Why does it hurt. Teenage daughter !!!

[cadagi101]

My DD 17 is typical of the DD mums write about here.   The disrestpect, the foul language, she doesn't seem to care about how she looks..she says she looks good or i like what i have on  when she goes out.  Maybe that is a facade.  I understand very well and am very tolerant of young people's behavour.  She doesn't care she is very overweight and that concerns me as I really believe exercise, and healthy food are important to a happy life.    Because she refuses to exersise and lies around on the lounge watching TV or the computer it stresses me beyond belief.  I have organised a personal trainer for her and she refuses to go.   Her attitude, weight and health are the makings for disaster,  i don't know how I should just get over it.  It is so hard and I cried last night when she still refused to make the appointment.   I lie awake for hours worrying about her.  (she didn't see me.cry).   I feel so powerless to do anything, all I feel i have left to do is tell her no weekly money,  (she goes to boarding school),  she was keen to take a car back to school with her, and I said she could mid term.  And I also want to refuse to pick her up every 2nd weekend to come home.     I worry then that she won't cope with being at school weekends and will then refuse to eat and become withdrawn.   My husband and I don't mention weight to her ever we just say it is her fitness that concerns us and the health problems that come with that.    She had anorexia  12 months ago so we are walk on eggshells  all the time.  Not wanting to say the wrong thing.  I do think she holds us to ransom by her behaviour and I can't stand it any longer.   I am wondering if when she leaves school I won't be able to have her sitting around at home getting more unhealthy,  I sometimes think I will say of you go we have done all we can, we are here if you need us.   Can anyone give me advice? 

[cadagi101]

i wanted to add a couple of things.  My daughter saw a psychologist and dietician when she had anorexia.  The psycologist suggested it would be best for DD if she came home every2 weeks.   But that was last year.  As I said before she now overeats and doesn't exercise.    What I don't want is for her to spiral downhill and become anorexic again.

[Pooh]

Bless your heart Julia.  How terrible to walking around on eggshells like that, but very understandable.  You want her to be healthy, but with her past bout of Anorexia, you don't want to imply she needs to go back to that.  What a difficult situation to be in.  She has gone from one extreme to the other.

It sounds like you have done everything you can to try and reach out to her and get her help.  The old saying is true, "You can't help someone that doesn't help themselves."  All we can do is try, but in the end, it is on her.

[elsieshaye]

If you don't let this go, as hard as it may be right now and as worried about her as you are, your entire relationship with your daughter is going to devolve into being about her weight.  Also, speaking as someone who has had eating problems my whole life, and who has been 100 pounds overweight for years, it so very much does not help when other people try to force you into change.  Particularly if it becomes a punitive thing like "do what I tell you or I'll withdraw support."  The only message it sends is that your love for her is conditional on her appearance.  I know that's not how you mean it, but I can pretty much guarantee you that this is what she hears.  She has to come to the weight loss on her own terms and in her own time, or it won't be useful.  Eating and not eating are two sides of the same coin, and are all about control, anger and self-punishment.  When you make it an issue between the two of you, you enable her eating by allowing her to focus her anger and energy on you and how she feels about you criticizing her eating, versus on the feelings that she is dealing with that are leading to the eating.  It distracts her from dealing with her own stuff, and damages your relationship with her.   

[cadagi101]

Thankyou Pooh, what you have said is all true and worthwhile to me and is what I tell myself.

Thankyou Elsie I know I need a "wake up call." in how I cope with this.    I do drive her nuts with this and she does say I shouldn't worry about her and I control every aspect of her life.  I know I do all the right things with her most times but it all adds up to stressing.   I'll give you a bit of background.  We moved to another state 3 years ago.  I thought the upheaval was enough for us all to cope with and I couldn't bring myself to send her to boarding school.  I was told so often the local school had so many social and discipline  issues (which is an understatement)  anyhow she fell into a really bad crowd and her attitude to her family and respect for herself were damaged.   I felt it was my mistake to send her their and feel so guilty, and often feel depressed for my bad decision.   I was warned about it.    When she lost all respect for herself and her attitude to how she didn't care about how she looked (even though I could see it and she probably didn't.)  I mean clothes that left nothing to the imagination and she liked to see my reactions to things like "I'm not a virgin"  she was 15 and I wasn't particulary concerned about that and told her that's OK are you happy about  the choice you made, she said no so I just said "be sure about your partners and he must be a good person and respect you." and for heavens sake go on the pill.  She refused to go on the pill and I wouldn't harp on it except boy the consequences of a baby and STD's isn't only about her, because we would be supportive.   She
isn't pregnant and I am rattling on here with my thoughts.  The next thing that stressed me out no end was she rang and told me she  is being tested for STD'S well it was clear but she did go on the pill and promises to use protection.    I should feel pleased she tells me these things but I don't think it's a confide in mum thing I think it's more about the power she wants to have and "what can I do that will prove I'm grown up and I will try to upset mum which I know is typical for a 17 year old.    I still feel so protective of her, we thought boarding school would be a positive experience for her but she still has contact with the "old" friends who are friends one day hate her the next talk about her behind her back (she tells me these things.)  I have had experience with the drunk parents of a "friend" who couldn't tell me where she was or who she was with when it was against my better judgement to allow her to stay  there the night in the  first place.   I don't want to deny her a 'social life" as she tells me often but they don't seem to like her much anyway.   There are lots of examples of these sort of things and involve her friends  drugs, problems with the law etc.  which I realise has nothing to do with me what those people do but I feel responsible for my daughter and so don't let her see them as I say to her you have let us down to many times with these people.     I know I
expected better when she went away to boarding school  I thought she would gain more respect for us, herself  and her teachers, and she would make "better" friends, who are more likely to be genuine friends.    She hung up on me last night and won't answer my calls now so I emailed her and told her she had to improve her fitness and get involved with "life" or I would take away privilges.   She emailed back said she had used a box of tissues crying and blamed me for everything as to why she is so f.....up.   As i said in an earlier post we never mention her weight to her but with the anorexia and then being told by dieticians to  let her eat all she can.  now because she is now overweight I blame myself again.     The teacher at the gym offered to go and see her at school because DD refused to see her and will just try to tell her she can have fun etc. etc.    She is doing that today and now I beat myself up again as to Is it the right thing to do.  If she still refuses then  I won't mention it again, but when she is home eating the wrong foods and not moving of the lounge i get so uptight and tell her to get out get fresh air, exersise etc.  I work on our farm so don't really have an outlet and when the situation is "in your face" every minute of the day I really can't stand it.    Maybe our relationship is irreparable and she will always see me as a control freak, not just a concerned mother.   I would really appreciate more opinions on this.

[elsieshaye]

Julia, I totally get that you feel guilty (even if I don't agree that her getting involved with a bad crowd was your fault because you sent her to the "wrong school") and are second guessing yourself.  But you can't fix the past by nagging her to death in the present, or by trying to over control her. 

You seriously can't fix someone's unhappiness by telling them to get happier and more involved in life or you're going to punish them, which is the approach you're taking.  If I were her at this point, I'd be counting the days until I was 18, and then I would probably drop out just to get away from you, and I'm saying this at 40!  My parents actually did very similar things to what you are doing, and I got married at 21 to escape them, because I felt I had no other options.  That choice went about as well as you'd expect and I am long since divorced now with a teenager of my own, but it did get me away from them and I don't regret that at all.  We reconciled a few years later, but at that point I could stand up to them better, and they were a lot less inclined to try to control me, so our relationship improved significantly.  Being away from them really felt like a life-or-death issue for me, because of their complete inability to see themselves and me as different people, and give me the space to make decisions for myself, and my own inability to handle the constant state of screaming warfare it would've taken to "force" them to back off.

My advice to you would be to find a therapist, not for your daughter, but for yourself.  Everything you're talking about is related to your own out-of-control guilt and worry, which you seem to be trying to manage by managing your daughter, rather than managing yourself.   I really, really do understand how much distress you're in.  You're scared and upset, and it seems like the most important thing in the world to change your daughter's behavior.  But if you really want to help her, you'll work on yourself first and give her some room to breathe.   You are so upset and caught up in worry for her that you seem to be having trouble putting some space around what are HER issues, and which are YOURS.   You can't fix hers, only yours.

You also are looking at the whole history of the school system and her previous issues as being one long continuous episode, which seems to be affecting your ability to handle this specific issue in the present.  Piling all the upset of the last few years on top of your current emotions raises the stakes in your mind and makes the whole thing feel like an unmanageable emergency.  It's truly not, but it needs you to step back and breathe, focusing on your own emotions and what you can do to handle them in a more constructive way.

My son had a really bad patch a couple of years ago, with legal and school problems, and ended up in a group home, living away from both me and his father for a year.  It was the best thing that could have happened.   I learned how to back off and let him make his own decisions, even if they were not the ones I would have made for him, and talk to him from a place of compassion and respect instead of fear.  He and I have a really solid relationship now, but it's based on MUTUAL respect, not just him doing what I tell him to.  When I -do- give him direct advice, he actually listens now, because it's not a life-or-death issue for him to establish that he's a separate individual from me.  A forced separation and lots of therapy are what helped, and what I'm suggesting for you.

[cdb]

And eating disorder is an eating disorder. Anorexia, Bulemia, Binge Eating, Compulsive Overeating are all eating disorder with the exact same dynamics, symptoms, etc. It is common for anorexics to swing to the other side. The exact reasons are there. Can you talk to the dietician about this? Eating disorders do not go away. They are life long battles. And there are other reasons that cause them.
I have been to 2 inpatient treatment centers...very expensive. I am now 54. The last thing we want to hear is anything about food, exercise or appearance. The main thing we want is to be accepted for who we are at any time in our lives. I just want to be loved and accepted for who I am now. The word diet triggers me. So many things trigger me to go to food. She is so young still, but my eating disorder started at age 13 or 14. Back then, they didn't know about eating disorders. All we knew about was Twiggy. A high percentage of eating disorder people have had some kind of abuse in their pasts. But not all. I still have not told my parents about what happened to me at age 7. It all came back to me when my son turned 7. This is not everyone that has this. Please talk to the same dietician if you can. Otherwise, find out information you can. AT 17, you may still be able to do something to help her with her on your insurance if this is due to her eating disorder. But, for now, only tell her you love her no matter what. I hope I helped in some way. cdb