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Lost control stepdaughter.

Spawnofkyuss
Community Member
Hello you amazing brave people.
I have had mental health challenges most of my life. I attempted to end things a few years ago, but when that didn't work, I started seeing the things I had in my life that made it worth staying. I still have challenges most days, but I'm here to battle, rather than the alternative.

So, I feel really selfish, but we're having a problem with my and my partner's stepdaughter.

Since she started High School 3 years ago, she has become so isolated, hateful, uncontrollable, unreachable.
Wagging, lying, vaping, drinking, and now marijuana.
Last weekend, she bought marijuana, smoked it alone, and has become the worst we have ever seen.
When we found out, we wanted to find the dealer, so we could see the police.
We confiscated her phone, and then the scary new behavior started.
She is smashing her bedroom up, and any time we go near her, she screamed and screamed, completely unreasonable.
She hasn't eaten today, and still will not communicate. We are worried sick.
Is this just hard core acting out, or could it be a psychotic episode?
It is impossible to get her to a doctor, or the police, or even to the hospital.
We don't use physical violence as a punishment, and our voice, and phone discipline is all we have left.
Any ideas? We are freaking out.
Thank you and sorry to jump in so selfishly.
2 Replies 2

Heart_On_Sleeve
Community Member

Hey, so reading your msg I can resonate to when I was age 14 -16 and I was every parents teenage nightmare. I’m 43 now, and regret treating my parents so badly then.

You mustn’t have put your parents through hell as a teen? I grew up as a very well behaved child with caring and good parents. But in High School I changed growing a chip on my shoulder and wanting to be a popular girl.

I hung out with girls persuading me to smoke, drink, wag etc All to be so cool and I thought I was king 💩 My hormones went wild at age just 14 meeting & falling for a 20yr old guy in group hanging with. He was my everything and I didn’t give a crap about my parents. Sneaking out of bedroom window at night and going off with group. I was 14 going on 30

Parents found out everything I was up to. They were so upset crying but I gave no love back. It did hurt me though seeing them break down. I didn’t smash up my room or anything destructive. I was just cold and hated them for ruining my fun and life at the time.

My suggestion is that her friends are influencing her to do drugs etc it’s just teenage crap and peer pressure. Just watch out for the harder drugs especially Meth which wasn’t around way back for me.

I reckon she’s just acting out and god forbid had her phone taken away. Keep telling her how much you love her and it hurts you when she behaves badly.

I turned out just fine in life and grew up responsible despite my few years of being a total nightmare.

Good luck, hope my story helps

Juliet_84
Valued Contributor
Valued Contributor

Hi,

This sounds like you are describing my sister when we were growing up. She was a really loving, “goody two shoes” type of kid and then when she hit puberty, she started drinking, doing drugs, dating older guys and being an absolute nightmare to me and my parents. She’d steal all our money for pot and was smoking, wagging school etc. unfortunately it’s very common I think because teenagers just want to do their own thing without the maturity of actually being an adult. So you just have to see it through as much as you can and try and steer her in the right direction. My sister ended up doing terribly at school because of all of this but eventually went to uni (as a mature age student) and now has a great job, house etc. some people just go about things the hard way!