My child is driving me insane. She�s always been ultra-touchy about being criticized in any way, reacting with an angry snarl to even the most gently delivered and kindly meant suggestions--never mind the apoplectic fit she throws upon actually being verbally reprimanded in any way.

Lately though, her surly outbursts have gotten downright hateful, not to mention ridiculously overblown, in reaction to any attempt to explain anything to her. She also seems to have lost all her powers of reason.

Things my daughter has actually said to me recently (see if you can spot any inconsistency here... I know it�s awfully subtle):

�Why CAN�T I stay here alone while you guys go to Missouri for the weekend? I won�t get hurt or sick. I won�t get robbed or raped. There won�t be a fire. Nothing will happen. I�m sixteeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen!�

And not an hour later :

�Will you stop yelling at me about losing my keys all the time? I can�t keep track of them. You know I�m irresponsible!�

Or how about this charmingly contradictory pair, spoken practically in the same breath :

�It�s all your fault that I act this way. You�ve pretty much let me do whatever I wanted ever since I moved up here.�

�It�s not fair for you to start having all these rules. You�re always trying to control every little aspect of my existence!�

(Note for the uninitiated: the �new rules� she is so upset about are not, in fact, new at all. There are only a couple of minor new things on the rules list, such as her room having to be clean prior to having weekend privileges. Everything else, including the chores list, has been in effect since the beginning. I haven�t enforced them consistently enough, but that is NOT the same thing as being allowed to do whatever she wants! She has gotten yelled at, lectured and punished many times. But she�s still been terrible about obeying in spite of my efforts, and now is upset because I�ve set the rules down on paper and am becoming a hard-ass about enforcing them.)

Or how bout this one: a few nights ago, the Evil One was playing on the computer and had been for some time. On his way out the door to smoke a cigarette on the patio, the Prince let her know that he would be needing the computer as soon as he came back inside. �O-KAAAAY,� she sighed.

She had ample time to wrap things up, but when the Prince came back inside 20 minutes and two cigarettes later, she was still �doing stuff� online. We told her to wrap it up.

�OHHHHH-KAY!� she snapped. �Just give me a minute!� The Prince graciously sat down to wait a little longer for her to finish.

She semi-quickly clicked into and out of several posts on the Stupid Teenage Message Board she frequents, then she began quickly typing out a post. I told her she needed to hurry UP already.

�I KNOW! I�m almost done.� She posted the message and then clickety-clacked her way into one of her emails boxes, closed out of that and then clicked into another email address, and hurriedly began tapping out a reply.

At this point I yelled at her to get the hell off the computer RIGHT NOW.

�ALRIGHT!� she snapped. She hit send, and then quickly logged onto her AIM to see who was on.

Beyond livid at this point, I leaped up, grabbed her by the hair, dragged her across the room and began smacking her head into the living room wall, over and over and over.

Oh, wait... that was the dream sequence.

What really happened is that I finally screamed at her to get off RIGHT THIS INSTANT, and she shrieked �FINE!!!!� and began blubbering something about how it�s NOT FAIR, and stomped off into her room and slammed the door, leaving me to nurse the aneurysm that throbbed dangerously in my brain while the Prince just sat there, shaking his head incredulously.

Fast forward a couple of days. The Evil Childe was playing on the X-Box, and the Prince mentioned wanting her to get off so he could use it. So I mosied out that way and told her she needed to save her game and get off. �O-kaaay,� she sighed. �Just a sec.�

The computer incident fresh in my mind, firmly yet without raising my voice I insisted that she needed to get off NOW. Naturally she went ballistic...

�Jesus Christ, Mom!! Can�t you give me a second to finish what I was doing and save my game? I SAID I�d only be a second...�

And simply could NOT understand why I was disinclined to take her at her word when she said �Just a sec,� having played that little game with her many times before and having discovered that in her mind a second can last anywhere from ten minutes to half an hour. Simply could not understand why I couldn�t wait when she just TOLD me she�d only be a second. She insists that I�m just unreasonable and impatient and expect her to respond to my every command the very instant the words leave my lips.

(Yeah, yeah, I can hear all you �good� parents out there muttering about how YOUR kid would never get away with that sort of thing, and by god YOU�D have made her get off the damn computer immediately in the first place and if she talked to YOU like that she�d be picking her pearly whites up off of the floor and yadda yadda yadda. Well, thanks for not sharing because I already realize I tend to cut the kid a little more slack than she deserves because a) she has ADHD and OCD and bipolar disorder and I understand that she has a lot of difficulty with transistions and b) I get so fucking weary of fighting with her about EVERY LITTLE THING, ALL THE FUCKING TIME, that sometimes I give her an inch or five in hopes that for once she�ll be satisfied with that and then maybe we can skip World War MMMMXVIIII just this once. Sometimes it actually works.)

So yeah, anyway... this whole inability to reason thing of hers has just got me floored. She initiates these �discussions� wherein she challenges my parenting decisions, and the inconsistencies that come flying out of her mouth one after another are simply mind-boggling. Pointing them out to her is pointless as she either rationalizes them away or changes the subject by going into �victim� mode... �poor me, you don�t care what I think, you never listen, you always treat me like shit, I never get to do anything I want to do, you just want me to be just like you, blah blah blah...�

We�ve got some serious stress overload going on here these days, what with massive schoolwork, worrying about the Prince�s job, money worries and the various and sundry other crises that just won�t seem to stop popping up; and this moody kid shit is just not helping at all.

Is there any way to develop more of a tolerance for frustration? Because I�ve had a couple of fairly scary meltdowns in the past few weeks that have made me seriously begin questioning my own sanity. My inability to handle stress without being overcome by hystrionics does not bode well for my future happiness, the well-being of my family, nor my eventual fitness for the world of work.

I�m really not very pleased with myself right now. I used to think it was my life that was crazy... I�m beginning to worry that it might just be me.

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Last Five
Crappy job crap, weird neighbor, and someone whose baby I apparently want to have - 2006-05-08
Live from the dump - 2006-04-09
Kind of like a muzzle for your brain - 2006-03-29
...and then she fell ass-first into my cereal bowl - 2006-03-28
Playing catch-up - 2006-03-27

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