My daughter Elena had two breakups,
one at 14, one at 15.
She loses her mind.
She doesn't know how to deal with rejection
from these boys.
My first relationship was stressful.
My boyfriend was very manipulative.
I saw some behaviors that were out of the norm.
With this boy, she was controlling,
needing passwords to his phone.
He couldn't have female friends,
he could only speak to her.
After a while, he finally broke up with me.
The boy broke up with Elena
because she was too controlling.
I felt miserable and I didn't know
how to handle the situation, so I broke down.
I found Elena sitting on the floor
with her arms and legs cut up.
While we were in the emergency room,
they determined that she needed to be
transported to a mental health facility.
After about a month when she got home,
she seemed very defensive,
she really didn't want anyone around her.
A year later, she meets and has the second boyfriend.
She still had controlling tendencies.
Tell me about the second guy you dated.
(sobbing)
Sorry.
It's been about two weeks since the break up.
It was like a switch went off in my head.
I was hateful, depressed, and hating myself.
I don't talk to him.
He doesn't want to talk to me.
He's already made that clear. How are we supposed to
know anything that?
We lasted eight months.
I found out that Elena faked a pregnancy
and a miscarriage to entice the boy not to leave her.
I have had several panic attacks
over the second break up.
The last time I had a panic attack was four nights ago
when I found out he had a new girlfriend.
The second relationship is 50 times
more painful than the first one.
I feel horrible that I didn't keep my boyfriends around.
I totally believe it was my fault.
You're 15 right?
Yes.
And you had your first break up
that really bothered you at 14?
Yes.
Help me understand what you say to yourself
when you get in a relationship with a boy
and you kind of get smitten, you fall in love,
you think, oh boy, this is exciting, I like it.
I say a lot of things like, maybe I'm gonna
do something wrong or he's gonna lose interest
or he's gonna like someone else
or something's gonna happen.
Do you worry about that every day?
Yeah.
Why is it worth it then?
Is the good part, does that outweigh the fear?
Yes.
And so tell me about the good part.
Tell me about the high.
Like the memories and shared things
that are part of the relationship,
the moments where I don't have any fears or worries.
What's the first clue that something's wrong?
'Cause you know it way before it happens, right?
The way he acts.
In the last one, what was the first thing you noticed?
He wasn't being as sweet
and he wasn't texting as much as usual.
What do you say to yourself then?
Usually I just start thinking about
all the stuff that I possibly did wrong
or how it's gonna end.
Okay.
So at that point, you start taking your own inventory.
Now, you have rules, boyfriend rules.
Number one, they must be loyal, honest, and there for me.
Good rule, keep that one.
(laughing) Okay?
Write that one down, keep that.
You deserve that.
They have to text back when I text them
and they need to respond right away.
I'm not sure you wanna keep that one,
but that's one of your rules now.
Because there could be circumstances
that make that hard sometimes,
like they're driving or getting chewed out by their mom
or something, I mean there could be things
that don't have anything to do with
you or the relationship.
No girls but me.
Don't talk to other girls,
don't look at or find them attractive.
So would you say that you're easily threatened?
I guess.
You don't want any competition.
No, I don't.
If there is a competition between me
and another girl, I don't think I would win.