Struggling with daughter’s health anxiety and the distance it’s creating

You are free to comment and give whatever “advice” you want, but please don’t police mine or anyone else’s. My advice is to the OP and it is given with the intent to help another mother avoid a rift. If your intent is to help the OP, stick with that. Starting a side debate because someone else’s opinion doesn’t falling in line with your opinion is not on. I don’t want to engage in a pointless side argument. The OP will not benefit from a derailed thread.

I just wanted to leave a final message on this topic. I actually live in Spain, where mums are, for the most part, truly adored, and I think that probably makes all of this feel even harder for me.

But I’ll end by sharing something one of my students said recently. He’s 50 years old, and he told me that every day on his drive home from work, he calls his mother and father. Every single day. When I asked him why, he said, “Because one day they won’t be here.”

It reminded me how simple life can actually be, when we strip everything back.

Manzana, wishing you and your daughter a peaceful, mutually acceptable, continued loving relationship! Happy holidays to your family

Manzana

I just wanted to leave a final message on this topic. I actually live in Spain, where mums are, for the most part, truly adored, and I think that probably makes all of this feel even harder for me.

But I’ll end by sharing something one of my students said recently. He’s 50 years old, and he told me that every day on his drive home from work, he calls his mother and father. Every single day. When I asked him why, he said, “Because one day they won’t be here.”

It reminded me how simple life can actually be, when we strip everything back.

A lovely time after work, lucky him.

Manzana

I just wanted to leave a final message on this topic. I actually live in Spain, where mums are, for the most part, truly adored, and I think that probably makes all of this feel even harder for me.

But I’ll end by sharing something one of my students said recently. He’s 50 years old, and he told me that every day on his drive home from work, he calls his mother and father. Every single day. When I asked him why, he said, “Because one day they won’t be here.”

It reminded me how simple life can actually be, when we strip everything back.

What a beautiful person he is and his lucky parents. I say lucky, because it is luck. I have a friend who had 5 children. One of them thinks she was the worst mother on earth. The others are neutral and two of them actually treat her like gold. So, when it comes to how your kids treat you, is it from parenting or luck? She raised them all the same. I say luck.

I do think luck comes into it Starfire.

ES used to call me everyday, 13 years on it's still hard to believe we're estranged .

People change, and sometimes things become more important in their life than you. Not every AC will call daily or weekly because everyone is different. Expecting that sets you up for failure and disappointment.

Refuse to embrace the changing relationship and watch it continue to fall apart. A tale as old as time. Children become adults and their parents are decentered from their life, as they should be.

User138562 Refuse to embrace the changing relationship and watch it continue to fall apart. A tale as old as time. Children become adults and their parents are decentered from their life, as they should be.

Indeed, AC shouldn't hold their parents as central to their lives. Family life changes, parents could be accepting of the new relationships.

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I'd be very wary about therapist blaming, unless the therapist really is not trained and fully registered adequately.

I've had so much help: I also trained myself a long time ago: parent blaming isn't part of any responsible therapists agenda.

I remember a friends' child blaming her father as being abusive, which I seriously more definitely did not occur - it was an angry hitting back out of the pain of the daughters Mental Health condition.

However, "stuff" does come out about ones childhood, if its deep psychotherapy, and sometimes it means stepping back to try and understand what made things be as they were, taking time out of intensive situations.

We have to remember that therapy can be life saving or enable someone very ill to live a more normal life, before we rule it out for anyone and everyone.

When a person is as ill as the OP's daughter I'd say, give it time.

There are also some Mental Health conditions that are not really helped by therapy, it's' not a cure all. A good and sensible psychiatrist as opposed to psychotherapist should be able to ID these situations, and an experienced therapist or counsellor should know when a psychiatrist referral is more appropriate

except people baulk at the idea of seeing one!