Seeking parenting advice to deal with teen's hostile anxiety reactions

[NumbLotus]

My teen doesn't have PD but given her father, I have to be on guard.

First, she is just terrific. What I'm describing is just a side to her that doesn't come out often.

She is anxious, and of course anxiety can feel catastrophic and a person can feel an overwhelming need to SOLVE IT RIGHT NOW.

She usually handles her anxiety in more typical and acceptable ways (and she is VERY aware she has anxiety, and can name what she is experiencing and knows it is not always logical), but sometimes she gets HOSTILE and I don't like it! And this makes me worry about PD-related traits.

Here's an example.

She was on the couch settling down for an after school snack, a bowl of cereal, while watching a TV show. As I walk by, she spilled the cereal. Massively.

D: Mom! I spilled the cereal!!
Me: Okay? ... Is it on the sofa? You'll have to wipe it up. And change your clothes if it got on your clothes.
D: HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO WIPE THIS UP?? (Not just loud but vey hostile, like I'm an idiot).
Me: (Staying calm with a one second pause) With a towel. You know, D, I don't appreciate you being rude like that. I'm not the one who spilled the cereal. Don't take it out on me.
D: (Irritated deep breath, tries again through somewhat clenched teeth, about 30% "nicer" but clearly still gunning for me). How am I supposed to clean this up?
Me: I'll get you a towel.
I leave the room briefly and grab a hand towel from the kitchen and dampen half of it. I return to the living room to find she had gone upstairs to change and the dog is eating the cereal off the floor and sofa. I let her because FML. D returns downstairs promptly.
Me: Look, you got lucky, the dog is doing almost all the work. So when she is done, just wipe up with this.
D: (Hostile) That doesn't make any sense.
Me: ?? What doesn't make any sense??
D: You can't WASH a SOFA.
Me: Well, I know that. So we just have to do our best. (Note: if my life were normal, yes, I'd get out a hand steam cleaner and try harder. My house is a dump, the sofa is broken anyway, and I don't have the energy to care.)
D: THIS DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE.
Me: D, knock it off. You are angry at the wrong person. (I walk away)

I assume she did some terrible job wiping the sofa but probably did some.

The storm blows over quickly. She was probably fine in 5 minutes. Not sorry, just back to herself.

I don't like how she tried (and SO HARD) to make what bothered her into MY PROBLEM to solve. And that I am WRONG for not making her problem instantly and entirely go away. That seems PD in nature. It wasn't about resisting the work. Sure, she can do that sometimes too, but it's different - dragging her feet but not being HOSTILE.

The hostility bothers me A LOT.

Perspective? Suggestions?

[hhaw]

I don't have answers but I'll share some experiences, and advice I wish I'd received years ago.

First, a really good T specializing in Trauma is worth their weight in GOLD, IME.  Teaching children how to regulate their emotions is important, IME.  When we can't regulate our emotions.... it;s called flipping our lid.  We can't, bc our fight or flight brain kicks in, takes over, and hijacks our biology.  Our breathing increases, heartrate goes up, chemical dump happens, and we no longer have access to our higher thinking brains responsible for logic, creativity, and problem solving.  We get tunnel vision too, which is why we catastrophize.... the brain focuses minutely... we can't see the forest for the trees, as they say.

Breathing deep and slow... from the bottom of our lungs... like we're filling a vase from the bottom up... then breathing out slowly sends a message to our brain... we are safe, there is no crisis or danger...... we gain control over our hijacked biology again.  EMDR helps integrate the brain and access more areas of our brains..... it was explained to me like this.... a Tsp of salt is a lot in a glass of water.  If we pour a tbs of salt into a lake, it's not so concentrated.  By bringing more areas of our brains online,  we get our faces off the glass, and see things with more spaciousness.  It made sense to me after hearing it many different ways from other sources.  I liked that one.  There are ways to breath spaciousness INTO our distress... the places in our brains and bodies where the stress feels tight/painful/tense/pressurized.  By focusing on the emotion and sensation, we can adress them, which reduces stress in the brain, and provides the chance for our brain to do what it does best... process and file information.  It does this in a millisecond.  It's amazing, and efficient, but sometimes trauma blocks the brain's ability to finish processing difficult stories... emotions.... they get stuck exactly in the brain where they initially happened, and the brain believes it's THERE, in that exact place again, experiencing the trauma again.  It hijacks our biology... as I explained above.  And we can't think our way out of it, or rationalize.  In fact, being logical and utilizing humor, as you did too, actually made my dd feel worse, bc she was stuck in fight or fligt mode, and didn't understand it, and couldn't get out of it. 

This is for every human, not just our children... this fight or fligh response, and the need to learn how to break outselves out of it.  They should teach us this in school, and there are grants in our area to bring these coping strategies INTO our schools.  It's amazing work. 

If you're searching for a T for your dd, look for ones who specialize in trauma.  They'll utilize EMDR, ART, and mindfulness, and somatic work.  The word Buddhism might come up, bc somatic work is based on Buddhist practices.  Amazing stuff all based on science, and considered the very best treatments for anxiety, PTSD, and trauma, which activates in the brain before we can catch it, then we're reacting, not responding.   Pathways become default settings.  Default settings can be changed,  thank goodness. 

We can train our brains to respond, bc our brains are like computers.... neuroplasticity means we can change neuropathways, and give our brains more choice, and time to respond. 

My oldest dd used to rock, and scratch herself, cry like a baby, and she knew knew knew this wasn't appropriate.  She just couldn't help herself.  She's had therapy, and wilderness camp (her choice, btw) and the last time her dog peed on a patio cushion it went something like this....
Me:  Your pug peed on the cushion.  You're going to learn how to clean that today. (Zero judgment, just compassion in my tone)
DD:  Ya.... she did that.  I'll clean it today. 
Now, she used to cry, and get upset, and create distress in me, and I let her off the hook, bc I had trouble letting her be upset.  Her distress created huge distress in me.

Now, I can stay calm, not react emotionally and have compassion for whatever she;s going through, which is what I had for her when she had to clean that cushion.  That way, I was take OUT of the equation, and dd had only herself, her do, and the cushion to think about.

No judgment.

I helped her get the cleaning supplies together, explained how that worked, then left her to it, which she didn't complain about.  She cleaned that thick piece of foam with soapy water, then with alcohol, then she rinsed it completely several times, soaked up the excess water with towels, and put it on it's edge to dry in the sun, but under cover.

I've had to clean that cushion several times myself, and I resented it every time.  THIS time dd stepped up, asked for the solution, and did what needed to be done without complaint,  but I have to tell you.... she used to automatically respond like a small child, and it wasn't HER doing it... it was her brain reacting in a pattern that was heading toward a full blow PD.... she was dissociating from about the age of 7yo. 

We did some brain integration work, but I wish we;d gone right to a trauma T.  I think that's the most efficient way to get to the core of the problems, process them, and take them out of our daily lives,  IME.  One very good Trauma Specialist here offers a 50.00 student rate. 

These people are amazing human beings.  Gifted,and trained in state of the art techniques many Ts don't know anything about, IME.

Good luck,

[Poison Ivy]

To me, this doesn't seem like a personality disorder; it does seem like anxiety (perfectionism?) plus being a teenager.  This is not to diminish the difficulty of responding to it appropriately.  When my children (adults now) do things like this, I try to stay calm and not take the behavior personally.

[NumbLotus]

hhaw, thank you so much for that. Will be replying in detail soon.

Poison Ivy, I agree she doesn't have PD but I do worry about whether some unchecked problems could lead to traits.

It's nkt that she resisted the problem - NORMAL - but that she somehow emotionally made the problem my fault in a way. And it reminds me a lot of H.

I'm not concerned at all about prodding her to take responsibility, but the ANGER is totally out of place imho. Note that I never judged her or had any emotional reaction to the spill (and that's sincere - I know D didn't do it on purpose and she'll probably be more careful next time, so I have no reason to be upset).

Even if the eventual development of a PD is not a remote possibility, I think it's something I need to deal with. If nothing else, it harms relationships. If she lashes out at a partner or friend for things they did not contribute to as a way to manage her feelings, that will have a negative effect on her eventually.

[Poison Ivy]

I don't think you responded incorrectly.  I agree with you that your daughter's anger was misplaced. I think that hhaw's suggestions for learning emotional regulation are great. 

My belief is that anger is not inherently bad but that taking things out on other people (e.g., your daughter taking out her feelings on you) can be problematic.  It's good that you recognize the potential for it to get worse, but I also think that having one family member with really serious problems (like your husband, like my ex) can cause us to see every negative behavior in our children as the first step toward a huge problem.  I have had to resist my tendencies to catastrophize my children's behavior.  Their dad has ADHD; that one of my daughters does, too, doesn't mean her life will go belly up like her dad's did.  Their dad has depression and anxiety and both daughters have struggled with these, too, but that doesn't mean that they will be like their dad and be unemployed for years at a time.

[NumbLotus]

hhaw, I'll gave to read your post a few times, and I thank you for writing it.

The tunnel vision thing is a very big feature of what happens. Perhaps she gets literal visual tunnel vision too, but also her ability to percieve solutions narrows to a pinpoint.

Let's say she hbrings a problem to me that she is panicked about. She might have decided that some drastic solution is the only one. I could calmly and gently tell her that actually, it's easily solved a diferent way, no problem. And she will dig in her heels and tell me why it's not possible, as if she hasn't even really processed the idea. It's just NO NO NO. Sometimes her reasoning is bizarre or illogical and she'll either cling to a crazy solution or to the idea that there is no possible solution.

I dunno about the EMDR. I'll chew on that. My first reactions are, I live in the middle of nowhere and EMDR is probably 30 minutes away, and I can't drive, and while I can think of at least one traumatic situation I can't see her cooperating with therapy. She probably wouldn't talk. She'd think it was stupid. She tends to shut down about stuff like that.

I am thinking that at least initially this is going to have to be me parenting her. I can imagine talking to her at a calm time and telling her that I notice sometimes she is really stressed by anxiety. And that maybe we can try xyz next time it happens. She'll probably clam up but she might sorta kinda maybe try it, especially if it involves me being soothing somehow.

I'm not sure what we can try, though. I could suggest breathing but I have a feeling she'll think it's stupid lol.

The thing that works is to disengage and try again. I don't know how she self soothes but she does it. The storm will blow over and it's like nothing happened. If we can identify that she is in that state - which I will have to do for her at least initially - maybe she can agree to go chill however she wants and come back again to resolve the issue.

I know in the moment she will feel like NO WE HAVE TO DO THIS RIGHT NOW but maybe with her prior agreement she can be coaxed into disengaging and then trying again. I can promise that her problem will have my full attention and support!when she's calm. (Doesn't mean I will, say, clean up her mess, but I can offer her calm guidance, for example).

Some situations will be harder or impossible, like if we realky din't have five minutes, or we are in public or otherwise a place she can't retreat. I'd like to think of options but if nothing else, if at-home situations can be improved, that alone is worthwhile.

[Poison Ivy]

NumbLotus, you seem very thoughtful and compassionate. Your daughter is lucky to have you as her mom.

[NumbLotus]

Thank you, what an incredibly kind thing to say.