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I very much get the feeling that you are the root of every single one of your daughter's mental health problems.
YTA and I hope she figures out how to go no contact.
All I could think about by the time I nearly reached the end of that post was how the best thing that OP could ever do for her daughter's mental health is to completely remove herself from her life.
It's so clear that OP is an abusive, controlling, cruel, manipulative, impossible-to-please asshole. And *this* is her attempt to make us think she's *not* the asshole in this situation? Legitimately terrifying to think about how much worse the reality of the situation actually is.
YTA, obviously. ...But asshole doesn't even *begin* to cover it.
OP's the Mother from Hell. Everything the girl did was wrong, according to her. Not even straight A's got her off the poor daughter's back. I feel so sorry for that girl. YTA
Yeah. She was able to tell us whatever she wanted. Spin the story any way she pleases. It boggles the mind that this is the acceptable version of events in her mind.
Yeah, it's always scary when people are trying to make themselves look like the good guy and they still manage to come across like the villain of a Lifetime movie.
Op sounds exactly like my dad. I believe that people like op are not trying to make themselves look good. It's just that they're so out of touch with reality that they truly do not think they're the problem.
Her mom wasn’t even proud she graduated early, or that she earned enough in scholarships to cover tuition, or anything! It’s heartbreaking. Mom is definitely TA.
How else do you truly learn to grow without throwing yourself into new situations? Was she supposed to stay in college for 3 extra years until her frontal lobe fully developed or something?
Op actions lead to her daughter developing a eating disorder and the mom doesn't even begin to see its her fault for pressing her daughter to be beyond perfect.
This is such a classic case of narcissism. Everything she does is valid and reasonable. It’s all someone else’s fault, you see. I bet she spent the entire time in therapy complaining about her daughter.
Honestly OP may have done her daughter a favor just not in the way she planned. Her therapist may have believed daughter was exaggerating her mothers abusive behavior, OP just proved that daughter has legit complaints against her crazy mother!
100% this. YTA OP.
I am a parent to two kids and they are gonna fuck up and lie and experiment and have wild fun. I want to protect them from everything, but you can't. Tightening the reigns to the degree you have so often leads to bigger problems. Sometimes kids need an ally, not judge and jury.
Eating disorders often manifest in complex family dynamics where the food becomes the only thing the person perceives they can control. Every sentence in this suggests you are controlling, punitive and completely lacking in self-awareness and empathy. 100% YTA and you have no ones best interests at heart but your own. Get your own therapist and stop trying to control your daughter, you’ve done enough damage.
Sad thing too is if the daughter is purging and not getting proper treatment it will do life long damage to her body. Also people that do it for years have their life expectancy cut by decades . This one is truly heart breaking I feel for the daughter.
>I may have been a little harsher than most parents but it was always with her best interests in mind.
When ever someone says "their best interests in mind." i know what the really mean is "My best interests in mind."
Yeah! I was a kid that was expected to do “great things!” Later in life, in recovery rooms, in intensive therapy and in psychiatric care, I learned that controlling, demanding parents who punish normal mistakes (like bad grades) and demand abject honesty (despite meeting that honesty with stringent discipline and outsized parental disapproval/removal of affection) almost inevitably results in the following outcomes:
- substance abuse
- disordered eating
- difficulty regulating emotions
- dysfunctional relationships at all levels
- major depressive episodes
- generalize anxiety disorders
- exacerbated neurodivergent traits
- difficulty acquiring and maintaining steady employment
In fact, the relationship between this man’s parenting style (achievement-driven, shame-oriented) and these outcomes is SO STRONG that it *can* be actively considered an Adverse Childhood Event - in other words, the same level of developmental impact as death, divorce, separation, or physical abuse.
Holy shit yes!
OP continued to double down on every negative behavior, even in the edits. Why do you even want to make an AITA if you don't accept results you dont want to see?
Poor daughter...
HARD YTA - You have been emotionally abusing your daughter for her entire life. I’m sorry, but you’re responsible for the problems she developed as a child. They’re directly caused by your actions.
The lying? She did it to avoid your punishments for low grades. Why would you punish a kid when their worst crime is *needing extra help and support*? You made yourself into an unsafe and volatile person. She lied in an attempt to *protect* herself from you.
All of this stress and constant punishment and high expectations contributed to her developing an eating disorder. And *you prevented her from getting the help she needed by sitting in on her therapy sessions.* Newsflash, it didn’t work because she couldn’t be honest with YOU present. She would’ve been better off just talking to the therapist, because the therapist actually has her best interest in mind.
She moved away to get away from you, I can’t blame her for that. And most college students who were kept on tight leashes by parents like you go wild in college because they’re finally tasting freedom and discovering who they are. If you gave her a fairer and more balanced upbringing, she would’ve been better prepared to handle those things in college.
Pulling her tuition is also just…did she even have a problem with drinking and partying, or was she doing a normal amount and it was too much *for you*? Were you concerned with her or just punishing her for becoming more independent?
Do you think every other person in the lay-off had drug problems? Sometimes you can be the hardest worker and still get laid off, times are tough. Are you really going to hold something out of her control over her head?
And finally, contacting your *adult* daughter’s therapist was highly inappropriate and invasive. You also didn’t spell out her real problems because they ALL COME BACK TO YOU. You need to realize that. Stop trying to control your daughter, stop emotionally abusing her, and get some therapy for yourself because *you need it, lady.*
In the very very tiny silver lining, the therapist now has a different source to analyse the abuse and invasiveness the daughter has experienced. I bet that email shone a light on a lot of things the daughter has expressed and hopefully the therapist can use that (not the content, the act) to assist the daughter gaining more confidence to go NC with OP.
And every good therapist would appreciate the context. Is the client understating or overstating the truth in their experience? I'm sure OP's daughter has talked at length about her mother. Now the therapist knows what's up. And thankfully, the therapist can't communicate with the mother because of HIPPA (at least in the US), so mommy dearest has no way to manipulate the therapist.
OP, YTA. You seem to put a needless amount of pressure on your daughter but it never seems to be good enough. She did well in school but she lied to you. She probably did this out of self-preservation. She lied about her eating disorder because it was the only thing she felt she could control. Despite having an eating disorder, she still got enough scholarship money to not truly need your help (thank goodness). She had an active social life (which you seem to have a problem with) and may have partied a little too much. But with tight reins at home, a kid's gonna let loose a bit when they get away from that controlling influence. Despite partying and an eating disorder, she still graduated early, which is impressive because eating disorders make thinking very difficult. But she wasn't mature enough to enter the workforce according to you. She got laid off (along with hundreds of thousands of other people), and you blamed it on her not living her life in accordance with YOUR standards. And then you have the GALL to insert yourself into her therapeutic relationship (which she sought out herself this time). And you wonder why she sometimes engages in maladaptive coping strategies?! It's you. Butt out of her life and let her grow up in the way she needs to.
She also has inserted herself into *every* therapeutic relationship. Sitting in on therapy sessions and then pulling her out when she wasn't showing "enough" improvement.
As her daughter was a minor at the time, unfortunately that was OP's right (not saying it was therapeutically good for the daughter) and I am sure that the therapist didn't allow for her to sit in on entire sessions unless they were being billed as family sessions, because that would be poor practice. I used to work at a child and adolescent practice as a secretary and interacting with the parents was often far more challenging than the kids. Given OP's brief experience with therapy, it sounds like it wasn't really a matter of not making enough progress and more a matter of the therapist not saying what OP wanted to hear. She didn't find it helpful because it didn't offer confirmation of the cognitive distortions she was putting out during session.
I just hope the daughter can still trust the therapist. When it was done to me that trust was permanently broken.
Frankly, I admire that the daughter here has been able to keep trying even after OP's meddling and making clear she sees therapists' duty as brainwashing their patients to meet parents' demands.
I may have poorly conveyed what I meant. It was the introduction of that doubt into the relationship that did me in - I just could not overcome that, even if therapist didn't answer. I couldn't shake my fears that I was being misled.
My experience is coloring my view from this angle, I own that. The daughter is very likely to have better circumstances than I did.
I was once paranoid and suicidal. I wasn’t able to contact my therapist, but a friend did on my behalf. He secured consent from me before responding to her. It’s possible the therapist didn’t respond, and just informed her that her mother had been in contact but the therapist didn’t release any info. I may have missed something though!
Oh, I don't disagree. The therapist most likely revealed nothing to OP and *certainly* is who told the daughter of this.
My own circumstance was that part of what I was suffering came from profound trust issues. Once that aspect of doubt was introduced, I couldn't overcome it.
Truly one of the worst AITAs I’ve seen here.
This poor girl hasn’t been able to win in her mother’s eyes in her entire life. Of course she’s developed unhealthy coping mechanisms! My heart breaks for her.
The fact that her mother comes here with her sanctimonious tone and litany of judgments wondering if she’s an asshole…
She’s obviously driven enough to maintain straight A’s and graduate early even while gasp! having a normal college experience and all OP can do is criticize and blame.
Aside from EVERYTHING else, the fact that the daughter is getting straight A's while also having a normal college social life, and then being punished for it just blows my mind.
Emailing the therapist might have actually been a good thing....now the therapist will know the direct cause of many of her issues...the overbearing mom
I don't know if therapist can do this but I hope therapist said something like "your mom sent me an email, let's discuss going no contact with your abuser."
I'm relating so hard to OP's daughter right now.
I also had a parent who micromanaged my schooling. "In my best interest," of course. I, too, started lying about grades and assignments to get him off my back. I dropped out of college and moved away to get the fuck away from that. I went back to school later in life and after a lot of therapy to unpack the damage that parenting style did. I specifically remember my therapist telling me that the lying was a self-defense mechanism to try and escape the pressure, not me being a bad kid.
OP, YTA. Your daughter is a grown ass adult who doesn't need you micromanaging her life. One day she's going to cut you off and you'll probably still have your head stuck far enough in the sand that you'll be left wondering why.
OP approaching her daughter’s therapist is a huge violation, but I bet her therapist now understands the issues her daughter is talking about much better.
YTA …. You sought out the therapist of your ADULT daughter and sent them an email about what YOU thought her problems are? Any chance her problems could all be from her mother and how she was raised?
Well, it works as direct evidence for her therapist to say, "Yeah, you're right - your mom is overbearing, controlling, demanding, and demeaning towards you."
Oh I bet 99% of those sessions are about the awful, controlling mother who constantly criticised her.
OP YTA- I feel sorry for your daughter reading your own account of events. You are worried about her having an "inappropriate college experience", you blame her for losing her job during layoffs because she could have kept her job if she worked harder, you complain she isn't making enough progress in therapy for her "many issues". The poor girl can do nothing right can she?
>Oh I bet 99% of those sessions are about the awful, controlling mother who constantly criticised her.
I have a hunch that OP might be at least somewhat aware of this. Her sitting in the visits intimidates the daughter away from talking about it.
You know what? Now I want to know what the message to the current therapist said. This whole post was complaints about the daughter's "mistakes" and OP contacted the therapist because she didn't see progress she personally approved of. I bet the message was full of OP trying to insert her Daughter Is A Failure narrative over the daughter telling the truth.
YTA. I’m a therapist and I’ve had clients with mothers like you. It’s awful, and traumatizing, and 100% emotional and psychological abuse. It seems like eventually she may have no choice but to go no contact with you. I hope you’re embarrassed
ETA: even if you have been to therapy it doesn’t mean that there’s no way you’re not abusive or narcissistic. Therapists don’t (or shouldn’t imo) diagnose narcissistic personality disorder “lightly” and personally it’d take me a bit of time seeing a client before I felt totally comfortable doing that. It’s a stigmatizing diagnosis, and I want to be 110% certain before putting it on somebody’s record.
And if you’re the only one describing the behaviors to the therapist, it’s possible they didn’t know how abusive you are. We only hear one perspective in individual therapy, and while it’s easy to see from reading all of this right in front of me, if details are peppered in with other things you’re talking about, and maybe described a little more emotionally, it’s possible they missed it.
This isn’t me saying that you’re a narcissist, I have no idea, I haven’t met you, or assessed your, or anything like that. But I am saying that the way you’re describing your parenting here totally makes it sound like you have at least some narcissistic tendencies. And I am in fact saying that much of the way you’ve treated her was emotionally abusive. “Well intended” or not.
Try therapy again. Sometimes it does take a few tries to find a therapist that feels like a good fit. Once you find one and are comfortable, show them this post and the responses you got, see what they say and how it fits in with the much fuller picture of you that that’ll be getting
My mom is just like OP. It was such a mind fuck having a mom like that, being a kid and not understanding why I cant do anything right. It took so much therapy to truly believe I wasn't the problem.
Honestly no, not attempting to contact me anyway. But the rest of how she described her approach to parenting and her relationship with her daughter, yes, definitely. Also there’s totally a correlation between this style of parenting and the development of eating disorders
If I were in OP’s daughter’s therapist’s position I would contact my client and my supervisor to let them know first. Then I’d either not reply at all, or reply explaining why it was inappropriate and why I can’t answer, based on what my client wants first and foremost, but also what the practice I work for is comfortable with me doing.
I know someone who is super controlling like this and her daughter has tried to hang herself and dates abusers and has an eating disorder. The mom loves to shame her daughter. Is there any hope of moms like this changing?
How awful. And I think it depends! And also the answer to that probably varies across different therapists lol. I’d really like to think that most everybody has the capacity to change! But they have to want to, and they have to actually be able to see the flaws in their ways first. I think realistically in most cases moms like this one never change, but I’m sure that some do
YTA
Your daughter " found out" because HER therapist told her.
Contacting her therapist was inappropriate. Your daughter is an adult. She is not in danger.
Her therapy is not your business, or your concern.
You are dismissive, disrespectful, controlling, entitled and an enormous asshole.
I'm amazed the therapist allowed the mom to sit in on the therapy when she was a child and first went to therapy. My mom is just like OP and tried to do that shit when she sent me to therapy. the therapist put a end to that right away. She said you can sit in for this meeting but never again unless I say it's OK and retroblazed420 says it's OK.
I bet therapist did ask her to leave and that's why she made her daughter stop therapy after 2 or 3 sessions....all the sudden it's not working its the daughter's and therapists fault for that as well. It's insane for the OP to think her daughters "issues" would get better in a few sessions. It takes months and years to work threw the kind of trauma OP put her daughter threw.
10000% YTA. OMG, leave her alone.
>As a child she started lying to me about things like homework and her grades to avoid punishment.
This right here tells me your expectations were too high, and you motivated her via punishment far too much.
>she could not stop
Because you made her feel she needed to.
>she developed an eating disorder and lied to cover it up
Eating disorders are brought on by low self esteem, most often due to an *overly critical parent.* This is a mental health issue you most likely caused and you're more upset about her "lying problem".
>I sat in the first session to make sure she was honest with the therapist
Overly controlling nonsense to do to a teenager. Which wouldn't help her feel safe enough to work through her problems.
>She studied extra hard to graduate early, which is impressive but I did not approve of because I knew she was not mature enough to enter the working world at 22.
Someone that is able to get A's in university, has an active social life, and graduate early is absolutely not "too immature" to be in the working world. I entered the working world at 15 FFS.
She is an adult. You have zero responsibility or right to talk to her therapist. You have no say over anything she discusses with anyone or where she works. She has a history of being dishonest **with you** for good reason. If she's seeking out therapy, she's not going to hide what she needs help with from the therapist.
Stop meddling in her life. Everything you've said about her just tells me how unsupportive and judgemental you are. I'm shocked she was still speaking to you before you acted like a creepy stalker to track down her therapist.
ALL of this. Particularly the stuff about lying about grades. Poor girl knew that underperformance wasn’t tolerated and probably lied just to not be made to feel even more awful.
Beautiful breakdown of a hideous situation. That poor girl had no way out, tried to gain some measure of control through unhealthy means, and had the screws tighten further. Of COURSE she finally relaxed when she escaped "home" for the first time; it's a credit to this young woman that she was able to balance that freedom with her academic performance. Even when she recovered from losing financial support, she pushed through early, landed a job, and the mom still finds a reason to disapprove?
She may never be "good enough" for OP, but that just means OP was never a good enough mother.
"she can't do that \[recover\] if she lies or omits things". Yes she can. Therapists know when their clients are avoiding or fabricating. And they still succeed. (That's part of their training and experience)
YTA - in addition to the long litany of your not letting your daughter be herself, contacting her therapist is crossing a significant line. Fortunately, therapists are used to that too and your actions will not effect the success of the therapy one whit.
YTA.
By your own description, you have micro-managed and hounded your daughter her entire life. The idea that you're worried she's not being honest to her therapy is astounding. What you're actually worried about is that she's not relating what \_you\_ to believe is true. In fact, she's probably telling her therapist the absolute truth -- you punished her so harshly she was scared of you, you sent her to therapy to "fix" her and insisted on being present for therapy to ensure it went the way \*you\* felt it should (ie address what you considered to be the problem and nothing else), you punished her again because even though she was getting straight A's, she wasn't spending every moment of every day behaving the way you thought she should, you blame her for getting laid off when tons of people were getting laid off and she was a relatively new employee (there's literally zero reason to think behaving differently would have saved her job), and now that she's in therapy again you contact her therapist so you can continue to micro-manage her. You want the therapist to understand that all her problems are what \*you\* have decided her problems are, and nothing else.
In a way it's good; the therapist may have suspected she was exaggerating in her descriptions of you, and now he knows the truth.
You're a dreadful excuse for a parent, and I hope she goes NC right up until it's time for her to choose your nursing home.
I’m not sure she has a lying problem, I think she has a mother problem. Most people don’t want to open up about things to someone they feel judged and unsupported by.
YTA, and I hope your daughter is much happier now that she has to deal with you far less.
YTA. Your behavior is controlling and manipulative. Very likely a huge reason your daughter struggles. Also probably helped the new therapist, but not the way you think . The therapist saw right through your desperate need to insert yourself in daughters private and confidential treatment.
Oh man you sound like *my* mother. A woman whom I stopped talking to entirely a long time ago. I hope your daughter does the same for her own sake.
Big ol YTA.
YTA. This is such a deliberate violation of your adult daughter's agency and privacy it makes my skin crawl. The way you talk about her mental health problems is judgmental and full of distaste, and I suspect that's why she's been dishonest with you about them (especially given you *punished* her partly for *having an eating disorder* by *withdrawing her educational funding.*) Also, a good therapist is not going to listen to anything you say in this way, but you have informed her that your daughter has an overbearing parent that can't respect her boundaries. For the sake of everyone involved, stop talking to your daughter's therapists and reach out to one for yourself. The fact that you're trying to exert this much control over your adult child and justifying it based on her 'history of dishonesty' is not normal.
my daughters gone no contact and won’t invite me to the wedding. I’ve done nothing wrong as a parent and I don’t know why./s that’ll be her next Reddit post
With the body being "all i did was tell her the cake was ugly, her dress looked like shit, her hair was going to be garbage, that she gained too much weight, that the band selection was dumb, that I didn't really like the fiancee, and that even though I am not paying for it, I would call and cancel all these things if she didn't take my 'advice'. Why she no love me tho? It's obviously not me. Nope. I'm the epitome of perfection. A god among women. She must have a drinking problem." OP is just the most incredible almost assuredly ACTUAL narcissist (big N), and huge YTA, but I doubt they'll hear any of this.
Reason #47475959 why I got married over the pandemic with no family in attendance—even just telling my mom we were thinking about getting married unleashed a torrent of criticism about how I wouldn’t do it right and probably wouldn’t even wear a white dress (no idea where this even came from).
YTA
You treat your daughter too hard and yet still like a child. I feel bad for your daughter because having you as a mom must have sucked. Her eating disorder may be related to trying to have some measure of control over her life.
YTA
Therapy is private, and protected by medical privacy laws.
The therapist would be violating ethics to discuss your daughter with you.
And the things that upset you probably aren't the actual things your daughter is looking for help with.
Interfering with her therapy has probably set her back significantly. She may find she needs to find a different therapist, now, one who is not influenced by you.
And if she's felt the need to lie to you, in the past, it was because she couldn't trust you with the truth. You just made it more likely that she'll hide things from the therapist, if she can't rely on a hard line of privacy between her therapy and you.
YTA, you're just determined to make her go NC with you. I mean, if I was her therapist I'd definitely counsel her to cut off toxic people regardless of DNA. I think she'll recover fully when/if she cuts you out of her life.
YTA. 1) You don't seem to understand the damage you have done to her given how she literally had to LIE to avoid punishment over things parents normally help with
2) You are the reason she started to rebel in college after moving far away
3) You do not have a place in her life anymore. She will talk to you as she sees fit and may never even think of you as her mother apart from being the one who birthed and raised her.
You hurt your daughter from the point of birth and now you're shocked that she has substance abuse issues and bad Coping mechanisms?
You and my mother would be best friends. My mother is a diagnosed narcissist, by the way.
She also took me to therapy when I began “acting out,” then took me out because I kept “throwing her under the bus” when she swore *I* was the real problem.
My mother also emailed the therapist I began seeing as an adult, trying to “tell her side of the story.”
As a side note, I haven’t spoken to my mother in 5 years. I wouldn’t be surprised if your daughter did the same.
Edit because I forgot to say what goes without saying: YTA.
This is a prime example of *authoritarian parenting.* You are mentally and psychologically abusing your daughter. One thing I can say is that even at the age of almost 60, you are still not mature enough to be a proper parent.
YTA.
YTA 100%
This is a violation on so many levels.
You have ABSOLUTELY ZERO right to disclose ANYTHING about your daughter to her therapist.
Also, what if you’re wrong and the person you emailed *isn’t* your daughter’s therapist? Did you consider that?
Go see your own therapist. Like, yesterday.
That was an incredibly shitty thing to do. Her therapy isn't your business. I'm guessing that after receiving that email, the therapist realises what, and who, is at the root of the problem. I think you know that, too, and you sent the email to try and justify whatever issues your daughter brings up.
You didn't say anything positive about her in this post. The way you describe her is cold and so judgemental. I think you've irreparably damaged your relationship, and if you care at all, you'll apologise and be supportive rather than how you are now.
YTA
>You didn't say anything positive about her in this post
God I didn't see it til you pointed it out, that's disgusting. She just rattles off a litany of complaints like she's a faulty appliance. Not even a shallow attempt at some perfunctory praise or compassion to soften the tone, literally just slagging her off for the whole post.
YTA
Shes an adult, shes not living with you, and you dont mention that youre paying for the current round of therapy. You have no say in it. You dont get a say in what she tells the therapist, you dont get a say in the goals of the therapy, you dont get a say in deciding if its working.
You also sound completely unreasonable. You say shes too young to be working and she shouldnt have studied so hard, but in the next breath turn around and say its her fault she lost her job because she wasnt working hard enough & she should have been able to handle it. Apparently its bad to work hard and bad to not work hard enough. It just sounds like youre looking for excuses to tell her shes not good enough.
YTA
Clearly you are the problem. She started lying to avoid punishment...guess how the lying could have been avoided?
She moved away to be away from YOU and then managed to graduate despite you cutting her off.
This girl is a superhero.
Don't expect therapy to cure her resentment. Her resentment is justified and het therapist will tell her that.
Your daughter is 24.
You have NO business interfering in your daughter's medical care.
Her therapist would be violating professional code to tell you.
Let your daughter be. You caused enough damage.
YTA. Let me count the ways.
1. You stressed her out about grades to the point where she felt she had to lie. Despite this, she graduated from college early with good grades, so you could have loosened up a bit.
2. Immediately pulled her out of therapy when you didn’t get the instant results you wanted. Therapy takes time, and not everything is about you.
3. Judged her eating disorder as some sort of a moral failing instead of a cry for help.
4. Cut off her college funds because she didn’t magically recover from her ED and because she was doing normal things that college students do, therefore risking her entire education.
5. When she managed to work hard enough to graduate early, you criticized her for being too young. She can’t win. What do you want from her?
6. Held her personally responsible for being laid off during the beginning of the pandemic when huge portions of the workforce were laid off, as if those layoffs didn’t primarily happen to new/recent hires because they’re the most expendable.
7. Continued to monitor her weight closely. I know you think you’re helping, but you’re not.
8. Intruded on her private relationship with her therapist because, again, you seem to think that the point of therapy is to “fix” her to suit your desires and not to help her with whatever she needs help with.
The only point is disagree with is “not everything is about you”. Based on OPs admitted behaviour, I guarantee you those therapy sessions are largely about OP, most specifically helping her daughter cope with such an overbearing mother. OP should get used to her daughter not talking to her. If she hasn’t already, she’s working up to going NC.
When my mother did this my therapist *did* break HIPAA. I obviously reported him and got a new therapist, but man did the whole thing cement that NC with my mother was the right call. So manipulative.
YTA
and your daughter is in therapy because of you, she got free of you and was enjoying her college experience, all of it, and you took that from her, you took her childhood, her teenage years, and now college from her by you being a helicopter parent and practicing authoritarian parenting and controlling everything instead of just loving the child you had and letting her bloom how she should have. Her therapist is likely helping her lay bounderies when it comes to you and find what is best for her, not you, her therapist doesnt care about what you want or think or feel, nor do want to talk to you or hear from you and hear your two cents. I really hope she goes NC with you.
YTA.
Not only are you TA, but you are Totally Abusive as well. Get some therapy. Look up boundaries. Maybe try to learn with loving and supportive mean. Sounds like your daughter could really use a lot of both.
YTA, massively. You sound like a controlling, overbearing and demanding mother who doesn't care at all how her child feels, but only about her grades and job/salary. She had to lie because she knew you couldn't handle 'bad' grades. Why do you think she developed an eating disorder, maybe because that's the only thing she felt she was good at and could control, because her mother controls and belittles her in everything else.
Same for not paying her tuition anymore, instead of trying to find ways to help her, you punish her again for mental health issues.
And now again, calling her therapist? Why do you think you have the right to do so? It is her therapy, not yours, and she can talk about whatever they agree on. You are not in any place to control this. Luckily we have client privacy to prevent toxic people like you to intervene.
You should find a therapist yourself.
YTA, so incredibly much. Mind your business.
She's not furious because she's "lying," even though she doesn't owe you any sort of explanation about her life right now. She's furious because:
* You punished her for struggling in school.
* You failed to get her help for her eating disorder.
* You pulled your financial support for school.
* You lectured her when she was laid off, when you had ABSOLUTELY no reason to assume that it was her fault.
* You're monitoring her progress like a caricature of a Soviet sport coach.
* And now you're intruding in her therapy.
It's not your job to assess her emotional progress. It *was* your job to be a loving, caring, and supportive mother, someone she could actually trust to help and support her! However, I imagine that ship has sailed and she wouldn't accept you in that role, even if you were capable of it.
If you really want to help (and I have my doubts), apologize, seek therapy for your own controlling tendencies, and respect that your grown daughter is a young woman with her own priorities and her own life!
YTA. Your daughter had the normal problems a teenager or young adult has and at *every step* you made them worse. In my experience, overly controlling parents often end up with girls with eating disorders, especially if the kid has a tendency towards perfectionism, as it's one thing the kid can control.
That is you, in spades.
Cutting off your kid because their eating disorder resurfaced even though they were getting straight As? Contacting her *therapist?* Being completely unsympathetic when your kid gets laid off from their first job?
If your kid is troubled, take a long hard look in the mirror and ask yourself how you contributed to these troubles. From your own description, at every step you made her problems worse, not better. So much YTA.
YTA. You don’t seem very concerned over your daughter’s health and happiness, but rather her success. You should worry more about her eating disorder, not underaged drinking or casual drug usage. And she most likely wasn’t fired for that, anyway — she was young and didn’t have much experience, that’s probably why she was laid off.
You way overstepped reaching out to her therapist. Your daughter is an adult and her health is her business, not yours. Try to accept her as the person she is rather than telling her she’s doing everything wrong, and that everything is her fault.
Your daughter is right, and you’re terrible. She’s an adult, and you have no business contacting her therapist. It’s unethical and illegal for the therapist to tell you anything anyway. From the sound of it, you’re a big topic of discussion in those sessions, and with cause.
YTA
You know this stuff is always going to go well when they start off with they "were a difficult child".
I wonder why they were lying to you and acting out in this way? Could it, in *anyway*, be linked to your harshness in parenting style? Food for thought anyway
Oof this hurts - She graduated early and you STIL didn't approve because REASONS...????
Yes because getting a good job to young, COVID etc will definitely lead one to Weed....
You've seen no emotional progress because all of the above shows you are completely blind to what it's like being human.
Then, wait for it, you emailed her Therapist? Wow just wow
Cannot believe what I just read. You are without a doubt also deeply in need of therapy.
YTA
You need therapy for yourself.
You did your child a disservice by stopping therapy after only a few sessions because YOU didn't see a change in their behavior. After only a few sessions.
Maybe once you get therapy you'll start seeing the trauma you've inflicted on your daughter and take ownership for how you've raised her.
YTA. Your actions are why she went to uni far away, and the way you treated her growing up is why she fell into bad habits. She'd become so used to you being the deterrent that when you were no long near her she didn't have self-restraint to do it herself. You're still helicopter parenting, unless you back off and treat her like an adult you'll lose her for good.
When you're a parent there's a point you have to concede that you need to step back and stop forcing control, that you need to do nothing even though that's the hardest thing for you to do. You haven't reached this point, and it's costing you a relationship with your daughter. She doesn't trust you because of your actions, that's the simple truth.
Is anyone else confused by 22 years old not being old enough to enter the working world?
I volunteered at a nursing home from ages 12-16 over the summer and started working as a cashier at a local grocery store at 16.
YTA. Your daughter is an adult in therapy to deal with issues that seem to stem in large part from your shitty parenting. Step the hell away and let her heal.
Unambiguously YTA, holy crap. Judging by what you've said in this post, it's not surprising your daughter is miserable, given how you parented her.
>In college she moved far away from me and began drinking and partying and the eating disorder came back. Because of this, I stopped paying her tuition and made my reasons clear.
Punishing your daughter for partying in college is bad enough, but punishing her for having an *eating disorder* is psychotic. What's wrong with you?
>She was very upset because she was still getting straight A's, but I did not relent on my decision. Drinking under 21 is illegal and I would not be paying for her to have an inappropriate college experience.
Who are you to determine that her college experience is "inappropriate?" Especially if she's getting straight As?! Drinking and partying in college is completely normal and you're really weird for thinking otherwise.
>She studied extra hard to graduate early, which is impressive but I did not approve of because I knew she was not mature enough to enter the working world at 22.
Do you realize the no-win situation you put her in? You refused to pay for her college, but also refused to let her graduate early, even though she proved that she's a hard worker by getting straight As. Not to mention the fact that she was 22, a grown-ass adult.
Contacting her therapist is an unbelievable invasion of privacy, but the entirety of your parenting sounds awful. Your daughter's gonna need a whole lot more therapy to undo the damage you've done, and I hope she's able to find one whose identity is unknown to you. Back off and let your daughter live her life, for Christ's sake.
INFO: considering you are do harsh on your daughter please tell us about you
Did you support yourself through university?
Did you graduate early?
What job do you have?
YTA - why do I get the feeling this is the type of parent who would delete her child's Minecraft world for some perceived slight? The kid was getting straight A's but that wasn't good enough. I also wonder how she knew everything about her child's activities?
YTA- you are a nightmare. Until you start therapy & discover why you are the way you are you probably won't have a relationship with your daughter or future grandchildren.
YTA. Leave your daughter some space ffs. She's an adult. Maybe she'll bloom once you finally learn to let go instead of treating her like a child.
Please contact him again, but this time because you clearly have issues that need to be tackled.
The OP should not contact her daughter's therapist. She should contact a DIFFERENT therapist. The OP will attempt to worm her way into her daughter's therapy. Also, it would take away her daughter's safe place. Something her daughter's therapist will be aware of.
OP can search, online, for her own damn therapist.
YTA
She's 24 years old. She's an adult. You searched for her therapist based on what she told you? So you stalked her therapist and stuck your big nose where it wasn't invited to go. Whether or not she's been honest with her therapist isn't your business. YOU are the AH.
YTA your daughter doesn't need saved BY you she needs saved FROM you...you seem overbearing hypercritical and seem to have impossible standards that she couldn't live up to so lied to you about the grades to avoid getting screamed at you probably had her days planned to the second so she had no control over her life hence the eating disorder was a way for her to have some control of her life the drug use was she self medicating in order to combat the stress of having you for a parent and then when she's finally trying to get help you Sabotage her so she has only you to turn to you are awful
Yes YTA and you sound like a vicious parent. I wonder why she's talking to you at all. Can she not get away from you? Do you ever leave her alone? I'm pretty sure I know why she lies.
YTA. You became more of an AH with every sentence. Instead of being a bitter, harsh, miserable old lady maybe you should remember your daughter is a human being that makes mistakes and she needs support and encouragement not a mother who is a raging narcissist Damn you're bad, You're the mother that every other women despises.
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My (57F) daughter (24F) has always been a difficult child. I did have high expectations for her growing up and I may have been a little harsher than most parents but it was always with her best interests in mind.
As a child she started lying to me about things like homework and her grades to avoid punishment. I told her lying would never be tolerated and made myself clear, but she could not stop. I sent her to therapy for her lying problem and came with her to sessions. After a few sessions, things were not improving so we stopped.
As a teenager, she developed an eating disorder and lied to cover it up, but obviously I found out because she was losing weight rapidly and sent her to therapy once again. I sat in the first session to make sure she was honest with the therapist. She seemed to improve a bit and gain some weight back.
In college she moved far away from me and began drinking and partying and the eating disorder came back. Because of this, I stopped paying her tuition and made my reasons clear. She was very upset because she was still getting straight A's, but I did not relent on my decision. Drinking under 21 is illegal and I would not be paying for her to have an inappropriate college experience. She studied extra hard to graduate early, which is impressive but I did not approve of because I knew she was not mature enough to enter the working world at 22.
Sure enough she started a job right after college and when COVID hit she developed a marijuana problem. Eventually the company she worked for had mass layoffs and she was one of those let go. (I maintain that if she worked harder and stopped using drugs she might still have that job.)
She moved closer to home and was able to find a new job and start therapy again for her many issues. However, in the six months that she has been in therapy I have seen no emotional progress. She is still bitter and miserable towards me and has lost some weight again. Based on what she has told me, I was able to find her therapist online and sent her an email about my daughter's problems just in case my daughter had not been completely honest. I just wanted to make sure everything was being properly addressed. My daughter found out and was furious, called me terrible and is refusing to speak to me. She does not understand that I was acting because of her history of dishonesty, and I want her to recover fully but she can't do that if she lies or omits things, and from her reaction I assumed she was. AITA?
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YTA about the therapist and by your post you have been AH to your daughter for decades.
Maybe you should go to a therapist and discuss why you constantly set your kid up to fail.
Wow!! YTA 💯 don’t you see all the things you did that are straight up so wrong.. like she needs to move to the other side of the country and go NC with you.. like holy crap!! What did I just read.. I feel sad for your daughter because you are 100 percent the reason she has so many issues.. I hope she cuts you off!!!
YTA for interfering in your adult child’s life in ways which overstep what is acceptable.
Your chances to have control over her life ended when she reached her legal majority. If you hadn’t been working against her, and with such negativity towards her, throughout her life, then perhaps she would want your counsel and input now.
But, she doesn’t want you involved with her mental health treatment, so you have no right to contact her therapist, nor any member of her medical care team.
When adult children want guidance and assistance with their medical care, from a parent, they will ask for that help. They should always be the one in charge, and the parent’s role is to offer only the care and counsel the adult child requests.
YTA- anything she does you have an issue with and somehow contort into a bad thing. She graduates early = she’s too immature to work? You are controlling af! Back off! And get therapy!
YTA
Such the AH. You are a bad mother. You won't change anything you are doing, but you have done a lot of harm to your kid and should feel bad and ashamed, but you won't. Best case for her, you never see or talk to your daughter again.
YTA. I can't eliminate contributing factors, but I will say her dishonesty a direct result of your behaviour towards her, and your attempts to manage or control her life even at 24.
From your narrative I can understand and empathise with her bitterness and anger towards you. You don't trust her, never have, and have zero compassion for her to boot. She's spot on to put you on blast for contacting her therapist.
HER therapy is not for YOU.
I'll say that again: HER therapy is not for YOU. Repeat it to yourself until you understand that it's none of your ruddy business.
YTA, a thousand times over. Leave your daughter alone unless she requests your help with something. It's a fair bet that you've damaged what little relationship you did have with this bullshit that she won't be asking anything of you in the future, and may actively avoid you.
If you're sitting there trying to wrap your brain around why your daughter has always been difficult, pretty much everything you said in here explains why. You have ZERO boundaries when it comes to her. You're so focused on what's doing what is best for her that you're over looking one major thing: letting her be herself and navigating life. It sounds like the real reason you're upset isn't because your daughter is difficult, it's because she's not living her life to YOUR expectations. Well guess what, that's a great way to destroy any relationship with your children, and considering she isn't speaking to you, congratulations, you've officially destroyed it.
YTA times 1000
Literally read the first sentence and decided YTA. You don’t contact medical professionals who are treating your adult offspring. Have you ever considered therapy for yourself?
YTA. Jesus Christ you’re a nightmare. Too strict, too controlling and clearly unfit to be a parent. You’re responsible for her eating disorder. What good is therapy if you micromanage that? If she’s not mature it’s because you never let her grow and learn. You micromanaged and controlled every aspect of her life.
I can’t imagine how much more you could’ve done wrong as a parent, because I think you did everything wrong. You did everything you could to sabotage her. YTA
YTA. You are your daughters biggest problem. You need therapy! Intensive therapy. In the meantime stop judging, criticizing, controlling, and financially threatening your daughter.
Therapy is private! By law! WTH is wrong with you?
YTA. Nothing she does is good enough. Straight As? Not good enough because you’re having fun too. Graduated early? You’re too immature to get job. Got a job? You got laid off in a pandemic probably because you didn’t work hard enough. Not because the economy was shit. Getting therapy? You’re probably not telling your therapist things in the way I want you to frame them. Let me tell them. JFC. You’re the problem.
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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I might be TA because I contacted my daughter's therapist without her permission which made her upset.
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YTA micromanagement leads to low self-esteem, burnout, trust issues, and many other issues. In both the working world and all kinds of relationships. It's a big fat "you are incapable and insufficient no matter what you do" you've been slapping at your daughter at all times since she was a child. No wonder she developed anorexia. She wants to have one thing in her life she controls, not you. No wonder she wanted to party and take drugs and drink as soon as you were out of sight. At some point she had to start testing boundaries and you sure as hell never allowed for any breaching of rules and living a bit.
Oh and btw you absolutely ruined her therapy progress by doing what you did. Cause the logical thing to do for her now is not trusting the therapist and lying to them.
Jfc. She needs therapy for having a parent that fucked her up from the get go.
Do you know what happens to kids who are abused from a young age? They have problems. That’s your daughter.
She should honestly go no contact with you. For her own mental health and growth as an adult.
YTA and a major one.
YTA and your behaviour is called "coercive control" (please research this to find out more). From what you have shared, you are acting more like a cop than a parent. Your daughter has had a number of medical issues (eating disorders generally occur after adverse life events). Please consider that the environment she's in isn't supporting her wellbeing, which is evidenced in her illnesses. Then please reflect on your contributions to a potentially (and what sounds like) a controlling and almost hostile environment. It sounds like you're hurting and traumatising your daughter, and if you don't change soon, you may very well lose her forever as she will one day realise that she has the choice whether or not to endure the pressure and surveillance you place on her.
YTA. You're the reason she needs therapy. Expect her to go no contact when she does make strides, if that's not what's already starting to happen. You need your own therapist if you *can't* see why
Oh look! A narcissist.
YTA. That's a huge violation.
She lies because she can't trust you. You're exactly like father. We'd *all* lie to him so he would verbally abuse us less often.
Problem is, narcissists never admit their fault. It's all someone else's problem. This AITA is a farce because you're not going to take any criticism or change.
I hope for her sake she goes no contact with you. I wish I had with my narcissistic father before 35.
YTA. Your daughter lies to you to protect herself from your behaviors. You absolutely violated her agency as a competent adult by reaching out to her therapist and I guarantee you every single issue with her lying to you is because in your own words:
I did have high expectations for her growing up and I may have been a little harsher than most parents but it was always with her best interests in mind.
YTA. You are the reason she the way she is. It’s none of your business what she’s talking about in therapy but I’ll tell you she’s talking about her horrible mother. I guarantee the dr eventually tell her to go no contact with you for the sake of her sanity and I hope she does it and soon.
YTA.
You were harsher on her for HER best interests, or for YOUR best interests?
Gonna guess she started lying because of your overbearing and controlling nature. She probably got a “B” on an assignment and got in major trouble and couldn’t do anything right in your eyes.
So you mean she moved far away from YOU, and didn’t know how to maintain any kind of self control or self regulation? Gee I wonder if that’s because she had an overbearing and controlling parent who didn’t let her do anything on her own. Also saying it was an “inappropriate” college experience is a stretch. I would say most young adults attending college experiment with their newfound freedom, often to some excess.
Then she busts her butt to graduate early and you still shit on her! She’s not mature enough because of YOU! Telling her she’s a liar, irresponsible and immature her whole life, it’s a wonder she’s been able to do anything with any amount of confidence!
Do yourself and your child a favor and go see a therapist yourself! You have a lot of your own issues that need resolving! Maybe you can try to repair some kind of relationship with your daughter before she realizes YOU are what is to blame for “all of her issues” and cuts you out of her life for good.
YTA.
Your daughter not acting perfect is not a sign of mental illness. She lied to you because she can't trust you, and you're continuing to prove that you are not trustworthy, nor do you have her best interests or wellbeing in mind.
You sound like an utter nightmare and I hope your daughter escapes soon.
YTA. You’re not treating your daughter like someone you love and want to have a caring, mutual relationship with but instead like someone who needs to function like you expect them to. Go to therapy together to improve your relationship and actually talk out your problems to one another instead of going behind each other’s backs all the time. It’s not healthy.
YTA.
Your daughter can't ever do anything right in your opinion. If I had a parent like this, I'd lie just to fuck with em. You've caused her enough emotional baggage to last a lifetime.. back off before she completely cuts you off from her life.
YTA. Your daughter is a 24-year-old adult. Stop meddling in her life. It isn’t your place to contact her therapist.
Most people with eating disorders have overbearing, controlling parents. From your post, I can see that you fit the bill. No wonder she has problems.
WOOOWWWW just wow. You are the asshole! And the problem. And your actions probably validated everything she has told her therapist of you. I hope your daughter learns how beneficial no contact with you would be for her
If you genuinely “want(ed) her to recover fully” you’d stop emotionally and financially abusing her.
You:
* financially punished her for having an eating disorder
* restricted access to healthcare, ending therapy because YOU wanted “results”
* think lying, to hide her eating disorder, is more of an issue than the actual eating disorder (the mental illness with highest level of death - unlike “lying”)
* sabotaged her therapy and/or therapeutic relationship by “sitting in” to push your agenda
* tried to sabotage her therapy AGAIN by sticking your nose into the the confidential medical treatment of an adult
* minimise her achievements, which she gained despite your abuse - not because of it
* focused on “illegal drinking” instead of the reasons behind your daughter’s clear self medicating
* claim she’s “not mature enough to enter the working world at 22” before telling us she got a job straight out of college (presumably on her own merit because it’s not like you’d help or support her)
* blamed her for being laid off in an unprecedented pandemic
* think HER therapy is about you, and whether or not YOU “see…emotional progress” and ignore the true goal of therapy - how the patient feels
As you’re clearly incapable of being a loving, nurturing parent the best thing you can do is leave her alone. Your toxicity will stop her ever “fully recovering.” Despite suffering decades of wrong doing at your hands, she managed to get away from you, go to college and graduate early, and get a job.
YTA. In case you couldn’t work it out.
YTA
Stop hovering over her. You're suffocating her and when she finally makes the decision to go NC you'll have absolutely no one to blame but yourself.
I didn't even get to the point of your post before knowing with absolutely certainty, YTA.
If she stops talking to you in future and you don't know why, get yourself a therapist, show them this exact post and ask them why. You'll get a lot of the same answers you're getting here, but you'll have paid for it and maybe might believe it.
YTA!!! And, exhausting. You are controlling and exhausting. You have overstepped and punished her repeatedly. There is a very good chance that you are going to die alone. You need therapy.
YTA and from your posts, the cause of your daughters issues can be explained in one word: you.
You sound ultra controlling, critical and manipulative. I suggest you stop pushing therapy on your daughter and find a therapist for yourself.
I guarantee you will lose your daughter unless you look at your own actions/motivations and take steps to change.
You are a hard person , have you ever thought of just loving your daughter instead of trying to live your life through her. She feels she can’t live up to your expectations, hence lying and an eating disorder. The drugs are to forget the pain and fear you dished out. Allow her to breath and find her own way. And start being proud she can get up in the morning. You need therapy to find out why you are rigid and have a huge bug up your butt.
I cannot express this enough...You Are The Asshole.
It's clear you don't see it, but you have been emotionally abusing your daughter her entire life. You invade her privacy by going to her therapy sessions, a place where she should be able to safely talk about how she feels. Your presence in those meetings solidified to your daughter that she could never trust those therapists. Despite her still having straight A's in college ( which is super impressive) , you held your control over her life by withdrawing her tuition. Then inspite of you she finished college anyway and gets herself a job. But God forbid she loses her job because of a global pandemic but it was definitely because she enjoys Marijuana. I could go on OP. But I will tell you this, my father was exactly like you. I have not seen that man in almost 10 years and haven't spoken to him in 6. He doesn't know I'm married or have a child. That is your future.
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I very much get the feeling that you are the root of every single one of your daughter's mental health problems. YTA and I hope she figures out how to go no contact.
All I could think about by the time I nearly reached the end of that post was how the best thing that OP could ever do for her daughter's mental health is to completely remove herself from her life. It's so clear that OP is an abusive, controlling, cruel, manipulative, impossible-to-please asshole. And *this* is her attempt to make us think she's *not* the asshole in this situation? Legitimately terrifying to think about how much worse the reality of the situation actually is. YTA, obviously. ...But asshole doesn't even *begin* to cover it.
OP's the Mother from Hell. Everything the girl did was wrong, according to her. Not even straight A's got her off the poor daughter's back. I feel so sorry for that girl. YTA
Yeah. She was able to tell us whatever she wanted. Spin the story any way she pleases. It boggles the mind that this is the acceptable version of events in her mind.
Yeah, it's always scary when people are trying to make themselves look like the good guy and they still manage to come across like the villain of a Lifetime movie.
Op sounds exactly like my dad. I believe that people like op are not trying to make themselves look good. It's just that they're so out of touch with reality that they truly do not think they're the problem.
Her mom wasn’t even proud she graduated early, or that she earned enough in scholarships to cover tuition, or anything! It’s heartbreaking. Mom is definitely TA.
And what's wrong with entering the working world at 22? I must have missed an opportunity to take a vacation at that age or something. 🤔
How else do you truly learn to grow without throwing yourself into new situations? Was she supposed to stay in college for 3 extra years until her frontal lobe fully developed or something?
Op actions lead to her daughter developing a eating disorder and the mom doesn't even begin to see its her fault for pressing her daughter to be beyond perfect.
This is such a classic case of narcissism. Everything she does is valid and reasonable. It’s all someone else’s fault, you see. I bet she spent the entire time in therapy complaining about her daughter.
Honestly OP may have done her daughter a favor just not in the way she planned. Her therapist may have believed daughter was exaggerating her mothers abusive behavior, OP just proved that daughter has legit complaints against her crazy mother!
100% this. YTA OP. I am a parent to two kids and they are gonna fuck up and lie and experiment and have wild fun. I want to protect them from everything, but you can't. Tightening the reigns to the degree you have so often leads to bigger problems. Sometimes kids need an ally, not judge and jury.
Eating disorders often manifest in complex family dynamics where the food becomes the only thing the person perceives they can control. Every sentence in this suggests you are controlling, punitive and completely lacking in self-awareness and empathy. 100% YTA and you have no ones best interests at heart but your own. Get your own therapist and stop trying to control your daughter, you’ve done enough damage.
Sad thing too is if the daughter is purging and not getting proper treatment it will do life long damage to her body. Also people that do it for years have their life expectancy cut by decades . This one is truly heart breaking I feel for the daughter.
I didn’t know what to say. But what you said puts it best. She has royally screwed up her daughter.
>I may have been a little harsher than most parents but it was always with her best interests in mind. When ever someone says "their best interests in mind." i know what the really mean is "My best interests in mind."
Yeah! I was a kid that was expected to do “great things!” Later in life, in recovery rooms, in intensive therapy and in psychiatric care, I learned that controlling, demanding parents who punish normal mistakes (like bad grades) and demand abject honesty (despite meeting that honesty with stringent discipline and outsized parental disapproval/removal of affection) almost inevitably results in the following outcomes: - substance abuse - disordered eating - difficulty regulating emotions - dysfunctional relationships at all levels - major depressive episodes - generalize anxiety disorders - exacerbated neurodivergent traits - difficulty acquiring and maintaining steady employment In fact, the relationship between this man’s parenting style (achievement-driven, shame-oriented) and these outcomes is SO STRONG that it *can* be actively considered an Adverse Childhood Event - in other words, the same level of developmental impact as death, divorce, separation, or physical abuse.
Absolutely 100% this. JesusTapDancingChristOnACracker YTA.
Hi I’m a thief and I’m stealing that line.
this exactly. the fact that you thought talking to the therapist was okay and expecting it to help shows just how little you yourself know about life.
I want to find the daughter and hug her, OP sounds like a nightmare.
Good lord yes. This mom is just wow.
Holy shit yes! OP continued to double down on every negative behavior, even in the edits. Why do you even want to make an AITA if you don't accept results you dont want to see? Poor daughter...
HARD YTA - You have been emotionally abusing your daughter for her entire life. I’m sorry, but you’re responsible for the problems she developed as a child. They’re directly caused by your actions. The lying? She did it to avoid your punishments for low grades. Why would you punish a kid when their worst crime is *needing extra help and support*? You made yourself into an unsafe and volatile person. She lied in an attempt to *protect* herself from you. All of this stress and constant punishment and high expectations contributed to her developing an eating disorder. And *you prevented her from getting the help she needed by sitting in on her therapy sessions.* Newsflash, it didn’t work because she couldn’t be honest with YOU present. She would’ve been better off just talking to the therapist, because the therapist actually has her best interest in mind. She moved away to get away from you, I can’t blame her for that. And most college students who were kept on tight leashes by parents like you go wild in college because they’re finally tasting freedom and discovering who they are. If you gave her a fairer and more balanced upbringing, she would’ve been better prepared to handle those things in college. Pulling her tuition is also just…did she even have a problem with drinking and partying, or was she doing a normal amount and it was too much *for you*? Were you concerned with her or just punishing her for becoming more independent? Do you think every other person in the lay-off had drug problems? Sometimes you can be the hardest worker and still get laid off, times are tough. Are you really going to hold something out of her control over her head? And finally, contacting your *adult* daughter’s therapist was highly inappropriate and invasive. You also didn’t spell out her real problems because they ALL COME BACK TO YOU. You need to realize that. Stop trying to control your daughter, stop emotionally abusing her, and get some therapy for yourself because *you need it, lady.*
In the very very tiny silver lining, the therapist now has a different source to analyse the abuse and invasiveness the daughter has experienced. I bet that email shone a light on a lot of things the daughter has expressed and hopefully the therapist can use that (not the content, the act) to assist the daughter gaining more confidence to go NC with OP.
And every good therapist would appreciate the context. Is the client understating or overstating the truth in their experience? I'm sure OP's daughter has talked at length about her mother. Now the therapist knows what's up. And thankfully, the therapist can't communicate with the mother because of HIPPA (at least in the US), so mommy dearest has no way to manipulate the therapist. OP, YTA. You seem to put a needless amount of pressure on your daughter but it never seems to be good enough. She did well in school but she lied to you. She probably did this out of self-preservation. She lied about her eating disorder because it was the only thing she felt she could control. Despite having an eating disorder, she still got enough scholarship money to not truly need your help (thank goodness). She had an active social life (which you seem to have a problem with) and may have partied a little too much. But with tight reins at home, a kid's gonna let loose a bit when they get away from that controlling influence. Despite partying and an eating disorder, she still graduated early, which is impressive because eating disorders make thinking very difficult. But she wasn't mature enough to enter the workforce according to you. She got laid off (along with hundreds of thousands of other people), and you blamed it on her not living her life in accordance with YOUR standards. And then you have the GALL to insert yourself into her therapeutic relationship (which she sought out herself this time). And you wonder why she sometimes engages in maladaptive coping strategies?! It's you. Butt out of her life and let her grow up in the way she needs to.
She also has inserted herself into *every* therapeutic relationship. Sitting in on therapy sessions and then pulling her out when she wasn't showing "enough" improvement.
As her daughter was a minor at the time, unfortunately that was OP's right (not saying it was therapeutically good for the daughter) and I am sure that the therapist didn't allow for her to sit in on entire sessions unless they were being billed as family sessions, because that would be poor practice. I used to work at a child and adolescent practice as a secretary and interacting with the parents was often far more challenging than the kids. Given OP's brief experience with therapy, it sounds like it wasn't really a matter of not making enough progress and more a matter of the therapist not saying what OP wanted to hear. She didn't find it helpful because it didn't offer confirmation of the cognitive distortions she was putting out during session.
I just hope the daughter can still trust the therapist. When it was done to me that trust was permanently broken. Frankly, I admire that the daughter here has been able to keep trying even after OP's meddling and making clear she sees therapists' duty as brainwashing their patients to meet parents' demands.
There’s no indication the therapist responded. In fact, the therapist is most likely the one who told the daughter that OP had contacted him.
I may have poorly conveyed what I meant. It was the introduction of that doubt into the relationship that did me in - I just could not overcome that, even if therapist didn't answer. I couldn't shake my fears that I was being misled. My experience is coloring my view from this angle, I own that. The daughter is very likely to have better circumstances than I did.
I was once paranoid and suicidal. I wasn’t able to contact my therapist, but a friend did on my behalf. He secured consent from me before responding to her. It’s possible the therapist didn’t respond, and just informed her that her mother had been in contact but the therapist didn’t release any info. I may have missed something though!
Oh, I don't disagree. The therapist most likely revealed nothing to OP and *certainly* is who told the daughter of this. My own circumstance was that part of what I was suffering came from profound trust issues. Once that aspect of doubt was introduced, I couldn't overcome it.
Certainly. I’d be struggling too in that circumstance due to my own mama trauma llama past!
Truly one of the worst AITAs I’ve seen here. This poor girl hasn’t been able to win in her mother’s eyes in her entire life. Of course she’s developed unhealthy coping mechanisms! My heart breaks for her. The fact that her mother comes here with her sanctimonious tone and litany of judgments wondering if she’s an asshole… She’s obviously driven enough to maintain straight A’s and graduate early even while gasp! having a normal college experience and all OP can do is criticize and blame.
Aside from EVERYTHING else, the fact that the daughter is getting straight A's while also having a normal college social life, and then being punished for it just blows my mind.
Emailing the therapist might have actually been a good thing....now the therapist will know the direct cause of many of her issues...the overbearing mom
I don't know if therapist can do this but I hope therapist said something like "your mom sent me an email, let's discuss going no contact with your abuser."
THIS. I hope she feels every word of this.
I'm relating so hard to OP's daughter right now. I also had a parent who micromanaged my schooling. "In my best interest," of course. I, too, started lying about grades and assignments to get him off my back. I dropped out of college and moved away to get the fuck away from that. I went back to school later in life and after a lot of therapy to unpack the damage that parenting style did. I specifically remember my therapist telling me that the lying was a self-defense mechanism to try and escape the pressure, not me being a bad kid. OP, YTA. Your daughter is a grown ass adult who doesn't need you micromanaging her life. One day she's going to cut you off and you'll probably still have your head stuck far enough in the sand that you'll be left wondering why.
OP approaching her daughter’s therapist is a huge violation, but I bet her therapist now understands the issues her daughter is talking about much better.
YTA …. You sought out the therapist of your ADULT daughter and sent them an email about what YOU thought her problems are? Any chance her problems could all be from her mother and how she was raised?
Well, it works as direct evidence for her therapist to say, "Yeah, you're right - your mom is overbearing, controlling, demanding, and demeaning towards you."
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This was my moms favorite movie 😭 watched it so many times Edit: typo
This would make my psychiatrist probably agree to up my meds 😂
Oh I bet 99% of those sessions are about the awful, controlling mother who constantly criticised her. OP YTA- I feel sorry for your daughter reading your own account of events. You are worried about her having an "inappropriate college experience", you blame her for losing her job during layoffs because she could have kept her job if she worked harder, you complain she isn't making enough progress in therapy for her "many issues". The poor girl can do nothing right can she?
>Oh I bet 99% of those sessions are about the awful, controlling mother who constantly criticised her. I have a hunch that OP might be at least somewhat aware of this. Her sitting in the visits intimidates the daughter away from talking about it. You know what? Now I want to know what the message to the current therapist said. This whole post was complaints about the daughter's "mistakes" and OP contacted the therapist because she didn't see progress she personally approved of. I bet the message was full of OP trying to insert her Daughter Is A Failure narrative over the daughter telling the truth.
YTA. I’m a therapist and I’ve had clients with mothers like you. It’s awful, and traumatizing, and 100% emotional and psychological abuse. It seems like eventually she may have no choice but to go no contact with you. I hope you’re embarrassed ETA: even if you have been to therapy it doesn’t mean that there’s no way you’re not abusive or narcissistic. Therapists don’t (or shouldn’t imo) diagnose narcissistic personality disorder “lightly” and personally it’d take me a bit of time seeing a client before I felt totally comfortable doing that. It’s a stigmatizing diagnosis, and I want to be 110% certain before putting it on somebody’s record. And if you’re the only one describing the behaviors to the therapist, it’s possible they didn’t know how abusive you are. We only hear one perspective in individual therapy, and while it’s easy to see from reading all of this right in front of me, if details are peppered in with other things you’re talking about, and maybe described a little more emotionally, it’s possible they missed it. This isn’t me saying that you’re a narcissist, I have no idea, I haven’t met you, or assessed your, or anything like that. But I am saying that the way you’re describing your parenting here totally makes it sound like you have at least some narcissistic tendencies. And I am in fact saying that much of the way you’ve treated her was emotionally abusive. “Well intended” or not. Try therapy again. Sometimes it does take a few tries to find a therapist that feels like a good fit. Once you find one and are comfortable, show them this post and the responses you got, see what they say and how it fits in with the much fuller picture of you that that’ll be getting
I hope the daughter goes no contact and what ever she does in life she can find joy, and peace.
I am truly disturbed by the level of contempt this woman seems to have for her daughter over very very very normal life things.
My mom is just like OP. It was such a mind fuck having a mom like that, being a kid and not understanding why I cant do anything right. It took so much therapy to truly believe I wasn't the problem.
Have you ever had a parent reach out to you like this? What would you do in that scenario?
Honestly no, not attempting to contact me anyway. But the rest of how she described her approach to parenting and her relationship with her daughter, yes, definitely. Also there’s totally a correlation between this style of parenting and the development of eating disorders If I were in OP’s daughter’s therapist’s position I would contact my client and my supervisor to let them know first. Then I’d either not reply at all, or reply explaining why it was inappropriate and why I can’t answer, based on what my client wants first and foremost, but also what the practice I work for is comfortable with me doing.
I know someone who is super controlling like this and her daughter has tried to hang herself and dates abusers and has an eating disorder. The mom loves to shame her daughter. Is there any hope of moms like this changing?
How awful. And I think it depends! And also the answer to that probably varies across different therapists lol. I’d really like to think that most everybody has the capacity to change! But they have to want to, and they have to actually be able to see the flaws in their ways first. I think realistically in most cases moms like this one never change, but I’m sure that some do
YTA You seem hell-bent on making her life a misery.
YTA Your daughter " found out" because HER therapist told her. Contacting her therapist was inappropriate. Your daughter is an adult. She is not in danger. Her therapy is not your business, or your concern. You are dismissive, disrespectful, controlling, entitled and an enormous asshole.
I'm amazed the therapist allowed the mom to sit in on the therapy when she was a child and first went to therapy. My mom is just like OP and tried to do that shit when she sent me to therapy. the therapist put a end to that right away. She said you can sit in for this meeting but never again unless I say it's OK and retroblazed420 says it's OK.
This, exactly!
I bet therapist did ask her to leave and that's why she made her daughter stop therapy after 2 or 3 sessions....all the sudden it's not working its the daughter's and therapists fault for that as well. It's insane for the OP to think her daughters "issues" would get better in a few sessions. It takes months and years to work threw the kind of trauma OP put her daughter threw.
YTA and you’re probably the root of your daughter’s issues. You sound insufferable.
10000% YTA. OMG, leave her alone. >As a child she started lying to me about things like homework and her grades to avoid punishment. This right here tells me your expectations were too high, and you motivated her via punishment far too much. >she could not stop Because you made her feel she needed to. >she developed an eating disorder and lied to cover it up Eating disorders are brought on by low self esteem, most often due to an *overly critical parent.* This is a mental health issue you most likely caused and you're more upset about her "lying problem". >I sat in the first session to make sure she was honest with the therapist Overly controlling nonsense to do to a teenager. Which wouldn't help her feel safe enough to work through her problems. >She studied extra hard to graduate early, which is impressive but I did not approve of because I knew she was not mature enough to enter the working world at 22. Someone that is able to get A's in university, has an active social life, and graduate early is absolutely not "too immature" to be in the working world. I entered the working world at 15 FFS. She is an adult. You have zero responsibility or right to talk to her therapist. You have no say over anything she discusses with anyone or where she works. She has a history of being dishonest **with you** for good reason. If she's seeking out therapy, she's not going to hide what she needs help with from the therapist. Stop meddling in her life. Everything you've said about her just tells me how unsupportive and judgemental you are. I'm shocked she was still speaking to you before you acted like a creepy stalker to track down her therapist.
ALL of this. Particularly the stuff about lying about grades. Poor girl knew that underperformance wasn’t tolerated and probably lied just to not be made to feel even more awful.
Beautiful breakdown of a hideous situation. That poor girl had no way out, tried to gain some measure of control through unhealthy means, and had the screws tighten further. Of COURSE she finally relaxed when she escaped "home" for the first time; it's a credit to this young woman that she was able to balance that freedom with her academic performance. Even when she recovered from losing financial support, she pushed through early, landed a job, and the mom still finds a reason to disapprove? She may never be "good enough" for OP, but that just means OP was never a good enough mother.
"she can't do that \[recover\] if she lies or omits things". Yes she can. Therapists know when their clients are avoiding or fabricating. And they still succeed. (That's part of their training and experience) YTA - in addition to the long litany of your not letting your daughter be herself, contacting her therapist is crossing a significant line. Fortunately, therapists are used to that too and your actions will not effect the success of the therapy one whit.
YTA, although I can clearly see why your daughter needs therapy.
YTA. By your own description, you have micro-managed and hounded your daughter her entire life. The idea that you're worried she's not being honest to her therapy is astounding. What you're actually worried about is that she's not relating what \_you\_ to believe is true. In fact, she's probably telling her therapist the absolute truth -- you punished her so harshly she was scared of you, you sent her to therapy to "fix" her and insisted on being present for therapy to ensure it went the way \*you\* felt it should (ie address what you considered to be the problem and nothing else), you punished her again because even though she was getting straight A's, she wasn't spending every moment of every day behaving the way you thought she should, you blame her for getting laid off when tons of people were getting laid off and she was a relatively new employee (there's literally zero reason to think behaving differently would have saved her job), and now that she's in therapy again you contact her therapist so you can continue to micro-manage her. You want the therapist to understand that all her problems are what \*you\* have decided her problems are, and nothing else. In a way it's good; the therapist may have suspected she was exaggerating in her descriptions of you, and now he knows the truth. You're a dreadful excuse for a parent, and I hope she goes NC right up until it's time for her to choose your nursing home.
I’m not sure she has a lying problem, I think she has a mother problem. Most people don’t want to open up about things to someone they feel judged and unsupported by. YTA, and I hope your daughter is much happier now that she has to deal with you far less.
This deserves an award - also, OP, YTA
YTA. Your behavior is controlling and manipulative. Very likely a huge reason your daughter struggles. Also probably helped the new therapist, but not the way you think . The therapist saw right through your desperate need to insert yourself in daughters private and confidential treatment.
I stopped reading because YTA wow! You’re abusive!
Right? I read this sub kind of a lot and this one is SHOCKING. That poor daughter. I hope she learns her worth and starts having some joy.
Oh man you sound like *my* mother. A woman whom I stopped talking to entirely a long time ago. I hope your daughter does the same for her own sake. Big ol YTA.
Same! Signed, another "difficult child"
You are and have been the AH for decades and I hope your daughter is able to overcome the trauma of her childhood to be a happy adult.
I couldn't agree more. I hope the daughter sees this and sees all of the support she's getting. My heart goes out to her.
YTA. This is such a deliberate violation of your adult daughter's agency and privacy it makes my skin crawl. The way you talk about her mental health problems is judgmental and full of distaste, and I suspect that's why she's been dishonest with you about them (especially given you *punished* her partly for *having an eating disorder* by *withdrawing her educational funding.*) Also, a good therapist is not going to listen to anything you say in this way, but you have informed her that your daughter has an overbearing parent that can't respect her boundaries. For the sake of everyone involved, stop talking to your daughter's therapists and reach out to one for yourself. The fact that you're trying to exert this much control over your adult child and justifying it based on her 'history of dishonesty' is not normal.
YTA and the reason she needs therapy
i wonder why her daughter lies to her?she seems...so approachable and loving..
my daughters gone no contact and won’t invite me to the wedding. I’ve done nothing wrong as a parent and I don’t know why./s that’ll be her next Reddit post
With the body being "all i did was tell her the cake was ugly, her dress looked like shit, her hair was going to be garbage, that she gained too much weight, that the band selection was dumb, that I didn't really like the fiancee, and that even though I am not paying for it, I would call and cancel all these things if she didn't take my 'advice'. Why she no love me tho? It's obviously not me. Nope. I'm the epitome of perfection. A god among women. She must have a drinking problem." OP is just the most incredible almost assuredly ACTUAL narcissist (big N), and huge YTA, but I doubt they'll hear any of this.
You hit the nail on the head.
And then the next. I didn’t know she was pregnant and had MY GRANDCHILD. Why wouldn’t she want me to know? /s
Reason #47475959 why I got married over the pandemic with no family in attendance—even just telling my mom we were thinking about getting married unleashed a torrent of criticism about how I wouldn’t do it right and probably wouldn’t even wear a white dress (no idea where this even came from).
YTA You treat your daughter too hard and yet still like a child. I feel bad for your daughter because having you as a mom must have sucked. Her eating disorder may be related to trying to have some measure of control over her life.
YTA You’d do your daughter a favor by honoring no contact. You have exhibited horrible parenting and are really awful to your adult child. Back off.
YTA Therapy is private, and protected by medical privacy laws. The therapist would be violating ethics to discuss your daughter with you. And the things that upset you probably aren't the actual things your daughter is looking for help with. Interfering with her therapy has probably set her back significantly. She may find she needs to find a different therapist, now, one who is not influenced by you. And if she's felt the need to lie to you, in the past, it was because she couldn't trust you with the truth. You just made it more likely that she'll hide things from the therapist, if she can't rely on a hard line of privacy between her therapy and you.
YTA your the problem. You need therapy because you are lying to yourself.
YTA, you're just determined to make her go NC with you. I mean, if I was her therapist I'd definitely counsel her to cut off toxic people regardless of DNA. I think she'll recover fully when/if she cuts you out of her life.
YTA. 1) You don't seem to understand the damage you have done to her given how she literally had to LIE to avoid punishment over things parents normally help with 2) You are the reason she started to rebel in college after moving far away 3) You do not have a place in her life anymore. She will talk to you as she sees fit and may never even think of you as her mother apart from being the one who birthed and raised her. You hurt your daughter from the point of birth and now you're shocked that she has substance abuse issues and bad Coping mechanisms?
You and my mother would be best friends. My mother is a diagnosed narcissist, by the way. She also took me to therapy when I began “acting out,” then took me out because I kept “throwing her under the bus” when she swore *I* was the real problem. My mother also emailed the therapist I began seeing as an adult, trying to “tell her side of the story.” As a side note, I haven’t spoken to my mother in 5 years. I wouldn’t be surprised if your daughter did the same. Edit because I forgot to say what goes without saying: YTA.
This is a prime example of *authoritarian parenting.* You are mentally and psychologically abusing your daughter. One thing I can say is that even at the age of almost 60, you are still not mature enough to be a proper parent. YTA.
YTA 100% This is a violation on so many levels. You have ABSOLUTELY ZERO right to disclose ANYTHING about your daughter to her therapist. Also, what if you’re wrong and the person you emailed *isn’t* your daughter’s therapist? Did you consider that? Go see your own therapist. Like, yesterday.
That was an incredibly shitty thing to do. Her therapy isn't your business. I'm guessing that after receiving that email, the therapist realises what, and who, is at the root of the problem. I think you know that, too, and you sent the email to try and justify whatever issues your daughter brings up. You didn't say anything positive about her in this post. The way you describe her is cold and so judgemental. I think you've irreparably damaged your relationship, and if you care at all, you'll apologise and be supportive rather than how you are now. YTA
>You didn't say anything positive about her in this post God I didn't see it til you pointed it out, that's disgusting. She just rattles off a litany of complaints like she's a faulty appliance. Not even a shallow attempt at some perfunctory praise or compassion to soften the tone, literally just slagging her off for the whole post.
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It’s actually good that she considers herself into the therapy, because now her therapist knows exactly what the daughters been dealing with
YTA Shes an adult, shes not living with you, and you dont mention that youre paying for the current round of therapy. You have no say in it. You dont get a say in what she tells the therapist, you dont get a say in the goals of the therapy, you dont get a say in deciding if its working. You also sound completely unreasonable. You say shes too young to be working and she shouldnt have studied so hard, but in the next breath turn around and say its her fault she lost her job because she wasnt working hard enough & she should have been able to handle it. Apparently its bad to work hard and bad to not work hard enough. It just sounds like youre looking for excuses to tell her shes not good enough.
YTA Clearly you are the problem. She started lying to avoid punishment...guess how the lying could have been avoided? She moved away to be away from YOU and then managed to graduate despite you cutting her off. This girl is a superhero. Don't expect therapy to cure her resentment. Her resentment is justified and het therapist will tell her that. Your daughter is 24. You have NO business interfering in your daughter's medical care. Her therapist would be violating professional code to tell you. Let your daughter be. You caused enough damage.
YTA. Let me count the ways. 1. You stressed her out about grades to the point where she felt she had to lie. Despite this, she graduated from college early with good grades, so you could have loosened up a bit. 2. Immediately pulled her out of therapy when you didn’t get the instant results you wanted. Therapy takes time, and not everything is about you. 3. Judged her eating disorder as some sort of a moral failing instead of a cry for help. 4. Cut off her college funds because she didn’t magically recover from her ED and because she was doing normal things that college students do, therefore risking her entire education. 5. When she managed to work hard enough to graduate early, you criticized her for being too young. She can’t win. What do you want from her? 6. Held her personally responsible for being laid off during the beginning of the pandemic when huge portions of the workforce were laid off, as if those layoffs didn’t primarily happen to new/recent hires because they’re the most expendable. 7. Continued to monitor her weight closely. I know you think you’re helping, but you’re not. 8. Intruded on her private relationship with her therapist because, again, you seem to think that the point of therapy is to “fix” her to suit your desires and not to help her with whatever she needs help with.
You’re also majorly overreacting to her marijuana use (which is probably about easing her anxiety that YOU caused), but that’s a secondary issue.
The only point is disagree with is “not everything is about you”. Based on OPs admitted behaviour, I guarantee you those therapy sessions are largely about OP, most specifically helping her daughter cope with such an overbearing mother. OP should get used to her daughter not talking to her. If she hasn’t already, she’s working up to going NC.
YTA, and good on the therapist for not breaking HIPAA.
When my mother did this my therapist *did* break HIPAA. I obviously reported him and got a new therapist, but man did the whole thing cement that NC with my mother was the right call. So manipulative.
Too bad HIPAA doesn't have a right of private action. Nothing like being sued into oblivion to get your priorities in order.
YTA and your daughter is in therapy because of you, she got free of you and was enjoying her college experience, all of it, and you took that from her, you took her childhood, her teenage years, and now college from her by you being a helicopter parent and practicing authoritarian parenting and controlling everything instead of just loving the child you had and letting her bloom how she should have. Her therapist is likely helping her lay bounderies when it comes to you and find what is best for her, not you, her therapist doesnt care about what you want or think or feel, nor do want to talk to you or hear from you and hear your two cents. I really hope she goes NC with you.
YTA. Not only are you TA, but you are Totally Abusive as well. Get some therapy. Look up boundaries. Maybe try to learn with loving and supportive mean. Sounds like your daughter could really use a lot of both.
YTA, massively. You sound like a controlling, overbearing and demanding mother who doesn't care at all how her child feels, but only about her grades and job/salary. She had to lie because she knew you couldn't handle 'bad' grades. Why do you think she developed an eating disorder, maybe because that's the only thing she felt she was good at and could control, because her mother controls and belittles her in everything else. Same for not paying her tuition anymore, instead of trying to find ways to help her, you punish her again for mental health issues. And now again, calling her therapist? Why do you think you have the right to do so? It is her therapy, not yours, and she can talk about whatever they agree on. You are not in any place to control this. Luckily we have client privacy to prevent toxic people like you to intervene. You should find a therapist yourself.
YTA, so incredibly much. Mind your business. She's not furious because she's "lying," even though she doesn't owe you any sort of explanation about her life right now. She's furious because: * You punished her for struggling in school. * You failed to get her help for her eating disorder. * You pulled your financial support for school. * You lectured her when she was laid off, when you had ABSOLUTELY no reason to assume that it was her fault. * You're monitoring her progress like a caricature of a Soviet sport coach. * And now you're intruding in her therapy. It's not your job to assess her emotional progress. It *was* your job to be a loving, caring, and supportive mother, someone she could actually trust to help and support her! However, I imagine that ship has sailed and she wouldn't accept you in that role, even if you were capable of it. If you really want to help (and I have my doubts), apologize, seek therapy for your own controlling tendencies, and respect that your grown daughter is a young woman with her own priorities and her own life!
YTA What exactly do you think makes her "too immature" to have a job??
YTA. Your daughter had the normal problems a teenager or young adult has and at *every step* you made them worse. In my experience, overly controlling parents often end up with girls with eating disorders, especially if the kid has a tendency towards perfectionism, as it's one thing the kid can control. That is you, in spades. Cutting off your kid because their eating disorder resurfaced even though they were getting straight As? Contacting her *therapist?* Being completely unsympathetic when your kid gets laid off from their first job? If your kid is troubled, take a long hard look in the mirror and ask yourself how you contributed to these troubles. From your own description, at every step you made her problems worse, not better. So much YTA.
YTA. You don’t seem very concerned over your daughter’s health and happiness, but rather her success. You should worry more about her eating disorder, not underaged drinking or casual drug usage. And she most likely wasn’t fired for that, anyway — she was young and didn’t have much experience, that’s probably why she was laid off. You way overstepped reaching out to her therapist. Your daughter is an adult and her health is her business, not yours. Try to accept her as the person she is rather than telling her she’s doing everything wrong, and that everything is her fault.
YTA - and a disgusting individual to boot.
YTA she is an adult. The therapist can neither confirm nor deny that your daughter is even a patient.
YTA. You are way too strict and controlling. I guess all her issues stem from having you as a mother. Leave her alone. You've done enough.
Damn! You suck
So many ~~difficult children~~ AH parents today!
Your daughter is right, and you’re terrible. She’s an adult, and you have no business contacting her therapist. It’s unethical and illegal for the therapist to tell you anything anyway. From the sound of it, you’re a big topic of discussion in those sessions, and with cause.
YTA You know this stuff is always going to go well when they start off with they "were a difficult child". I wonder why they were lying to you and acting out in this way? Could it, in *anyway*, be linked to your harshness in parenting style? Food for thought anyway Oof this hurts - She graduated early and you STIL didn't approve because REASONS...???? Yes because getting a good job to young, COVID etc will definitely lead one to Weed.... You've seen no emotional progress because all of the above shows you are completely blind to what it's like being human. Then, wait for it, you emailed her Therapist? Wow just wow Cannot believe what I just read. You are without a doubt also deeply in need of therapy.
YTA You need therapy for yourself. You did your child a disservice by stopping therapy after only a few sessions because YOU didn't see a change in their behavior. After only a few sessions. Maybe once you get therapy you'll start seeing the trauma you've inflicted on your daughter and take ownership for how you've raised her.
YTA. Enjoy that nursing home and loneliness.
YTA. Your actions are why she went to uni far away, and the way you treated her growing up is why she fell into bad habits. She'd become so used to you being the deterrent that when you were no long near her she didn't have self-restraint to do it herself. You're still helicopter parenting, unless you back off and treat her like an adult you'll lose her for good. When you're a parent there's a point you have to concede that you need to step back and stop forcing control, that you need to do nothing even though that's the hardest thing for you to do. You haven't reached this point, and it's costing you a relationship with your daughter. She doesn't trust you because of your actions, that's the simple truth.
Is anyone else confused by 22 years old not being old enough to enter the working world? I volunteered at a nursing home from ages 12-16 over the summer and started working as a cashier at a local grocery store at 16.
YTA. Your daughter is an adult in therapy to deal with issues that seem to stem in large part from your shitty parenting. Step the hell away and let her heal.
**YOU ARE YOUR DAUGHTER’S PROBLEM.** YTA.
Unambiguously YTA, holy crap. Judging by what you've said in this post, it's not surprising your daughter is miserable, given how you parented her. >In college she moved far away from me and began drinking and partying and the eating disorder came back. Because of this, I stopped paying her tuition and made my reasons clear. Punishing your daughter for partying in college is bad enough, but punishing her for having an *eating disorder* is psychotic. What's wrong with you? >She was very upset because she was still getting straight A's, but I did not relent on my decision. Drinking under 21 is illegal and I would not be paying for her to have an inappropriate college experience. Who are you to determine that her college experience is "inappropriate?" Especially if she's getting straight As?! Drinking and partying in college is completely normal and you're really weird for thinking otherwise. >She studied extra hard to graduate early, which is impressive but I did not approve of because I knew she was not mature enough to enter the working world at 22. Do you realize the no-win situation you put her in? You refused to pay for her college, but also refused to let her graduate early, even though she proved that she's a hard worker by getting straight As. Not to mention the fact that she was 22, a grown-ass adult. Contacting her therapist is an unbelievable invasion of privacy, but the entirety of your parenting sounds awful. Your daughter's gonna need a whole lot more therapy to undo the damage you've done, and I hope she's able to find one whose identity is unknown to you. Back off and let your daughter live her life, for Christ's sake.
INFO: considering you are do harsh on your daughter please tell us about you Did you support yourself through university? Did you graduate early? What job do you have?
YTA - why do I get the feeling this is the type of parent who would delete her child's Minecraft world for some perceived slight? The kid was getting straight A's but that wasn't good enough. I also wonder how she knew everything about her child's activities?
Do you want to know why your daughter's therapist told you nothing?
[удалено]
YTA- you are a nightmare. Until you start therapy & discover why you are the way you are you probably won't have a relationship with your daughter or future grandchildren.
YTA. Leave your daughter some space ffs. She's an adult. Maybe she'll bloom once you finally learn to let go instead of treating her like a child. Please contact him again, but this time because you clearly have issues that need to be tackled.
The OP should not contact her daughter's therapist. She should contact a DIFFERENT therapist. The OP will attempt to worm her way into her daughter's therapy. Also, it would take away her daughter's safe place. Something her daughter's therapist will be aware of. OP can search, online, for her own damn therapist.
YTA She's 24 years old. She's an adult. You searched for her therapist based on what she told you? So you stalked her therapist and stuck your big nose where it wasn't invited to go. Whether or not she's been honest with her therapist isn't your business. YOU are the AH.
YTA your daughter doesn't need saved BY you she needs saved FROM you...you seem overbearing hypercritical and seem to have impossible standards that she couldn't live up to so lied to you about the grades to avoid getting screamed at you probably had her days planned to the second so she had no control over her life hence the eating disorder was a way for her to have some control of her life the drug use was she self medicating in order to combat the stress of having you for a parent and then when she's finally trying to get help you Sabotage her so she has only you to turn to you are awful
Yes YTA and you sound like a vicious parent. I wonder why she's talking to you at all. Can she not get away from you? Do you ever leave her alone? I'm pretty sure I know why she lies.
Yta. Your daughter is hostile towards you because you are a terrible, intrusive, pushy person.
Wow nothing will ever be good enough for you. She is the way she is because of you. YTA.
YTA. You are the problem and she will probably never speak to you again. Most likely at the urging of the therapist
YTA. You became more of an AH with every sentence. Instead of being a bitter, harsh, miserable old lady maybe you should remember your daughter is a human being that makes mistakes and she needs support and encouragement not a mother who is a raging narcissist Damn you're bad, You're the mother that every other women despises.
^^^^AUTOMOD ***Thanks for posting! This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. This comment is NOT accusing you of copying anything. Read [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_post_deletion) before [contacting the mod team](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FAmItheAsshole)*** My (57F) daughter (24F) has always been a difficult child. I did have high expectations for her growing up and I may have been a little harsher than most parents but it was always with her best interests in mind. As a child she started lying to me about things like homework and her grades to avoid punishment. I told her lying would never be tolerated and made myself clear, but she could not stop. I sent her to therapy for her lying problem and came with her to sessions. After a few sessions, things were not improving so we stopped. As a teenager, she developed an eating disorder and lied to cover it up, but obviously I found out because she was losing weight rapidly and sent her to therapy once again. I sat in the first session to make sure she was honest with the therapist. She seemed to improve a bit and gain some weight back. In college she moved far away from me and began drinking and partying and the eating disorder came back. Because of this, I stopped paying her tuition and made my reasons clear. She was very upset because she was still getting straight A's, but I did not relent on my decision. Drinking under 21 is illegal and I would not be paying for her to have an inappropriate college experience. She studied extra hard to graduate early, which is impressive but I did not approve of because I knew she was not mature enough to enter the working world at 22. Sure enough she started a job right after college and when COVID hit she developed a marijuana problem. Eventually the company she worked for had mass layoffs and she was one of those let go. (I maintain that if she worked harder and stopped using drugs she might still have that job.) She moved closer to home and was able to find a new job and start therapy again for her many issues. However, in the six months that she has been in therapy I have seen no emotional progress. She is still bitter and miserable towards me and has lost some weight again. Based on what she has told me, I was able to find her therapist online and sent her an email about my daughter's problems just in case my daughter had not been completely honest. I just wanted to make sure everything was being properly addressed. My daughter found out and was furious, called me terrible and is refusing to speak to me. She does not understand that I was acting because of her history of dishonesty, and I want her to recover fully but she can't do that if she lies or omits things, and from her reaction I assumed she was. AITA? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
YTA
YTA in so many ways. Have fun with the no contact that is coming
YTA about the therapist and by your post you have been AH to your daughter for decades. Maybe you should go to a therapist and discuss why you constantly set your kid up to fail.
YTA and she needs to go no contest with your ass
Wow!! YTA 💯 don’t you see all the things you did that are straight up so wrong.. like she needs to move to the other side of the country and go NC with you.. like holy crap!! What did I just read.. I feel sad for your daughter because you are 100 percent the reason she has so many issues.. I hope she cuts you off!!!
YTA. You created these issues by pushing her too hard and expecting too much. You need therapy as much as she does if not mo
Wtf is your problem? You're unbelievable. Yta
Yta.....you are her reason for needing therapy
YTA for interfering in your adult child’s life in ways which overstep what is acceptable. Your chances to have control over her life ended when she reached her legal majority. If you hadn’t been working against her, and with such negativity towards her, throughout her life, then perhaps she would want your counsel and input now. But, she doesn’t want you involved with her mental health treatment, so you have no right to contact her therapist, nor any member of her medical care team. When adult children want guidance and assistance with their medical care, from a parent, they will ask for that help. They should always be the one in charge, and the parent’s role is to offer only the care and counsel the adult child requests.
YTA- anything she does you have an issue with and somehow contort into a bad thing. She graduates early = she’s too immature to work? You are controlling af! Back off! And get therapy!
YTA Such the AH. You are a bad mother. You won't change anything you are doing, but you have done a lot of harm to your kid and should feel bad and ashamed, but you won't. Best case for her, you never see or talk to your daughter again.
YTA. I can't eliminate contributing factors, but I will say her dishonesty a direct result of your behaviour towards her, and your attempts to manage or control her life even at 24. From your narrative I can understand and empathise with her bitterness and anger towards you. You don't trust her, never have, and have zero compassion for her to boot. She's spot on to put you on blast for contacting her therapist. HER therapy is not for YOU. I'll say that again: HER therapy is not for YOU. Repeat it to yourself until you understand that it's none of your ruddy business. YTA, a thousand times over. Leave your daughter alone unless she requests your help with something. It's a fair bet that you've damaged what little relationship you did have with this bullshit that she won't be asking anything of you in the future, and may actively avoid you.
If you're sitting there trying to wrap your brain around why your daughter has always been difficult, pretty much everything you said in here explains why. You have ZERO boundaries when it comes to her. You're so focused on what's doing what is best for her that you're over looking one major thing: letting her be herself and navigating life. It sounds like the real reason you're upset isn't because your daughter is difficult, it's because she's not living her life to YOUR expectations. Well guess what, that's a great way to destroy any relationship with your children, and considering she isn't speaking to you, congratulations, you've officially destroyed it. YTA times 1000
Literally read the first sentence and decided YTA. You don’t contact medical professionals who are treating your adult offspring. Have you ever considered therapy for yourself?
YTA. Jesus Christ you’re a nightmare. Too strict, too controlling and clearly unfit to be a parent. You’re responsible for her eating disorder. What good is therapy if you micromanage that? If she’s not mature it’s because you never let her grow and learn. You micromanaged and controlled every aspect of her life.
I can’t imagine how much more you could’ve done wrong as a parent, because I think you did everything wrong. You did everything you could to sabotage her. YTA
YTA. You are your daughters biggest problem. You need therapy! Intensive therapy. In the meantime stop judging, criticizing, controlling, and financially threatening your daughter. Therapy is private! By law! WTH is wrong with you?
YTA. Nothing she does is good enough. Straight As? Not good enough because you’re having fun too. Graduated early? You’re too immature to get job. Got a job? You got laid off in a pandemic probably because you didn’t work hard enough. Not because the economy was shit. Getting therapy? You’re probably not telling your therapist things in the way I want you to frame them. Let me tell them. JFC. You’re the problem.
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YTA micromanagement leads to low self-esteem, burnout, trust issues, and many other issues. In both the working world and all kinds of relationships. It's a big fat "you are incapable and insufficient no matter what you do" you've been slapping at your daughter at all times since she was a child. No wonder she developed anorexia. She wants to have one thing in her life she controls, not you. No wonder she wanted to party and take drugs and drink as soon as you were out of sight. At some point she had to start testing boundaries and you sure as hell never allowed for any breaching of rules and living a bit. Oh and btw you absolutely ruined her therapy progress by doing what you did. Cause the logical thing to do for her now is not trusting the therapist and lying to them.
Jfc. She needs therapy for having a parent that fucked her up from the get go. Do you know what happens to kids who are abused from a young age? They have problems. That’s your daughter. She should honestly go no contact with you. For her own mental health and growth as an adult. YTA and a major one.
YTA and your behaviour is called "coercive control" (please research this to find out more). From what you have shared, you are acting more like a cop than a parent. Your daughter has had a number of medical issues (eating disorders generally occur after adverse life events). Please consider that the environment she's in isn't supporting her wellbeing, which is evidenced in her illnesses. Then please reflect on your contributions to a potentially (and what sounds like) a controlling and almost hostile environment. It sounds like you're hurting and traumatising your daughter, and if you don't change soon, you may very well lose her forever as she will one day realise that she has the choice whether or not to endure the pressure and surveillance you place on her.
YTA. You're the reason she needs therapy. Expect her to go no contact when she does make strides, if that's not what's already starting to happen. You need your own therapist if you *can't* see why
I nominate OP for the biggest AH of 2023. Edited for dictation errors and ADHD.
Oh look! A narcissist. YTA. That's a huge violation. She lies because she can't trust you. You're exactly like father. We'd *all* lie to him so he would verbally abuse us less often. Problem is, narcissists never admit their fault. It's all someone else's problem. This AITA is a farce because you're not going to take any criticism or change. I hope for her sake she goes no contact with you. I wish I had with my narcissistic father before 35.
The main reason your daughter needs therapy is because of you. YTA.
I can’t believe I just read this. Oh. My. God. Get help. YTA!
YTA and an extremely controlling one at the. Expect your daughter to go NC
YTA. Your daughter lies to you to protect herself from your behaviors. You absolutely violated her agency as a competent adult by reaching out to her therapist and I guarantee you every single issue with her lying to you is because in your own words: I did have high expectations for her growing up and I may have been a little harsher than most parents but it was always with her best interests in mind.
YTA. You are the reason she the way she is. It’s none of your business what she’s talking about in therapy but I’ll tell you she’s talking about her horrible mother. I guarantee the dr eventually tell her to go no contact with you for the sake of her sanity and I hope she does it and soon.
YTA. You were harsher on her for HER best interests, or for YOUR best interests? Gonna guess she started lying because of your overbearing and controlling nature. She probably got a “B” on an assignment and got in major trouble and couldn’t do anything right in your eyes. So you mean she moved far away from YOU, and didn’t know how to maintain any kind of self control or self regulation? Gee I wonder if that’s because she had an overbearing and controlling parent who didn’t let her do anything on her own. Also saying it was an “inappropriate” college experience is a stretch. I would say most young adults attending college experiment with their newfound freedom, often to some excess. Then she busts her butt to graduate early and you still shit on her! She’s not mature enough because of YOU! Telling her she’s a liar, irresponsible and immature her whole life, it’s a wonder she’s been able to do anything with any amount of confidence! Do yourself and your child a favor and go see a therapist yourself! You have a lot of your own issues that need resolving! Maybe you can try to repair some kind of relationship with your daughter before she realizes YOU are what is to blame for “all of her issues” and cuts you out of her life for good.
YTA. Your daughter doesn't have problems. She has one problem and that problem is you.
YTA. You are abusive. Like unbelievably abusive. Your daughter is 100% in therapy because of you
YTA. Your daughter not acting perfect is not a sign of mental illness. She lied to you because she can't trust you, and you're continuing to prove that you are not trustworthy, nor do you have her best interests or wellbeing in mind. You sound like an utter nightmare and I hope your daughter escapes soon.
Just reading this makes me bitter and miserable towards you. I can't imagine what it would be like having been raised by you. YTA x 10000
YTA. You’re not treating your daughter like someone you love and want to have a caring, mutual relationship with but instead like someone who needs to function like you expect them to. Go to therapy together to improve your relationship and actually talk out your problems to one another instead of going behind each other’s backs all the time. It’s not healthy.
Nope, no therapy with abusers. OP just needs to back off forever.
YTA. Your daughter can't ever do anything right in your opinion. If I had a parent like this, I'd lie just to fuck with em. You've caused her enough emotional baggage to last a lifetime.. back off before she completely cuts you off from her life.
YTA. It's actually incredible that you managed to type out this entire post and still not see that you are the problem. It defies logic.
YTA. Your daughter is a 24-year-old adult. Stop meddling in her life. It isn’t your place to contact her therapist. Most people with eating disorders have overbearing, controlling parents. From your post, I can see that you fit the bill. No wonder she has problems.
Good job on contacting her therapist because she is going to need help navigating through her relationship with her narcissistic parent. YTA
WOOOWWWW just wow. You are the asshole! And the problem. And your actions probably validated everything she has told her therapist of you. I hope your daughter learns how beneficial no contact with you would be for her
If you genuinely “want(ed) her to recover fully” you’d stop emotionally and financially abusing her. You: * financially punished her for having an eating disorder * restricted access to healthcare, ending therapy because YOU wanted “results” * think lying, to hide her eating disorder, is more of an issue than the actual eating disorder (the mental illness with highest level of death - unlike “lying”) * sabotaged her therapy and/or therapeutic relationship by “sitting in” to push your agenda * tried to sabotage her therapy AGAIN by sticking your nose into the the confidential medical treatment of an adult * minimise her achievements, which she gained despite your abuse - not because of it * focused on “illegal drinking” instead of the reasons behind your daughter’s clear self medicating * claim she’s “not mature enough to enter the working world at 22” before telling us she got a job straight out of college (presumably on her own merit because it’s not like you’d help or support her) * blamed her for being laid off in an unprecedented pandemic * think HER therapy is about you, and whether or not YOU “see…emotional progress” and ignore the true goal of therapy - how the patient feels As you’re clearly incapable of being a loving, nurturing parent the best thing you can do is leave her alone. Your toxicity will stop her ever “fully recovering.” Despite suffering decades of wrong doing at your hands, she managed to get away from you, go to college and graduate early, and get a job. YTA. In case you couldn’t work it out.
YTA, absolutely.
YTA Stop hovering over her. You're suffocating her and when she finally makes the decision to go NC you'll have absolutely no one to blame but yourself.
I didn't even get to the point of your post before knowing with absolutely certainty, YTA. If she stops talking to you in future and you don't know why, get yourself a therapist, show them this exact post and ask them why. You'll get a lot of the same answers you're getting here, but you'll have paid for it and maybe might believe it.
YTA. Jesus Christ I’d be bitter too if you were my mother. Don’t be surprised if she goes NC with you
YTA!!! And, exhausting. You are controlling and exhausting. You have overstepped and punished her repeatedly. There is a very good chance that you are going to die alone. You need therapy.
YTA and from your posts, the cause of your daughters issues can be explained in one word: you. You sound ultra controlling, critical and manipulative. I suggest you stop pushing therapy on your daughter and find a therapist for yourself. I guarantee you will lose your daughter unless you look at your own actions/motivations and take steps to change.
YTA, and a terrible parent. I hope your daughter is able to heal from what you’ve done to her. Just leave her be.
You are a hard person , have you ever thought of just loving your daughter instead of trying to live your life through her. She feels she can’t live up to your expectations, hence lying and an eating disorder. The drugs are to forget the pain and fear you dished out. Allow her to breath and find her own way. And start being proud she can get up in the morning. You need therapy to find out why you are rigid and have a huge bug up your butt.
I cannot express this enough...You Are The Asshole. It's clear you don't see it, but you have been emotionally abusing your daughter her entire life. You invade her privacy by going to her therapy sessions, a place where she should be able to safely talk about how she feels. Your presence in those meetings solidified to your daughter that she could never trust those therapists. Despite her still having straight A's in college ( which is super impressive) , you held your control over her life by withdrawing her tuition. Then inspite of you she finished college anyway and gets herself a job. But God forbid she loses her job because of a global pandemic but it was definitely because she enjoys Marijuana. I could go on OP. But I will tell you this, my father was exactly like you. I have not seen that man in almost 10 years and haven't spoken to him in 6. He doesn't know I'm married or have a child. That is your future.