Feel Like Im Losing My Daughter

It sounds like she is becoming her own person. It's normal for the distance to grow when they start to get their own lives.

Therapists don't twist people's memories to make them something they are not. They don't plant false memories either. That's an excuse that started when abusive people were trying to discredit memories of actual trauma that were by actual victims. It's an experience that I've been through myself. Regardless, I don't think that's what's going on here.

I think you need to seek companionship and emotional closeness elsewhere. She will come back to you if you respect her wishes but I doubt the relationship will ever be like it was. She hasn't cut you off and it doesn't sound like there was a big blow up. It's just the natural change in things.

Honestly therapy would be a great idea for you too, but I can see you have a deep seated mistrust of therapists which isn't uncommon due to the false information spread about therapy. Of course there are bad actors but it is highly unlikely. She sought out therapy for a reason, and doesn't need a reason to be there planted in her brain by someone else.

Daisy135 sending you a gentle handhold.
I went through exactly the same thing with my daughter and it was one of the worst experiences of my life. We have gradually been able to rebuild our relationship and are pretty much okay now. She did tell me years later that the therapist she was seeing at the time wasn't right for her, she did much better with the next one. I would have been deeply insulted if someone had suggested to me that I too needed therapy.

I think she wants to be her own person and let her be. Find other things to fill your day. Let her be. She is entitled to explore her feelings with a therapist if she chooses, you can do nothing but be there when she is ready. Maybe one day you will form a different but loving relationship again.

How old is your daughter please?

I know the feeling of loss.....but she is no longer a little one climbing in your bed for reassurance. Why did you assume the proble was stress and anxiety?

None of this stuff is easy is it?

You don’t say how old she is.
Whilst parents don’t grow out of loving their children, as children become adults they grow out of being closely dependent on their parents. I wonder if this didn’t happen earlier and she now feels the need to become her own person and spread her wings?

Daisy135
I feel for you. You don’t say how old your daughter is but I am guessing early twenties. Perhaps she is starting to increase her social life and, sad as it might seem, has less time for hanging about with her mum. I’d afraid this is quite normal and I’m afraid I remember this happening to me at this age. Just hang in there and enjoy the time you do get to spend with her but don’t keep bothering her, just keep contact to a text or phone call when you have some news or to just ask how she is. As time goes on and she gets older and possibly has children things will change and, hopefully, you will become closer again. Keep your chin up.

I feel for you. There is nothing you can do except be there for her. My daughter also had counselling a couple of years ago and it seemed following this she became very cold and uncaring to me particularly and her sister. When I tried to talk to her I was told I don’t know how she feels or anything about her life now. I don’t know what went wrong. She is now very close to her in laws. I will always be there for her but sad about a situation I cannot do anything about. Just be yourself and hopefully things will get easier for you going forward.

I am sorry you are going through this.
It might help if we understood a bit more .... how old is your DD? Were you a single parent? Do you have anyone living with you? Do you have other children?
It sounds as though you and your DD have been very close and I can understand how precious thst is for you ... and you will always have those times as part of you.
I suspect that the therapist can see that your DD might need to break free a bit as all young adults do and might have been encouraging her in that direction. Unfortunately that transition can sometimes feel painful, but it does not mean that you will not come out the other side of it with a new loving but different relationship.
I hope you will find a way of navigating this difficult time. A new kind of relationship need not mean she no longer loves you.

You sound like a good loving mum but the relationship you describe at the start is a mother and child one. Your daughter has now grown up and needs to do things her own way. Because you were so close this is hard on you but the idea that our children are only lent to us for their childhoods does have a ring of truth to it. Try to make sure you are out and about following your own interests and hopefully things will begin to settle into a mother and adult child pattern.

You are not losing your daughter. She will always be your daughter. What you are losing is the person you thought she was. She has an identity all of her own now, and if you recongnise and respect that you can move forward to when you can both treat each other like the adults you are. At least, I hope that's what will happen...

Your OP was a difficult read Daisy, your pain and confusion is in every line; I'm so sorry.

You say how close you were and that she would talk to you about anything and everything. I understand as that was how our youngest son was with me, and it's bewildering when that changes.

You also say that you guess she started seeing a therapist for stress or anxiety, so despite the closeness of your relationship at that time although she told you she was seeing one, she didn't say why.

Perhaps this was for something that for whatever reason, she felt unable to talk to you about. It may have nothing at all to do with you and your relationship and the change in your relationship could be because she's 'working through' it and is still unable to tell you what it is.

You may never know but find that with time as Luckygirl has said you will have a new kind of relationship.

Although there are cases where 'therapists' have implanted false memories and I can understand your concerns, that is not to say that's the case here. You still have a relationship with her and while you do there's the distinct possibility that things will eventually improve.

Try to resist the understandable urge to keep telling and showing her how much you love her especially as this appears to be making her pull even further away.

Keep conversations light; tell her what you've been doing and ask her what she's been up too. Don't mention the therapy, even to ask how it's going so she wont feel under any pressure to talk about it.

Try to avoid making firm arrangements to do things together by asking if she fancies doing whatever it may be, and to let you know. Try not to see a failure to respond to messages as those messages being ignored by not referring to them at all, and simply saying for example 'phone/text/message me when you have time and tell her what you've been doing in the meantime so she doesn't feel as if your life and happiness revolves entirely around her .

Sometimes we can love our children too much and as they grow up the more we do the more they struggle to make some distance between them selves and us.
This is fairly normal , happened to me so I do understand.
Make a life fir yourself, don’t be needy and in time all will be well,

"Therapists don't twist people's memories to make them something they are not. They don't plant false memories either. "

User138562, sorry but some most certainly do. I'm absolutely aghast that you are unaware of several high profile court cases a few years ago. Good grief, even the police have been known to plant false memories and god knows how many medical doctors have been struck off for malpractice. I find your blind faith astonishing. The world is currently awash with therapists and, as in all industries, some of them of unscrupulous or just plain lousy at their jobs. I'm certainly not saying this is the case in this instance but it definitely happens.

flappergirl

"Therapists don't twist people's memories to make them something they are not. They don't plant false memories either. "

User138562, sorry but some most certainly do. I'm absolutely aghast that you are unaware of several high profile court cases a few years ago. Good grief, even the police have been known to plant false memories and god knows how many medical doctors have been struck off for malpractice. I find your blind faith astonishing. The world is currently awash with therapists and, as in all industries, some of them of unscrupulous or just plain lousy at their jobs. I'm certainly not saying this is the case in this instance but it definitely happens.

Just what I was thinking. Almost my first thought, on reading the OP, was that her therapist was blaming whatever problems she’s having, on something that was her mother’s fault way back.

some most certainly do yes some do fancythat and it's wrong to dismiss someone's concerns by saying that this is made up to discredit victims of abuse.

That happens too and it's sickening to think that anyone's trauma is denied just as it's sickening to know that a 'therapist' would implant false memories and tear apart not only the life of their client, but their family's lives too.

False memories are very common. Everybody has them.
Our memories are very unreliable things and it’s perfectly easy to change or distort them. We even do it to ourselves.

It’s well known that someone retelling an event will change it subtly every time they tell it. They believe the current version they are telling, there’s no intention to deceive. It’s one way of recognising a lie, when someone’s account is fixed, because it has been manufactured and rehearsed.

Given how innate it is to change a past happening in our own minds, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that someone else could also change what we remember about the past.

Indeed, not long ago I contradicted my son about about a childhood memory and he was insistent he was right and now I’m not sure. Nothing bad. Just about losing a shoe in a river. One of us is right and one of us has a false memory. But who?

AnywayI think your daughter is just making a life if her own OP. Of which you will always be part, but only part. It only natural that she will make other friends and relationships.

She’ll only push away if you can’t accept that.

I disagree that one way of recognising a lie (is) when someone's account is fixed, because it's been manufactured and rehearsed. When an account of an event remains unchanged over an extended period of time, it's usually a sign that it is the truth because the 'teller' doesn't have to remember what they said previously, if they were telling the truth.

I don’t really want to argue with you Smileless but it is a recognised thing. People who recall a real event will tell it slightly differently each time, with omissions and extra detail as their memory makes different connections.

People who manufacture will repeat almost phrase for phrase and seldom vary their account because they are bringing the story from the same place in their memory.

That's OK Lathyrus, we can agree to disagree .

Message deleted by Gransnet for breaking our forum guidelines. Replies may also be deleted.

Hi, I know this is painful but your daughter is a grown up now, it's time for her to spread her wings and become her own person. Time for you to live here for her own choices in life. Listen to what she needs now, you can still have a good relationship but she is no longer a child and she needs space to grow... The relationship you want is too much now, too much time and energy when she should be learning independence and spending time with friends her age. And you are her mum, not her friend. Let go a bit, she needs it, she is anxious and stressed. Let her have control of her own life now, she will be ok.

Lathyrus3

I don’t really want to argue with you Smileless but it is a recognised thing. People who recall a real event will tell it slightly differently each time, with omissions and extra detail as their memory makes different connections.

People who manufacture will repeat almost phrase for phrase and seldom vary their account because they are bringing the story from the same place in their memory.

It depends how seering and cataclysmic the event was. Also telling the story differently each time does not mean that there is any variation of the essential facts.

I may tell a story to one person so that they can learn not to repeat my mistake and to someone else as a joky tale of how did something really daft. Different emphasis, different words, but, as the facts go, an accurate story each time.

Also the more often your repeat the tale of an event, the more deeply it is etched in your memory, so that you do not change or even contextualise your experience on each recall.

If it helps Daisy135 I think accusations of implanting false memories are rare, looking into it, the only cases that have been brought are civil, meaning someone was accused of a crime such as sexual abuse and has used this idea of "implanting false memories" to try and prove innocence. We cannot possibly know that they were innocent and a guilty party being accused of that would try to disprove a therapist backing up a victim in court. I'm not saying it isn't possible but generally I think it's unlikely and that practices that could potentially lead to that are not allowed to be in use. It's also not very logical, most therapists like doctors are there to help, no cause more harm.

I think the best thing to do would be to talk to your daughter and find out what it is that she needs and then respect that.

Everything changes eventually. My youngest son was always close to me but as he’s moved out and eventually found a girlfriend I’ve taken a backseat. It does hurt but I’m happy for him because one day I’ll not be here and he has someone.