Anxious/ADHD Teen Driving You Crazy

NYLineDancer7944

Just looking to vent unless someone has advice on how to handle this. My 18-year old daughter was diagnosed with ADHD at 7 and recently with anxiety. I can’t say that the anxiety comes as a shock given all the stress she’s had to go through her whole life. My ex-husband and I have been divorced for 16 years. He’s a narcissist who loves to verbally abuse us whenever he gets the chance but that’s her Dad and she refuses to go no contact with him even though it would be nice if she could. I don’t have a problem with her visiting him on her terms but she’s been sneaky about it. One day she said she was going for a walk and I thought nothing of it. We have a nature trail near the river behind our house and also, sometimes she walks our neighbors’ dog for them because they’re elderly. When it got to be a couple hours and she still wasn’t home, I went looking for her. Needless to say, I had a restless night only dozing on and off for a total of 1/2 an hour. My ex-husband didn’t even call or text me to say she was at his apartment. A few other times (always during the day) she has snuck off. One time it was to the bank to withdraw $40 that’s supposed to be part of her college fund. 😡. Another few times it was off to stores. Since she’s turned 18, she has the attitude of, “I can do and say whatever I want and you can’t stop me” and has been disrespectful to everyone including her grandparents who are the only set she has left. My parents have gotten off their @$$es to do more for her in one year than her father has done in 18 years and she treats them like garbage. When my parents invited us to go with them to my brother’s camp, my daughter embarrassed me in front of my parents, him, my sister-in-law, my 3 nieces and my brother’s entire congregation. My daughter has been going to church since she was 2 so she clearly knows how she should behave in church and that she needs to set a good example for her much younger cousins. My nieces are 10, 8, and 5 1/2. During evening services (thank God not when my brother who’s a pastor was doing a sermon), she claimed she had to go to the bathroom. There was an outhouse on the grounds or she could go back to our cabin. After 15 minutes, my sister-in-law went looking for her. My daughter had been aimlessly wandering around the camp grounds. She pulled this stunt twice. On another occasion during the 5 days we were out-of-town at the camp, my daughter was aimlessly wandering around the camp grounds and looking in the dorms for the teens during service. I want to be able to trust my daughter, but her behavior is horrendous! Just last night, she hung up on my dad when she called my parents’ house because my mom was busy doing something with my 8 and 5 1/2-year-old nieces. She spent the night at her grandparents’ house and then proceeded to push my mom out of the way because my daughter felt like acting like a spoiled brat when my mom told her she needed to honor her commitment to help out with Vacation Bible School at my brother’s church. My daughter said she was “sick”. She’s been using that as an excuse a lot lately to get out of stuff she doesn’t want to do like her G E D coursework, piano lessons or helping me around the house. Yes, she’s medicated but I’m not sure either of her medications are actually working. Thankfully, she has an appointment with her doctor tomorrow morning and she has a great counselor.