What is it with these kids? My daughter is smart, beautiful, creative, talented, and well-loved by her peers ... and she hates herself and has developed self-destructive habits as well.

It's hard being a kid. (or in Mae's case a young adult) Big hugs to you, it's a shitty feeling to see how kids suffering.

2019-03-19 17:33 from IGnatius T Foobar
What is it with these kids? My daughter is smart, beautiful, creative,

talented, and well-loved by her peers ... and she hates herself and has

developed self-destructive habits as well.

I think most kids go through a period of hating themselves.

I didn't though. I just hated everyone else.

Have you made it out of that period yet?

So, I dunno how many of you were around when I first found the BBS scene, but it saved my life. The first time I found myself wishing I was dead was when I was like 4, it was before I started kindergarten. My first attempt at doing something about it was probably about 7 or 8, I chickened out and took the bag off my head. I only recall trying one other time at 15, at which point I was put in therapy and on meds. Vera(the woman who gave birth to me) said that the doctor made me worse. The doctor that told my parents if they didn't send me to boarding school she was either going to put me in foster care or have me emancipated. They put my in boarding school so the neighbors wouldn't know anything was wrong. How could they not know what was wrong? I'm sure you could hear my screams houses away, I know because you could hear our dogs barking all the way down the hill just because of how the sound travelled through the hills. I guess I had always figured my mental health issues were from the abuse, but looking at my kids, I was wrong, and have tremendous guilt that I am likely the reason they're all struggling.

Well I'm glad the BBS scene was there for you (and still is) when you needed it. I trust you didn't frequently get your computer taken away when you were perceived as being problematic. I had mine taken away whenever I failed to perform as the child prodigy of the century I was supposed to be. We take my daughter's phone away when she acts irresponsibly (like today) but it just seems to make her hate herself more. We have a therapist on speed dial and she isn't allowed to close her door. FML.

I had my keyboard taken away, lol. I had a spare. So, when I was dating Corwin, I got a curfew for the first time in my life, it was for 30 minutes before he got off work. We were living in the condo at the time, and Adam, Garageheap, and a few others had come to s ee me after my dad was in bed. One was playing on my computer, and the rest of us were sitting around. My dad got up at past my curfew and farted in the kitchen. I laughed. He heard typing and my voice coming from the other side of the loft from my computer. He told me it was too late to have people over and I needed to go out instead. LOL.

Ig, what are your reasons for taking away her phone? I'll tell you with Marilyn we used to have to take away her books to get her to do chores...

She's a mess right now, but the phone being taken away was in response to some gross negligence on her part. The short version is that she wasn't being responsible in using the expensive removable orthodontics we got for her.

At this point there's just a whole lot of anxiety and depression. She's got a decent therapist and some good people at our church that are helping her, but she's still self-destructive and that scares me.

Thankfully, the only things that have been said are "anxiety" and "depression".
This is good. The first person who says "ADHD" will be stabbed in the face with a car, because there is no such thing and anyone who disagrees with me is hyperwrong.

2019-04-01 17:01 from IGnatius T Foobar
She's a mess right now, but the phone being taken away was in response

to some gross negligence on her part. The short version is that she
wasn't being responsible in using the expensive removable orthodontics

we got for her.

At this point there's just a whole lot of anxiety and depression.
She's got a decent therapist and some good people at our church that
are helping her, but she's still self-destructive and that scares me.

Thankfully, the only things that have been said are "anxiety" and
"depression".
This is good. The first person who says "ADHD" will be stabbed in the

face with a car, because there is no such thing and anyone who
disagrees with me is hyperwrong.

How old again?

She's 14.

I agreed with you up until the ADHD comment. I was diganosed as a teenager and not treated, I had already by that time learned a lot of coping mechanisms. Some days they help, some days they don't. I drink a lot of coffee to compensate. I tried meds, and went off them when I lost too much weight from not eating. When I'm anxious or depressed i'm extra scatter brained, when things are calm I can remember to make lists, break things down, etc. Depression and anxiety meds are usually enough for me, in addition to more skills than I listed above.

100% of the people who walk into an ADHD believer's office are diagnosed with ADHD. I fired our pediatrician (Dr. Corsaro) when he pulled that shit on us. I don't expect everyone to agree with me here but it is a position I hold pretty strongly.

Anyway, our daughter is probably going to end up on meds for depression and/or anxiety, which bothers me a lot because that can be a life sentence, but I don't have any better ideas at this point. I hope she outgrows it. She's smart and pretty and talented and lovable and everyone likes her except herself.

I dunno, my dr believes in ADHD but he doesn't believe in the self assessments of it. I had to take some computerized test that measured responses times and accuracy based on numbers by folks who DONT have ADHD.

For those of you who know me in real life - my oldest daughter got engaged!


I feel old.

Whoa.. Congrats to her.
And you are old.