Are Your Kids Brutally Hard on Themselves?

July 17, 2011

Hello,

My 17 y/o dd judges herself extremely harshly. And while some of her other

difficulties, such as her disturbing intrusive thoughts, are partly alleviated

by medication, her self-loathing never ebbs. She describes herself as " ugly,

mean and lazy " as " cruel " and as a " piece of sh-t. " If asked for an example, she

says she's mean to her 7-year-old sister. She does yell at her sister sometimes

and call her a " brat, " which strikes me as inappropriate for a 17 y/o, but it

hardly qualifies her as " mean " or " cruel. " Her little sister gets over it right

away, mostly remembering all the nice things dd's done for her, like surprising

her with little gifts.

I have always worked hard to positively reframe things for dd, emphasizing her

many wonderful traits and good actions and pointing out that we all make

mistakes and these don't define a person. Siblings fight and insult each other

all the time -- it's not a big deal. But none of this has ever seemed to have

any effect.

I suspect a lot of dd's guilt stems from her thoughts, including negative

judgments she makes about all of us and doesn't say aloud. I don't know what

these are, and I don't need to know. But I have a strong feeling about this.

Severe guilt over her thoughts has always been one of the defining

characteristics of her OCD. I've always emphasized that thoughts aren't good or

bad -- they just are. It's our actions that define us. But I don't think this

helps.

She paints herself as a horrible human being, and for the past few years she's

insisted that she's incapable of getting a good job and college is beyond her

reach. She has various difficulties due to her Asperger's, but she has a high

I.Q. and is quite capable of college, if she chooses that route, and having a

successful career.

She would like to be a movie critic or a novelist, but insists that her writing

" sucks, " of course. She used to maintain a blog with her excellent film reviews,

but she has quit and gets very anxious when contemplating starting to review

movies again. Her novels have also fallen by the wayside. Needless to say, she

is accomplishing very little right now, and I'm sure that contributes to her low

self-esteem. To make matters worse, getting her to do academic work has

increasingly become a struggle in recent years, as I've mentioned before.

None of our efforts to help have made a dent -- this is really heart-breaking.

Does anyone have similar experiences, suggestions, or other thoughts?

Steph (in Virginia)

17 y/o dd with OCD, anxiety/depression, Asperger's & NVLD

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