I’ve been her stepmother for 5 years. She has always been a touch more odd than any other children I’ve known, but as she’s gotten older, she’s much much more than that, in my opinion. Her older brother and younger sister aren’t like it.

She tells everyone that she loves the taste of blood, and wants to be called Vamp, and yet made a big fuss at school when they did. She asked to be removed from her lessons because she said they weren’t safe. She’s not bullied at school, if anything, she’s the bully 50% of the time, and completely sullen and over sensitive the other 50%. She’s cut herself with scissors all over her arms and shown the cuts to everyone she meets. She writes horrible poetry and letters about hate and murder and pain.When she gets told off, she will pull her hair out or smash her head against the wall. She gives herself dreadful nosebleeds and uses the blood to smear all over the bathroom, and I mean ALL over. She says that she has visions, and that voices whisper to her. She can be very violent. She talks at a ridiculously high speed, or mumbles incoherently. She steals all the time, from school and home and will lie even when presented with irrefutable evidence. She says she doesn’t remember saying or doing things that are horrible. Whenever she reads a book, she becomes obsessed with it. She will write the charachter names over and over again, literally hundreds of times. She will behave like she has supernatural powers. (all the books she reads contain some kind of mystical powers)

What on earth is going on with her? We’re waiting for an appointment with a psychiatrist and a psychologist, but I just don’t know what to think. She’s certainly dangerous, to herself and to others. This I know for certain, having been kicked in the stomach by her when heavily pregnant, and after attending to the deep and bleeding bite marks she left on her older brothers hand.

What does anybody think about this?
Ps- her mother is not dead, she just isn’t interested in her children. I take an interest in every single thing that gives her any joy- I’ve made time for us to do things as a family, just me and her, and time without me there. I’ve tried talking to her, and leaving her to it. I’ve tried lavishing attention, withdrawing attention, treating her the same as her brothers and sisters, and making her feel a little special. Not all at the same time, of course. Each method has been tried for 12 weeks, and none of them have had even a tiny effect on her. She’s had counsellors for years- she was like this even before her parents divorced- there was concern raised about her disturbing behaviour when she was just 5 years old. I met her father 2 years after the divorce, and have never had any real problems with his other 2 children.
AND I’ve even arranged visits with their mother, even go so far as to pay for taxis to bring her to my house, where I’ve made her tea and coffee all afternoon in an effort to get her to interact with her children, so even though it has made me feel angry to do it, I’ve made certain that contact was there. Their mother has moved, changed telephone numbers and email address, so I can’t do that anymore.

Hi :) It really does sound like you are having a hard time at the minute!!
Firstly, it could be that your stepdaughter had some kind of early trauma in her life, and this is her way of dealing with it, by splitting herself into the "girl who likes blood and has supernatural powers" so that she feels people can’t touch her and get close enough to hurt her emotionally again. She may need reassurance that people aren’t there to hurt her, get some form of routine sorted so that she has stability, punish her for her innapropriate actions by stripping her of priveleges or something, but show her consistency. The cutting seems to definitely be a call for attention- has there been any reason why she was ignored or not shown affection when she was younger? Does she miss her real mother? Remind her that even though you arent her mother it doesnt mean you dont care about her. Maybe next time she goes off one, you could join in and make it a "game". Take an interest in what she is reading, help her with her poetry maybe? Or do completely the opposite and say that you arent putting up with it anymore and have a blanket ban on any vampire paraphernalia.

A second option could be schizophrenia or multiple personality disorder. Schizophrenia can be characterized by the sufferer hearing and seeing things that aren’t there, and being manipulated by these visions into doing things they would not normally do. It is a degenerative illness that gets worse over time, but is manageable using drugs like clozapine and other antipsychotics, or even with Psychiatric help- getting the patient to realise that these things are not real. here is a link that shows other symptoms http://www.schizophrenia.com/earlysigns.htm
Although it is a horrible label to have, many schizophrenics can lead perfectly normal lives with the correct treatment, as can people with multiple personality disorder, which is where the sufferer has different aspects of their personality to do different things, for example "Vamp" may be her bad self, telling her to do bad things that she secretly wants to do but wouldn’t want to do as herself, so to enable her to show her feelings she has to "become" someone else. This is treatable with Psychiatric help.

Talk to the school and definately get her seen by a Psychiatrist, as whatever the problem is, it seems she could benefit emotionally from being ableto control her behaviour more. Please don’t hesitate to email me if you want to talk about it, I know it must be very difficult for you and the rest of the family.

Good luck :) Wish you all the best.
xx

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