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anonymous · 10-03-2014, 08:38 AM

You all should be able to figure out who this is. Just gotta keep it a little less searchable, just in case.

My stepdaughter is a train wreck. Part of this is some inherent mental health conditions, and part of it is being raised in an emotionally and verbally abusive environment for the last 12 of her 16 years on this earth. She currently has a shrink who's diagnosed her with ADHD, social anxiety, and some OCD tendencies that he feels are going to "grow into a full blown personality disorder, we just don't know which one yet." He has her on Risperdal, Lexapro, and Focalin.

Over the last year she has taken to confiding in me, which is, you know, good I guess that she has at least nominally figured out her mother's a shitty role model, and that she's acting like she's willing to receive some rational adult perspective on her life. But the practical result of this is she calls me screaming and sobbing 2-3 times a week, and I have to spend the first ten minutes just talking her off the ledge enough that she can be fucking coherent, before I can even find out what completely retarded thing has set her off.

Yes, her life's not fair. Yes, her living situation is abusive. Yes, 75% of her problems are not her fault. But she also refuses to accept responsibility for the 25% that are her fault, and after a year of this it's my determination that she's not actually interested in getting advice or solving her problems, she just wants to dump on me the way her biological family dumps on her.

I can't fucking deal with being emotionally dumped on, more than most people. I am the very definition of nonconfrontational. I have been putting up with it because I'm trying to be a good stepmom, to be there for her when clearly nobody else is. But I feel physically ill for hours every fucking time I have to talk to her.

And now she fucking wants to live with us.

More accurately, she wants us to start a war with her mom, who includes fierce codependence in her abusive activities and will absolutely not let her leave willingly. We think it's a given that the judge will let her live where she wants in the end, but to get there it will be at least $5,000 in court costs, and her mom will drag it out as long as possible, easily a year--and she's only got a year and a half before she graduates anyway.

And no matter how much I agree that living here would absolutely be better for her, there is also no question that it would be worse for all of us, notably my two younger children. They like her, but she amps them up and generally fucks up their routine. I also can't shake the impression that this is just one of many (many) of my stepdaughter's subconscious ploys to get her mother's attention, to make her see how much she'd miss her if she were gone, so her mom will stop screaming obscenities at her and make her the favorite child after all. And after we've waged this war on her behalf, she'll feel she's gotten the point across and will make amends with her mom, and we will continue living in retribution hell for the next four years until her little brother fucking graduates.

Teenagers suck. Blended families suck. It's nobody's fault but my own that I married into this bullshit situation, but there are days when I seriously fucking regret it, and they are going to be a lot more common before they start to fade again.

10-03-2014, 08:38 AM	#1
anonymous Operations Operative Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: in hiding Posts: 578	Kill Me Now You all should be able to figure out who this is. Just gotta keep it a little less searchable, just in case. My stepdaughter is a train wreck. Part of this is some inherent mental health conditions, and part of it is being raised in an emotionally and verbally abusive environment for the last 12 of her 16 years on this earth. She currently has a shrink who's diagnosed her with ADHD, social anxiety, and some OCD tendencies that he feels are going to "grow into a full blown personality disorder, we just don't know which one yet." He has her on Risperdal, Lexapro, and Focalin. Over the last year she has taken to confiding in me, which is, you know, good I guess that she has at least nominally figured out her mother's a shitty role model, and that she's acting like she's willing to receive some rational adult perspective on her life. But the practical result of this is she calls me screaming and sobbing 2-3 times a week, and I have to spend the first ten minutes just talking her off the ledge enough that she can be fucking coherent, before I can even find out what completely retarded thing has set her off. Yes, her life's not fair. Yes, her living situation is abusive. Yes, 75% of her problems are not her fault. But she also refuses to accept responsibility for the 25% that are her fault, and after a year of this it's my determination that she's not actually interested in getting advice or solving her problems, she just wants to dump on me the way her biological family dumps on her. I can't fucking deal with being emotionally dumped on, more than most people. I am the very definition of nonconfrontational. I have been putting up with it because I'm trying to be a good stepmom, to be there for her when clearly nobody else is. But I feel physically ill for hours every fucking time I have to talk to her. And now she fucking wants to live with us. More accurately, she wants us to start a war with her mom, who includes fierce codependence in her abusive activities and will absolutely not let her leave willingly. We think it's a given that the judge will let her live where she wants in the end, but to get there it will be at least $5,000 in court costs, and her mom will drag it out as long as possible, easily a year--and she's only got a year and a half before she graduates anyway. And no matter how much I agree that living here would absolutely be better for her, there is also no question that it would be worse for all of us, notably my two younger children. They like her, but she amps them up and generally fucks up their routine. I also can't shake the impression that this is just one of many (many) of my stepdaughter's subconscious ploys to get her mother's attention, to make her see how much she'd miss her if she were gone, so her mom will stop screaming obscenities at her and make her the favorite child after all. And after we've waged this war on her behalf, she'll feel she's gotten the point across and will make amends with her mom, and we will continue living in retribution hell for the next four years until her little brother fucking graduates. Teenagers suck. Blended families suck. It's nobody's fault but my own that I married into this bullshit situation, but there are days when I seriously fucking regret it, and they are going to be a lot more common before they start to fade again.