Psych visit about my daugher.

A very helpful psychology appt yesterday, as we discussed all that has happened since my last visit a month ago. It has been quite an eventful month, with my daughter leaving the house in a flurry of anger, not telling me where her new place is, and leaving behind her room as a pigsty full off fleas. The psychologist could see I was obviously exasperated with her. 

His take on her was that she's feeling very threatened by David; not in the sense that he's any kind of physical threat but rather that my attention and love is going to him now and not just my daughter. That does make sense to me given how she was carrying on. She constantly said that she was being "pushed away", whilst I scratched my head wondering WTF she was on about. She never let go of the idea either that it was either her or David (equally confusing me). In the last big argument in the kitchen the day she left she made that clear. Just didn't seem to be able to get that loving David didn't mean that I didn't love her. Very immature for a 23 year old.

I'm still not sure why she's so fuckin angry at me. Perhaps she's now blaming me for all of this. One thing though that was clear at the appt was that David and I couldn't have done anything differently. If it wasn't David it'd be someone else. In fact it may well have been worse if I'd have fallen in love with a woman, as the idea that a woman partner was a replacement for her mother would be even stronger. Myself I was in a very difficult situation but handled the thing OK, not bad for not having a clue what to do and having to just about feel my way through the whole thing a bit at a time.

I mentioned how I'd told her in that last argument that she needed to go to counseling or a psychologist as she'd not dealt with her mother's death. Something she rejected. My psychologist however thought she'd very much benefit from seeing someone, but that doesn't mean a thing if she's not wanting to go. If she'd dealt with her grief via counseling and therapy then it's likely she'd not feel this anger towards me for taking another partner.

Thing is she's 23 now and she has to realise that on her own. He agreed with me that I should give the months break from contact with her as I'm doing now. Will give her and us a chance to calm down about the whole thing, and that I should concentrate now on my relationship with David. I related that the whole stressful episode has strengthened it rather than driven us apart. 

Other than that it's simply going to take time between my daughter and I. Eventually we'll get back on congenial terms. I certainly wasn't expecting David to be any kind of replacement for my wife. It's interesting that she came up with the term "happy families" which is in itself interesting.

Even if we were living in some parallel universe and we were "happy families" she'd still have had to move. She didn't want to stop what she was doing with drugs. I simply can't expose myself and David to that sort of danger. The police would be the least of the worries. Last thing I need is some dealer flattening the front door because her or her boyfriend made some mistake with them. This was the crux of the whole disagreement between us and her; she thought it was fine to be as involved as she was with drugs and live here. Often people call each other names in a heated argument, which is what she keeps saying about David, but that wasn't the issue.

Psychologist want to see me again in two weeks rather than a month as my mood hasn't been good.