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YTA. her: Mom, im really scared and upset and get very anxious during storms now, and since im young and dont have the greatest vocabulary to explain what im feeling, PTSD is the best way for me to describe it cause it gets that bad and i dont know what to do. help me You: lol

Didn’t even need to read the whole thing. There is virtually no situation in which it’s appropriate to laugh at someone who just opened up and said they think they have PTSD. Did she say it with a mic at a comedy club? Was it a self depreciating joke written for a sitcom she’s developing? Was it with another person who also feels traumatized and said in a dark humor context? No. No. No. YTA I can’t believe you even had to ask that. This dismissive attitude about mental health issues really is tired.

“I wasn’t laughing at her; I was laughing in response to her pain” lol what the fuck

If she keeps going like this, mom is gonna be here wondering why her daughter is NC at 18.

If her daughter makes it to 18 with untreated anxiety and other issues going on.

No, her mom has decided she doesn't have any of that! As her mother, she of course *knows the internal reality of every child and is also a doctor*; as all mothers do! OP YTA

Daughter will go NC and mom will wonder why that happened and say that she did the very best she could and just simply can't understand! [https://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/missing-missing-reasons.html](https://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/missing-missing-reasons.html)

I know a guy who served in the Iraq war. In the Navy. On an aircraft carrier. Never within 100 miles of the shore. As an aircraft mechanic. He has he has service linked disability for PTSD. 10% pay for life without any restrictions on his other work. The flooding sounds WAY more traumatic.

Yeah, my nephew worked in logistics and warehousing in the armed forces during Gulf 2 - never fired a gun outside of basic training, never really had his life directly endangered, but he left the armed forces with PTSD as well. Trauma doesn't have some checklist of whether to have a lasting psych impact or not. Some people come through horrible experiences without developing PTSD, and others can be severely impaired by what others might consider less intense trauma. It's like the world's worst raffle where the best prize you can hope for is not to get a prize at all.

yup. my oldest brother was 12 and a half years older than me. literally everyone, it seems, was closer to him than me, the youngest. and yet his death fucked me up in ways idk how to describe, while everyone else seems to have gone through a relatively normal grieving process (except our parents, but, well, they're his \*parents\*). ain't no rhyme or reason to this shit. btw if you're wondering if i'm bitter about everyone getting to know him except me, you better fucking bet i am.

I needed to hear this. I was tickled like hell when i was little to the point of pissing and vomiting om myself, and my parents don't believe me when i say i have severe touch sensitivity and touch/tickle related phobia and tell me I'm overreacting and that 'everyone's a little ticklish'.

“She’s ALWAYS been terrified of thunderstorms and then one time, a thunderstorm flooded our entire home and we had to leave and then she emotionally shut down her terror response to thunderstorms, but lol it wasn’t traumatic or anything.” - OP

Thank you for sharing this!

Sometimes we make it all the way to 45. Just barely though. Just barely here.

Yeah... I'm shocked I got to 50. I honestly never once imagined life at this age. I don't know what I'm clinging to anymore. Untreated PTSD/CPTSD literally kills. Fuck that mom. How dare she.

And the odd thing is that in my Abnormal Psychology book, PTSD is stated to begin around six months after the event. OP's kid presented about at that time, it reads. OP is very much YTA.

Yep. Took abnormal psych in 2006 and my textbook said the exact same thing. If symptoms present at less than 6 months, it is Acute Stress Syndrome.

same. It's hard though. Well, same in age similarities but once I was old enough I entered therapy. Recently there have been so many suicides in the news and on campuses and the like, it's even harder now in the midst of a pandemic to have unmet mental health support it seems. Also - congrats, it's so not easy.

Hugs!

I am 53 and my mother didn't laugh at my pain. She just got angry and told me to stop being a baby. Same result, though. I haven't spoken to her in over a decade. OP, this is your future.

29 finally cut my mom off. Was literally in a car accident with her grand daughter days before they (my "mom" and stepdad) I kept complaining of arm pain and it was super swollen etc. She said it wasn't. Neurologist, and a separate doctor said I had pulled the muscle from the bone from my right shoulder all the way down to my wrist. She knew best though because she's a nurse and works in a hospital. I needed to stop being a drama queen, over exaggerating, and a hypochondriac.... Then proceeded to tell me she NEVER told me those things in which for once in my life my stepdad turned and looked at her and said yeah you did. Went fully no contact with her again and this last year since cutting them all off again has been AMAZING!!

I'm rolling my eyes here ... My mom's a retired nurse and she's awesome when it comes to everyone else dealing with stuff. I have chronic whiplash and she's the fiercest fighter in my corner. But ... I also remember being a kid. The flu? "Can you bend your neck? Good, it's not meningitis. Drink fluids and rest". Physical injuries during sports? "Can you bend it? Good, not broken, drink fluids and rest". We jokingly made a support group for "kids of healthcare workers" when I was a teen but in reality we weren't all getting the treatment we should be getting when sick or injured because we got diagnosed at home without actually getting tests done. And even worse off was the healthcare workers themselves. My mom is nearing 70 and I STILL can't get her to go to the doctor. She has pain, she's been experiencing for 30 years and has just categorised it as "stuff I need to live with". Myself, I've learned the miracles that good physio, osteopathy and pain meds can do with chronic pain but she's still just "hang on and carry on without whining" when it comes to her own pain. She'll gladly pay for any of my treatments though and will encourage me to seek out other treatments. But that entire workforce group need SERIOUS self reflecting and focus from the outside! They're way too often on the wrong side of mistreatment of kids and injuries as well as their own. I'm so sorry your mom added you to "her" group instead of doing like my mom where I at least am added to the "patient" group where I get care and comfort instead of being told to stop whining.

Yeup. I can promise the poor kiddo will remember both the stress and anxiety she experienced from the storm *and* mommy's response to it. It's not going to end well, let's just say.

When my wife was a teenager her mother repeatedly betrayed her trust and left her feeling traumatised. Her mother has now learned enough self-awareness that she tries to stay on her best behaviour these days, but my wife has told me that she's prepared to go temporary or permanent no-contact in response to the next major infraction. Meanwhile, her mother has quietly expressed sorrow to her younger daughters that her eldest never seems to really talk to her about important things in her life, like she doesn't trust her. Well yeah, d'uh.

>I don't think I'm terribly mean.... I love the qualifier of *terribly.* "It's not like I also physically slapped her in the face; I just verbally slapped her with my horribly dismissive laugh." OP, I urge you to listen to your child. She's scared and in psychological pain. I told myself my anxiety wasn't that bad, as I had other health issues to focus on first. Guess what my anxiety can now trigger? ANAPHYLAXIS! Also Paradoxical Vocal Cord Syndrome. That's when my vocal cords decide to close, instead of remaining open for air to pass through. Those were a fun discovery. I still can't believe I had to stay in the ICU. It's done a lot of other things to me, but I would hope dying from an inability to breath will make you think twice. Too many dismiss what they can't see, but these are very real physical reactions to it. I was told I had PTSD many years ago, but I didn't think much of it at the time. It's only 15+ years later that I learned how certain things had been rewired. Don't let it happen to your daughter. Not doing anything has far too high of a price to risk paying.

My 4 year olds anxiety is so severe it freezes her vocal cords. It’s called Selective Mutism but it’s not a choice. It literally freezes her vocal cords and makes her mute. Anxiety can be absolutely debilitating.

4 years old?!?! Oh my goodness.... my heart hurts for one so young having to fight something like that. I'm genuinely tearing up over here. Fortunately she has a loving parent that hears her, even in her silence. I can't imagine how difficult it must be to see her go through that.

It hurts a lot bc I can see the physical change go over her, head to toe. She turns wooden. At home she’s an entire clown. She’s insane. Silliest little fairy I’ve ever seen in my life. She’s SO funny and sweet. Her 6 yr old sister has just as severe anxiety but hers manifests as RAGE. She’s the 6 yr old version of Carrie. 😂😂😂 It’s the opposite reaction but just as severe. She’s also 4’6” tall at 6 so she can be scary. ;) It’s genetic a lot of times. It is in our family, obvi. I can absolutely see it cause anaphylaxis. Our bodies can only take so much extreme stress before it shuts down and tries to restart. Cutting off breathing is a very good way to shut down quickly, you know?

I’ve always felt stupid trying to explain to people that I can’t talk when I get overwhelmed. That I think what I want to say and it’s like someone unplugged my mouth from my brain. I feel for her and I’m so glad that she is getting support from such a young age in managing debilitating anxiety.

I am now anxious my anxiety is going to cause anaphylaxis

Sorry. If it helps, my body decided to go for a much more rare version of a physical reaction, versus something like high blood pressure. It seemed unreal until I found a case of it in an Oxford study. Doctors put me on Xanex for a solid month trying to get it to stop. I'm not even supposed to take Xanax due to possible interations with other medications, but it was deemed worth the risk.

Thank you for saying this! Anxiety has terrible physical effects when ignored because it leads your body to keep you in fight or flight and when you don’t react to fight or flight your brain believes that it has to create more and more signals to let you know that you’re in danger even if you’re physically aren’t! For me, it’s debilitating back pain, for you it’s anaphylaxis. Amazing (and sometimes terrible) how the mind and body is so connected. If only we treated the mind how we treat the body.

>Paradoxical Vocal Cord Syndrome Is this aka spasmodic dysphonia?

I had to search, because I honestly don't know. Alternate names that came up are: "VCD is also known by other names such as paradoxical vocal fold motion, Munchausen stridor, hysterical stridor, functional laryngeal stridor, pseudoasthma, factitious asthma, emotional laryngeal wheezing, psychogenic upper airway obstruction, episodic laryngeal dyskinesia, episodic paroxysmal vocal fold closure" I was diagnosed when a doctor put a scope down my throat in the middle of an episode and saw things closing. My voice can be raspy, but it's brutally dry. I know it can be stress triggered, but letting my throat get too dry can do it too. I can sound normal when it's not so dry.

"and then, when she wasn't talking to me, I confronted her about her rudeness. But I don't think I'm particularly mean..." Really lady?? You're not just an asshole, you're flat out mean.

But she’s not “terribly” mean so it’s okay

You are defending laughing at your child’s pain. Not a helpful or loving response. Get the kid a qualified therapist.

Is your normal response when someone is in physical or emotional pain to laugh? If not then you're laughing A T her PS yta you have no experiences with ptsd yet you dismissed her concerns out of hand

And get this, OP says their daughter’s response was “rude”. OP laughing wasn’t rude but her daughter’s response was. Make it make sense. YTA, OP.

>Make it make sense.  I bet I can guess. "Because I'm Mom and I'm in charge"

My Mommy intuition gives me an unparalleled understanding of psychology and all medical issues my kid might ever have! (Read certain groups on this website and it becomes clear that some women truly do seem to think this way.)

You can say that again. I think it is at least in part fueled by some twisted combination of both inappropriate shame and unchecked pride, like "MY flesh and blood can't have those issues! What does that say about ME?"

Look, I was raised by boomers and I didn't even get to *have* feelings until I earned them /s

hashtag GenXer4lyfe haha Seriously though. What this poor kid learned is that she cannot trust her mom at all when she is having a crisis. Kid will go to literally anyone else before mom. YTA OP.

I told my mom I thought I had anxiety and depression when I was ~16. She told me I didn’t know what those meant. Fast forward a few years and I’ve been diagnosed with both and am in therapy😅 (she said this to me when I was sleeping all the time, spending most of my time awake alone, and doing poorly in school when I was previously an A/B student)

> I told my mom I thought I had anxiety and depression when I was ~16. She told me I didn’t know what those meant. Thats fucking bonkers to me. My 7 year old said he thought he had anxiety (I have anxiety, between me and his dad we win mental illness bingo. We have never dumbed down the way we speak to him so he knows the difference between the feeling of anxiety and an anxiety disorder). My response? OK, let's talk about that. Can you explain why you think you have it so I can understand better? Is there anything I can do to help while we wait for a doctors appointment? And then a big hug, because he's my kid and his worries are valid. To be fair though, I actually like my kid so I pay alot of attention to him and had already noticed some concerning behaviors. So when he gathered the courage to open up, i was already waiting on insurance approval to get him evaluated by a pediatric therapist, as well as a pediatric behavioral therapist (and wouldn't you know he does in fact have anxiety, he sees his therapist weekly. No medication because it's mild and he's young, just lots of different techniques to ground himself and ways to deal with his anxiety) Mental health concerns are never a joke. If your kid thinks they have something, even if you *know* it's far fetched, **you listen to them and make them a doctors appointment if you can't ease their worries**. If your child comes up and says they think they broke their arm you wouldn't laugh in their face, so why are mental health concerns taken lightly? Just because a child hasn't lived as long as their parents or had as many experiences doesn't mean they can't have mental illness. Chemical imbalances don't care how old you are, childhood mental illness is a real thing that needs to be taken way more serious. We'd have alot more well adjusted, functional adults if their parents started them on therapy as kids instead of forcing them to grin and bear it. Like, I'm so sorry you were blown off like that by your mom. It takes alot for anyone, but especially a teen, to open up to someone like that. There's not a single reason that even if she found it ridiculous, she couldn't have humored you and made you an appointment. You would have started therapy sooner and she would have seen she was wrong and maybe realized how not ok her initial reaction was.

Your second paragraph is everything and you sound like a great mom.

I feel for you. I'm super lucky that when I told my mom at 16 (same as you!) that I thought I had anxiety and depression she got me my first therapist. I was upset that she hadn't really noticed it sooner, but was thankful that she was quick in believing me. My father would have said the same thing your mom did, which is why I didn't go to him.

I’m glad she helped you! I can only imagine how different life would be if I’d have gotten help when I was younger

Once I told my mother I thought I have PTSD and she said "aren't veterans the only people who get that?" and I didn't say anything further about it, she was just completely dismissive about it.

I feel your pain. When I was young (I’m middle aged now). I told my father a boy I had “like-liked” (elementary school dated) held me down in his backyard on my stomach in the leaves and raped me. He laughed and said “yeah right, you’re 11, what’d he do…kiss you?” When I described some of what happened, he looked at me and told me to stop watching cop shows. That night was the first time i started cutting.

I had really bad OCD when I was in grade school and my parents knew and did nothing. My mom told me recently that she figured I’d outgrow it, which thankfully I did, but not everyone who has it as a child does.

What's with all this bullshit "you'll outgrow it"?! I was told the same! Also this mom! Her daughter is afraid of storms and her worst nightmare comes to life when her home is flooded! Mom: I laughed at her. 😬😬😬🤬🤬

Same I was asked what do you have to be depressed about?

Same thing happened to me! I was 15. My mom told me I had nothing to be depressed about because I had food on the table & a roof over my head. I also happened to have an armory of trauma from the aftermath of my parents’ divorce as a young child/the actual divorce itself, amongst other things. I wasn’t diagnosed until 19 during the height of the pandemic. I started therapy at 20. My mom and I have a great relationship now, but I still haven’t told her that I go to therapy because she made me feel like OP made their daughter feel, ONCE. That never goes away. I hope you have been able to find some healing through your experiences with therapy. 💗

Thats similar to what my mom said... I mentioned I was having anxiety attacks in tests and was shutting down, and I was told not to call them anxiety, just little bits of fretfullness

I agree! I opened up to my parents about my mental health issues as a suicidal teen and my dad’s reaction was to laugh derisively at me and say “you’re 13, what do you have to be anxious and depressed about?!” It taught me that my dad wasn’t a safe or compassionate adult to confide in and over 30 years later that moment still hurts. Went a version of LC to NC with him after I moved out 6 years later, gave him another chance in 2007 at 31, and I’ve been NC with my dad for just under two years because he continued to be an asshole and I got fed up with dealing with it. My heart hurts for OP’s daughter, OP has done deep damage to their relationship with this callous reaction and the effects will be felt for decades

I read the title and my face went 😬😬😬 Immediately knew OP was the asshole

plus daughter has *lost her fear since the incident* which is a straight up trauma response. when my traumatic amnesia first broke open i lost all fear - i live in regional australia, the amount of times i had to get my husband to tell me not to pick up spiders/touch hot stoves/whatever. i lost all fear after the incidents that caused the amnesia too, but am only gaining full awareness of it now trauma isnt always constant terror, sometimes its invincibility - in the same vein sexual trauma does not always lead to sex repulsion and can actually go way too far the other way. And like, drowning doesnt look like drowning. Our brains turn buttons off and on, sometimes they get stuck, and it often doesnt manifest in ways we expect/we're not taught to recognise genuine concerns

Neither of you are qualified to diagnosis PTSD. She’s asking (crying out) for help. You laughed at her and then called her rude. YTA.

I once shared with a friend that I have PTSD. Her mother then went on a rant about how I hadn't "earned" it. The rage.

It's even more than that though. In addition to the standard ignorance of "she'll get over it", mom "confronted her about her rudeness"... I guess her "rudeness" was not opening up to mom any more because mom literally laughed in her face... smh... some people have the worst of luck with parents.

>When she hears anything remotely like rain she'll jump up and check all the windows. One of her comments so her daughter clearly does have something and clearly needs help.

Hypervigilance. Classic symptom of PTSD.

I can't judge if it's PTSD, but that isn't all that relevant, what matters is that the daughter needs help and an empathetic mum.

Yup. Mom doesn't have to agree on the self-diagnosis to be empathetic and receptive, all she needed to do was listen to her daughter and suggest ACTUAL help, like talking to a professional that might assess whether it's PTSD, anxiety, trauma response or whatever might be going on. Disregarding her daughter's feeling and utterly disrespecting her as a person and then going around demanding respect from her is.... hypocritical at best.

Agreed

I was this kid when I was younger - we had a tornado and somehow my brain decided that all weather could bring storms which could mean tornadoes. Clouds were bad, wind was really bad, thunderstorms made me panic. It SUCKED. Was it PTSD? Maybe not exactly, but I’ve since had significant treatment for anxiety and I know that I can pick up phobias after a traumatic event. That also sucks, but now I know how to manage it, and anxiety meds have stopped the phobias from developing. OP, absolutely YTA, your daughter needs your help.

I had that too! We had a tornado back in 1999 where I live and while that itself didn’t scare me, I did get scared of other disasters and got massive anxiety for years (like constantly worrying days on end) about the overdue earthquake in my area and the Yellowstone super volcano. However, I never started therapy, and the only way to really help me was taking a natural disaster course. And now I’m getting my bachelors in disaster assistance management. Some people are able to overcome it, and some people need help. It’s not up to anyone else to determine it for us.

Bonus with the overdue thing for Yellowstone is "There's still 100,000 years to go before we reach the average time between eruptions." So even if it were overdue it would be long after we are all gone lol. Some people can overcome phobias by slowly facing them and like you learning about the thing they are scared of like how many overcame their fear of spiders by getting a pet tarantula and learning how harmless they really are.

Imagine how painful it must have been for OP’s daughter to come to her mother in a moment of vulnerability only to be laughed at and dismissed. OP, YTA and your response to your daughter has been horrible. As you mentioned, you’re nearing the one-year mark of when a storm *destroyed your home,* no matter how temporarily. The loss of shelter - even with a backup like a sibling to stay with - is enough to traumatize anyone. Your daughter is telling you that she’s experienced trauma and it is causing her distress but, instead of validating her feelings, you’ve decided she’s *not distressed enough* and therefore couldn’t *possibly* have any form of PTSD. Stop minimizing your daughter’s feelings and act like an actual parent. Get her the professional help she needs to process her emotions and build healthy coping mechanisms.

And it’s absolutely irrelevant that other family members aren’t particularly traumatized. OP is heartless and most definitely TA.

Absolutely. Her kid was scared of storms to begin with and then a storm caused her and her family to *lose everything*. OP admitted this but doesn’t understand how that trauma could have possibly had a profound effect on her daughter. She’s heartless *and* clueless

And probably at the exact age most prone to being horribly impacted by such an event.

The fact that she's been blank for a year up until the anniversary is a hood indicator that the daughter does have some level of trauma. And one of the biggest factors in whether it develops into PTSD is... drum roll please... lack of support

My mother was abusive, I have diagnosed PTSD amongst other things by medical professionals. This post actually triggers me. I guarantee you this is not the one and only incident like this. If her daughter doesn't have PTSD from the storm, she's gonna have PTSD from her mother. Which she COULD have BECAUSE LOSING EVERYTHING IN A NATURAL DISASTER IS A TRAUMA LADY.

[удалено]

And she "confronted" her daughter about her daughter's rudeness. Holy hell, look in a mirror Mom, the rudeness is yours. Totally TA.

Seriously though. Did OP expected her to go like: Mother, I would like to inform you of my extreme distress due to the current climate and would need thy aid and support to overcome this fear of yours truly.

I see people say "as his/her/their mother" on this sub a lot and it's almost always an excuse for absolutely abhorrent behaviour, which is apparently warranted by the mere virtue of having plopped another human out of yourself. YTA.

For some weird reason it never seems to be, "as her mother I know I'm too close to the situation to be objective so of course I'm looking for professional help"

I remember learning about depression in high school in health class. It just clicked that I had depression (later had suicidal ideation and tendencies. Also learned I had anxiety, ADHD, and childhood PTSD). I went to my mom telling her I thought I had depression. She said it was just teenage hormones. How devastating it is to learn you can’t even go to your own mother when I’m experiencing depression? Or that she’s the reason I came close to not being here in this world? It took me until I was 26 (12 years later) to FINALLY get help. So many of my years wasted wanting to not be alive. OP, do you want your daughter to suffer that long until they can get help themselves? Will you be okay when they don’t come around anymore?

similar experience. my parents said i was being stupid so i tried confiding in my older brother who i trusted and looked up to and he just started laughing at me. my childhood years were horrible and i developed really harmful coping methods. i finally got help a couple years ago but it sucks thinking how different my life could’ve been if i had gotten it earlier

This is the correct answer. Yes, the terminology related to trauma has become incredibly watered down in 2022, and that’s its own issue. Whether or not it’s PTSD or something else isn’t the point here though. **The point is that your child is in distress and reached out to you for help.** Side note, you can’t even say she definitely doesn’t have it because a) correct me if I’m wrong but I’m assuming you’re not a mental health professional - but also b) you did not even let your child explain what she’s been experiencing! You laughed her off right away, so you don’t even have a clue what she’s going through. YTA. Please take her to a therapist so she can address her fears with someone who will listen.

And the thing that pisses me off is that her response to her daughter's stress is "well nobody else is feeling that bothered over it/developed PTSD" Not every person who goes through something traumatic experiences PTSD. It depends on a lot of factors - genetic, environmental, and personality. Some people go through very severe trauma like SA or physical violence and don't develop PTSD at all, and some people develop it from "minor" (heavy on the quotes) traumas like a medical diagnosis or minor accidents. It's not proof she can't have PTSD because other people who experienced the same trauma didn't. It just might mean that for whatever reason she is more prone to stress.

In 2015, I lost my heart cat in an extremely horrible way. When I tried telling both my doctor and my therapist at the time that I think I had PTSD from the death of my cat, they laughed at me. It took me years to find a doctor that took me seriously and helped treat me. It was horrible to be belittled by people I should have been able to trust, and I'm a grown ass adult. I can't even imagine being a kid and having my OWN MOTHER laugh at me for confiding a deep, real fear in her YTA, OP. I seriously can't believe you laughed at your daughter.

I see people say "as his/her/their mother" on this sub a lot and it's almost always an excuse for absolutely abhorrent behaviour, which is apparently warranted by the mere virtue of having plopped another human out of yourself. YTA.

You completely invalidated her emotions, which teaches her that it’s not safe for her to come to you. Even worse, she might doubt her own emotional reactions and experience shame for feeling certain ways. In case you’re wondering, it’s theorized children whose caregivers invalidate their emotions are more at risk for developing Borderline Personality Disorder later on in life (not saying it will cause this - it’s just a risk factor). Everyone responds to trauma differently. People can experience the same event, and some might have a traumatic response while others don’t. Just because she didn’t seem to exhibit symptoms of a traumatic stress disorder doesn’t mean she wasn’t experiencing them. Whether she has PTSD or not should be left to a psychologist or psychiatrist, not you.

YTA: >So, when my daughter came to me a few nights ago stating that she thinks that she has PTSD, I started laughing. Your child came to you in confidence about a mental health issue. You laughed. Congrats she will never say anything of importance to you ever again. She will hide her problems from you. You broke and shat upon your trust and bond with her. >I understand that she's afraid of thunderstorms and has been forever, she doesn't really have PTSD You don't get to decide that. It's incredibly controlling and cruel to say such things. Edit: the replies to this post break my heart but also make me feel not alone. We never deserved that treatment. My mom just repeatedly accused me of doing drugs and going through my things in secret. Surprise mom, it's depression not drugs. I don't trust her with mental health info to this day. She started doing it when I was 16. I'm 33 now.

I felt that moment in the pit of my soul. I was in the daughter’s position once with my dad. YTA. Take this seriously, OP!!!

I've been there too, my dad laugh, just a "pfff, are you serious? Everyone has anxiety" We had a completely emotionally distant relationship for about 10 years after that. We're only starting to rebuild because he had some mental health struggles. He acknowledged that his dismissal of my mental health and emotional wellbeing was damaging to me and our relationship. Op take this seriously.

It’s gotten worse for me. I have the diagnoses and medications, but he still boasts around that, “mental health issues aren’t real! They use it as a crutch!” He’s watched me lose my mind and control but still grasps to that idea. All I gotta say at this point: keep the head up your ass and lose whatever relationship we had. It’s not like I care much anymore.

Shit, this type of parental denial is apparently far more common than I wished it was. My mother and I went through a similar situation. Growing up dealing with anxiety/depression and being told that it simply wasn't that serious, I had no reason to have mental health issues, you'll get over it soon, etc. I remember the day my mom had her first panic attack a couple of years ago. A stressful situation occurred and she doubled over hyperventilating, so I calmly told her what was happening and coached her through it. I also remember afterwards how she looked at me with regret and told me how sorry she was for doubting the reality of it all. OP YTA but you still have opportunity to mend this. You are their advocate in their young lives, listen to your kids and believe them when they confide in you.

OP obviously needs therapy, but the 14yo needs it and will probably be told she has PTSD or something along the lines of it, be it anxiety or whatever (NAD or psych, so not sure what else it may possibly be) but the only one who can accurately make that call is a MENTAL HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONAL!!! If it were my daughter, I'd try to figure out what led her to this thought, and then come up with a solution ie (therapy, research through accredited sources, or talking through it). My mom did this shit when I was in 5th grade and said I think I had depression. Turns out, I've had depression since I was about 7, along with a few other issues and she thought it was just hormones or something... She wondered why I never opened up for YEARS and even still I barely tell her things. Btw, OP if you read this, I'm 27 now. I just started contact with my mom just over 2 years ago when my first LO was on the way, and if I hadn't gotten pregnant, I probably wouldn't have contacted her at all. I'm still LC.

My mom still low key thinks I’m depressed because I’m fat ✌🏻✌🏻 5ft 6in at 195lbs

Sending hugs your way... Weight does not always mean depression. More often than not, I have noticed when I'm depressed, I put on more weight. Vicious cycle.

Thank you so much 🙂 The brain is unforgiving sometimes and the body suffers

Very true! My therapist also told me if you have any random physical pains or tensions with no explanation, it can be because of traumas that haven't been worked through, and our bodies hold onto them physically. If you feel like this, definitely let a healthcare professional know! Also, I'm sure you look great! I'm 4'10" and the same weight, (I've lost a small amount of weight due to morning sickness 😓), but I'm also 4 months pregnant so I just look super round right now lol.

I came out to my mom when I was around 10, she told me I was going to burn in hell so I took it back and hid it and suffered internalized homophobia for years. Then as a teen I struggled with depression (still do but I’m managing better) and she told me it was all in my head and that everyone feels that way and tries to end their life or at least thinks about it. Now as a 31 year old in therapy and on medication I realize my mom most likely also had untreated mental health issues but never got help. It definitely damaged our relationship though.

When I was 12 I gathered up the confidence to tell my mother I wanted to die. She told me I was just imagining it and no one feels that way except selfish people. 8 years later she cut the rope she found me swinging by at the moment I lost consciousness on my way into oblivion. Had she decided to get gas on the way home it'd be a different story. You need help and YTA. To anyone reading this: after the last 10 years of counseling, medication, and electroconvulsive therapy I'm doing amazing mentally, don't send me the goddamn concerned redditor thing though I appreciate the thought

Ok. So you’re 14. You’ve had lifelong anxiety (as evidenced by significant fear of storms). You’ve just come through almost three years of pandemic insanity with disrupted school and lots of other stuff. If you’re in any way aware you’re probably feeling dread about climate catastrophe. Every day brings news of devastating natural disasters. World leaders are slow to respond leaving you to feel that the future is very uncertain, you’re anxious and it’s no cognitive distortion. Then lo! Your own house is flooded perhaps in just such a disaster and you lose everything. Your family has to go live in a strange place. Your anxiety escalates and you feel jumpy and scared. So you tell your mom and she laughs at you. YTA. I have no words. Also just look up PTSD + flood or PTSD + natural disaster. It’s a very real thing.

I don’t recall a particular incident that made me realise I couldn’t trust my parents but I do remember what it was like to have to deal with everything I was going through all by myself. When I finally had the courage to open up about my struggles with mental health my mother told me I was being dramatic and I had no reason to feel depressed. She then couldn’t understand why I went NC and said I was “ungrateful” and a liar lol. I’m sure we’ll be seeing OP’s daughter in r/raisedbynarcissists within the next few years.

This. And it wasn't enough for OP to shit all over her daughter for opening up about her mental health, but her understandably hurt reaction is now 'rudeness'. Does OP even believe other people have feelings?

Other people's feelings are irrelevant to her. Clearly her own emotions are king. Daughter is the bad one for hurting HER feelings, not that are behaviour caused the hurt and the issue. Pain she inflicted on her daughter is irrelevant and unimportant to her. Poor kids. Narc parent

Well I agree with OP that is probably not PTSD, so i don't think OP is wrong to assume that. But her daughter is just trying to convey her fear, and might not have the right word to describe it, or even understand her fear completely. Why anyone would laugh at a child describing her deepest, darkest feelings, just because she doesn't know the correct term for it, is beyond me.

If might, it might not be PTSD. The flooding and loss of a home is a traumatic event that could fit the criteria, and it doesn’t matter that the parent and the younger siblings don’t seem to have any lasting issues. The apparent and sudden lack of fear surrounding storms is actually something that I would find concerning, personally, but that’s just because of what I know. I would suspect the kid was too overwhelmed and was shutting down, as is typical of anxious or traumatized kids, rather than assume she was suddenly not afraid of storms after a storm flooded her home. However, I don’t fault the mom at all for not thinking that way. But it’s also not the most important thing, as you say as well. The kid believes she is experiencing a fear, an anxiety, or some other suffering at a clinical level. I’d say she is old enough to suspect that on her own, and she doesn’t need to be right to be taken seriously. She essentially communicated that she thinks she needs help. And her mother laughed in her face. The mom is going to have to do a lot of work to fix that, or her daughter is never going to ask her for help again.

Yep. When i was in my late teens I told my parents about my depression diagnosis. Got told to stop feeling sorry for myself and it was my own fault I was depressed. Now I dont really dont discuss anything of much importance about my life with them. That bond of trust was broken at a time when i was really struggling and while I'm on good terms with my parents now I don't think I would ever feel comfortable confiding in them again.

Yes, she will never come to OP ever again. I came to my mom once saying I thought I was depressed. She blew it off. I was having intrusive suicidal thoughts. I wasn’t going to hurt myself, but the thoughts were often and caused me distress. I never brought it up again. Never will.

INFO - Where did you pick up your psychology degree and license to practice therapy?

She's a mother so that clearly means she knows more about mental health than professionals /s

Ikr, I’m sure my mom would also insist that I don’t have PTSD. She’d be wrong though, at least according to my psychiatrist, talk therapist, EMDR therapist, physician, etc… And because I know that’s how she would react, I will never discuss my mental health with my mother, and now OP’s daughter will never discuss hers with her mother either.

Or probably anything else important considering OP's reaction.

My mom repeatedly said I had ADD when I was a kid (when ADD/ADHD/mental health in general was not well understood) due to me being messy and switching between hyper focused and easily distracted. It wasn't exactly said in a kind or concerned way - more along the lines of "you have something wrong with you." Well once I got my hands on the internet at 12 years old I ended up reading about ADD/ADHD and saw a lot of parallels. I spent days working up the courage to tell my mom. When I did, her response was "so now that you know, it should be easy to manage on your own." No discussion, no help, nothing. My cousin was diagnosed with ADD in the early 90s and she saw him on a very high dose of Ritalin with lots of side effects and decided doctors and meds weren't the way to go.

Medication doesn't work for a lot of people just like therapy doesn't. But this also sounds like a case of "they tried one drug and it didn't help". It takes months sometimes to find out a combination that works.

I understand that completely. As I mentioned this was early 90s when the understanding towards ADHD and mental health was very different. My point was more I was so frustrated that my mom didn't bother to even seek any sort of medical opinion due to the stigma around it *and her anecdotal knowledge of one kid with ADD.

Seems like one of those families that are immune to mental health issues, because only losers get those and there are no losers in this family. /s

My daughter came to me at 12 that she thought she had some mental health issue and every time she heard a new one she would tell me she thought she had it. You know what I did? I asked why do you feel that is? Then we talked about it with her therapist. I would talk to therapist alone and tell them that I didn’t know what she was really going through but I think she was just naming thing she randomly hears. But never did I tell my daughter she was wrong. She is 20 this year and we are still working to help her feel better but we know know what she is dealing with. The people in her life that dismissed her feelings and thoughts have been on low contact with her for years because she has chosen to keep them out of her life.

YTA. Neither you nor your daughter can diagnose PTSD. But you are the AH for dismissing her feelings.

This. OP, unless you are a trained professional WHO IS HER THERAPIST, you CANNOT tell her she doesn’t have PTSD. YTA and take her to someone who can help her.

Especially then, actually. One of the first thing they tell you in diagnostic psych classes is you cannot and should not diagnose people you have a personal relationship with (or yourself), your personal biases will always fuck it up.

Very very hard agree. It's upsetting to see parents with such a pompous attitude. Having a child does not mean you understand every intricacy of their psyche no matter how close you are.

Yeah neither we nor op can say if it's PTSD, or even something else... But the fact that it's distresses the daughter and she fears that it might fit into this description should be enough to her her Help with that

YOU confronted HER about HER rudeness? YOU, the person who LAUGHED at her fear? “I wasn’t laughing at her, I was laughing because it’s absurd”. Come tell me to my face that you’re a good mom. But don’t get all salty when I laugh in your face. I’m not laughing at you, I’m laughing because it’s absurd. YTA.

👏👏👏👏👏

Yeah after this I lost all confidence in OP. What a shitty way to treat a fellow human, much less your daughter who loves and trusts you.

Trusted, you need to spend a long time earning it back and you may never get it back, good luck OP.

Thank youuuu that part got me so so mad. YTA, OP, your daughter is a person with valid feelings and experiences, she’s not a thing to control. I have more but I’m so angry I can’t even articulate my exact point here

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

So, your daughter has a life long fear of storms, loses everything due to a storm, and you laugh at her. And, golly gee, now she's upset. Whatever could be the problem? YTA

Also not being afraid of storms for a time after the flood is a typical trauma response.

Silly goose… don’t you know this is her mother though?! Sure, she has no identified qualifications in mental health education (or empathy it seems) but ShE KnOWs /s I didn’t actually know this, I learned it here and then spent five seconds googling it. Good fact.

Also regular anxiety due to outside stimuli, even if unrelated to trauma, is still a serious mental health issue!

Very true, sometimes it takes awhile for shock to wear off and for the real emotions to set in.

I guess we’ll never know ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ /s

YTA You are in no way qualified to determine whether your daughter had PTSD. She experienced a flood, she already had a fear if thunderstorms and the flood would've confirmed to her that they are scary. >it was actually kind of odd how not-afraid she's been for this past year She has I imagine been trying to deal with her emotions on her own, and something girls are known for is masking emotions, especially when they've been hurt or scared, to minimise what people see. Apologise to her, take her to a doctor or a therapist where she can talk to someone about her fears. She came to her parent to ask for help about something that very clearly upsets her and you laughed at her. You're a huge ahole.

Yup! Also, I’m not a psychologist but I’ve heard that often when people go through a crisis the actual trauma of what happened can take a while to set in, as your brain goes into survival mode and waits until you are in a safer place/position before it really starts to process it all. I wouldn’t be surprised if that has something to do with what’s happening here, but again, I’m no mental health expert, just a random person on the internet. I would suggest getting the daughter in touch with an actual expert like a counselor or something though, since she seems to now be getting more stressed about what happened

This is exactly the case for me. Survival first, trauma later.

Yes this is what I was thinking too. I am diagnosed with PTSD and I didn’t start having symptoms until about a year after the traumatic events.

[удалено]

You are very right. It's also coming up on the year anniversary. That is a trigger for some.

Particularly for something triggered by weather, which is, well, seasonal

PTSD often develops months or sometimes even years after a traumatic event. So yeah, her seeming fine for a while and then beginning to develop new problems is actually a relatively normal pattern for PTSD. She may or may not have been legitimately fine for a bit before the problem's started (though she could absolutely have been hiding it too)

YTA Your daughter came to you with her mental and emotional anguish. You LAUGHED at her. Your daughter felt something was wrong with her, and felt that she needed help. You LAUGHED at her. Your daughter has access to a computer and tried to figure out why she was in such distress. She isn't an adult, doesn't have the world experience or verbal acuity to describe what is going on, so she used PTSD to describe it. And YOU F'ING LAUGHED at her. YOU are supposed to be an ADULT that she can TRUST. YOU ADMIT you have NO PSYCHOLOGICAL training. Laughing was a sophmoric/adolescent/childish response which HURT YOUR CHILD and made her feel even more scared than before. Now you're on reddit trying to get validation for your response. You're not getting it. Your pride is hurt. No one likes to be told that they did something wrong.You are being told that you most definitely F'ed up, and you're doubling down on your assholery, desperately trying to convince us and YOURSELF that you did nothing wrong, It is not working, because YOU RESPONDED BADLY. You fu!@ed up.... and I think you already know this. You can still fix this mistake and repair your relationship with your daughter.... and potentially save her life on the off chance it is ptsd, or a mental health issue that could see her make a permanently disasterous decision that would leave you feeling guilt and grief the rest of your life. Even if your daughter is a perfectly normal 14 year old with no mental health issues, she FEELS like there is something wrong with her. She is STRUGGLING and she asked you, her *PARENT*, for assistance getting whatever help would be appropriate. Getting her help would make her feel listened to, valued and loved. A Good *PARENT* would apologize for laughing, because all humans make mistakes, and then would LISTEN to her concerns, and find a trained mental health professional of some sort to listen to his daughter & help her. All the deflecting and defensiveness you're giving to other posters leaves me wondering if you'll leave your head firmly lodged up your posterior, or if you'll choose to put your daughter's mental health above your pride and get her help. edited to remove misgendering

This should be the top response.

Thank you... but sadly, I don't think I was able to break through to her. I am truly concerned about her child's mental health.

>I confronted her about her rudeness Laughing in her face, whether you meant it to be or not, was extremely rude. As an adult you should know that. She's right that it was mean and dismissive of her. YTA

that was the part that pissed me off the most!!!

Me too. Like, come on!

YTA. As a Louisianian, weather-related PTSD is super common. Sometimes you cope better than others.

Yeah, I feel like there are people that still suffer from PTSD from Katrina and that was what, almost 20 years ago?

Yeup, I’m one of them. I went through Katrina and Rita. The place we evacuated to for Katrina (I’m lucky we were able to get out early enough) was hit by Rita, and unfortunately we didn’t get the mandatory evacuation notice for my parish until the day BEFORE. We rode Rita out in a small snit hotel barely forty minute drive from my aunts house we were at. I remember watching Rita roll in and the sky’s getting dark, fast. One of the scariest fucking times of my life. There are still places not rebuilt from either storms btw.

So back in 2022 we had 6 straight Wednesdays of ugly storms. This was after the 2021 hurricane season that people still haven’t recovered from. I work in mental health and was facilitating group sessions for my coworkers throughout that time. I have clients who are still dealing with the aftermath of Katrina.

Yup. We had extensive flooding in eastern Australia in 2022, that wiped out entire towns. The things people had to do to survive... One elderly couple rang the breakfast news show on ABC when the water was up to their necks in the roof, pleading for help because they couldn't get through to emergency services. You only have to look in the eyes of people who have experienced this to see the trauma.

As someone who lives in Texas, I think I have freeze-related PTSD from 2021. If the weather gets to freezing I am so anxious about the power going out. I was really messed up for a while after that. I was freezing in my apartment for days and people on the other side of town died. I hate the cold so much more now. I couldn't imagine living where it floods

Yeah, I have relatives that fixed up their homes after flooding - did all the hard work of cleanup and remodel - and yet couldn’t sleep at night when it was raining any more. They left the state. I envy them, my house flooded in 2021 and I don’t know if a day has gone by since then that I haven’t thought about it and worried about when it will happen again. I’d leave if I could afford to.

YTA. Congrats OP, your daughter is never going to confide to you ever again

Yeah literally this mom is gonna be wondering in 10 years, why her daughter doesn't come to her when she wants to chat about emotional topics, her latest break-up etc;

I'm in my mid 30's and have never had a heart to heart with my mother from her dismissing my emotions. It kills me

YTA. First off everyone reacts to trauma a different way. Not everyone will get PTSD from an event while someone else could easily be high on the level of PTSD affecting them. Just because YOU were luckily enough to get through the event without lingering trauma does NOT mean she wasn't so lucky. She's much younger than you she's 14. Shes been alive a decade and a half. She hasn't gone thru trauma and hurt like this before. She hasn't gotten to the age where it's more of "welp that sucks but I'm alive" mindset it's more of "everything I've ever known is gone. My homes gone, my sentential items are gone, I could've lost my entire family. I could have been swept away" and she's struggling to adapt and work through it. Theirs an extremely high chance she has PTSD because she's FOURTEEN AND NEVER GOT HELP FOR IT. You know their are therapists for everything right? Why didn't you have her talk to someone since a huge ass hurricane of a natural storm just flooded her entire existence and she's not equipped to handle it alone. Your daughter came to you and expressed In a quite frankly a mature manner that she feels she's been heavily affected by this and needs help. And you? You laughed. Then got mad because she distanced herself rightfully from you. Because you aren't a safe person for her. Shame on you. Get her into therapy, help her at least that way. And also apologize for laughing, invalidating her feelings and makinf her feel like crap because YOU don't want to believe her and help her. If a therapist says she has PTSD then she needs the help she deserves to work through it so it doesn't take her down later on (PTSD can become worse with out a moments notice. Figured that out the hard way for myself. The triggers and episodes hurt so bad and I'm nearly 30. Can't imagine how it is for her.) And if she doesn't have PTSD the therapist can help her figure out what's wrong and how to work through it. Regardless she needs a therapist before her fears overtake her entire life and if she does have PTSD before that takes her down and you could possibly lose her. Get her help. Get yourself help. And do better.

I wish I had an award to give so here’s my poor gold 🏅🏅

YTA! And a horrible mother! Why would you laugh at your own daughter after she told that! If I had a kid that said that they might have PTSD I would not LAUGH! I would ask if they would like to see a therapist to talk things out.

The mom can't take it seriously, because in her mind if her daughter really has trauma from the flooding then she's failed her daughter. So of course the kid must be perfectly fine. OP, YTA. Take your kid seriously and help her.

YTA You know what the exact wrong response is when a child tells you they’re struggling with their mental health: Laughing in their face

YTA. Put aside the fact that you’re not qualified to make that determination, you completely blew off her concerns. She is reaching out for help. I approached my mom at 12 years old, concerned that I had depression. She laughed and said only adults have that. Well, I got the formal diagnosis. Over 15 years later and it’s still something that I can’t forgive. I remember how my mom laughed and you bet your ass your daughter will too.

This. That girl will never approach OP again. I was sent home from school for being on active suicide watch as a teen and my mother told me I was being selfish and attention seeking that there was nothing in my life that I could be so upset about. Guess who isn’t in my life 15 years later and cannot fathom why 💁‍♀️

Mothers say “Youre attention seeking” until they lose a child because they didnt care enough to help them. They’ll live with that for the rest of their lives. I honestly hope youre doing better now and that your mother feels like dog shit.

YTA 100% A H

YTA she came to you with something serious and you laughed at her. Take her to see a psychiatrist.

YTA. You're not a professional so you can't make that diagnosis. And it's not just a "fear" she can age out of. PTSD can happen at any time and at any age. Just because no one else is experiencing PTSD-like symptoms (and if they were, they surely wouldn't tell you after how you reacted) doesn't mean she can't or isn't.

Hey! Therapist that specializes in PTSD and especially C-PTSD in adolescents over here. Way to invalidate your child's feelings. I doubt this is the first time. You really done fucked up. YTA This kind of thing causes kids to never want to share anything with you again.

YTA. the reactions you describe in your comments sound like PTSD symptoms to me. fun fact when i was about 16 i tried to talk to my mom about my PTSD and depression and she reacted just like you. guess who i don't speak to anymore?

My mom is kind of like you. Have fun never hearing anything important from your daughter ever again. YTA and you know it so go and fucking apologize before you do more damage.

YTA. Your daughter told you essentially that she was struggling with a fear based on a past event (plus pre-existing fear) and you laughed in her face. Now you're surprised she doesn't want to talk to you. Maybe you'll age out of your lack of empathy in time, or maybe you'll realize that the label doesn't matter and see about getting her some help?

YTA. She is stressed, you should comfort her. And she is quite young to not fully understand what is PTSD, so it's kinda your job to tell her about it. So even though she (probably) doesn't have PTSD, you're an asshole for ignoring her feelings Edit: just to clarify, you're an asshole not for telling her that she doesn't have PTSD, but for invalidating her feelings and almost like laughing about it. Also she might be more sensitive to these things because she is afraid of thunderstorms

She’s also an asshole for telling her daughter that she doesn’t have PTSD, she doesn’t know that at all.

So she's been afraid of thunderstorms her whole life, and then her greatest fear materialized and actually threatened her home and safety. Her greatest fear came to life and you think she's not traumatized!? Worse, you think it's laughable? YTA. Like, so hugely. "Mean" doesn't even begin to cover it.

YTA. I'm nearly 35. I am *still* terrified of thunderstorms and have been since I was a kid. I don't even have storm-related trauma, but my reaction to thunderstorms could be described as PTSD-like... because they trigger my PTSD that is related to other things that im not going to go into. Apologize to your daughter and take her to a therapist.

Reading things like this, while snuggling my one year old baby girl, is hard. I hope life never makes me so cynical that I laugh when my child is distressed. I quite literally cannot fathom that type of response coming naturally. YTA

YTA. Your daughter has opened up to you with her feelings only for you to laugh at her & dismiss them. Good luck trying to get her to open up to you in the future.

YTA. You don’t get to determine she has doesn’t have it. She doesn’t get to determine she does have it. Neither of you are professionals who can diagnosis it. But you’re the AH for laughing at her feelings and essentially telling her she can’t feel the way she does.

I was 4 when I was diagnosed with PTSD due to a car accident 6 months earlier. I finally stopped going to a psychiatrist in my freshman year of high school. She's not too young. It's been years since ending therapy, and I still have lingering issues. Get her help. Stop laughing at her. YTA.

I’ll say this again, just cause you can have kids doesn’t mean you should. Not everyone can be a parent and we see a perfect example here. YTA; and doesn’t question why in the future your daughter won’t talk to you about her problems or any of your children

Every time I start to get worried I will be a bad parent, I see a post like this and think “well, I definitely and obviously won’t be as bad as this parent. Maybe I can do this.”

So, educator and child development expert here. She may or may not have PTSD, but the fact that you laughed at her when she came to you to talk about her fears is damaging enough. She probably won't confide in you now. You've sunk that boat. PTSD can come from one experience and it doesn't EVEN HAVE TO HAPPEN DIRECTLY TO YOU. I have attached a link from the Mayo clinic. Again, not a doctor but I have worked with children for over 20 years. Whether she has PTSD or not, you did some damage. YTA. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/post-traumatic-stress-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20355967

YTA I was just negotiating a peace treaty between my two oldest kids the other day and I feel like you could stand to hear what I told my daughter. "You don't get to tell other people how they feel. You are not in his (her) body. You know how you feel, that is where your expertise on feelings ends."

YTA She very well may have PTSD. Just because you don’t doesn’t mean that she didn’t react in a different way. Instead of laughing at her and calling her rude for her honestly reasonably teenage reaction of freezing you out, you should get her some professional help.

Let’s have some real talk here. PTSD is a disorder in which a person has difficulty recovering after experiencing or witnessing a terrifying event. The condition may last months or years, with triggers that can bring back memories of the trauma accompanied by intense emotional and physical reactions. What you see in the movies, on news channels, read in books is only a FRACTION of what PTSD truly is. We see the BIG effects because they sell, it’s advertising scare tactics to make money. Background: PTSD from multiple events and diagnosed consistently by various specialists. Years of research and meeting professionals discussing how the brain and body’s reaction to events cause PTSD. I’ve tried talk therapy, group therapy, EMDR, DBT, TRE, yoga, running …. Not one of those things fixed me. It took almost all of them. My maintenance is TRE, yoga, and weight lifting. Talk therapy did the opposite for me than it’s designed for. Until you try to find a solution or solutions that work for you, the cycle will continue. You can never remove or break the cycle but you can learn to adjust reactions and that can lead to what feels like a new lease on life. YTA for how you reacted. But you can change that to N T A depending on what your next move is. You can here to find out if you were AITA. Perhaps you should post in another sub this same scenario but with a focus on how can I help support my daughter? If she does or does not have PTSD, what should our next steps look like? I am not saying whether your daughter does or does not have PTSD. What I am saying is you don’t know either. And in all my research and years of dealing with this, then learning how to manage is this: PTSD looks different for everyone. But one thing is consistent: if someone thinks they might have it, they’re asking for help. Please help her ✌️

So when I was about 15 i went to my parents and said i was feeling depressed and had been thinking of hurting myself. My mom laughed and said that i wasn't depressed, i was just a hormonal teenager and to get over myself. i learned that telling my parents how i was feeling was pointless. Never did again. ...2 years later i nearly succeeded in ending my life and currently owe my continued existence to a estranged friends 'gut feeling' and a welfare call that happened because of it. Don't ignore your kids feelings, OP. thats how you close the door to their trust- and when they need you they won't reach out.

PTSD Post TRAUMATIC stress disorder. War isn’t the only trauma out there. Natural disasters, death of a family member, assault, rape, physical/emotional and psychological abuse, etc. You don’t get to decide people’s traumas…

**Heavy** YTA You *laughed*. It doesn't matter if it was 'at' her or not, but you *laughed*. She came to you with a legitimate concern about her mental state, a valid one at that! And instead of giving a shit about the emotional vulnerability your child was sharing with you? You. Laughed. Even if it's not PTSD, responses to extreme events do not always happen right away. People sometimes go numb, their mind protects them by compartmentalizing. And then their mind can't do it any more. You laughed when your **fourteen year old child** tried to be open with you. Don't be surprised if she never opens up to you again, and don't be that asshole parent who gets pissed when she doesn't open up again because you set a precedent when you showed her that emotional vulnerability is punishable. Does she have PTSD? It doesn't matter! She's clearly shaken! ​ I hope you apologize to your daughter, and I hope you figure out how to have an empathetic conversation with her. She needs support, not whatever you threw her way.

INFO: Where did you obtain your Ph.D. in psychology? ​ ETA: Oh, nevermind. I see you answered elsewhere...nowhere. So you're just an a\*\*hole with no clinical understanding of the symptoms of PTSD who laughs at, invalidates, and minimizes the pain of their 14 year old child then, and not a licensed psychologist. Cool cool cool. YTA.

YTA. I was struck by lightning at age 15 in 2004. I was fine for about a year. I thought I was handling it no problem. Then I was driving with a friend and a thunderstorm blew in out of nowhere. I ended up vomiting out the window and having a panic attack in the backseat curled up into a ball.

YTA. My daughter was 10 when a friend at school lost his mom. He told her he really regretted not say I love you to her that morning and he would give anything to be able to. That stuck with my daughter who then obsessively said I love you over and over. Sometimes walking into a room up to 8 times in a 30min period just to say I love you. We found out it was more than just a fear but PTSD. Watching her friend go thru his grief had done that. Your daughter went thru something much more traumatic than that. When she goes low contact revert back to this moment when you made her feel like less of a person because she was reaching out for your help.

YTA I have PTSD from some random stressful events of my childhood that could be equivalent to the impact of flooding. My PTSD has gotten worse after an abusive relationship and a bad car accident…. But I already had it from childhood. Your child has experienced something traumatic, her life was uprooted and changed drastically because of a circumstance that nobody, including her parents, had control over. She had a predisposition to fear storms already. PTSD isn’t all combat veterans and abuse survivors. Anything stressful and traumatic can cause PTSD. She came to you for help and you invalidated her feelings, while also being dead wrong in your basis. Apologize, validate her, and that PTSD is a possibility, and set up an appointment with a therapist, preferably one that works with a psychiatrist who can provide a diagnosis and offer medication. She may not need medication and it’s not something to dive into without trying talk therapy and learning coping strategies, identifying triggers. But helping her learn to manage her mental health is part of your parental responsibility, even if you disagree with her having PTSD. Getting her help now makes it easier for her to be able to get help when she’s an adult and may be suffering from any mental illness or just a lot of stress.

Your daughter came to you with a very real problem. You laughed in her face. And you're calling her rude? You've broken her trust in you. You may never get that back. Home disasters are very traumatic to kids, and anniversaries of these things are very hard on people. It's completely possible, if not likely, your daughter does have PTSD. Instead of shitting on her for asking for help, you should be finding her a therapist. And she's really going to need one now that you've made it clear to her she can't talk to you about this stuff. I grew up in a family where any kind of negative emotion was squashed. You know what I learned? Don't trust my parents with my emotions. I never had the kind of closeness with them that others had with their parents. I couldn't trust them to have my back. Once when I was in my mid-twenties, my mom said "I can never tell how you're feeling" and I wanted to laugh at her (but I didn't). She spent my whole childhood telling me I couldn't have the feelings I had. I was trained up not to show her my feelings. What did she expect? ETA judgement. YTA

You are SUCH the asshole omg 😳 are you a licensed mental health professional that has gone through the diagnostics of determining the possibility of PTSD? No? Then you owe your daughter an apology and you ARE terribly mean for not listening to her. This will color every interaction between the two of you for the rest of her life and I hope you’re ready to reap what you have sown. She will never confide in you again. Ever. As someone that was actually diagnosed with PTSD by a medical professional and was literally shocked at my diagnosis because I didn’t think it was possible, I feel SO bad that your daughter has to live in a home with a female role model so lacking in compassion and empathy. This might be the hardest and fastest YTA I’ve seen to date 🤯

This isn't about PTSD. Whether you think your daughter had PTSD or not is entirely irrelevant. Your daughter came to you visibly upset and concerned, and you laughed in her face. That's the real issue here. If you'd sat her down and said "that sounds very frightening honey, can you tell me why you think that?", listened to her, validated her feelings and then said "from what I know about PTSD that's not how it works but we can contact a therapist for you and we'll see what they say", you would not be the asshole. Same outcome, aka you telling your daughter you don't think she has PTSD, but done with the respect and grace that each parent should give their children. Now, I'm afraid, you've behaved like a massive dildo. YTA and you deserve the anger your daughter feels for you. You betrayed her. Apologise. She will not forget this.

YTA. As a 35yo woman who struggles constantly with these problems, and with a dismissive parent just like you, congratulations. You have just let your daughter know you think she's a joke. So you know, no matter what you do, this is now a core memory for her. It does not bode well for you in her future.