Is my 15 year old projecting??

[rockandhardplace]

I've had struggles with my 15 year old daughter for many years. She still had crazy tantrums at age 7/8. When she got out of school and I'd ask how her day was she'd usually reply "none of your business", 'shut up". Terrorised her younger brother who idolised her. Used to call me awful names, mock me incessantly. I got really worried about her when she shook a knife at me and said it's okay cus I didn't hurt you and saying she would call the police and tell them I hurt her to get me into trouble. No matter how often I told her I loved  her she would say I hated her and only loved her brother/favoured him. One incident with sharing colouring pens I realised that what she meant was I didn't favour her. To not favour her is to not love her. Unfortunately at the time I couldn't see that her dad most likely had some kind of PD. Or that she was mimicking his behaviour towards me. They were always close and when our third child came along she (15 y/o) was elevated above me in the family hierarchy. I couldn't see this as I was so busy with 2 kids and a baby, but UPDh would chat to her about things to do at a weekend and they'd come inside and tell us their plans, I'd make a rule and he'd overrule it. That kind of thing. We'd often be at loggerheads, she was so disrespectful and would parrot nasty things he would say to put me down.
Anyways, I've been coming Out of the FOG slowly. Well it definitely started by trying to reconnect with her and not pay any attention to his interfering or listen to him blame me for everything. And things are not as bad. But she will not talk about things, keeps everything bottled up. She's no longer the GC to him and I think that's confusing for her but also there's less of them sniggering and eyerolling about me. I know her behaviour is learned so I try not to react, but I'm worried that she might be heading down the PD road. One of the issues I found hardest was her inability to take responsibility for anything she did wrong. She once smashed up her room but even the next day would not take responsibility but continued to blame me for not giving her what she wanted. She constantly calls her brother names, mostly stupid and is constantly criticising him, walks around the house too saying what's that doing there, why didn't you put that back etc. Like she's the mum discipling us. I tried to explain to her the other day that name calling is never okay and at 15 she should be growing out of it and that when adults do it, it's actually verbal abuse. Omg that didn't go down well. I get lots of "oh you think you're so perfect because you don't call people names" and then tells me that i'm just lecturing her and trying to make her feel bad. And then she tells me that I'm too sensitive. This is what makes me wonder if she's projecting? Like her dad she is so hyper sensitive to any hint of criticism but happily doles it out to others. If I say to her how would she feel is someone called her x she says oh I wouldn't care. But she was so icy to me having this conversation and it makes me worry that any little behaviour correction is some massive blow to her sense of identity or something?
Am I overreacting?? Is there anything that can stop early signs of PD turning into full blown life long dysfunction??

[LemonLime]

Hi Rock,
I'm sorry you're dealing with this, it must be very difficult and scary.   IMO your daughter's behavior is concerning for entitlement, at the least.   I can't diagnose, and she's too young to be diagnosed with PD anyway.   My understanding is that DBT is the preferred method for dealing with this type of behavior that smacks of "early PD".   Her traits sound narcissistic.    She sounds a lot like my uPD sib when she was a teen.
Can you get her to a therapist who is familiar with PDs/DBT?    It's more common now that these services are offerred because it's now becoming more mainstream.

[rockandhardplace]

Thanks Lemon, I feel so confused about her behaviour. I don't know whether she has just been parentified by her dad and also copies his behaviours or is heading towards a PD? What happened with your sibling? Are either of your parents likely to have a PD? Getting her to actually talk to a therapist would be so hard as her dad and his whole family have such a thing against anything psychiatric I'd say she thinks that only "mental" people go to see psychologists. But I do wonder if they are so anti because there are problems in their family? Other than mild anxiety / bouts of mild depression there are no mental health issues in my family, but her dad's has bad OCD on one side and schizophrenia on the other. Diagnosed. Can't even imagine what else might be going on. I was re-reading an email from years ago from her dad when I was wanting to take her to see someone and he said something about me always thinking there's a psychiatric issue. This was because I was worried about her behaviour and would say I don't think this is normal part of development. I remember once reading a book about different personality types for children and one described her to a t. She was only about 6/7 at the time. It was the way she looked at the world. No matter how much attention she got it was never enough, she'd say she never got anything. Suggestions in the book was to set boundaries and be clear in these. For example with young kids you have a set time that you play with them and then get on with other things, but when they scream you hate me you never play with me, there's that routine / evidence and the boundary. I said this describes her so well. He's like nope don't see that at all, stop reading these stupid books. I remember suggesting we take turns deciding on things to do at weekends as this was often contentious with her saying she never gets to decide, when she mostly did. Nope he wouldn't engage with that idea. Then once I had our 3rd baby I got pushed out of planning and they made decisions together. I did see a child psychologist myself when she was about 8/9 and she drew me a picture of a family hierarchy and said she sees herself at the top with him and you and the kids are lower down the rung. Said the best thing would be to work with her and her dad to address the issue but of course he wouldn't come.
Might try and find a therapist who specialises in PD in teens and just see what they think. It might be easier to get her to see someone when I can separate from their dad as I think it's not that unusual for kids to get some kind of therapy when parents split up?

[notrightinthehead]

It's a worry and I can understand your concern. You seem anxious and your mind seems to ruminate a lot about the PD in your husbands' side of the family and the possible PD in your daughter.  Your shutters have come off and you have much more clarity about the situation you are in.
I want to stress the point again- the more you concern yourself with something/someone you cannot do anything about, the less time and energy you have to concern yourself with something/someone you can do something about. You can do something about how you respond to your family situation and how you behave. That is what you should focus on, this is where your salvation lies.
It's quite possible that your daughter stands on your husbands shoulders. It's possible that she might develop a PD. Now you can decide to talk about that or you decide to observe, not absorb, and talk about what you do or do not do and how you are going to handle the situation- with the intention of protecting yourself, your other children, and finding a way to a healthier relationship.
I was married to a diagnosed NPD and at one stage I thought my daughter also developed a PD. I dragged her to psychologists without any result and had to endure a lot of rage from her. She is an adult now, in therapy, and doing ok after several bad choices. Don't give up on your daughter! Be as healthy as you can be. Work on yourself.  Change what you have control over. Your behaviour, your choices, your thoughts.

[rockandhardplace]

Thanks nonright! I appreciate your posts and I know you are right. It seems to be 2 steps forward, 1 back. I try so hard to focus on what I can do to move forward and then get pulled back by things like this. And I think I feel so worried/guilty because she's my first and I know I made bad parenting choices when she was little - I expected far too much maturity from her when her brother was born, tended towards time outs / consequences rather than try and understand behaviours. And then of course walking on eggshells and allowing her dad to control us all must've seemed like condoning / normalising. I think if I'd taken her to see someone years ago it might've helped and I feel guilty that instead I listened to him. Of course I don't know how much it would've helped and I can't go back in time. Through my uni I've access to heaps of literature and I found a guide to DBT for parents so I think I'll spend a bit of time going through that and see if there are any gentle changes I can make or at least might help me work out what's developmentally in normal range and what's more worrisome. Then last night another blow. My youngest (8) had meltdown. Unlike her older sister tho it didn't escalate. Very different child and I know better how to react - I just left her alone when she was telling me she hated me, go away. She came out after only about 5 minutes and said sorry for her mean words. But later she said she feels miserable in her life, that her siblings never say they love her and neither does her dad. Said her dad yells at her and does mean things to her. I tried to explain that teenage siblings aren't always the best at showing love but we can talk to them. I said her dad loves her but that some people, even adults can do the wrong thing. He was in earshot so I had to be careful what I said, but I have told her in the past that sometimes when children don't learn how to recognise their emotions they lack understanding of emotions even as a grown up. This whole thing underlines how toxic this living situation is for all of us, but the fear I have of leaving her alone with him. I worry more that he will alienate the older ones from me, but my youngest is such a sweet, sensitive little soul that living with constant criticism from her dad and siblings with no buffer could crush her. And I know UPDh will let our eldest step into the mother role and the will try and whip her into shape - get her to toughen up and take their control and criticisms and never ever cry. She will get zero comfort.
Complete change of pace, but can I ask how your ex got diagnosed?? It's so rare isn't it for anyone to get that diagnosis as they are so sure we are the problem.