Hi again Flo,
I'm sorry it's been so long again since I've posted...sometimes I'm just too exhausted!
How bloody awful that your DD was raped. But brave of her and you to decide to report it and for her to have to give video evidence. The positive I see in that is that she has talked and confided in you about it, so I wonder if she does talk to you much?
Every day brings another challenge with DD. I absolutely dread coming home from work and finding her usually at some screen or other (often in bed with her blackberry) and barely able to respond to hello and then if she does being hyper-aware of her tone of voice - is she down, okay, pretending to be okay? I'm afraid I've become obsessed with the general unhealthiness of internet and phone use and can't stand seeing her 1. waste her life away on screens 2. create and follow depression/self-harm/bpd blogs on tumblr and think that people on there really need her or she needs them - such a skewed view of relationships, though I also understand that they are easier to manage than real ones. 3. people say things by text and on the internet that they would never say face to face. And either I have to act and remove the BB some of the time or put up with it I guess, but I fear her response...I'm sure you can understand that!
She didn't go to school for her last 2 days on Monday and Tuesday. She had her individual therapy on Monday and seemed sort of okay when I got home, but suddenly had a huge downer - found her in her room and she had clearly cut herself but was hiding it. She said she didn't want to live anymore. she will never say what has happened, just that she's angry and upset. It turned out it was the boyfriend she split up with 3 weeks ago. She said she had to go to the park to meet him and off she went. I then had a phone call from the dad of one of her friends who said that his DD was on her way over as my DD 'was going to kill herself'. I found 2 suicide notes on one of her tumblr pages (1 to her family, one to boyfriend), then had a call from him asking me to come. So I ran to the park where he was holding her - she shouted at me not to touch her - and she then ran off. Poor boy had clearly been crying and handed a craft knife, her anti-depressants and a bottle of ferrous sulphate to me. Eventually, with my neighbour's help, we found her sitting on a 15' wall and after a while she came down.
As far as I know, this is the first really over-dramatic, desperate attempt she's made to keep someone, although she has certainly talked of/written things to others.
She seemed okay, but when I spoke to my link DBT person the next day she said DD had to have a blood test, so we spent 5 hours in A&E on Tuesday evening. She told the psychiatrist there that she'd also taken paracetamol - I didn't know - and it was spelt out to her exactly how dangerous that is.
Yesterday she tried to get out of group DBT for the 2nd week running (this is the problem, we are so lucky to be accessing it, yet she has past form on backing out of things at the last minute) but I and the therapist managed to get her to go. She was vile to me afterwards when I said no to getting MacDonalds - ruder than she's ever been and was picking leaves off hedges and throwing them at me. When she said she wouldn't go to last week's DBT I'm afraid I said that she'd made an agreement and that if she didn't follow through I wouldn't follow through on my agreement to provide her mobile phone and I would pay her £5 if she went! It worked, but the trouble is I worry that I'm reinforcing manipulative behaviour. We can't do right can we?!
I'm so sorry, I seem to have rabbited on and on. Once I started every detail just came out. I hope you don't mind and hope you will do the same if you want to.
Have you read this book? It's on my reading list and I think I may get it. It has good reviews though some said it was better on the 'understanding' than 'coping'.
Borderline Personality Disorder in Adolescents: A Complete Guide to Understanding and Coping When Your Adolescent Has BPD by Dr B Aguirre.
I hope you're managing to get some enjoyment from this lovely weather! I'm afraid on Monday evening I enjoyed lots of !
Take care,
Fifi