My daughter escalates

[Prototypian]

My wife is PD and has rules and violent reactions.   One absolute is that there can be no arbitrary punishments, no absolute rules.   If something isn't completely spelled out and a rule about parenting is 100 percent set up in advance you'd can't enforce something.  I'm not allowed to have arbitrary "go to your room" or "apologize now young lady" kind of behaviors with my kids

As a result my daughter is angry and escalates.   My son who isn't really PD at all tonight ate a piece of cookie from his younger sister.   He is 18 and a senior in high school and she is 16.  I could tell this was a PD reaction because she lost it.   Violent screaming anger.   I tried to meditate but there was no calming her down.  Curse words, violent anger.   When she went upstairs my son asked why she is always allowed to behave like that.

I don't know what to say.   I know that my wife and daughters have a pattern of behavior of escalation.   You can't stand up to them because it's not bullying behavior it's absolute escalation to a violent property and home damaging behavior in just a few seconds if you push.   My wife has destroyed things that were priceless and I've seen my daughter so the same.   

I don't know what to do with this or how to react.   My kids don't want me to leave but there is not a way to stand up to their PD behavior because the escalation for doing so is so fast and so violent.   I've had my wife stand off and make the whole family miss a flight on a trip to Hawaii because of a perception about the size of one of our carry on items being thought to be too large.   I was afraid TSA was going to take her away.   We missed the vacation.

The daughter is similar.   She has no problem destroying and screaming if it appears that something will discipline or there is a slight to her.   I don't know what to say to my son.   The decision to take away her phone A) would result in my wife just giving it back and B)would probably result in some significant damage like windows being smashed or worse.

I don't know what to do

[serenitycalm]

I'm sorry that you are in this situation.

Is there help available for you? Social services, therapy?

[Prototypian]

Ha.  Funny this came across today.   Daughter lost it again. 

I have access to plenty of resources.   Getting them to use them is a different question

[hhaw]

j:

I hope your w allows your dd to consider therapy if dd finds herself struggling with school, a boy or job.

It's certain your w will sabotage your dd's ability to seek T IF there's a chance the family dysfunction will be exposed or your w feels she can be blamed in any way.

Your wife will never go, of course.

I hope your son has been in therapy for years, in secret; )

[Call Me Cordelia]

I'm going to do you the courtesy of being honest with you about how I see what you wrote.

She's allowed to behave that way because that works better for you than dealing with the fallout for giving her consequences and sticking with them. That's it. You are sacrificing your duty to guide your daughter's character to your fear of your wife. You have the awareness that things could and ought to be different and still continue to go along with your wife's disordered demands.

Your wife's expectation of having everything set up in advance is madness. You can't make rules about everything. By your phrasing I'm sure you see the contradiction and therefore the utter nonsense of absolutely no absolutes. What you do need is a clear hierarchy of authority in the family. And you are now below your sixteen year old in that hierarchy. This is harmful to everyone, most of all your daughter. Both of your children are showing you they are aware on some level of the dysfunction, your son articulately, and your daughter by acting out. I doubt the only thing bothering your daughter is the cookie or whatever else set her off next time. Life is going to be very difficult for her. You still have a chance to help her.

You can't make your other family members utilize resources, at least not those at the age of majority, but you can do that for yourself. You'd have to be willing to shed the learned helplessness and take responsibility for the role you play in the atmosphere of your home if you are to change your response and make a change there.

It'll be hell. But clearly you are not satisfied with the status quo. I wish you the peace that comes from doing good and becoming a good example to your children. Many of us have a similar journey to go. We're here to cheer you on.

[hhaw]

Call Me Cordilia:

What are some ways j can put boundaries in place and enforce them with his dd?  Where does one begin when the house is being held hostage by the mother's anger and dysfunction? When the dd will likely respond with rage and violence too?

I'm just asking about a few examples of what that would look like so j can fit it into his view of the world.

Where does j start?

[Call Me Cordelia]

Hi hhaw,

With himself. He's got access to resources, and that's a blessing. Those are all excellent questions to bring to a professional. Perhaps school could also be a resource for the teens, at the father's request. Because this is a seriously dysfunctional situation and children are being harmed, I felt the need to be so direct. But for the same reasons, I feel obligated to know my limitations and refrain from giving specific advice when I only have partial information. I hope that makes sense to you. (And you, Jsinjin!)

[xredshoesx]

at 16+ violent actions can have real consequences PD or not.  i have worked with a family for years (taught multiple siblings) and one of the children is currently in the process of becoming a ward of the state because of their behaviors in the home that were violent and harmful to the other children.   J please reach out to someone, the school may be your best bet.  once breaking things and verbal assault become the norms it will most likely escalate to physical violence.  at 16 a child can be charged as an adult for felony assault.

[hhaw]

I never considered calling the police on my niece during her violent outbursts and it just now occurred to me.......I should have called someone, if not the police..... right?

It's difficult to shift out of protecting our children and INTO finding them resources and help.... crisis management.

It's just that everyone seems to be holding on by their toenails, IME.... or it FEEEELS that way and so the ones doing what they can to calm things down with all the eggshell walking..... it just feels so precarious, like things COULD get so much worse or perhaps be turned against them and their ability to be a calming presense in the home.

I do think small measures give the disordered people plenty of wiggle room to turn the tables on the non parent reporting or asking for help.....I have seen that, helped orchestrate it with a Judge's blessing on my brother's behalf for his then 12yo dd behaving in very similar violent fashion as j's dd16.

My SIL had my niece spitting angry at going to see the neuro guy and Ts..... niece would say her mother told her my sibs and I had labled niece "broken, dumb and mentally ill" while SIL was assuring her SIL didn't think that....SIL thought she was perfectly normal, nothing wrong at all. Mind you, niece was modeling SIL's violent outbursts and had been dx'd with ODD, ADHD and a siezure disorder that left her blue and dead on the floor till the ambulance arrived.  There was plenty the Judge thought needed to be done for my niece and he gave my brother completely freedom, which turned into the "adult conflict" being identified as the "cause" for nieces main problems.  SIL saw that T about 3 times, all fingerpointing and venom. My niece never received another minute's care.

I just don't know how it works.... to get a teenager help when the PD parent is running intererence and dead set on keeping the dysfucntion behind the curtain.  Would j have to move out of the home with his son while his DD went into a hospital for evaluation for the violent behaviors?

Would j stay in the home and let his wife's relentless reactions hit him and his son till whatever she needed to happen... happened?

J's maybe at his breaking point.... that's a really tough place to throw the PDs into the air and see what happens.  Humans need to know what's going to happen..... even when they're stable and feeling pretty level.... humans need to know,bc survival brain and the anxiety not knowing creates.

J..... have you talked to your dd16's primary caregiver?  Perhaps that's a good place to begin seeking ways to help your dd and perhaps the entire family.

I will say this.....I agree with Call Me Cordelia.  Your dd is suffering and likely angry...the angry is behind her feeling out of control and unsafe..... kids want boundaries to push against........kids act out when they don't know how to say that exactly and your dd is obviously asking for help.

How to find and deliver that care, without throwing things into more chaos without ANYTHING positive coming of it....is the hard thing.

When my oldest dd was about 15yo she chose to withdraw from HS and go into a Wilderness Program called SUWS.  It was the most amazing 70 plus days of her life she reports now.  I can recommend them highly.  You'll find yourself with other parents, some very disordered too, with children suffering in similar ways as your dd. 

I don't know how to get around sending a child for treatment at a Therapeutic Boarding School OR Wilderness Camp without the other parent's cooperation, but it's worth considering and sometimes..... sometimes....... desperate time call for desperate measures.  Maybe facing the consequences of her actions bc dd16 has been arrested for the violence COULD BE the thing the PD mom considers reason enough to allow a month or two at Wilderness Camp for her child. 

I know Judges really want parents to be present and proactive with children in the court system.  My underage youngest dd was caught drinking at a party and the police wrote their blood alcohol numbers on their arms in black sharpie.  After my child was over feeling proud she had the highest number.... she was pretty upset about going to Court and facing consequences tat were all over the board and up to the Judge's discretion.

When we went to court we had a friend acting as dd's attorney.  That attorney filled the Judge in on the circumstances and that Judge took my child up to the bench and talked to her about what he could do and what he was going to do bc her mother was sitting in the Courtroom, present and caring...... and he gave her service hours she completed with relief, bc there were much more difficult consequences she COULD have faced for the same underage drinking charge.

My point is...... dd suffering consequences in the system, whether admitted to hospital for violence (a friend in ILL had her step son admitted MANY times for violence,btw) or going in front of a Judge..... can lead to better outcomes than would otherwise happen if things are left as they are.

I'll finish with this.... after my oldest finished her time at SUWS, which she loved, she went onto therapeutic boarding school for  9 months where she bonded with her amazing T, enjoyed her time with the other girls...... they bonded and my dd saw other girls struggling with consequences to dispell any confusion around criminal behaviors......and the group T was absolutely necessary.  Being away from families to do the work was necessary.  This is the trickier part for parents..... doing family therapy was really painful,but it gets right to the nitty and gritty.  J's wife's behaviors will come out and the T will be focused on it and have opinions and options for dealing with it.  It's likely j's dd will blossom as most of the children in our group absolutely DID, not all, but most.

Kids want love and boundaries and safety.  Finding a way to give it to them, esp if we don't know what a healthy boundary IS, can be very difficult.

J, if you want the name of someone who helps families find the right placement for their children, I have the name of a very competent woman who does just that. Her son went into SUWS then residential treatment so she's walked the walk and actually meets with the kids to help determine where the best possible placements are.

Not all children choose Wilderness Camp, btw. Some people hire security folks to actually take the child out of their bed, onto a plane or in a vehicle and deliver them to the Camp.  I don't recommend this.... it would be last resort for me, but I was acutely aware I had a very limited time and resources to make the best possible choices for my child in the small window I had.  It can be excruciating to make final decisions with so much riding on it, esp if the other parent is sabotging everything.

That's why I think a Judge's involvement COULD faciliate the PD mother's cooperation IN J's CASE. 

FYI, kids at SUWS go into complete lockdown with electronics.  They may stay at base camp as long as they wish, no one forces them to do ANYTHING until they choose it. Then the kids move into joining a group of girls, in j's dd's case, with similar ages and levels of problems,but doesn't actually make camp with them till they earn it. 

After a fashion, all the kids I witnessed, who didn't want to be there, end up looking forward to bedtime stories at sundown, they make bracelets and desire praise, they build tremendous pride in their new skill set..... learning to make fire and build traps.....they learn to do bear hang and eventually earn the right to be the head child in their group.... so much pride. 

I will tell you up front, your dd will be directed into another program when Wilderness Camp ends and that's for the best,IME.

Once that program ends there will be programs for aftercare at home you may avail yourself to and I highly suggest it.

SUWS asks all parents to read the book The Parallel Process and I highly recommend it, just for parenting in general, esp for those of us who didn't have boundaries in our own childhoods. It's a good reference and helps set us up for the family counseling to come in these situation.

J, you don't have much time to impact your dd's future while she's still a minor.  I do believe you have choices and I hope you can find a way through.

[Prototypian]

Hi all:

Thanks for the advice.   It's hard to contextualize everything.  I'm based in the US.   I have plenty of resources financially and benefits through my company including a new program they rolled out with some concierge mental health.  I've started counseling again with goals for counseling that include setting boundaries and saying no, developing cognitive skills to decrease my depression and learning to not allow the things I can't control to influence me less.   I have also gotten my youngest help with her anxiety and depression.   

The other steps are difficult to take but these are concrete and headed in a positive direction.   

I can say that my wife still exerts an incredible amount of control over all of our lives and it's coming to a significant set of consequence based points but I don't have the energy or mental/emotional strength to fight her right now.   

My daughter (16) has positive influences in track and field and local FFA at the school barn so she is not without normal things in her life.   

It's hard to describe the level of escalation that my spouse is willing to take.  It's been my thoughts on the "Love and Logic"program that I've seen.   On the one hand is making kids or someone's choices their own and letting them take consequences; it's another when the slightest pushback escalates to an almost nuclear war such as destroying furniture or dishes or tearing everything out of the pantry and throwing it all away all at one time.   It's been nearly 30 years and I didn't realize until about 5 years ago that this isn't normal.  The week after we got married we were in our new apartment together and I unpacked a box of glasses we received as a wedding gift and put them in the cabinet without asking.  I washed them and out them away.   My wife came home and was angry.  I thought she was joking the reaction was so utterly surprising.   She was violently mad and threw one of them down.   I quickly jumped to put them all away back in the box.   I couldn't believe the immediate anger and rage and I thought it was a joke at first until I saw just how mad she was.   The werid thing is that we are four houses from that time.   I've moved those glasses and box each time and have never been allowed to put them away.   I am pretty sure they are Wal Mart level cheap water glasses.   We live in an estate sized mcmansion home on a lake with several acres and a gate and it's full to the brim with trash, newspapers, every article of clothing the kids have ever worn, old child car seats (my kids are 16-18-21) even vacuum bags are saved in a pile in the garage because I may have sucked up a Lego toy and she is someday going to check.   Waste of anything is horrifying from food to trash to recycling.   Our rag bag pile is over 8 feet tall.   She goes through the trash daily and when I take trips I'll load up my bag with things I want to get rid of to drop at the airport trash.   When we have gone to therapy she is a completely different person.   It was my psychiatrist after a self harm issue that I had who diagnosed her with OCPD.   It's a mess I understand.  Not my fault but it is my problem.

[square]

I've followed your thread thus far without comment because I don't have any ideas at all for you.

But I thought I might share my perspective (which may be flawed but alternate perspectives can be a little useful sometimes nevertheless).

I don't think there is anything you can do to improve the situation given the extreme level of abuse your wife perpetuates.

There just is a point where your choices are so small and offer only the barest crumbs of low-level personal survival that things like "parenting well" or "solving problems" or whatever are simply out of your reach.

They aren't out of reach because you are inadequate in any way. You live with a terrorist. Nobody can do anything with someone willing to go to certain levels of abuse. People in hostage situations have very, very little control over the situation.

You know what your options are, and they are all very high-level options. There's really nothing down in the details that's going to turn the tide.

You can stick it out and use MC and all of that and do your best and try to survive as best you can and try to help your kids as best you can in a frankly terrible situation.

Or you can leave, and do what you can with the likely 50% parenting you'll get, showing them an alternative in a peaceful home.

I'm not telling you to leave. I'm just saying, you already know all the options and there isn't anything else.