Tough emotions

[Gandolfication]

Yesterday I was a very difficult and emotionally, and I'm still feeling it today.

My oldest beloved 15-year-old daughter is failing in school, with really poor attendance and simply not turning in assignments on time. I'm struggling to figure out how to deal with that while I try to manage a 60 plus hour a week solo law practice that is overwhelming to me already.

My daughter's mother has abandoned her and treats her with cruelty. I emailed my four siblings yesterday asking for their support and instead got a Christian lecture like Job's friends or something.

I had worked a long hard day and have nothing but more of these in front of me just to survive financially etc.

All of the negative emotions were spiraling, and I still feel a vertigo inducing sense of anxiety, regret guilt, and shame... The email I sent was respectful and thoughtful... I even have my girlfriend who is wise read it first and give me her affirmation. Technical glitch with my email software caused me to send the first draft instead of the second which irritated me, but it was pretty good even though not perfect.

I sent it because I needed others to know the truth, to defend my daughter, in part to help document a record, and yes that some level to hopefully embarrass or appropriately shame my ex into starting to show up or at least cease being cruel to my daughter. My intentions were good, and if my siblings are not as myopic and religiously obtuse as I fear they are likely to be, they will be mature and broad enough in their perspective to handle it.

Plus, it's not like they were really supporting me in many ways before this. I'm not a perfect sibling either, but I almost felt like what did I have to lose.

Meanwhile, my daughter is p*ssed at me because I took her phone away and have imposed other consequences... also giving her a written plan with further consequences but also incentives... And left a voicemail to meet with her guidance counselor sometime next week.

The Great Zig Ziglar gave to related an extremely memorable object lessons about perseverance, about the Chinese bamboo plant and the old-fashioned water pump... In essence, both required tremendous amount of effort for an extended period of time without producing any observable results and then gradually but also all the sudden, produced spectacular results. Isaiah 40:31 comes to mind as well (although I'm having very mixed reactions about Bible quoting right now since it was quoted at me last night in an annoying and I think hypocritical way)

Anyway I really appreciate this site and how safe it is to just come and post event like this without fear of being further judged... Since I do that constantly and severely all on my own and it is still the harsh and hard immersive idea and picture of God I have because it is what was given to me every moment of life since birth.

Sigh....

[Dolphin14]

Your daughter getting through school is the priority. I wouldn't worry what everyone else is telling you, including her.

You need to stay on this. There's a reason this is happening and you have to catch it before she gets into trouble. There's a big world out there that is loaded with influences and peer pressure.

Meeting with school staff is the next step. taking things away has to happen, it's just how it goes. You are doing the right things.

Someone has to take the lead and it sounds like it's you I don't think you need to question yourself. I would be doing the same things

Miss seeing you around

🐬

[Hidden]

May I suggest you take a break from everything and watch The Chosen season 1? It may help. It has helped a lot of people see God in a different light. It's not a documentary. It's just a TV show about Jesus and his disciples that is very relatable. It is available for free the watch in many places but I watch on their website watch.thechosen.tv/. I would recommend turning on English Subtitles so you can really grasp what they are saying. It's available on Amazon Prime, Peacock, Apple tv, Google tv, Roku, and they even have an app you can download to your phone and watch if you handle that tiny screen. I prefer to watch on my computer. I've watched all 3 seasons multiple times and it helps put things into perspective. I hope you find peace today.

[Gandolfication in reply to Hidden]

I appreciate the spirit in which that is given, but I happen to have had a fairly emotionally traumatic experience specifically with evangelical Christianity and the catastrophically destructive parts of immersive relationship teachings and practices relating to Jesus. Dr. Marlene Winnell, in her book Leaving the Fold, explains this a lot better than I want to rehash here, so I'm going to pass on this one, but thank you anyway.

The email and strong feelings re: my family I'm referencing above and feeling judged like Job's friends, is part and parcel of this. They remain certain and take liberty and license to continue to proselytize me to return, recommit to the faith, read the Bible etc., which is irritating, because very few people in life have more seriously, genuinely and effortfully immersed themselves in a all out genuine exploration, surrender, etc. to the teachings and the supposed personal relationship with Jesus Christ, than I did, my entire life, until I was 33. It's irritating because naturally I read the entire Bible numerous times, minored in Bible and Theology, and studied my whole life, right along with them. If God required me to believe something I can no longer believe in some particularly, literal sort of way, or he'll damn me to hell and curse me in this life or something, then oh well.

Christians are sure of their dogma, but rarely are they willing to think outside of the closed system of thought, which teaches explicitly to doubt and discard all others, and say, read possibly another perspective, like Dr. Winnell's, or a book by Dan Barker or someone like that. Which ultimately makes it hard not to see some of the persuasion effort and confidence, as actually being about things that are less benign and benevolent than love, like ego, security, pride, arrogance, hubris, exclusion, moralizing, and blind, uncritically-thinking faith.

This isn't directed toward you. It is about the traumatic experience I had with this from birth, and it is been very, very challenging to adaptively address throughout my adult life, despite a lot of effort.

[Midori]

Hi there,

15 year old girls can be a right pain in the neck, (I remember being one in the Jurassic!).

By the sounds of it she is missing parental guidance, which , hopefully would have come from her mother, given that you are working your butt off trying to provide for her.

I think that having a word with the school is your first step, to see if there are after school activities she could get into, even a homework club, maybe.

Could you perhaps employ someone to be responsible for her while you are at work, taking her to clubs and activities while you concentrate on your legal work.

Another thought, could you join another legal firm, to hopefully give you a little more time to work with your daughter, and put your own practice aside for a couple of years to get her back on the straight and narrow? It is such a difficult time for her with no guidance, hormones raging, too many temptations, and there are so many difficulties she could get into, some of which could impinge on your reputation, even.

It really is not a good time for you with all this going on.

Cheers, Midori

[Gandolfication in reply to Midori]

Thanks Midori,

I would love to hire a part time au pair or tutor/nanny or someone, but don't have the funds.

I've also done some applications again recently, and am of a mind to re-join possibly either another larger law firm again or legal tech consulting firm, which I think is more the direction I want to go. It's probably going to take time, and for now, survival is the watchword I guess, I barely know which way is up most of the time right now.

[Hidden]

Hi Gandolfication, If I remember correctly you are a lawyer. I am the daughter of a lawyer and remember my wild rebellious days dealing with him. Granted we had no cell phones or electronics, hence he had less control over us kids than parents do today. He would leave typed written instructions (which I shudder to think his secretary probably typed out daily for him) and leave on my dresser each night. I genuinely hated this and wished he would have just talked to me face to face. However, the face to face often felt like a cross examination which wasn’t helpful either. I’m not saying that you do this but sometimes the expectations and stoic attitude embedded in lawyers can come across the wrong way to a teen girl. Most likely she is defensive so you need to break down the walls so she’ll actually listen. Nothing wrong with writing out a plan but go over it with her. Let her give some input. Tell her you’re willing to negotiate. This way she’ll be more invested in sticking with the plan.

I realize you are doing the parenting solo and there’s only so much you can control and you don’t have much free time I’m betting. Try to bond with her. Try to “get to know her” and find out what makes her tick. She doesn’t have a mother figure to discipline her either so you kinda have to play both roles. Find a way to earn her respect and make sure she doesn’t feel “attacked” as that just backfires and she’ll rebel more.

I always let my kids have their friends over to my house. That way I could keep an eye on them. Also, if your daughter has friends, stay in contact with her friends parents and work together. Chances are they are skipping school together.

I agree with the other users who have replied to you in taking her phone away. As a mom of three boys, I regularly took away phones, Xbox’s, power cords to computers, etc and told them no dinner until homework was done. And it worked. I also limited the $ they could have.

Keep in touch with the school, and work together with any allies you can find. A 15 year old daughter is a difficult nut to crack. I don’t envy you doing it in 2024.

Hang in there. It will get better with time and a ton of patience and understanding. One day you’ll be wishing she was 15 again. Go figure!

[Gandolfication in reply to Hidden]

Charlie4248,

Unfortunately, too much of that is applicable. I do tend to fall into detached, sort of distant I guess cross examination and being right, especially when I see her being foolish, harmful, or missing obvious things and stubbornly insisting on continuing to believe and do the same things, etc. Last night, on the way to taking her to pick up a friend and take her and friends over to my girlfriend's house where we were all going to say, and the girls were having a bunch of boys over, I asked her to bring the plan so we could talk about it. She did, although left it in the trunk to start; so I emailed it to her phone, and tried to discuss. I had looked up a good checklist of how to approach this with my teenager as reminder - good tips - but the conversation went off the rails almost immediately as she disengaged, stonewalled, gave the perfunctory, no-effort, copout, "I don't know," and just generally became passive aggressive (and so did I), unresponsive, and it broke down into a full-blown and really awful fight. We both said a lot of things in anger and desperation...which I still feel.

I realized, that at its core, she was saying she doesn't feel loved, comforted, safe, supported, etc., which of course breaks my heart, and I do know I have struggled with some dreadfully challenging and tricky things in this area with her, and some of what she was saying has truth.

Yet, I still need her to be accountable, make an effort, want to improve, try, and get her proverbial head out of her backside in a major way.

Your second paragraph includes a lot that the ChatGPT checklist offered as suggestions. Honestly, I thought I did that, and in some ways pretty well, with her. But I think it manifests more as being pals but not a reliable/consistent parent, and being unpredictable, even not mature or stable. (This is partly because of bipolar personality and I hate admitting this...because my daughter's right, some of it is that I have in some ways naturally substituted treating her as the oldest daughter and only person I live with all the time right now, with the same kinds unhelpful ways I used to treat her mom when our relationship fell apart).

These past few days have left me emotionally exhausted, and needing rest, and unfortunately, I have too many urgent obligations.

I have to completely let go in my mind of the anger I still have toward her mom for abandoning her, and just consider it a sunk cost I can do nothing about other than being my best.

I'm going to meet with her guidance counselor. And I guess I'm going to take this as an opportunity to challenge myself once again to dig deeper and find the resources to make more of the really important change I've come a long way toward, but still want more - of being and acting and living more wisely, compassionately, mindfully, aware, and kindly.

[Gandolfication in reply to Hidden]

I meant to say, thank you for your suggestions and encouragement here. I appreciate them and am taking them in and intending to try to remember and apply the good in them.