Histrionic Personality Disorder

[formydaughter]

I feel that my 17 yr old daughter might be dealing with this.  According to all of the "prerequisites" in regards to diagnosis it seems that she fits almost all of them.  She doesn't finish anything she starts, she does things always spur of the moment and never thinks things thru only makes decisions based on her emotions or how she is feeling at the moment.  Has no concern for her siblings whether it hurts them or not.  This has been progressing ever since she was little not just recently.  as a preschooler she would put snow down her older brothers collar, as a teenager she doesn't care if she ruins her younger sisters clothes when she borrows them, nor does she concern herself with other peoples feelings.  She dresses provacatively and her father (my ex) doesn't seem to say anything to her about her attire when she is with him.  Recently she lied to me about going over to a friends house where they were going to go to the mall and she was to spend the night with her friend.  That wasn't what she did, she had a 21 year old male friend drive her over 4 hours away to meet a guy she had met on line thru facebook or myspace.  When I tried to call her dad in regards to this he never returned my call but called her instead.  

Her myspace and face book accounts have all sorts of pictures of her with bikini's and underware on not a picture on there that she has more than that on.  When I blocked those address on my home router she would find web proxyies to get around the blocked sites, this became a battle every night with me blocking all the new web proxies she came up with I finally blocked the PC from the internet and she got into my bedroom and used my laptop, so I blocked that with some password protection so she tried her older brothers PC, however he already had password protection so she didn't get anywhere.  I got fed up with the internet issues that I had it all turned off at my house.  I am a computer tech/LAN Admin so I am fairly knowledgeable about the internet and have given them the talk many times about personal info and all that but to no avail in regards to her.  when I took her cell phone away for making calls to guys to hook up for sex, she used her younger sister's cell phone which I proceeded to take away from her as well.  You would think that that would put an end to things but nope her father bought her a Blackberry cell phone 2 weekes later with full internet and texting and access to Myspace and Facebook.   On her pages at those sites she put her new number on it and told people to call her.  here is a quote that she put on her web page " I gots the blackberry and I hold it over my muddahs head"  she is caucasion but wrote this in ghetto style.   I took the phone away and returned it to her father and told him under no uncertain terms was that device to ever find it's way back into my house.

She lies to me, creates chaos in the household, loads me down daily with "Emergencies that I am supposed to fix" like I missed the bus for work, or I forgot my work uniform, or I left my MP3 player in Daddy's car, to which I now respond that those are her issues not mine and I am not taking charge of them.  So when that didn't work anymore she then proceeded to tell me that she thinks she might be pregnant, this she also told to my other Daughter's soccer coach at a benefit concert that my other daugther had made plans in advance to attend, and she decided at the last minute that her father could take her to the concert too.  When I asked her why she didn't tell her father, seeing as she was with him Saturday and Sunday, she told me that it was a discussion that should only be had with her mother.  In other words she doesn't need to get more attention from daddy because she has him wrapped around her little finger.  My younger daughter told me that at the benefit concert my older daughter proceeded to spend all the cash that Daddy had on him, which was his money for the weekend, the concert was on Saturday night.  On Sunday my daughter spent all of her paycheck on clothing and stuff for herself ( she hasn't done her own laundry in over 3 weeks),(she still hasn't given me any gas money to drive her to work like she had agreed to), she also wanted the really large Senoir portrait package for her senoir pictures I told her I only had $200 and that she needed to pay me the additional money for me to order the pictures, I refuse to order the pictures untill I have the money in hand.  

She has relationships with guys (we used to call the the flavor of the week as it was someone different every week or so) now she will call a guy or make arrangements at school for them to pick her up to have sex and return her home before either I or my younger daughter get home.  If she doesn't do that then she comes home and just sleeps, no chores get done her room is a pigsty.  She has meds to take to include birth control and doesn't take them when she is supposed to but when she isn't feeling good or if her teeth hurt I am to take her to the Dr. or dentist right away.  Just like I was to produce a pregnancy test right away to see if she was pregnant.

Add on top of this I have been dealing with Family Court in regards to custody,  she wants no supervision which she will get at her fathers house as he works evenings, and she has hoodwinked the law guardian into thinking that she is capable and intelligent enough to make that decision for herself.  Her Father has a CPS report against him already for lack of guardianship and neglect for proper food, shelter and or supervision.  She has been in counselling at Family and Childrens Services but so far none of that has seemed to help.

I would love to let her go as I am so frustrated and tired of the chaos that she has put on me but in her best interest that just isn't the right choice.  My youngest daughter is having to deal with fall out at school in regards to her sister's behavior, but her sister and her dad also pressure her to come live with her dad and try to get her to capitulate to their demands.  I have set up a safety net for her to be able to go to and to be able to call people to come and get her should they pressure her (see in court yesturday the law guardian let the court know that she doesn't want to go to her dad's).   If I could I just would take my youngest daughter and leave the area, I don't want to hurt either of my daughters but my youngest daughter doesn't need the problems that her sister and her dad put on her.

So am wondering just what to do for my daughters.  Where can I get a diagnosis for my older daughter.

signed
-formydaughter

[Amphitrite]

I am sorry you are going through such a rough time.
I think I missed your daughters age? While age is not always a marker for ALL behavior in every case it is important that you take into account the stage she is in right now of adolecents(which I am assuming because she isn't old enough to live without a guardian)

My suggestions would be for the family to get into counseling. Whether or not her behavior started in childhood or is more recent seperation, dicorce and custudy is hard for all children, even adult children.
She may be having problems understanding what is happening and feels pulled between two people that she loves. Outward behavior doesn't always match whats going on inside of someone. And she may not know how to express her feelings properly, is afriad to or even may not understand them.

I understand your wanting to get your daughter diagnosed. But what may be more important is getting her help. A few words strung together giving your daughter a label doesn't do anything to improve the situation. Doctors and therapists don't treat the diagnosis they treat the person and the symptoms they have been dealing with.
So more importantly than finding a diagnosis may be to find a good therapist to start out with and then have that therapist refer you to a psychiatrist for medication.

You can always start with making an appointment with a psychiatrists but most psychs. won't treat someone unless they are seeing a counselor of some sort.

Some of her bahavior seems like normal adolecent (adolescent) anks. And some seems directly related to what the family as a whole is going through with you and their father being in seperate places and fighting for custudy. It's nearly impossible to gage her behavior over the internet especially with some enviormental factors mixed in.

Things have changed drastically when it comes to adolecent (adolescent) behavior in the past decade. Facebook, myspace and the internet in general complicates things. It makes it harder to keep track of what your kid's are up to and who they are talking to.

Your not alone in feeling you have lost control over keeping your daughter safe and helping guide her to make the right decisions. Now more than ever teen parent relationships are becoming more complicated which is why I suggested that you along with her siblings also seek out a professional to talk to or even go to family counseing.

There is a reason that adolecents can't be diagnosed with personality disorders, because their personalities and bodies are still deveoping and changing. As I said adolecents is a time unlike any other throughout the entire growing process.
It is very uncommon for any teen or child to be diagnosed with a personality disorder and those that have been are the most severe cases and are very ill.
Your daughter does not fall into that catagory.

I caution you with all do respect to avoid trying to self diagnose your daughter. You are too close to the situation and as a parent see her behavior in a different way. And to also concentrate more on getting your daughter or the family into a therapist than someone to give her a label. The diagnosis won't make any difference, in all honesty.

I hope you and your family can move forward from here and start to get things under control.

Amph

[formydaughter]

My older Daughter is 17 and my younger daughter is 14, my son is 20.  I have been divorced/separated for over 13 years.  I left my husband due to his depression, laziness, intimidation, emotional abuse, and and manipulations of the children.  My son was 7 at the time and from a previous relationship, my daughters were 4 and 1.  My older daughter has been in and out of counselling from Kindergarten on.  She first saw a child psychologist at the age of 5 and stayed with the Psychologist for about a year until her father refused to take her or to pay the co pays, I couldn't pay the bills as my insurance didn't pay that much.  Then she saw the social worker at school from 2nd grade thru 8th grade some years it was off and on, if she wanted to go then she would go and if she didn't then she wouldn't show up in the social workers office.

I feel that part of my daughters problems are hereditary, her father has depression and is an alcoholic, he has been admitted to the hospital on atleast 4 times to the mental health ward - twice while having a blood alcohol over .2  - all of these times have been after we were separated/divorced.

My older daughter and I tried Dispute resolution, and counselling together, but to no avail.  When I would implement what we had agreed upon this would last for all of one or two weeks, she didn't care if she was grounded as the punishment was only at my house so if she wanted to do something that she wasn't allowed to do because of being grounded she would do it when she was with her father.  When I have tried, in the past and to this day, to talk to her father about all the problems I have been having with her he just brushes it aside - in the past he would tell me that she wouldn't be having problems if we hadn't gotten divorced, now he says that this is just typical teenage behavior, but I have a 20 year old son and a 14 year old daughter that have never done the things that she has.  

My 14 year old daughter is a freshman at high school, her sister is a senoir, and not a day goes by at school that she isn't facing some cast off from her sister's behavior with boys or what her sister says or does.   Does my younger daughter deserve this?  When her team mates on her soccer team found out who her sister was they were shocked because they all that that my oldest daughter was "Scarey".  But atleast her team mates didn't judge her and they all still like her.  My younger daughter is quiet and reserved and feels that it is her responsibility to look after her older sister even if it makes her life miserable.  I have talked with her and told her that she isn't responsible for her sister, that she is only responsible for herself and her actions, but the stigma of her sister still over shadows her.

I am not the only one that thinks that my daughter has issues, adults that have known her for most of her life also agree.  Because my daughter manipulates people and only shows them what they want to see, if people aren't around her on a daily basis then they do not see the whole picture, and at therapy she just discusses her chaos of the day, and not how to resolve and get rid of the chaos, never does it get deep enough to get at the root of the problem.  It's not that I want a label for my older daughter, I want her to get therapy that will address the core problem instead of what happenned today at school that got her going.

As a Parent I have also sought counselling to deal with my daughter and her father and it hasn't been easy, my younger daughter while she isn't in counselling per se does have an adult non family member who is a social worker that she has been talking to.  

My son has left my house and is living with his friends while he is attending college, so there isn't much control my daughter has over him or his life at the moment.  And he has a psychologist that he can see if he needs to.

There are times that I feel like my older daughter has caused so much havoc and has torn our family apart, just to get attention and to be able to do what she wants whenever she wants.  I grew up in a divorced family and we never had the issues that I am having with my daughter.  It's not that I don't love my daughter but there are days I wish that I could just turn around and walk right back out the door I came in and never return.  There are days that I do not even want to go home after work because of the stress that she had already put on me before I left work, some days she would call me almost every 5 or 10 minutes to put one more problem that I was supposed to deal with on my plate, or to complain that she was sick (when she wouldn't take her medicine for lactose intolerance, even though she knew she wasn't to have milk products), or to say that she needed this or that yesterday, or there was this going on at school that she wanted to go to that night but hadn't given me 24 hours notice and wanted me to not make her follow the house rules and just let her go, and if I stuck to my guns she would throw a tantrum on the phone, and an even bigger one when I got home.  I tried to be understanding I've tried to tell her that I was at work and would deal with it when I got home, but who wants to go home when you know that once inside there was a mine field waiting for you to cross before it was bed time and silent.

I'm not sure just how much more I can do for her and still keep me and my youngest daughter safe from the emotional battle ground, both of us are already wounded, just how much more do we have to take?

-formydaughter

[Amphitrite]

Right sorry, missed the age in the first sentance with your origional post.
Your daughter is still in that rocky adolecent (adolescent) period especially getting closer to the pressures of graduating from high school and deciding on college. However, all kid's are different in regards to how they feel about themselves, their peers, parent and family relationships and the world around them.

That's not to say all of your daughters behavior is appropriate for her age. But even in those kid's that are dealing with any psychological disturbance some behavior is always due to just being a teenager and when a child is dealing with behavioral problems the whole of their behavior usually gets lumped in together.

That's why counseling is so important because a professional is able to help desern between age appropriate behavior and problem behavior.

There are some genetic factors that may be at play here as well as enviormental. When parents get divorced the effect on each child can be different expecially considering there age at the times. Going by a time line your youngest daughter was so young that most of her life she has only known her parents as being apart and so had a better chance at adjusting than a the children that were old enough to at least comprehend what was happening as far as mommy and daddy not living in the same place any longer and not seeing one of you as often.

There are so many factors that play into behavioral disturbances in children and adolecents. So much so that they get their own psychology model and specialists who understand their period of growth specifically and work with just them alone.

All families are different so how your family worked when you were her age is much different than how families function now. I don't know your age but going by your having a 17 year old daughter and being divorced for over 13 years I'd gage you at the very least in your 30's. Being in my late 20's myself and seeing many families over the years sometimes I can't believe how different things are and how different childrens behavior is.

Kid's live by different social rules now, interact differently with their peers and with their families. But again, I'm not saying this is an excuse for your daughters behavior. Only that compairing the way your family worked to how it works now will without doubt leave you wondering why things are so much different.
I think every parent does it. My parents did it and so did their and so on. Families are getting further and further from the initial family values.

Still my suggestion to you is to work on ways of getting your daughter into therapy. Your daughter is very close to turning 18 which means going through the process of using your legal rights as her guarden may be more effort than results as she is no longer considered a child at the age of 18 and so is not legally under your guardenship.
But if you would like to seek out a social worker to find out what your legal rights are you can always do that.

My other suggestion to you about family therapy is still something you may want to think about looking into. Ech person having their own counselor or therapist to talk to is great. But seperatly the family is not able to work on issues within the family relationships with one another as successfully as it would be together.

If your daughter refuses to go to family therapy than maybe your two other children and yourself. Your ex can always join sessions here and there or you can choose to have him be apart of the sessions regularly.

As to what you should do about your youngest. My advice is to get her into a therapist or counselor on a regular basis. Talking to a friend that used to be or is in the mental health profession can be beneficial but because it's unofficial there are no theraputic boundaries within the relationship she has with this women and as a friend is not impartial and not of an appropriate distant from the situation.

I hear your desperation for yourself and youngest and your frustration in wanting the situation to improve. I'm afraid unless your daughter lives with your husband or an external factor comes into play which removes your daughter from the home the only way you and your daughter and going to improve your relationship is with hard work through a professional.
The relationship sounds too volitile to change with a good old fashion mother to daughter talk and a little understanding. The relationship needs professional moderation so you can learn to express yourself to eahcother without causing world war III every time. And your daughter can learn to express herself and deal with her emotions properly.

The one thing to remember is that alot of teenagers are sending a message with there behavior. She may be very angry or hurt for some reason and acting out because that's the only way she knows how to deal with what's going on inside.

I really am sorry your going through something this hard and frustrating.
I'm also sorry there isn't an easy answer that I can give you. Changing things always takes work and sacrafice on everyones part. Sometimes it seems like unfair scrafice to have to bend the family and walk on egg shells.
But you have all been effected and so have the relationships you have with one another so need to learn how to mend those and work to get the family dynamic where you would like it to be.
With a little relaistic expectation of course. As I said before mending a family is hard work and can be a slower process than we all wish it were.

I really can't tell you what your daughters behavior means or what effect she is having on your youngest psychologically more than you yourself have already mentioned, such as the interation she has with her peers at school.
But just keep in mind that kid's these days can be very cruel to one another. Anyone who is different can be ailenated and ostersized by there peers.
So just keep an open relationship with your daughter which makes her feel able to be honest with you about her feelings. I'm afraid there is nothing you can do to change other childrens behavior. You can only teach your daughter how to better deal and cope with it.

I wish the best for you and your family and hope you all can work to improve things.

Amph

[badlegacy]

ForMyDaughter,
Your daughter's history and behavior sounds strikingly similar to my son's.  I think that Amph is trying to help you, but she is not really hearing you and does not understand your situation.

Amph keeps telling you to get counseling,but you have been getting counseling and it hasn't worked largely because your daughter manipulates the therapist. My son does the same thing. It is so frustrating. We want to help him but he will not talk to the therapists. Or, he only tells them what he things they want to hear.

He brings constant chaos into our lives. When he was away at relatives for the summer my husband, younger son and I enjoyed such a wonderful peaceful house. We didn't realize just how disruptive and abusive my son was until he was gone. We love him but how can you help someone who will not allow help? Amph's comments about counseling are completely unhelpful in that the child will not respond/participate in counseling.

Amph's saying this is normal teen behavior is wrong, because I too live with such a child. This is far from normal or healthy.

I also think it sounds like borderline personality.

I would love to talk to you because your situation sounds so much like mine.  

[challena]

I am a social worker. Typically, Personality Disorders are not diagnosed in teenagers.  I recommend you contact your case worker from Family Services and request a referral to a Child Psychologist specializing in teens for a second opinion.  The psychologist will be able to evaluate your daughter and make recommendations or further referrals either for therapy or medication.  I would also recommend you talk to her current therapist or the CPS case work for a referral for family therapy.  I would also recommend you take her to her pediatrician for a physical and discuss these problems with him/her.  Hope all the best for your difficult situation.