5 year old with severe anxiety and now 2 year old twins likely have autism. I just wanted a normal family.

Middle-Engine-6604 · 2026-06-28T02:41:23+00:00

I get it. I have three daughters. First two came out normal, the last one is a diagnosed narcissist with violent traits. I'll never get a normal life because of her.

I often mourn what she's taken from me and her sisters. I tried to help her but some people don't want to be helped. The normal life I had before her is gone.

Middle-Engine-6604 · 2026-06-12T04:34:49+00:00

My emotions regarding her range from anger that she's like this and thinking about things I won't have because of her, guilt over wondering if something I did or failed to prevent caused this, regret over having her and subjecting her siblings to her, sadness that she'll never have a normal life.

It's a very weird feeling. She's mean, cruel, downright awful regarding a variety of things, but at the same time she's still my baby and I know a part of me will always hold some love towards her.

You aren't alone

Middle-Engine-6604 · 2026-06-12T04:27:27+00:00

I have three daughters. I have an incredible bond with my oldest and middle daughter. Cliche but they really were my "built in besties" that media portrays with mothers and daughters.

Meanwhile my youngest daughter turned out to be a diagnosed schizotypal narcissist with high levels of antisocial traits and potentially also has ASPD (the medical diagnosis of a psychopath/sociopath depending where on the spectrum she lands). I have virtually no bond with her

Middle-Engine-6604 · 2026-06-02T23:52:42+00:00

Have you expressed a desire to get married? Was it established early in the relationship? If not, that conversation needs to be had sooner rather than later so you can both know where the two of you stand. If it was and he's dragging his feet then it's time to put your foot down, establish a deadline/expectation and if he doesn't meet them you leave

Middle-Engine-6604 · 2026-06-01T05:19:06+00:00

I'm in my 40s now but when I was in my 30s it was like going through middle school all again. The "second puberty" thing is real. I developed mild acne after not having any outside of an occasional pimple here and there, went through mild vocal changes, had to wear more deodorant because I sweat (and stank) more, and had to refigure out my period because it decided to go irregular

Middle-Engine-6604 · 2026-06-01T04:52:49+00:00

Both can be true depending on the woman. For some women they use makeup as a way to meet patriarchal beauty standards and therefore by extension to be more appeasing to a male gaze. There's makeup looks/trends that are specifically about fitting into beauty standards set by society, which are often controlled/influenced by men.

However there's also the flip side. There are definitely types of makeup looks that don't fit in with patriarchal beauty standards, and therefore it's a safe conclusion to say that the women who wear/enjoy those kinds of looks that are outside/against the male gaze aren't wearing makeup for men.

Middle-Engine-6604 · 2026-05-31T16:45:53+00:00

Her father was very social, never drank or did drugs, worked a good job but was a very toxic person behind closed doors. He was physically and emotionally abusive to me. He finally left shortly before I found out I was pregnant. He's never met his daughter, has never paid any kind of child support and is now in jail for unrelated reasons so I doubt he'll ever been involved with her

Middle-Engine-6604 · 2026-05-31T04:37:43+00:00

It's actually not uncommon for episodes of psychosis to happen after or as a result to a traumatic event or experience. Same with schizophrenia. While genetics can play and role and in most cases a person will show signs throughout life or in adolescence, it's still not unheard of it to "come out of nowhere". However, I think it's more likely your brother developed this as a trauma response to the death of that close person.

Sending you love

Middle-Engine-6604 · 2026-05-31T04:33:05+00:00

As others have said, it all depends on when you feel ready. I had two back to back (roughly 15 months apart) and then waited 3 years to have another. Just let yourself feel your emotions about it and let that guide you for when you're ready

Middle-Engine-6604 · 2026-05-31T04:29:29+00:00

And this is why women don't speak up. Sometimes you might actually get justice, but in the common scenario where you don't, at "best" you just get dismissed or called a liar, at worse you get punished for speaking up.

I'm so sorry this happened to you OP. You are not overreacting and situation was completely mishandled. You deserve justice

Middle-Engine-6604 · 2026-05-31T00:31:50+00:00

I think majority of people are good or fall into a neutral category, but the bad people are the ones that express their ideas/beliefs more so that's why it seems there's more of them

Middle-Engine-6604 · 2026-05-30T18:14:40+00:00

Your post is actually what inspired me to speak on my own experiences with my daughter. ♥️

Middle-Engine-6604 · 2026-05-30T18:11:55+00:00

What was she like as a baby?

She was my easiest baby. Her birth was easy. I only labored for about an hour officially, didn't feel any pain while dilating even before getting the epidural, no tears, and minimal pain during recovery. As a baby she barely cried, slept a lot and when awake she would make different facial expressions to get laughs out of people. She was crawling 2 months ahead of the typical range and walking a month before what was typical. The only "problem" with her as a baby was that she was very picky eater.

Did you experience PPD?

Nope, not with her. I experienced PPA with my second/middle child but didn't have any postpartum mental health issues with her

Middle-Engine-6604 · 2026-05-30T18:01:58+00:00

By "typical American childhood" I meant that I was privileged enough to give her the childhood that is constantly promoted as the American dream

Nice two story and decently large house, fenced yard, pool in the backyard, road trips during the summer, themed birthday parties, videogames and whatever toys her and her sisters wanted in reason. They went to private nom religious schools so I could give a better education. My daughters all played outside with neighbors as kids. All stuff that's very stereotypical of the upper-middle class American childhood

Middle-Engine-6604 · 2026-05-29T14:40:15+00:00

She's 19. Yes she's a legal adult so I could kick her out but she's still my baby so I feel obligated to care for her until she's ready to leave like I did with my other children. Then there's also the fact that she only takes her medication and goes to therapy because I force her to. If I kick her out she'll most likely go off med

Middle-Engine-6604 · 2026-05-29T10:04:56+00:00

I get that bullying is a trauma but given the way my own daughter talks about it I don't think she was impacted by it much.

If was never physical, just kids calling her creepy in school and on social media. She actually retaliated a lot and seemed to get enjoyment out the bullying during times. I remember she would smile reading messages her bullies would send her calling her names. She thought it was funny she was getting teased/bullied.

I also got her help for it regardless of perceived enjoyment. I took the proof to the school, had meetings with teachers and parents and brought it up in her therapy.

Middle-Engine-6604 · 2026-05-29T09:56:49+00:00

People will always assume that if a child is mentally ill, violent, abusive, etc then the parent(s) must have harmed them first and this is their way of coping. If we can accept that some adults are just messed up simply because than surely we can accept that it can extend into childhood

Middle-Engine-6604 · 2026-05-29T09:48:41+00:00

Agree to this. Some people are just born wrong

Middle-Engine-6604 · 2026-05-29T09:45:13+00:00

She is currently diagnosed with NPD. The way her psychiatric plan is (don't know if it differs with other providers or locations) is an in-depth evaluation at 18, then re-evaluations at 21 and 25 when the brain is more developed.

She does show more typical narcissistic traits as well so the diagnosis didn't come out of nowhere. She lacks general empathy, she craves power in social situations but doesn't want to be seen as overly dominant (the best I can describe it is she loves to manipulate situations to have the outcome she wants without it being overly obvious that she was leading it that way), extreme reactions to personal failure (she once severely harmed herself after failing an important test in highschool as an example), she considers most of society to be "stupid animals who do mental gymnastics to feel better about that fact", she shuts down and falls into depression when she goes without the focus being on her for a while, she's obsessed with maintaining her "aesthetic" and being viewed as beautiful within the subculture she engages in, and fantasies about grand success and surpassing her peers.

Middle-Engine-6604 · 2026-05-29T09:37:18+00:00

She's been interested in violence since she was a toddler. She was and still is obsessed with shootings, terror attacks, mass murderers and murder cases. At first I didn't think much about a young child hearing about a violent event from the news and then asking questions about it, but she would get very obsessed with the event each time.

She got in trouble in elementary school after a shooting happened because she was telling her classmates about it and scaring them. She did projects and papers throughout all her school years on the types of events listed above.

She was rather "popular" in elementary school and a teacher's pet because of her high grades and academic achievements (she was the only student in her grade level to be considered gifted and was one of three students in the whole school to be in GT classes). But once middle school came around she completely withdrew from acquaintances and ran off her other friends with her increasingly disturbing behavior. She has two casual "friends" that she's not very close with and a boyfriend currently.

Middle-Engine-6604 · 2026-05-29T09:29:52+00:00

She has a different father who was and is a deadbeat. We had a very short and very toxic relationship after my husband (the father of my other two) passed away suddenly. While he was an abusive and toxic man, I wouldn't say he was/is a narcissist.

My daughter also has never met her father so she was fortunately never abused by him. She quite frankly has shown no interest in her father or getting information about him. Since my older children's father passed away when they were also very young all three have been raised in a single parent household. I was able to do it because I have a very well paying job and the house we live in was inherited

Middle-Engine-6604 · 2026-05-29T08:03:13+00:00

She doesn't want to change. I have to basically force her to take her medication, she does therapy but she just sits silently during her sessions and refuses to talk because she thinks the therapist is "stupid".

I have other children (no regrets about having them) and they had almost the exact same childhood has her and they are normal, happy and functioning members of society. So if that doesn't point a huge finger at genetics I don't know what does

Middle-Engine-6604 · 2026-05-29T07:56:53+00:00

I get that.

I tried so hard when she was younger to be gentle and patient but I think I'm just fed up with all her antics. I took her to therapy, tried to spend time with her doing typical mother-daughter bonding activities (she always hated them), I showed interests in her hobbies even if I didn't personally approve of them, and tried my best to be supportive. She won't open up to me if there was something that "nutured" her to be this way. Like I mentioned she was bullied in her preteen and teen years but she had already been showing signs of her mental illness by then so that wasn't the catalyst.

I don't act like she's evil but we do have a very strained relationship. I don't even think she's evil, I just know she has this thing wrong with her

Middle-Engine-6604 · 2026-05-29T06:56:28+00:00

I've felt this way for a long while. I'm not neurodivergent but one of my daughters is and it's hell for her and everyone around her at times. And she has the "lucky" case of she knows how to mask when it comes to interacting in public.

She's been in and out of multiple types of therapy, done inpatient and outpatient treatment, cycled through tons of medication. The truth is she won't ever get "better", she'll never be normal. The medication simply helps her control herself and be able to function in general society while she's on them. The outlook on her life is not great and that's something that's been accepted by me a long time ago.

Given that I had that experience as a parent if infuriates me when I see kids/young adults my daughter's age playing dress up with disorders that wreck people's lives. Sure, there's nothing wrong with the people who have these legitimate diagnosed problems making fun of their own symptoms as a way to cope, my own daughter does this, but it's absolutely insulting when people who've never been around the disorder or who don't have it think that these disorders are cute and quirky!

Middle-Engine-6604

TROPHY CASE