It's such a battle everyday! My 14 year old daughter has consumed almost every bit of energy I have! My marriage is hanging by a thread as well as my sanity! My 2 young boys have seen and heard way more than they should. They are also starting to have naughty behavior and saying things they hear their sister say.
How much more can we all take? This has been ongoing since about 2 months after she started her period. She went to what I call "the dark side". She used to be happy, she loved to be the center of attention, loved singing, reading and writing. She had dreams and goals, a future. She has always had very intense emotions from the time she was born. It started when she was about 10 months old. She would bang her head on things, not constant banging, just one maybe two times she would bang it on something. I believe she knew it would hurt, but would do it anyway. She would cry out in pain and leave herself with a goose egg. Then when she was 2 she started biting her arms. She would have bite marks covering her arms, very noticeable bites! I would keep her in long sleeves so that no one would see them. She did this for quite some time until, with the help of a therapist, we got her to stop by tying a rubber toy to her clothing that she could bite instead. She would do these things at random times, any emotion. Happy, sad, mad, excited, etc. But, by age 5 or so she started with pulling her hair out when she would get upset about something and just grab both sides of her hair and pull gobs of hair out. She would only do it when very angry. She would bite herself on her arms or legs, and she would hit her head with her fists. She would usually on do one type of self harm at a time, sometimes she may do two. And she would only bite herself one maybe two times and same with hitting her head. Some of the things she would get upset over were just minor things. I would sit and watch her and wonder 'why the heck is she so pissed off about this'? Although she would have these "fits", she was still a fun energetic girl. Funny, sweet and friendly. Too friendly at times. There were no strangers to her. I always loved her dearly and was so proud that she is my daughter! It was just her and I until she was 6. She was grandpa's girl. He was her favorite person in the world, and I'm pretty sure she was his favorite person too. She loved grandma too. I loved that she was so close to them. My dad kind of took over that "daddy" part. She wasn't a part of her bio dad's life. It would bring tears to my eyes sometimes watching my dad with her. They absolutely adored each other, such a special closeness.
When she was 4 I started a relationship with a man who had 3 kids. She loved playing with his kids and loved playing with him, for about the first 2 weeks, then she "turned" on him. I never knew a little girl could be so mean. We broke up after about 6 months. He couldn't deal with it anymore. I was heart broken. And I have to admit I was a little angry with her. I met my husband when she was 5 1/2. She really liked him and was a sweetheart for the first weekend! I knew it was hard for her to have to share me, but, I had no idea that even after 9 years and two little brothers she would still be trying to get rid of him. I'm not saying every day was bad, we did have lots of good times. She was accepted by my husbands family right from the start. She really was a likeable girl. We were married in April of 2005 when she was 6 1/2. Beautiful wedding. We had a family unity ceremony where Darren made promises to her and put a necklace around her neck as a symbol of his promise. We had our first son in June of 2006. She loved being a big sister!
When our son was about 15 months old, we went to Florida with my parents. I remember when we were on the ferry going across the water to Disney World Lexi got upset because I was holding her brother and she wanted me to hold her. She became so angry. She made sure we all knew she was pissed off! This should be one of the happiest most exciting times in a little girls life, yet she was mad because I couldn't hold her. My dad had not seen her act like this before. He was pretty upset about it and when we got off the ferry he had to walk away. Lexi was in a bad mood for a good hour. Could not believe it! I was thinking she was acting like a spoiled brat and I was embarrassed. This was typical of her though, to get mad at the silliest of things and to let it affect her for such a long period of time. I bet she was probably the first 8 year old girl to ever walk into Disney World for their first time, with a big scowl on their face.
Now, here we are 9 years later and that skowl had become an almost permanent fixture on her face. She no longer likes to be the center of attention, no longer wants to sing, be silly, be energetic. She now only wants to wear dark frumpy cloths, wants her hair in her face, wants her make up dark and wants to stay away from us as much as possible. She started these big changes at age 12. And she seriously did a complete 360. I have never seen someone change so much so quickly. I didn't know who she was. She has progressively gotten worse. She started cutting herself at the beginning, then started with the suicidal thoughts and the extreme defiance. She was put into the neuropsychiatric institute (UNI) in June of 2012. She was there 11 days. She was put directly into a day therapy program until September 2012 when she went back to UNI for 3 days, this was because she had not been taking her medication for a few days. (My bad, should have been watching her take them) She was back in the first part of October 2012 for another 11 days. Her psychiatrists said she was difficult and that unfortunately they didn't think she was going to change and that she would be making our lives even more difficult. She had told me the last 2 times of being admitted that she was basically going to make me "pay" for putting her back in. She kept her promise. She started the DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) day therapy in November. Shortly afterwards i found out she had lost her virginity to a 17 year old boy that she met in UNI. During this time she had accused my husband of touching her when she was 7 so we were having to meet with detectives to tell our side of things and having to discuss this boy. He was in jeopardy of getting in a lot of trouble since Lexi was not at a legal age to consent to sex. Charges were never filled against my husband because she was doing what she could to get him out of her life and they knew that. And because this boy was having troubles of his own they didn't charge him.
She graduates DBT tomorrow. Not because she has successfully completed the program and is using the skills she has learned, but, because she has been there for a little over 7 months and isn't improving. Most kids are graduating in 5 months or less. Tonight she tells me she thinks I should give her back her iPod that we had taken away from her about 12 times for using it to meet boys she didn't even know and for bad behavior. This should be a gift for her graduating from the program, she says. Is she kidding me! Not a chance in hell. Things are so crazy at home and her behavior is awful. Plus we just found out she had sex with another boy, and yes, he is older and this had to be reported. So more visits coming soon from detectives. Her raging fits are about to push me over the edge. I can't discuss much with her. One of her issues is she is...... Let's say she doesn't have good hygiene. Her smell gets pretty bad and having to make her get into the shower sometimes causes a fight. Same with brushing her teeth, some days I will see her teeth and she will have so much crap around her braces that it makes me sick. I try to be gentle and let her know that she needs to take better care of herself, and she always gets offended. Lately, I find myself just getting mad at her and not even trying to be gentle about her hygiene. I am angry most of the time towards her. I hate that I've started being this way. I love her tons and don't want to hurt her, but, in the moment I just don't care. I'm exhausted!
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