So our girls are 16,18 and 20 years old. The older 2 live at home while working/ college. I don’t know where to begin, there are a lot of problems. First off, there are no other family close by. Mine all have died, and had never gotten to see the girls in person. My husbands all in in England, and a few have visited when our girls were born. As much as I’ve tried there isn’t a family connection between our girls and the family left. The fam is never at birthdays, or here for Christmases or anything. For obvious reasons. Their nana is great and cares a lot, but stopped coming here in 2012 due to her age.
That info is important to the rest. Things were going fine until about 6 years ago. Our oldest, I’ll call her B, she was physically hurt and assaulted by this boy from school in a corn maze. I didn’t find out until a year later when fall came around again and it triggered her. Long story short, B had developed PTSD and VERY high anxiety from that incident. He stalked her around school. Would taunt her and the school was never helpful. Not once. In fact they helped him because he has autism. That incident set off a kind of hell i never want to experience again. B was having nightmares, couldn’t sleep, would, and still has, panic attacks.
B would take it out on us at home, mostly her sisters. She threatened to kill herself and had tried before. My husband and I were so terrified she would do it if we got upset with her, for lashing out on her sisters, that I let it slide when B went too far. She hit her sister S, hard. B Isn’t a violent person at all. But this situation got really bad.That set off her sisters and upset them to a point that i didn’t realize because we were so focused on B and her troubles. It escalated from there 10 FOLD and S and L became angry and hateful towards B, and towards us for “ favoring” B. We don’t favor any of our kids, we were having to help her. A resentfulness came over S and L and we didn’t know why for the longest time. Years. As they wouldn’t tell us why they were both so upset. S started hanging out with the wrong girls and started stealing! They both to this day talk down to B and treat her like garbage.
We’ve tried counseling, several times, lots and lots of talking, I pray for them every day.I know some of this is being a teenager. But they have so much rage. S and L WILL NOT speak to counselors of any kind. A few months ago L FINALLY told me why she is so angry. I then spoke to B and explained. She was so sorry and felt horrible about what she’d done to them. I spoke to L for her about how B felt and how sorry she is. ( L will not speak to B at all and hasn’t for a long time) L seemed to be ok with that but still acts badly towards B.
S has become a Narcissist in the past many years, and that behavior reflects on the rest of the family. I didn’t know that it was that until this past year. I wish i had found our church 10 years before i did. Our girls won’t and haven’t gone anywhere with us for 5 years.( when Covid started and we had to be homebound) the hermit like behavior set in with that for years, and never left. They are insulting and mean to us, daily. B is not, thank god, and has gotten much better over the years. Less triggers and upset.
Lastly, I am not your average mom. I have chronic PTSD and problems that stem from that, when my mom was sick when i was a 9 yr old until her death when i was 20. I told myself I wouldn’t let my PTSD affect our girls. But i was kidding myself because it has. I’m telling you how it is, I’m not putting down excuses. If you think we or I did wrong somewhere, please tell me, because I can’t see what it is. We don’t know what else to do.
I don’t think you have necessarily done anything wrong, as you didn’t cause your PTSD, B’s assault, or her behavior towards her sisters. All of this would be challenging for any family to deal with, and it sounds like you have been trying very hard to fix things. However, it is not your job to fix things, as your daughters are almost grown.
I’m sorry you haven’t had a better experience with counseling, because I still think that is your best bet, for yourself and your young women, who are really no longer girls. Try to reframe your understanding of counseling, which isn’t so much about talking as about listening, if anyone will attend family counseling with you. I’m glad you have found your church to be helpful for you, but don’t expect your daughters to necessarily find comfort there, or to be interested in counseling. If your daughters won’t attend, go yourself. You don’t mention your husband’s perspective on counseling, but the more the two of you work together, the better. I’d also suggest you check out NAMI.
I would suggest you be careful about blaming B for her sisters’ reaction. I suspect maybe all you can do is work on yourself, set some boundaries on what behaviors you will tolerate, and let your children know that you hope that someday they will be able to get along better. You can apologize to them all that you didn’t know how to help them more at the time that B was going through her struggles, but they are all young women now, and it is time for them to be responsible for their own actions or move out if they don’t feel they can. You can still be a safe place for them to express their anger and resentments or whatever, but they need to figure out how to express feelings without becoming mean. Nothing is an excuse for cruelty. You can’t force them to speak to each other, but you can insist they not be mean.