This is going to sound… weird, but I honestly don’t know how else to explain it. Last week, my stepdaughter left her notebook on the kitchen counter. I wasn’t snooping or anything, I just picked it up to move it out of the way and the pages fell open.
Inside were sketches of me. Not cute little doodles, but mean sketches. My clothes, my hair, even my face was exaggerated with labels like “cheap” and “fake. I couldn’t believe she’d sit there and do that.
I didn’t say a word to her or my husband. I just sat with this awful pit in my stomach. If she’s this bold with drawings, what else might she be thinking or doing behind my back? Couldn’t stop thinking about it all night.
The next morning, I noticed something weird: in our family photo in the living room my face had been scribbled out with a pen. At first, I thought it was just a prank, but then I found it again later that week, in another frame tucked away on a shelf.
That’s when it hit me, this isn’t just teen humor. She’s literally trying to erase me from the family, from her dad’s life. And honestly I don’t know how to approach this without causing a full-blown fight, also I don’t feel safe living under the same proof.
Has anyone else dealt with something like this? How do you handle a stepchild who’s acting out in ways that feel so personal and almost spiteful? I’m honestly lost.
