Dysfunctional Relationship-adopted daughter.What to do?

hi need some input as to how to work out what is going on. I have a twenty three year old daughter. We have had a very turbulant relationship last eight years. We used to be very close and I have four other children. I have suffered postnatal depression with last two children and this distanced me from her at the time she was going through teenage angst and identity crisis. I tried to help her and we contacted birth mother and father. She has always been reticent about talking in depth about feelings and i realise now we had a surface relationship. I feel she learned early on to hide how she felt. She seemed very possessive of me and my attention. she was a pleasant child very clever and pretty. and I enjoyed being with her I thought we had bonded but wonder now if she had unresolved issues I know she thought about her birth mother a lot but she did not talk easily about her adoption.She was very well behaved in general it was as if she did not allow herself to be naughty.
She changed with onset of puberty at thirteen and became very difficult to understand which I know is normal teenage stuff but she went from being top of class to not going to school and dating men over twenty. This frightened me and I reacted badly. I became abusive to her and thought the stricter I became she would change back to being the well behaved child I knew. We are now estranged and after a major row I threw her out at 16 and we have had a very strange relationship ever since. She contacts me once a year but usually by text or email. Very short abrupt communications. I thought she would eventually open out and we would talk and reconcile. I have recovered from worst of depression and miss her. But recently I found out she is talking about me to lots of different people and there seems to be a lot of social manipulation going on. She is unable to talk to me but seems to want to talk to others who know me. She lives near by and it has got to the stage when most people in our community seem to have been told everything about me and her and how awful i was to her. For her and me I would like to resolve this but I am frightened of making things worse. Should I leave it and hope she will tire of all the social games. I have heard she may be taking drugs and harming herself or threatening it. In the past when she contacts me i have always said come round and opened out entirely to her straightaway but i feel she uses these visits to get information which she then uses to cause upset for me. She usually comes round and then disappears after one or two visits. It is making me feel ill again so last time she contacted me I responded cautiously and kindly and mentioned counseling for us both but waited for a return communication. There was none. I learned though she had gone again to a close friend of mine and told her alot of private stuff about me, the friend had not told me as my daughter had begged her not to. she seems to want to upset me but not directly. I am sorry for the long post but feel desperate to work out what is best thing to do. I am lone parent and no helpful family.

Hey,

I think that it is unlikely you will ever have the wonderful relationship that you wanted to have with her. The history has been set and it will take a huge effort to 'forget' about everything that happened. The best you can hope for is to simply be her friend.

Certainly, the current situation is not ideal - i.e. her going around telling people about the dark past. She is wrong for doing this, but it could be a sign that she is indeed running into trouble again and is now attention-seeking. Attention-seeking is not bad though - It's an indirect way of saying to someone: 'Hey, I'm not happy in my life currently and I need help'.

Perhaps you could ask her to meet you at a café for lunch or something. That would be a great step. I would not expect her to be in the mood for hugging, but who's to say that it won't eventually get to that point?

Good luck and take care,
Kevin.

thanks for reply. i guess i know already that there is too much history to forgive for her but i think she is hurting inside and will end up hurting herself and others. i guess i feel guilty i let her down. I am frightened of how far she will go. If I ignore her will she have to create more drama to ensure i look at her? She is very clever and if i am right has been manipulating things for a long time. I think this is her way of control and when i don't do as she wants she can't handle it emotionally. If she was moving on with her life I wouldn't be worried so much but it is like she can't put any emotional distance between us and yet can't have a real relationship either.
It has got to point I don't have many friends as I have withdrawn a lot after realising people were talking and gossiping about me and using the information my daughter gives them to judge and exclude. One person who I thought was a friend got very close to me and it turned out she was spying on me for my daughter and passing personal stuff to her. In one way I guess I know I deserve some of what she is doing but on other hand I have come from agraphobia and depression to build a life again and I have two eight and nine year olds to care for so if I don't sort it out it will have repercussions for them too. It seems to help when I write it down. For years I did not understand what was going on. If I don't write it down I will go mad. I don't want hearts and flowers and hugs from her and some amazing relationship. I know she has to talk about her past in order to go forward and heal but I question why it has to be done in this way. The only way I cope is to go inside myself and repress it all.

roseblue wrote:The only way I cope is to go inside myself and repress it all.

...and that is not the best way of dealing with this, as I'm sure you know. You also said there that, in a way, you deserve this treatment from her. To be honest, you simply don't deserve it. Retribution / revenge has no place in a civil society and what she is doing is just wrong. However, you can be the big person here and not seek counter-revenge.

You really should just talk to her, but in a place that is unfamiliar to ye both to prevent old [hurtful] memories from springing up. I really think that just asking her to meet for lunch or whatever would be a good idea. You can voice your concerns about what is happening then.

If that fails, don't be afraid of moving-on with your life and leaving everything behind. It's never too late to reinvent yourself and gain new focus.

Kevin.

Hey roseblue, I really think that this is codepency and perhaps narcissism at its worst. She may not see you as a father but a caretaker and justify her abuse of you by telling herself you aren't her dad. I would literally cut everything from her, as she is constantly trying to "sink her claws" in you through guilt, remorse, and depression, and seek help FOR YOURSELF. Let her believe she can care for herself. Sometimes all we can do is summed up in those years up to eighteen, and maybe even earlier, but WE MUST LET GO and focus on ourselves. I adamantly encourage you to "look out for number one" concerning her and especially since she is preventing you from giving the necessary attention to your nine year olds. Don't let her control you through others too. Focus on what matters, you and your nine year olds. Let this "black sheep" choose what she deems best in the end.
All the best.

thanks for your insight and ideas. I am really tired of trying to find out what is going on and why. I do try to invent myself but each time she seems to get under my emotional radar again. I don't feel I know who she really is. I think I care for her but have had to cut myself off to survive. I cared for her from age 4 till sixteen it is like a bereavement almost to do this. Worse because she is haunting me! She knows everything about me and all my weak points. I know she is angry because our relationship became abusive when I put my foot down and tried to make her behave at school and home. But that was only on say ten or so occassions out of our whole life together. It was not prolonged abuse eg: if she stayed out all night as a teen we would get into a fight and I slapped her on these occassions. At time I was not well and had three teens and two babies. I am not condoning what I did just trying to work out so it doesn't happen again.
My new strategy is to be truthful with any friends who I feel are special. I have one at the moment and I thought if I tell her then if she is approached by my daughter or one of her spies then she can say she already knows. Dysfunctional relationships are only truly visible from the outside. Being apart from her I see a lot clearer how manipulators manage those around them we all do it but as children with our parents to get what we want. It only becomes dangerous when it is used to hurt or create false realities.
I once read a book called The cuckoo it was about a adopted daughter who killed the other children in the family to get the full attention of the mother and eventually she kills the father I think. The mother who initially loves the child tries to get others to realise what is happening but no one believes her. They think she is mad! I am going to see a counsellor. I think it would help me to work out the wood from the trees.
Now i am not saying that my daughter is that extreme but she definitely exhibited some very possessive traits and is now showing a definite obsession with me. I am going to have to be very strong and work out a strategy that allows her to move on and through this. I am not mad at her but curious as to her next move.

roseblue wrote:My new strategy is to be truthful with any friends who I feel are special.

That is a great attitude to take into each and every day of your life. If everyone were like that, I'm sure that the world would be a better place. However, why not extend this to being honest to just 'normal' friends too? I believe that lies build-up and, eventually, they lead to problems. I would not worry too much about your daughter telling your friend about the history between you and her. I'm sure that your friend appreciates how honest you are with her and would understand that people are capable of changing for the better.

thanks chucky it is helpful to write stuff down. I always thought you had to pretend stuff was ok. Now I am re learning that it is ok to say help I can't cope and everyone has skeletons in cupboard or no one is perfect. We just hold them up as perfect. I am just sad it took so long and hurt so many people in process. Glad I realised it before too late though!
Next time she contacts me I am going to arrange a meeting for a coffee or something and be honest. not allow her straight back into my life but allow her space to talk to me if she wants. I worry if I close door to her she would up her drama and she has already threatened to harm herself to a friend I had and I no longer know what is for real and what is attention seeking but think I should always allow her a way to reach me if she wants. She won't just turn up on my doorstep. She finds it extrememly hard to talk to me about emotional stuff.

Hi again,

Firstly, good luck with meeting up with her - I truly hope that it all works out for you. Secondly, I just want to say that it is possible to turn years of 'bad' history into a good future - i.e. it is possible that ye will develop a close relationship in the future, but only if ye are both willing to try.

I am basing this on the fact that I 'never' talked to my parents for about 23 years of my life but now, at the age of 25, I am finally beginning to know who they are and I am growing to love them more.

Kevin.

thanks chucky I was not able to talk to anyone about this and carried guilt so deep inside me for how I hurt my daughter. I kept trying to reach her and could not understand why it never worked. Alot was going wrong everytime I got her back in my life. Your comment about the codependancy and narcissistic tendancies really got me thinking. Now it all slots in to place. I am not mad! Well not as bad as I thought! She has been playing me for so long she wanted a perfect mother and when she did not get it she began playing games with me. They were terrible mental games at a time I was very ill and I had not idea what was going on. I feel like she is the monster I have made. But what a relief to understand that she is like this because of her own fears and loss. It has become a way of being and supports her distorted belief system. She must still be somewhere inside. We did many good things together and I try to remember we were close and laughed and enjoyed each other. I have read alot about narcissism and the manipulation and they way she has isolated me from many of my friends and even caused problems at work makes sense now. I never guessed how far she had gone to do these things and now I can not react in the future and not think it is all my fault when things go wrong. Most people don't believe me when i tried to tell them what I thought was going on. She acts completely different around them to me. I have worked it out when I get close to working out a new strand of her manipulation she finds out and contacts me. This is a fact gathering visit to check my reaction and what new paths she can go down. I open out completely each time not suspecting her motives and tell her who my new friends are etc.. Surprise surprise she disappears from my life and my friends start acting wierd. It seems an awful lot of work to plan and execute but she is very good. And sad fact is that there are a lot of people just like her out there. This is good experience for future encounters.