My darling 16-year-old daughter has turned into a monster and I’m terrified | Ask Rebecca

Ask Rebecca is smart, honest advice to readers’ questions about life, family and relationships by columnist Rebecca Eckler. Got a question for Rebecca? Submit it anonymously on the form here. You can also send an email to NPadvice@postmedia.com.

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My incredible 16-year-old daughter has turned into a monster. From birth until 14, she was kind, lovable, helpful, understanding and an amazing person. I’m a single mother, and it’s just the two of us, but we managed to live together peacefully and happily. I work extremely hard to earn enough to pay the rent, bills and necessities. She’s always been grateful.

Two years ago, she called me at work and said she wanted to hurt herself. I took her to the hospital immediately. After that, she started showing small signs of anger and frustration, but nothing we couldn’t handle. When she’d get upset, she’d come to me, and we’d talk it out.

But when she needed parenting, I was often too delicate, afraid to upset her and make her depressed again. Now she’s constantly sulking around, won’t clean her room, won’t help with chores, won’t talk to me at all, won’t not even say hello.  She refuses to speak to any professional. She claims she’s fine, but she’s not.

I’m upset, tired, and frustrated. Worst of all, I’m terrified of saying something that will send her over the edge. Please tell me this changes — I miss my darling daughter so much.— Mother on Eggshells

First, I don’t think your daughter is a monster.

I think she’s 16. And I say that with enormous compassion for anyone living with one right now. Sixteen-year-olds are not an easy species to live with.

I should also say the obvious but important thing. I’m an advice columnist, not a mental-health professional. If at any point you believe your daughter is in immediate danger of harming herself, call 911 or get her to the nearest ER.

There are few things more upsetting than having a child who once demanded you hug her while she did #2 suddenly behave as if your chewing is an irritating habit you’ve developed just to annoy her. But something more complicated is happening here. It started with the phone call no parent ever wants to receive. Your 14-year-old daughter called you at work and told you she wanted to hurt herself.

Of course you took her seriously and rushed her to the hospital. But I think you brought something home with you that day, too.

Fear.

Once your child tells you something like that, it changes the way you hear every slammed door, every silence and every just leave me alone.

For the last two years, you haven’t just been parenting a teenager. You’ve been parenting one while carrying around the terrifying knowledge that she had once been in enough pain to consider hurting herself.

Somewhere along the way, fear turned into a family dynamic in which your daughter’s unhappiness became something you feel responsible for preventing.

You can’t.

You are responsible for taking her mental health seriously and paying attention. But you are not responsible for making sure your 16-year-old is never angry, frustrated, disappointed or pissed off at her mother.

There is also a difference between mental health struggles and unacceptable behaviour. The first deserves compassion. The second requires boundaries. Sulking is behaviour. Refusing chores is behaviour. Being rude is behaviour. Not wanting to talk to your mother is extremely irritating, but also fairly common behaviour.

Stop forcing her into appointments. Clearly that isn’t getting you anywhere. If she won’t go, you go instead. Find someone who understands adolescents and tell them exactly what you’ve said here. You need someone who can help you distinguish between “I’m 16, leave me alone” and “I’m genuinely not OK.”

Right now you’re simultaneously parenting a teenager, assessing her mental health and calculating whether every boundary you set could somehow trigger a crisis. That’s too much for one exhausted single mother to carry alone at 11 p.m. while standing outside a closed bedroom door, wondering whether to knock.

You’re allowed to be angry. You’re allowed to be exhausted. And you’re allowed to admit this sucks. But you cannot spend the rest of her adolescence believing every bad mood might be a catastrophe.

Take genuine warning signs seriously, absolutely. But allow her to be angry, sulky, difficult and 16. Teenagers become private. They test boundaries. They reserve 87 per cent of their conversational energy for people who do not pay their rent. It’s brutal.

Give her some room to become whoever she’s becoming. But don’t give her the entire house.

Calmly tell her, “I love you. I know you’re growing up and don’t want to tell me everything anymore. You don’t need to. But I need you to know I will always take your mental health seriously, and being worried about you doesn’t mean I’m going to stop being your mother.”

Then start being her mother again. Pick the things that matter. Basic respect. A couple of chores. Knowing where she is. Whatever is essential in your house. Your daughter can be struggling and still be expected to say hello. She can be unhappy and still have chores.

She may roll her eyes. She may tell you you’re ruining her life. She may stomp upstairs. Let her. Anger isn’t the same thing as danger, and you don’t need to win every interaction. You don’t even need her to like you every day.

Of course you miss your darling daughter. You’re grieving a relationship that seemed to disappear overnight. Unfortunately, nature did not design adolescence with mothers’ feelings high on the priority list.

But the goal isn’t to get your 14-year-old back. She’s gone. Your job is to get to know the person she’s becoming.

She may not say hello when you walk through the door right now. Keep saying hello anyway. Keep the door open, keep rules in place and keep taking her mental health seriously.

And yes, I think this will change. One day, perhaps sooner than you think, she might walk into the kitchen and voluntarily tell you about a friend or a teacher she detests. You’ll have to resist the urge to break down in tears with gratitude.

For now, that may be her way of coming home.

Love, Rebecca
Rebecca Eckler is an internationally bestselling author, founder of re:books publishing, Rivkah Books, and co-founder of CANREADS. She’s a professional oversharer and observer of human behaviour, and has spent decades writing about life’s messy twists.

Have a question for Rebecca? Email NPadvice@postmedia.com or send your question anonymously by clicking here.

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