![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Dear Care and Feeding,
Ever since our adult daughter was diagnosed with ADD, she’s been playing the victim of the whole world. We used to have conversations with her; she now says she doesn’t understand us when we speak to her and gets us to repeat phrases. She’ll even say, minutes after we’ve said something, that she just “processed” what we said. She has always been sensitive, but now any time we make a comment about her, suddenly it’s OK that she’s sensitive and “needs time to deal” with her hurt feelings. Every fault of hers is because of this illness, which means she has no faults: there’s an excuse for everything, including things from her childhood.
Suddenly my husband and I are villains because we disciplined bad behavior and basically parented her instead of letting her do whatever she wanted. No parent makes perfect choices all the time, but we were never cruel or unreasonable, and the parenting choices she points out are all normal ways to train children not to throw tantrums or be lazy. She also has not been a child for many years, so I don’t see the point of her being angry with us for actions we took years ago. This sort of thing comes up constantly in casual conversation, both when we’re reminiscing, and she feels the need to point out what she considers our failures, and when she gets “overwhelmed” out of nowhere and starts acting like a child. It seems that she is regressing back into the child she would have been if she’d had parents who didn’t care about her, and her hurt feelings are being enabled by the psychiatrist who diagnosed her and is treating her.
What’s most jarring is that this is coming out of nowhere. She used to be normal, but now she gets emotional like a child, or acts like she can’t do things for herself. We are tired of this new behavior and victim mindset, but anything we say about it just reinforces the idea in her head that we didn’t try to understand her “different” way of doing things. The “difference” seems to be putting all the responsibility on everyone else to follow her random demands (if we don’t, she asks us all to stop what we’re doing so she can do her ridiculous exercises to “regulate,” or she simply leaves). It’s impossible to talk to her anymore. It seems like we raised her right, but as soon as she found someone to validate her victim complex it has undone everything she’s learned. We’re at a loss, and would appreciate any advice on how to talk to her, since the way we’ve been doing it for decades is apparently unacceptable now.
—Mother of the Victim of Parenting
Dear MotVoP,
Your defensiveness about “normal ways to train [emphasis my own] children,” your (smug) certainty that you “raised her right” despite her attempts to let you know what troubles her about her childhood (about which, by the way, there is no statute of limitations), your referring to her efforts to take care of herself as “ridiculous”—and a whole host of other things I will not repeat back to you, but I urge you to reconsider—suggests to me that if anyone is “playing victim” in this relationship, it’s you. Stop talking. Start listening. If you don’t, you are going to lose your daughter altogether.
https://slate.com/human-interest/2022/09/extended-family-wedding-party.html
Ever since our adult daughter was diagnosed with ADD, she’s been playing the victim of the whole world. We used to have conversations with her; she now says she doesn’t understand us when we speak to her and gets us to repeat phrases. She’ll even say, minutes after we’ve said something, that she just “processed” what we said. She has always been sensitive, but now any time we make a comment about her, suddenly it’s OK that she’s sensitive and “needs time to deal” with her hurt feelings. Every fault of hers is because of this illness, which means she has no faults: there’s an excuse for everything, including things from her childhood.
Suddenly my husband and I are villains because we disciplined bad behavior and basically parented her instead of letting her do whatever she wanted. No parent makes perfect choices all the time, but we were never cruel or unreasonable, and the parenting choices she points out are all normal ways to train children not to throw tantrums or be lazy. She also has not been a child for many years, so I don’t see the point of her being angry with us for actions we took years ago. This sort of thing comes up constantly in casual conversation, both when we’re reminiscing, and she feels the need to point out what she considers our failures, and when she gets “overwhelmed” out of nowhere and starts acting like a child. It seems that she is regressing back into the child she would have been if she’d had parents who didn’t care about her, and her hurt feelings are being enabled by the psychiatrist who diagnosed her and is treating her.
What’s most jarring is that this is coming out of nowhere. She used to be normal, but now she gets emotional like a child, or acts like she can’t do things for herself. We are tired of this new behavior and victim mindset, but anything we say about it just reinforces the idea in her head that we didn’t try to understand her “different” way of doing things. The “difference” seems to be putting all the responsibility on everyone else to follow her random demands (if we don’t, she asks us all to stop what we’re doing so she can do her ridiculous exercises to “regulate,” or she simply leaves). It’s impossible to talk to her anymore. It seems like we raised her right, but as soon as she found someone to validate her victim complex it has undone everything she’s learned. We’re at a loss, and would appreciate any advice on how to talk to her, since the way we’ve been doing it for decades is apparently unacceptable now.
—Mother of the Victim of Parenting
Dear MotVoP,
Your defensiveness about “normal ways to train [emphasis my own] children,” your (smug) certainty that you “raised her right” despite her attempts to let you know what troubles her about her childhood (about which, by the way, there is no statute of limitations), your referring to her efforts to take care of herself as “ridiculous”—and a whole host of other things I will not repeat back to you, but I urge you to reconsider—suggests to me that if anyone is “playing victim” in this relationship, it’s you. Stop talking. Start listening. If you don’t, you are going to lose your daughter altogether.
https://slate.com/human-interest/2022/09/extended-family-wedding-party.html
no subject
Like, I am genuinely making an effort to be sympathetic to LW right now, because I've known people in that stage, I've been the person in that stage, and it's... I mean, it's a stage that lots of people pass through, especially at that age. It's probably beneficial to the person in it, helping them integrate this new information into their self-identity or something, but, yes, I can see how it can annoy other people.
Nevertheless, LW, despite all her efforts to make her daughter out to be the bad guy, still manages to utterly repulse me. I'd say there's at least a 50% chance that her parenting was, in fact, what other people would consider "borderline abusive". She's actually as bad as this woman, and I never thought I'd say that.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
(I was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult as well, and am not precisely sympathetic to the LW's perspective, here.)
If I can marshal thoughts rather than reactions, later, I may go on for longer.
no subject
no subject
Translation: "I have always been a controlling and intolerant parent, and I put a lot of effort into abusing my daughter into constantly masking and always showing me the face I expect to see. Suddenly she has discovered that she has rights and can set boundaries! And that it is possible to be the person she really is and spend more effort on coping mechanisms that serve her, instead of masking to make her parents more comfortable! This upsets me.
I want to abuse her harder to make her go back to being compliant, but she's an adult and I don't have as much power over her as I used to. She even has the temerity to tell me my longstanding contempt and cruelty toward her is unacceptable to her now, and actually LEAVES MY PRESENCE without authorization if I won't back off when she asks for space! Please, advice columnist, validate my terrible parenting and tell my daughter she's not allowed to have any diagnoses I didn't ratify! Tell her all her problems are her own fault, and not real anyway, because I was a Good Parent! It is totally a Good Parent thing to call your kids liars and fakers who are never in REAL distress and are just 'playing victim'."
Anyway, I agree with the advice. And I wish LW's daughter luck on the journey of a) figuring out her own brain and b) not letting her family be awful to her anymore.
no subject
no subject
(Not that "hey, I didn't think I was a terrible parent!" *necessarily* means they were, but when it comes packaged as "my kid says my behavior hurt them when they were young, which is obviously nonsense! I didn't perceive myself as hurtful and therefore they are invalid and actually they are hurting ME, the Wronged One, with these accusations"...)
no subject
no subject
One of the things that really struck me about this letter is - we expect LWs like this to be vague, right? Usually it's all "my kid was Disrespectful" and they won't say what actually happened. But this one does give some details and they make her look even worse! "Oh no, my daughter's doing self-regulation exercises to manage her own emotions and reactions! Oh no, she's openly admitting to distress instead of stifling it like a proper adult! Oh no, she's leaving when I get in her face instead of sticking around to suffer my disappointment!" 🙄
It's like LW expects the audience to be just as vilely ableist as she is, ready and willing to dismiss and dehumanize her daughter as soon as she led with "diagnosed with ADD."
no subject
Word. I've noticed that a lot of people with horrible ideas seem to think "everyone" thinks that, that it's "common sense".
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
That quote from the LW about “ normal ways to train children not to throw tantrums or be lazy” could have come straight out of my Wire Mother’s mouth.
(Conveniently, neither my ADHD nor my physical disability/invisible illness were diagnosed until I was in my 20’s, because OBVIOUSLY I was just lazy, faking, lying about pain, “not living up to my potential,” and “trying to get attention.”)
no subject
Every time this LW says "normal" it's like there are sirens going off and red lights flashing. They trained her to be quiet and obedient in "normal" ways! She used to be "normal" back when she was putting all her energy and effort into portraying the character she was trained to!
Auuugh. Fuck "normal," fuck "lazy," throw all that right in the trash. LW will never realize it but I think we readers can see the triumph between the lines, where our cousin in neurodivergence has figured out how to let herself feel what she feels, take the space she needs, and say "no" to her parents.
no subject
(Also, I get an eye-twitch about people talking about "training" children to do anything other than use the toilet -- it's not ALWAYS a dead giveaway for parents who think "discipline" means abuse, but it's right up there as a warning flag.)
I am celebrating for the daughter, who is doing the work she needs to be a whole and happy and functional person, ESPECIALLY in setting boundaries with her parnets!
no subject
no subject
To the LW’s daughter: Hey, go you. I’ve found that using jargon like “regulate” tends to turn people off, and just saying things like, “Give me a minute” gets better reactions, but like, it’s not a major issue.
To the LW: It’s interesting; when you are given the chance to understand your daughter better, to have more fulfilling conversations with someone who is now better able to understand herself, you reject it because it’s not fitting your expectations and because it’s not getting you what you want.
I have questions about your focus, because you don’t compliment your daughter at all; there’s no mention of what she was like as a kid, and no discussion of what she was like to live around, other than talking about disciplining her. Were there any hints of this as a kid? Think about that, because if this came out of the blue, it certainly should be making you think about how observant you were.
My advice on how to talk to her? Listen when she says she’s not getting what you’re saying. Give her space. When she goes back to previous things you said in the conversation, roll with it. It will, after all, mean that you’re having better conversations with her, where you have fuller understanding between each other. Try and work with the kinds of “different” things she’s doing, because they’re not coming from nowhere, and while they’re new, she’s trying to show you new things she’s discovering about herself. Exploring these new things with her will take you further than being defensive. Ask yourself: is your pride worth alienating your child over?
no subject
no subject
Look, I've known individuals who thought nothing was their fault; everything could be blamed on someone else or something else. If they received a diagnosis of neurodivergence, they would indeed blame everything on the neurodivergence rather than accepting responsibility for managing their actions.
Those individuals are a really small minority of people with neurodivergence, or indeed people in general.
LW's daughter may be one of those "nothing is my fault" folks. LW? Definitely one of those folks.
no subject
Even if she is, having known people who got a new diagnosis (or changed/gained/lost religion, or discovered a new social cause, or realized they were LGBTQ+ as an adult, or or or....) there's at least even odds that this is a stage and at the end of it, a short time later, is a fully realized person who has a decent understanding of what can be blamed on ADHD and/or bad (abusive?) parenting and what can not.
no subject
Especially given that LW is saying this is new -- if Daughter had a lifelong tendency to blame everything on someone or something else, I'd think this LW would've said so.
no subject
Definitely agreed on LW, though. She can't even "make comments" about her daughter without her daughter having "hurt feelings"! So unjust of daughter, to have feelings.
no subject
Dear adult child,
Run.
no subject
No parent makes perfect choices all the time, but
I don’t see the point of her being angry with us for actions we took years ago
enabled by the psychiatrist
victim mindset
Bingo!
no subject
Your daughter is being much kinder to you than you realize, by telling you in clear words the ways the things you have done have caused hber harm, and giving you the opportunity to change, neither of which she is obligated to do.
Have you considered that in fact her entire life has been made up of trying to fit into what you (and the larger culture) demanded in ways that clearly crushed her spirit, her coping mechanisms, and her ability to advocate for herself? no, because you are so entirely up your own ass your esophagus is an ouroboros.
Try listening.
no subject