Reading some of the other threads on this board and my heart is breaking for other parents who are going through what I went through with dd for 4 years. She is 16 now, and no longer aggressive and impossible to live with as she was between 12 and 16. But she is mentally ill, so life is still hard. No more shouting, breaking things and being violent. And she goes to college and does her work, but she is so very sad and I'm frightened for her.
She was seen at a specialist hospital last week for assessment, referred there by CAMHS after 3 years of on-off (mainly off) family therapy, and then CBT failed to improve things. After having been made to feel that we could resolve our problems with dd through family therapy, we now find out that dd's problems go way, way beyond that. She has been diagnosed with PTSD, treatment resistant depression, a deficit of empathy, conduct disorder, body dysmorphia, and possibly a personality disorder. I feel absolutely gutted that we struggled on for four years without a diagnosis, and experienced so much trauma, which has damaged our other two children and impacted on our health.
All those years when we were going to CAMHS wringing our hands and saying 'why is she behaving like this?' in pieces over how utterly unbearable her behaviour was, and being assured that although dd was depressed and anxious, there was nothing fundamentally wrong, and that we needed to learn how to manage her behaviour....
Is it that CAMHS is inadequate for children with complex difficulties? Or are so many teens behaving in very challenging ways at home that really hideous and abusive behaviour towards parents and siblings is now being seen as part of the spectrum of normal teen behaviour rather than a sign of severe emotional disturbance?
Anyway, sorry to witter on, but I feel so sorry reading all the posts on the board at the moment. to all of you going through hard times with your teens.
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Teenagers
I wonder how many of our teens are mentally ill?
47 replies
minifingerz · 13/03/2016 23:06
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