[quote=BioAdoptMom3;3988715]
Hello: I wasn't there so all I can contribute is either my current understanding or my own childhood experiences.
IMO, at 2 ½ she could have already been suffering with mental/emotional damages that none of you were able to notice.

When did that start and what did you, the parents, do to help her overcome that behavior? What parenting skills did you use to HELP her with that?

"cutting herself,"

me: Surely that didn’t start suddenly. When did she begin doing that and what parenting skills did you use to HELP her stop cutting her self?

"anorexia, bulimia,"

me: How did all of that happen and what parenting skills did you use to HELP her stop it? How is it that you didn't do something to HELP her right away???? I'm not a parent but, as the child I once was, I know for certain that my "issues" did NOT suddenly appear over night for NO reason at all and that my ignorant and negligent parents FAILED to notice what was going wrong with us kids until it was way TO LATE to help us.

"talking back,"

me: IMO, that is glaring evidence of inadequate parenting skills. How did you deal with that to HELP her return to normal behavior and RESPECT? For me, talking back was a blatant expression of the loss of respect that I had for my very inadequate parents but, in my case, they would have knocked me across the room for talking back so I did it under my breath. They, not me, DESTROYED the respect that I had for them from day one and replaced it with THEIR CONTEMPT. I would NEVER have talked back to my parents if they had maintained the love and respect that once was there between us!

"smoking pot, raiding a liquor cabinet with her friend at her friend's house"

me: Common! Where were you when she started with that? How did you let her get so bad and LOST??? Us kids eventually got into a lot of unsavory things all because our parents FAILED to notice what we were doing and let us slowly sink into more and more bad behavior such as you describe here. They had good enough parenting skills to teach us how to put our chairs back under the table when finished, eat quietly, say please and thank you BUT not enough good parenting skills to HELP us stay away from drinking, smoking pot, lying, stealing, cursing, cheating, breaking others property and other CORRUPT things! THEY JUST WERE NOT THERE!

"considering suicide and even attempting it!"

me: So where were both of you when this behavior first emerged? What parenting skills, that worked so well with your boys, did you use to HELP your daughter? IMO, this is just another example of negligent, disconnected and BAD parenting skills. Exactly HOW DID YOU FAIL to notice what was happening to your own child?? How come you didn’t see any of this happening BEFORE it got so bad?? What did you both do for your sons that somehow did not work for your daughter????

I can tell you where our pathetic parents were while my brother and I began: smoking pot, stealing, lying, cursing, drinking, destroying things and becoming terrible kids (I thought of suicide at about 6 yo but couldn't figure out how to kill myself without pain! By then, I hated my home life and was terrified of my parents and I just wanted OUT OF THERE!). They were LOST in their own unhappy, self-centered and SICK world so us boys had NO HELP or guidance from our very negligent and IGNORANT parents as we slowly sank further and further into serious corruption which eventually led my brother to State Prison! Medications might have saved us kids from the very bad parenting we were getting but GOOD parenting would have HELPED us a lot better, IMO. I imagine some "doctor" would have told my very ignorant parents to put us on some kind of meds and that would have been real swell for our pathetic parents BUT it would never have undone the parental damages that they both had done to us and only masked the inner turmoil that us boys were struggling with. Like you, I am sure our parents would have just loved to have two pleasantly doped up robots for sons!
I am very happy for you and your child but I wonder what will happen to her when that temporary medical patch wears off or she can no longer use the meds to keep her daemons under control? She may look real good to both of you in her temporarily DOPED UP state now but what about all of the negative inner conditioning and faulty parenting that first led up to her mental/emotional problems?

Yet obviously not frustrated enough to actually HELP your suffering and troubled child BEFORE things got so bad and so serious! My parents had 1000s of opportunities to both see and FIX the issues in us boys YEARS before things got so bad for my brother that he finally went to Prison BUT they were just to perfect to ever bother with HELPING their rotten little kids when they SHOULD HAVE & COULD HAVE! Their negligence and stupidity costs their kids dearly but they just kept blaming us kids or something else for what they caused and created in the first place with their totally bad parenting skills.

In my case, nobody has blamed ALL bad behavior on poor parenting skills BUT I can say that 99.99 % of what was wrong with us kids was about bad parenting skills! I would be more than happy to fill up the rest of this page - like a whole book - to demonstrate where each and every symptom us kids showed was directly connected to BAD parenting skills and where each positive symptom we had is directly connected to GOOD parenting skills and where some of our symptoms are currently beyond me to explain. I have the freedom to do this because I am NOT a parent so I don't have to defend or excuse my parenting skills or those of other parents but I was a child who suffered from bad parenting and now I understand where they and others went wrong.
If I were a parent, I would take all of this writing and these opinions and USE them to HELP me IMPROVE my parenting skills INSTEAD of challenging anyone who questions parenting or stubbornly DEFENDING myself and my current parenting skills like some angry little kid defending it's sand castle. If I were a parent, I would move heaven and earth to HELP my kids rather than fight with anyone who has the audacity to question my excellent parenting skills. If I were a parent, my kids well being would come before my adult PRIDE regarding parenting skills. If I were a parent, I would WELCOME any ideas or concepts that might HELP my kids grow up mentally and emotionally healthy instead of fighting endlessly with everyone about MY parenting skills!
good luck,
jim