint exactly what the problems were, and because she has become so good at manipulating people and also the lying!!! I just knew in my gut that things were not as they appeared. And unfortunately at the beginning of her junior year, all Hell broke loose. And then, as with your D, we were so worried about her, she was so fragile (we thought), and we were so hopeful that with medication and lots of therapy she would be better. But she is not. And it has taken my H a long time to finally see the truth. But now he does. It is easier with a united front, that is for sure. We are working together to help our D learn the consequences of her actions. And it isn’t going smoothly with her, but we’re trying. We so badly want her to graduate in May, just so she will have her degree (she missed a whole year but will still be able to graduate with her class due to AP credit and summer classes, etc. if she can just do what she needs to do!) We did take her car away since she didn’t live up to working to pay for it. And what a temper tantrum when I dropped her at school and demanded the keys-both sets(I couldn’t physically take the car home yet so it’s sitting at her school but she can’t drive it). It was almost comical now that I am wise to the manipulation tactics she uses. We had her sign a contract with certain stipulations which if she does not meet them, she will not return for spring semester (they are on three week winter term right now). Consequences to HER actions. I so hope that she will succeed, but it isn’t clear even after two of the three weeks whether or not she will meet the expectations. And that makes me very sad.
Anyway, I so sympathize with your situation and wanted to let you know that I DO understand how difficult this is. I really really really do! Hugs to you. Stay strong!</p>