I feel like my relationship with my daughter since she reached out is tenous. All trust is gone with me, but she reached out because she personally and professionally burned bridges. We were receptive, she is our daughter. She made some devestatingly bad decisions that had severe consequences. She appeared to have it all and now must start over. She used people, discarded them and repeated the cycle. Then she did it to the wrong people. I think professionally she may not recover at all. She will be able to work and make a living. But she won't be living in a mansion again anytime soon.
So it's like living with a ghost. I am her mother so even though I don't feel she has any love or warmth towards me or any of her former family and friends that she dumped, I know she's at her lowest so I am supportive. Her father and I worry she will commit suicide as she has alluded to. But she is careful to always say she doesn't have a plan and it was yesterday's thoughts so we don't send in the troops. And she has started therapy. But unfortunately with a therapist who tells her that her entitled behavior is not a bad thing. This entitled behavior is what helped get her in this mess to begin with.
Her father and I agonized over what parenting mistakes we made to cause such a drastic personality change in her mid to late 20's. We were a close family. Lots of fun, lots of laughs, we never abused her. We were her biggest supporters in life. But she dumped us, and most of her friends and family who weren't wealthy and ambitious.
I learned that the prescription stimulants use she dabbled in during college was not a fleeting thing. She never stopped taking them. She did confide in me at that time that she was using them to get through finals and how easy it was to find an online doctor to prescribe them. She does not and never had ADHD. So it was and is prescription drug abuse I believe that changed her. I disapproved of course, but gently. She was an adult at that time and she could talk to me about anything. We were close like that so I was blindsided when she dumped us and created a life with corporate sharks and what we believed to be very selfish people.
She acted so much like my mother and sister who many people call narcissists that I believed it was genetics. I still think that has a part, but I think abusing prescription stimulants which can cause impulsivity and lack of empathy was perhaps the main reason for her personality change. And drinking wine at night to come down from it all to sleep. Now she takes prescription sleeping pills to do this. And still drinks wine as well.
My daughter still takes no accountability for her actions and how they hurt other people. I hope in time she views things differently. She doesn't understand why she could not walk back into everyone's lives after years of absence and not be welcomed back with open arms. Everyone is cordial but they don't trust her and have moved on.
She takes shots at me because whe believes I am the barrier that keeps her old friends and family from inviting her over. I've never said a harsh word about her and these people have come to their own decisions about having a relationship with her.
She told me she was cruel to me, and I think that is the best she can do to address the way she demonized and lied about her childhood. She lost a lot of friends when she started that because they knew the truth and thought she had changed. It's not an apology but at least it shows some self reflection.
I really hoped hitting rock bottom would help her change back into being an empathatic and caring person. But as long as she abuses prescription drugs and alcohol I don't think it will. And I don't think her therapist or anyone in the medical community will address this issue because she has a prescription.
Thanks for listening to my story. I live on the edge of being supportive to a daughter who is not the daughter I know, while worrying about her still. Hubby and I talk about it and we agree to accept that she is not fully with us in heart and spirit, and acts like she is only interested in herself that she still needs support.
I miss the daughter I raised and loved for decades. I don't like the person she has become. But if ever a person needed the love of a mother and father she is the one. So it's hard. But we at least know that if and when she creates a new tribe of like minded people she will dump us again and we are okay with that while still sad about it. Just gotta get her through this part of her life.
.Early Retirement - have you, would you ?
