Im so frustrated I need to vent, Im a lurker here ( sorry) and have no one else to vent to because im just a stepmom and the bottom line this is none of my business! Except for the fact this all happens in my house and affects my household and i cant just sit by and watch this little girl self destruct,

My SD is 11 . She is a tad overweight and very very self concious of it, She is also tall for her age and very self concious, she tries so hard to be girlie, she likes girlie clothes and doing her hair and nails, but lately she has stopped doing all that and tries really hard to stay in her room under her covers in the dark, This is just the latest, My SD has no self esteem at all, None, shes terrified to say no to anyone,
example: she was at her best friends house and her friend was spinning her in a chair, and my SD was getting sick and wanted her to stop but never asked her, she let her keep on spinning her to the point my SD threw up, and was dizzy and sick the whole night, When i finally got SD to talk to her friend her friend was so horrified she did something that made SD sick that she cried
Another example. SD stayed over at my ex best friends house , her daughter is 1 year younger than SD, Well the friend decided it would be hilarious fun to dress SD up and parade her out in front of everyone,,,at first it was fun for her because it was silly makeup and silly wigs but then the clothes got wierd and make up got wierd and SD was at the point she didn't want to do it anymore but still wouldn't ask her friend to stop, Then the friend decided it would be so much fun to make her get semi naked and she painted her body in makeup and forced her to go outside in front of other people and my SD did it!!!!!!!!!!!!! She was so scared to tell this girl no that she did this for her freind,,,,needless to say shes not friends with her anymore and I had to end my relationship with the girls mother,
There are a lot of other instances where SD will NOT participate in anything because shes absolutly terrified of doing anything but stand still in front of other people, ,,,,,,we finally got her to participate in gym because she goes walking with me, we walk these causeways over the rivers and i told her if she participates in gym she can do a 5k with me and she was very excited about and made an effort to play in gym class,
She has a new friend at school and the girls are inseperable and i already gave the parents a heads up about her shyness and they help keep an eye on her, and my SD used to spend every single friday night over there until lately,,,,,,,,,,,SD no longer wants to walk a 5k with me, at first we thought it was her depression and lack of wanting to do anything, now SD no longer calls her friend on the phone and no longer spends the night,,,we thought she was just slipping into a mood until we found out BM is behind some of this, BM told her that she felt bad SD wanted to spend that kind of time with me and it hurts her feelings. Her mom has even told her that Im not a good influence and im to silly to hang around because i dont wear a lot of makeup and i dont dress profesionaly therefore have no sense of style and cant possible understand a girl like her daaughter, and she doesnt like her new friend and wont allow her to stay over there anymore because the girls made brownies and walked all by themselves to the next door nieghbors house to give them some brownies, she says we lack in serious parental skills for allowing the girls to walk a whole 10 feet by themselves!!!

There are other things like major depression and serious self esteem issues with my SD, im scared to see what happens to her when puberty and hormones hit, shes so moody and its not normal preteen moodiness,

We tried 5 years ago to take her to counseling, Now both parents have joint custody and obviously have to make decisions together, well BM said hell no to counseling, and finally after 6 months she was threatened with getting DCF involved and said fine SD can go to counseling but SHE will take her and we are not allowed to go to visits,,,whatever we just want the kid in counseling, So she went twice, and then once more 6 months later just to get us to shut up,we finally got the mom to make another apointment and when the counseor said that the girl needs aditional help and went so far as to tell the mom she has to stop her behaviors the mom yanked her out of counseing once again, so a while later my husband enrolled SD in counseling again and this is with a counselor who goes to the kids schools and he told the mom, i will pick 1 day a month for my day and you pick 1 day a month for your day if you want to talk to counselor otherwise she goes to the school to see SD school which is a nuetral zone,,,,well nope, not having it, BM yanked her out, So here we are stuck with this child who is so severaly depressed she completly withdraws from everyone,,,,,she even went to disney with her grandparents a month ago and did nothing but stand still and refused to ride rides or swim or even go out of her way to talk to the other girls her age at the hotel pool, she would have much rather sat by herself and not participated, I try to leave her alone as much as i can without feeling guilty, but there are other times i will force her into some kind of family activity, we have a kinect and she smokes me at darts and at skiing, but the sad thing is we can all laugh and be loud and rediculous but as soon as its over shes back to being sad and will actually ask her brother not to let thier mom know that we all hung out like this,

grrrr im so frustrated, Do we really have to sit here and watch this kid totally self destruct because her mother has such a strong hold on her??? And how the heck can we raise her to be happy and healthy and make good decisions and have a strong sense of self if everything we do is totaly undone in 2 days by her mom?