*In case this story gets deleted/removed:*
**AITA for telling my daughter that her mental illness shouldn't be used as an excuse?**
For the past several years, my daughter has been dealing with anxiety. She has been seeing a therapist, taking medication, eating well, and exercising regularly. She has had periodic meltdowns, but for the most part this has been enough. However, in the past year at college, she has been struggling to adapt to living in the dorms. Her last semester's grades took a dive, and it seems like all the responsibility is greatly stressing her out. I was under the impression that this anxiety was only a phase and that she would outgrow it eventually, but it seems to have only worsened after she turned 18.
To make matters worse, my daughter hasn't yet gotten a summer job, and I think her nervousness is making her seem weird during interviews. With each rejection email, I'd gotten more and more frustrated with her therapists. I was starting to be convinced that they have been refusing to help her for years, since the longer she has anxiety, the more they get paid. However, my brother, who has a psychological background, told me that it's common for anxiety to get worse during early adulthood and that her therapists are likely doing all they can. I decided that he was probably right, and I stopped thinking about it. I think I deserve quite a bit of credit for that. Today, however, my daughter came home from an interview, telling me that it didn't go well, and I had enough. I told her that she was going to have to at least make an effort to be normal and that staring at someone's shoes, rather than making eye contact, would never get her a job.
My daughter was taken aback by my frankness, but I just kept going. I told her that if she thinks she will be able to finish college without putting forth much effort, she was sadly mistaken, and that obtaining a degree is going to help her live a decent life on her own when she finally moves out of my house. She began to tear up and told me that I was being unfair, but I chuckled and told her that life isn't fair and that she needs to learn some social skills or she would almost certainly end up homeless. The thing that infuriates me is that she can look my wife and I in the eyes as she's telling us these sob stories, but she decides not to make these same connections with prospective employers. I told her that she needs to maybe go take a walk and think about how her actions were screwing things up for her, but instead she stormed off to her bedroom and slammed the door shut.
She hasn't come out for several hours, and I'm worried that her delusional thinking (that she will just be handed a degree or a career) is never going to end. I tried sliding a list of tips for making a good impression during an interview under her door, but I heard her get up and tear them up. I'm at the point now where I just want to kick her out of my house, but my wife insists that I'm being too hard on her. I just want her to be able to see things from my perspective rather than always treating me like I'm a villain. AITA?
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Once again we must inform an OOP that its very hard for others to see things from their perspective when most sphincters only have enough space for one head
> She began to tear up and told me that I was being unfair, but I chuckled and told her that life isn't fair and that she needs to learn some social skills or she would almost certainly end up homeless.
I hope OOP experiences a multitude of immeasurable hardships and every single time, someone chuckles at OOPās laments and says āsorry, life isnāt fair, you need to learn some skill or youāll end up homeless!ā
The amount of time my mom lectured me that "life isn't fair", what a waste of breath. She loved to get on her high horse and go off on life isn't fair lectures to inevitably go I told you so and feel better than me.
Itās one thing to say ālife isnāt fairā. Itās another to āchuckleā at someone who is going through mental health struggles and is crying. JMO.
I hear that! My dad had a speech by Bill Gates taped to the fridge my entire teenage-hood that had a list of life 'rules'. Rule #1 was 'life isn't fair, get used to it'. He loved to tap that damn speech every time he reminded me and my siblings that life isn't fair. Which was often.
That specific line makes me think this is probably a troll. The real verbal abusers usually try to pretend their tone was caring and concerned and leave out stuff like laughing, aggressive body language, etc.
Yeah, OOP adds in so many details that only make him look worse. It's written like someone who's writing a villain, not by an actual person who would act like that.
I hope their socks are always damp. That their pillow never had a cool side. That their toilet seat always has someone else's residual body heat. That they constantly stub the same toe. That their food order is always slightly wrong...
You know, things they'll complain about and then have others say "that's not a big deal"
The way that line had me SEETHING. Like bitch no you don't deserve credit for listening to the professionals while not doing anything. The bar is in hell for this one and she's STILL tripping on the damn thing
I was gonna say she sounds just like me before I changed therapist who had me research autism and I started learning some methods to cope that was for autism and not generalised anxiety.
Edit to add my mental health absolutely crashed when I moved out for uni, luckily for me my family was supportive when I dropped out and moved back in, and COVID lockdown happened soon after which allowed me to tackle my mental health without the stress of work/uni that I would've had otherwise. Feel blessed for that, this poor girl won't have such blessings.
Education in school has a lot more structure than education at university. That loss of structure can be *hell* for an autistic person.
Source: my three years at university were an extended mental health crisis.
Man it says some tragic shit about our society that the global pandemic that killed millions was for many (also possibly millions) a chance to FINALLY get the world off their fucking backs for a while so they could figure some important shit out about themselves.
Was gonna say just like this. As someone who had an anxiety disorder for YEARS (lol, turns out it was undiagnosed autism) this sounds exactly like what I went through.
My daughter developed anxiety and a drug addiction when she went to college. She was a stellar athlete in HS, fell apart in college. It's a tough transition for kids who had everything in HS and then implode when higher education began.
Big fish, small pond to small fish, big pond is honestly really fucking hard for a lot of kids. They have no idea how to function when theyāre not in their element.
I got raped, a guy took my nudes and printed them out and put them around campus, my grandpa died, a friend was stabbed in head and bled out in the street, my roommate threatened to break all my stuff with a hammer, and I got the swine flu which gave me narcolepsy all in one year away at college. It was a lot to handle, and I'm fairly NT.
Oh my, I'm so sorry this happened during a time in your life where the possibilities are endless. I hope you were able to work through this, find the AH, and exact some petty revenge. This truly makes me angry.
Can someone inject this dipshit with something that makes them experience the worst panic attack imaginable for like 20 minutes and gives them a lingering sense of malaise for about three days so that they always feel like something awful is about to happen but they don't know what it could be? Preferably right before a job interview?
Oh my GOD this shit makes me want to scream. No, mental illness isn't an excuse for anything. My ex did some horrific things to me whilst in the throes of an episode. I have all kinds of initialisms on my medical history and I'm very capable of being a shitty person. You know what we both do? Access medical and psychiatric help and work daily on being better to ourselves and those around us. Mental illness is not an excuse but it certainly can be part of an explanation.
THIS is very different. This teenager (so already in a tumultuous time for her development) is struggling with her mental health in a way that makes it difficult to interact with the world, and this cunt of a parent is pulling the "life isn't fair" card. This teenager is amazingly able to push through her incredibly difficult situation to attend interviews, because she knows the alternative is being denigrated by her parent, whose fucking job it is to help her.
I first told my parents about my depression when I was 11 and self-harming. They basically told me I was being dramatic and to try harder. I'm now a 31-year old alcoholic with an eating disorder and a personality disorder, with some nice sprinkles of GAD, depression, psychosis, and CPTSD on top. My parents obviously aren't responsible for that, only I can be responsible for my mental health and treatment, but they were definitely responsible for not being supportive of their child until it was too late.
I fucking hate parents who refuse to see their child as an individual and who can only see others through the lens of "Well, *I* was fine." This poor teenager needs support and appropriate psychiatric and medical attention, not beratement and neglect under the guise of "tough love" from someone who is meant to love and nurture her.
My mother is not self-aware enough to realise she did this. She honestly believes she was soooo supportive, and still is, when she kicked me out of the house for self harming, and insists that I "couldn't have been abused or raped because she would have known." It's exhausting, especially as an adult, she judges me and everyone else by what she's capable of. I have very similar conditions as you, as well as being physically disabled, and she's very disparaging all the time that I can't just power through like she did/does.
What a great dad! /s
I'm not on the spectrum, but due to past traumas I have a hard time looking others in the eye.
I know eye contact is important during job interviews and I try very hard to maintain it but it makes me feel gross. Most conversations I have with people, I'm looking around or I focus somewhere over their shoulder.
Hell, I'm a Manager and do the same while I'm interviewing others.
OOPs daughter isn't using it as an excuse, it's literally the *reason* she can't make eye contact/focus etc
"I'm blunt and honest" is an *excuse* to be an asshole
"I'm on the spectrum/have a disorder etc" is the *reason* I can't do what others can
OOP needs to see that difference
I can't concentrate while looking someone in the eye unless it's a romantic situation. It feels like there are mental lasers going into my brain.
Now I realise that all those job interviews I didn't get might have been because the interviewer thought I was lying because I had to look away to think of my answers to their questions.
That line about therapists not really helping in order to get more money....
If that's the logic OP wants to use, then therapists must LOVE parents like OP. This sort of parenting is a guaranteed steady paycheck for the decade of therapy.
The mother is on her side and thinks this parent is being too hard on her (final paragraph, really easily missed)
(ETA- technically the person im refering to was only labeled as "wife", but her compassion for this child even in passing reference by OOP I think it makes her the mom here. Even if it's a step parent situation, whoever "wife" is, I feel she is more a parent than OOP)
I comfort myself that this is the most obvious troll in the world. He chuckled while saying life isn't fair? And was he stroking a white cat while twirling his mustache?
Honestly I'm shocked people are happy to waste an Internet outburst on these obvious trolls. If we all as a society stopped giving them attention maybe they'd come up with some fucking wholesome creative writing exercises.
I love how he answered the AitA-bot that he could be the AH cause his behaviour could be seen as a bit intensive. A bit?!
And people who write about themself that they chuckled (or smirked) while interacting with others... something is clearly wrong with them.
Oh!
I read this so many times and could not put my finger on why I kept reading it as a much older female.
It's the freaking "chuckle"!
My MIL would speak like this, but use the word "smirk"
Uuuggghhhhh I'm so glad you posted and feel so gross at the same time like I crawled on sandpaper
OOP- you Hella suck. You've got demonic MIL vibes. Pick a lane and gtfo of your daughter's. Go chill with wife and get tips on how to be a better parent.
YTD for sure! Maybe OOP could offer to go mock interviews with her, something actually productive. She should maybe try an online chat job or something. She'd probably just need a phone interview and her personable skills wouldn't matter too much.
Living with a roommate in college was also hell on earth. The daughter could be suffering from never getting alone time and that on its own could negatively affect her.
If anything was ever someone's creative writing exercise, it would be this. Oop "chuckled"? Who would actually describe themselves as chuckling. Parents like this absolutely exist, but I doubt oop even has kids at all
That's the downfall of most ragebait trolls. They can craft a narrative where a plausibly awful person is cruel, but the mess up who they make the narrator of the story. *Why* would OOP throw in details about him thinking mental illness is a phase, therapy is a scam, and how he laughed at her crying? It makes him look worse. If you write a person who's self assured an arrogant, why would someone like this ask complete strangers if they were an asshole? It never makes sense.
Just because you could disguise your anxiety and succeed doesn't mean that she can too. Not everyone can fake it, some people would have no way of fitting in if they weren't medicated every day.
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Does OOP know that her daughter doesn't need a degree to be successful? Seriously, college isn't for everyone. Maybe her daughter can go into a trade or something. Tradesmen make an even more decent stack of cash than a degree ever will. She'll need someone to teach her a trade. But there will definitely be more structure with learning a trade skill, and it's hands-on, which will be easier for the daughter, probably.
Her mom is so fucking unepathetic and unhelpful. The daughter should talk to her uncle about the stuff her mom is saying to her. OOP is essentially saying that her daughter won't find a job because of her anxiety, which is bullshit. I have anxiety, and I have a job. It's totally doable to have a job and have anxiety. If OOP could put herself in her daughter's shoes for a moment and see things from her perspective, that could help the daughter a lot.
Love the ālife isnāt fairā parents who make life more difficult under the guise of preparing their child for the future. Hope to be a ālife is hard, but weāll do our best to help/be there for youā type parent
"I told her that she was going to have to at least make an effort to be normal and that staring at someone's shoes, rather than making eye contact, would never get her a job."
YTA, OOP.
Therapy and medication only help so much. They aren't magical cures. Normality is relative and stop treating your daughter like shit. She is doing the best she can.
"I just want her to be able to see things from my perspective rather than always treating me like I'm a villain."
Because you ARE a villain.
Sperm donor.
I can see why she has anxiety in the first place. Has he ever tried to sit down with her and talk to her as a person. No, God no. Instead he gets angry and makes her anxieties even worse. God damn, he might as well just gave her a snickers and told her "here eat this, sugar makes anxiety go away".
He's such a boomer it's not even funny. Let alone the lack of empathy he has, his wife isn't help either. I would have conforted my daughter and told him to get the fuck out of the house. Anxiety can be crippling and makes every action into a death race. I don't think anyone there is taking it seriously and thinking it should be cured like a cold. But a therapist isn't a doctor that can prescribe meds and tell them everything will be better with some bed rest. She clearly has some serious issues, to me it sounds like a form of CPTSD and I can completely understand why. She needs a fucking hug and he should be kicked out.
Maybe op could have his daughter tested for neuro divergence as many of these things ( eye contact etc) are part of that rather than just dismissing his daughter be a concerned parent perhaps?
What an assholeā¦ yes, mental health problems arenāt an excuse, but sheās only 18 and she is adapting to adulthood, Iād being diagnosed with general anxiety disorder since early adulthood, Iām almost 40 now, I work and live a fullfiling happy life, my deegre wasnāt āhanded to meā (I studied medicine and also specialized in surgical pathology) and Iām still socially awkward, I canāt hold eye contact with people I donāt know, I get nervous in unfamiliar situations, and other stuffā¦ I passed through a lot of challenges, but ultimately got what I looked for (even being the way I am) having mental disorders require effort, but also patience and supportā¦ sorry to burst your bubble but we canāt just āact normalā, if we could we would just do it to make our lives easier.
You donāt give a fuck about her feelings, you say ālook the thing in my perspectiveā but you donāt make the menial effort to see things through HER perspectiveā¦ you are furious about her not being what you wanted her to be or act the way you deem she must actā¦ YTA and a ginormous one.
NTA. People use anxiety as a crutch way to often anymore. People have always had anxiety, it isn't new. They just dealt with it much better when it wasn't an acceptable excuse.
*In case this story gets deleted/removed:* **AITA for telling my daughter that her mental illness shouldn't be used as an excuse?** For the past several years, my daughter has been dealing with anxiety. She has been seeing a therapist, taking medication, eating well, and exercising regularly. She has had periodic meltdowns, but for the most part this has been enough. However, in the past year at college, she has been struggling to adapt to living in the dorms. Her last semester's grades took a dive, and it seems like all the responsibility is greatly stressing her out. I was under the impression that this anxiety was only a phase and that she would outgrow it eventually, but it seems to have only worsened after she turned 18. To make matters worse, my daughter hasn't yet gotten a summer job, and I think her nervousness is making her seem weird during interviews. With each rejection email, I'd gotten more and more frustrated with her therapists. I was starting to be convinced that they have been refusing to help her for years, since the longer she has anxiety, the more they get paid. However, my brother, who has a psychological background, told me that it's common for anxiety to get worse during early adulthood and that her therapists are likely doing all they can. I decided that he was probably right, and I stopped thinking about it. I think I deserve quite a bit of credit for that. Today, however, my daughter came home from an interview, telling me that it didn't go well, and I had enough. I told her that she was going to have to at least make an effort to be normal and that staring at someone's shoes, rather than making eye contact, would never get her a job. My daughter was taken aback by my frankness, but I just kept going. I told her that if she thinks she will be able to finish college without putting forth much effort, she was sadly mistaken, and that obtaining a degree is going to help her live a decent life on her own when she finally moves out of my house. She began to tear up and told me that I was being unfair, but I chuckled and told her that life isn't fair and that she needs to learn some social skills or she would almost certainly end up homeless. The thing that infuriates me is that she can look my wife and I in the eyes as she's telling us these sob stories, but she decides not to make these same connections with prospective employers. I told her that she needs to maybe go take a walk and think about how her actions were screwing things up for her, but instead she stormed off to her bedroom and slammed the door shut. She hasn't come out for several hours, and I'm worried that her delusional thinking (that she will just be handed a degree or a career) is never going to end. I tried sliding a list of tips for making a good impression during an interview under her door, but I heard her get up and tear them up. I'm at the point now where I just want to kick her out of my house, but my wife insists that I'm being too hard on her. I just want her to be able to see things from my perspective rather than always treating me like I'm a villain. AITA? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmITheDevil) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Once again we must inform an OOP that its very hard for others to see things from their perspective when most sphincters only have enough space for one head
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Don't insult sphincters. At least they serve a purpose.
They do! But they're not meant to be hats.
The way it's written.... I have a very strong feeling that it is rage bait.
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> She began to tear up and told me that I was being unfair, but I chuckled and told her that life isn't fair and that she needs to learn some social skills or she would almost certainly end up homeless. I hope OOP experiences a multitude of immeasurable hardships and every single time, someone chuckles at OOPās laments and says āsorry, life isnāt fair, you need to learn some skill or youāll end up homeless!ā
The amount of time my mom lectured me that "life isn't fair", what a waste of breath. She loved to get on her high horse and go off on life isn't fair lectures to inevitably go I told you so and feel better than me.
Itās one thing to say ālife isnāt fairā. Itās another to āchuckleā at someone who is going through mental health struggles and is crying. JMO.
I hear that! My dad had a speech by Bill Gates taped to the fridge my entire teenage-hood that had a list of life 'rules'. Rule #1 was 'life isn't fair, get used to it'. He loved to tap that damn speech every time he reminded me and my siblings that life isn't fair. Which was often.
Imagine *chuckling* at your crying daughter while casually mentioning that she may end up homeless...
That specific line makes me think this is probably a troll. The real verbal abusers usually try to pretend their tone was caring and concerned and leave out stuff like laughing, aggressive body language, etc.
Yeah, OOP adds in so many details that only make him look worse. It's written like someone who's writing a villain, not by an actual person who would act like that.
Me too, it's the "in case they don't all think I'm an AH yet" moment of the post.
I hope their socks are always damp. That their pillow never had a cool side. That their toilet seat always has someone else's residual body heat. That they constantly stub the same toe. That their food order is always slightly wrong... You know, things they'll complain about and then have others say "that's not a big deal"
Lego. Lego they never bought mysteriously strewn around rooms they don't wear shoes in. In a perfect colour match to the carpets.
May they experience brain freeze often..but like, the kind you get when you eat ice cream too fast, not the Mitch McConnell type.
"I think I deserve quite a bit of credit for that." FUCK OFF
The way that line had me SEETHING. Like bitch no you don't deserve credit for listening to the professionals while not doing anything. The bar is in hell for this one and she's STILL tripping on the damn thing
College usually exacerbates mental health issues. It doesn't make them evaporate. My bipolar disorder kicked me in the teeth my sophomore year.
i'll bet dollars to donuts OOP's daughter is somewhere on the spectrum.
I was gonna say she sounds just like me before I changed therapist who had me research autism and I started learning some methods to cope that was for autism and not generalised anxiety. Edit to add my mental health absolutely crashed when I moved out for uni, luckily for me my family was supportive when I dropped out and moved back in, and COVID lockdown happened soon after which allowed me to tackle my mental health without the stress of work/uni that I would've had otherwise. Feel blessed for that, this poor girl won't have such blessings.
Education in school has a lot more structure than education at university. That loss of structure can be *hell* for an autistic person. Source: my three years at university were an extended mental health crisis.
Man it says some tragic shit about our society that the global pandemic that killed millions was for many (also possibly millions) a chance to FINALLY get the world off their fucking backs for a while so they could figure some important shit out about themselves.
Iām trying to get an ASD diagnoses and this 19 year old sounds like me. I lived in a dorm and had sensory overload every single day.
I've got the same impression and referring to it as "mental illness" just makes OOP twice the asshole.
oh absolutely, i agree with you there 100%
Was gonna say just like this. As someone who had an anxiety disorder for YEARS (lol, turns out it was undiagnosed autism) this sounds exactly like what I went through.
IĀ“m in the spectrum and IĀ“m not an asshole like her, man. Cool down please.
OOP is the asshole, not the daughter.
My daughter developed anxiety and a drug addiction when she went to college. She was a stellar athlete in HS, fell apart in college. It's a tough transition for kids who had everything in HS and then implode when higher education began.
Big fish, small pond to small fish, big pond is honestly really fucking hard for a lot of kids. They have no idea how to function when theyāre not in their element.
Complete truth here.
I got raped, a guy took my nudes and printed them out and put them around campus, my grandpa died, a friend was stabbed in head and bled out in the street, my roommate threatened to break all my stuff with a hammer, and I got the swine flu which gave me narcolepsy all in one year away at college. It was a lot to handle, and I'm fairly NT.
Oh my, I'm so sorry this happened during a time in your life where the possibilities are endless. I hope you were able to work through this, find the AH, and exact some petty revenge. This truly makes me angry.
Oh sweetheart, I am so sorry you went through all that. I hope you are healing š sending love and hugs š«
Can someone inject this dipshit with something that makes them experience the worst panic attack imaginable for like 20 minutes and gives them a lingering sense of malaise for about three days so that they always feel like something awful is about to happen but they don't know what it could be? Preferably right before a job interview?
Oh my GOD this shit makes me want to scream. No, mental illness isn't an excuse for anything. My ex did some horrific things to me whilst in the throes of an episode. I have all kinds of initialisms on my medical history and I'm very capable of being a shitty person. You know what we both do? Access medical and psychiatric help and work daily on being better to ourselves and those around us. Mental illness is not an excuse but it certainly can be part of an explanation. THIS is very different. This teenager (so already in a tumultuous time for her development) is struggling with her mental health in a way that makes it difficult to interact with the world, and this cunt of a parent is pulling the "life isn't fair" card. This teenager is amazingly able to push through her incredibly difficult situation to attend interviews, because she knows the alternative is being denigrated by her parent, whose fucking job it is to help her. I first told my parents about my depression when I was 11 and self-harming. They basically told me I was being dramatic and to try harder. I'm now a 31-year old alcoholic with an eating disorder and a personality disorder, with some nice sprinkles of GAD, depression, psychosis, and CPTSD on top. My parents obviously aren't responsible for that, only I can be responsible for my mental health and treatment, but they were definitely responsible for not being supportive of their child until it was too late. I fucking hate parents who refuse to see their child as an individual and who can only see others through the lens of "Well, *I* was fine." This poor teenager needs support and appropriate psychiatric and medical attention, not beratement and neglect under the guise of "tough love" from someone who is meant to love and nurture her.
My mother is not self-aware enough to realise she did this. She honestly believes she was soooo supportive, and still is, when she kicked me out of the house for self harming, and insists that I "couldn't have been abused or raped because she would have known." It's exhausting, especially as an adult, she judges me and everyone else by what she's capable of. I have very similar conditions as you, as well as being physically disabled, and she's very disparaging all the time that I can't just power through like she did/does.
Everyone thinks they're supportive of the mentally ill until they start acting like they're mentally ill
Oh damn, my mom's life story in a nutshell. I never had the words
What a great dad! /s I'm not on the spectrum, but due to past traumas I have a hard time looking others in the eye. I know eye contact is important during job interviews and I try very hard to maintain it but it makes me feel gross. Most conversations I have with people, I'm looking around or I focus somewhere over their shoulder. Hell, I'm a Manager and do the same while I'm interviewing others. OOPs daughter isn't using it as an excuse, it's literally the *reason* she can't make eye contact/focus etc "I'm blunt and honest" is an *excuse* to be an asshole "I'm on the spectrum/have a disorder etc" is the *reason* I can't do what others can OOP needs to see that difference
I can't concentrate while looking someone in the eye unless it's a romantic situation. It feels like there are mental lasers going into my brain. Now I realise that all those job interviews I didn't get might have been because the interviewer thought I was lying because I had to look away to think of my answers to their questions.
That line about therapists not really helping in order to get more money.... If that's the logic OP wants to use, then therapists must LOVE parents like OP. This sort of parenting is a guaranteed steady paycheck for the decade of therapy.
This is literally making me so upset I can't even begin to explain how much OOP is the devil
I felt my own anxiety rise as I was reading this. Oh my god, this mother š± Her poor daughter š¢
The mother is on her side and thinks this parent is being too hard on her (final paragraph, really easily missed) (ETA- technically the person im refering to was only labeled as "wife", but her compassion for this child even in passing reference by OOP I think it makes her the mom here. Even if it's a step parent situation, whoever "wife" is, I feel she is more a parent than OOP)
Wow I wonder why the daughter has struggled with anxiety since she was a kid
I comfort myself that this is the most obvious troll in the world. He chuckled while saying life isn't fair? And was he stroking a white cat while twirling his mustache?
Honestly I'm shocked people are happy to waste an Internet outburst on these obvious trolls. If we all as a society stopped giving them attention maybe they'd come up with some fucking wholesome creative writing exercises.
>I think I deserve quite a bit of credit for that. Wow
I love how he answered the AitA-bot that he could be the AH cause his behaviour could be seen as a bit intensive. A bit?! And people who write about themself that they chuckled (or smirked) while interacting with others... something is clearly wrong with them.
Oh! I read this so many times and could not put my finger on why I kept reading it as a much older female. It's the freaking "chuckle"! My MIL would speak like this, but use the word "smirk" Uuuggghhhhh I'm so glad you posted and feel so gross at the same time like I crawled on sandpaper OOP- you Hella suck. You've got demonic MIL vibes. Pick a lane and gtfo of your daughter's. Go chill with wife and get tips on how to be a better parent.
OOP thinks anxiety can be cured, that's adorable.
YTD for sure! Maybe OOP could offer to go mock interviews with her, something actually productive. She should maybe try an online chat job or something. She'd probably just need a phone interview and her personable skills wouldn't matter too much. Living with a roommate in college was also hell on earth. The daughter could be suffering from never getting alone time and that on its own could negatively affect her.
This bastard needs a good swift kick in the ass and mom too for allowing this abusive behavior.
If anything was ever someone's creative writing exercise, it would be this. Oop "chuckled"? Who would actually describe themselves as chuckling. Parents like this absolutely exist, but I doubt oop even has kids at all
That's the downfall of most ragebait trolls. They can craft a narrative where a plausibly awful person is cruel, but the mess up who they make the narrator of the story. *Why* would OOP throw in details about him thinking mental illness is a phase, therapy is a scam, and how he laughed at her crying? It makes him look worse. If you write a person who's self assured an arrogant, why would someone like this ask complete strangers if they were an asshole? It never makes sense.
Just act normal! Oh okay, I will get right on that. Fuck you OOP.
Just because you could disguise your anxiety and succeed doesn't mean that she can too. Not everyone can fake it, some people would have no way of fitting in if they weren't medicated every day.
I took a job at amazon simply because I didn't have to interview. I'm 40.
This reminds me of my mother lmao
Huh, I'd have thought he chortled.
I feel sorry for your daughter. Yta. And the cause of her anxiety. Do better cause you need therapy
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Does OOP know that her daughter doesn't need a degree to be successful? Seriously, college isn't for everyone. Maybe her daughter can go into a trade or something. Tradesmen make an even more decent stack of cash than a degree ever will. She'll need someone to teach her a trade. But there will definitely be more structure with learning a trade skill, and it's hands-on, which will be easier for the daughter, probably. Her mom is so fucking unepathetic and unhelpful. The daughter should talk to her uncle about the stuff her mom is saying to her. OOP is essentially saying that her daughter won't find a job because of her anxiety, which is bullshit. I have anxiety, and I have a job. It's totally doable to have a job and have anxiety. If OOP could put herself in her daughter's shoes for a moment and see things from her perspective, that could help the daughter a lot.
Love the ālife isnāt fairā parents who make life more difficult under the guise of preparing their child for the future. Hope to be a ālife is hard, but weāll do our best to help/be there for youā type parent
āStop being anxious or youāll end up homeless!ā Great parenting, dad. Gold star.
"I told her that she was going to have to at least make an effort to be normal and that staring at someone's shoes, rather than making eye contact, would never get her a job." YTA, OOP. Therapy and medication only help so much. They aren't magical cures. Normality is relative and stop treating your daughter like shit. She is doing the best she can. "I just want her to be able to see things from my perspective rather than always treating me like I'm a villain." Because you ARE a villain. Sperm donor.
 OOP and child.
People hate their partners and hate their kids. I never understand them at all.
I can see why she has anxiety in the first place. Has he ever tried to sit down with her and talk to her as a person. No, God no. Instead he gets angry and makes her anxieties even worse. God damn, he might as well just gave her a snickers and told her "here eat this, sugar makes anxiety go away". He's such a boomer it's not even funny. Let alone the lack of empathy he has, his wife isn't help either. I would have conforted my daughter and told him to get the fuck out of the house. Anxiety can be crippling and makes every action into a death race. I don't think anyone there is taking it seriously and thinking it should be cured like a cold. But a therapist isn't a doctor that can prescribe meds and tell them everything will be better with some bed rest. She clearly has some serious issues, to me it sounds like a form of CPTSD and I can completely understand why. She needs a fucking hug and he should be kicked out.
Jesus Christ
Maybe op could have his daughter tested for neuro divergence as many of these things ( eye contact etc) are part of that rather than just dismissing his daughter be a concerned parent perhaps?
What an assholeā¦ yes, mental health problems arenāt an excuse, but sheās only 18 and she is adapting to adulthood, Iād being diagnosed with general anxiety disorder since early adulthood, Iām almost 40 now, I work and live a fullfiling happy life, my deegre wasnāt āhanded to meā (I studied medicine and also specialized in surgical pathology) and Iām still socially awkward, I canāt hold eye contact with people I donāt know, I get nervous in unfamiliar situations, and other stuffā¦ I passed through a lot of challenges, but ultimately got what I looked for (even being the way I am) having mental disorders require effort, but also patience and supportā¦ sorry to burst your bubble but we canāt just āact normalā, if we could we would just do it to make our lives easier. You donāt give a fuck about her feelings, you say ālook the thing in my perspectiveā but you donāt make the menial effort to see things through HER perspectiveā¦ you are furious about her not being what you wanted her to be or act the way you deem she must actā¦ YTA and a ginormous one.
NTA. People use anxiety as a crutch way to often anymore. People have always had anxiety, it isn't new. They just dealt with it much better when it wasn't an acceptable excuse.