Reply to DD keeps torturing herself for her mistakes

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[quote=Anonymous]Our 21-year-old daughter recently came clean about failing her last semester of college. She was depressed, using drugs, and stopped going to classes the last month. She lied to us, told us she had passed, and we had no idea what was going on. Over the summer, she said she was “working” which is why she didn’t come home, now we know she was just trying to hide how bad things had gotten.

Right before this fall semester started, she broke down and told us everything. It was shocking and heartbreaking, but since then we’ve been trying to focus on helping her move forward instead of staying stuck in the past. She’s home with us now, sober, seeing a counselor, and going to addiction meetings in the evenings. She’s taking a break from school and working part-time.

We’ve taken over her finances for now because she maxed out her credit card and made some poor choices. We have access to her account, and she gets $100 a month for leisure while the rest goes toward paying down her debt. She’s fine with this plan and understands why we’re doing it.

The hardest part right now is how much she’s beating herself up. She says she hates herself, cries a lot about how she “ruined everything,” and just can’t seem to forgive herself. We keep telling her we love her, we’ve forgiven her, and we’re not mad, we just want her to heal and rebuild. But she feels like she doesn’t deserve to have fun or do anything enjoyable.

Before all this, she used to see her friends at least once a week, casual hangs, sometimes just go for a coffee outing, they’d hang out in our basement for movie nights. Now she doesn’t see them at all. She cancels plans and refuses to reach out. It’s like she’s isolating herself on purpose because she feels she doesn’t “deserve” to be happy.

She is making progress, staying sober, going to counseling, working, but she’s stuck in this shame spiral. We want her to keep working on herself, but we also want her to reconnect with life again.

Has anyone been through something similar with a young adult? How can we help her start forgiving herself and feel like she’s allowed to live again? Any advice or perspective would really help.[/quote]

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