To find managing my DC’s mental health overwhelming?

It's a shit situation, but I'm afraid unlikely to change soon. Mine are well into 30s and I'm the one the come to, their father, not a chance. DH often says 'why don't they tell me stuff ' and I'm blunt, 'because you never ask questions or seem interested!'
Ironically, I have always struggled with the parenting lark, and I've never enjoyed it!
I don't and never have had, anyone to vent/ talk to except DH! As a child it was very much, matter of fact, chin up and get on with it to any worries. Nothing was ever discussed as such, but I was also very 'young' emotionally for my age. ( having read so much on here over the years and my DC have had adult ASD diagnosis, I suspect I am ND too.)

I think if the child had diagnosed innate health problems that belongs in the opening post - we seem to have far less experience and knowledge of how to bring up autistic children to be resilient so that is very tough as there is also so little support

but we also get parents - this is personal family experience who don’t attempt to raise resilient children and end up paying a fortune for private medical support when the children get older / and it seems like you have been watching a car crash in very slow
motion , you can see how stupid the parents are being coddling the child and it’s so unfair on the child but there’s nothing you can do

Parents who are struggling with their kids' mental health are not doing so because their kids just feel a bit down sometimes. Personally I am struggling because I have two autistic DC, one of which has been unable to attend school for two years because her anxiety is too bad and has selective mutism so can't talk to anyone outside of the house. The other has debilitating ocd and I have to support her for up to two hours every night as she struggles with the effects of this. The idea that medical professionals should be dealing with these things instead of parents is laughable. Obviously we've tried to get mental health support.

So irritating in every mental health thread when people who have no experience of what it's like to deal with this kind of thing think their judgemental, patronising comments outweigh those of us who live through it every day.

walking on eggshells because your children might feel a bit down and sad sometimes ?

by over egging their perfectly normal feelings you could be making them less resilient and more likely to label themselves into problems and if you take more indulgent line than DH they will keep coming for more

Ultimately ocd will stem from past experiences that haven't been processed. Of course you can continue to have ocd and manage it with cbt or you can do the harder bit and try to actually heal. Cbt is pushed by the NHS. Doesn't mean the gold standard is what it is. It won't be in a few decades.

Are you making sure you do normalise it for them to have the occasional bit if sadness /feeling anxious?

Tbh it sounds like you're overindulging it a bit and blowing it up into more than it needs to be with the Googling of 'mental health strategies' and the like.

Teens need to understand life has its ups and downs, we all have points in the day we feel a bit worried or a bit sad about something or stressed. I'd give them a bit of sympathy and chat but I would sit for hours overanalysing stuff with them as your giving them the impression that level of worry about it is necessary? If focus on building their resilience not going down a mental health /anxiety rabbit hole.

This eat, sleep, shower mantra against hate everyone/yourself etc is so weird to be reading.
I have obviously encouraged mine to sleep and personal hygiene etc plus fresh air for well-being but if I told them to go to sleep when they come to talk to me (and I’ve tried let’s see how you feel tomorrow) they would just stay awake stressing.
it feels like something for kids having the odd worry not those struggling with mental health and wellbeing.
so much ocd on this thread, and here, it’s a terrible illness.

Mrs1904 - I could have written your post! Just had a bad night's sleep after listening to my 12 year old who currently has no friends in year 7

I have a ton of childhood trauma. Cbt generally isn't helpful. I work with a trauma and psychodynamic therapist. The sad part is that these tools are so basic. People growing up in functional families typically don't need a therapist to teach them that.

It's really tough and it’s so good that you’re available for them. Giving your unlimited time might not be the best strategy though.
Help them with strategies of their own and limit your time. Tell them you’re tired and you must go to bed in 20 mins and they have to use some of their own strategies.
Things that can work -
A notebook to write down their worries
Box breathing
A distraction game they can play by themselves in their head like naming animals or countries starting with A, then B then C or doing a similar thing with a random word like BLANKET.

when you talk to them, mainly listen. Ask them what that means to them and what could help them. So you’re trying to help hem come up with their own solutions.

Being active in the day is good. Go for short walks in the evening. Spend some of the weekend being active.

When money is tight and you’re dealing with stress, it’s even more important you go out. Going out in nature is actually one of the best things people can do. It’s grounding, regulating and calming. And free.

Absolutely, I feel everything is totally pathologicalised now, from nursery onwards as @Tutorpuzzle succinctly puts, there’s so much “what emotions monster are you today?!”… but nothing as to what to do once identified!

Are they diagnosed OP? I agree with others that they need help in managing their own emotions and not "dumping" them on you.
I have an adult daughter who is still under CMHT, who was in a CAMHS inpatient unit as a teenager for several months. I listened to her endlessly until I burnt out and was becoming increasingly resentful.
With the help of my own therapist I am gradually learning to not allow her to "dump" everything on me and to use her own therapist for containment and to learn to live with her emtions.

Yes.

Or resort to private counselling/therapies.

My DS is adopted and we were assured, 20 years ago, by SS that there were no issues.......

There is apparently an adoption fund available to help towards the costs of dealing with adoption related issues, but funnily enough we never quite met the requirements. But that's a whole other thread!

That won’t help OCD

I agree with a PP, maybe this is making it into something bigger than it needs to be and almost (perhaps inadvertently) encouraging it. As they go into adulthood, they need to understand that their colleagues or friends won’t necessarily want to take on this role. They need to find ways of managing their emotions in a healthy form, not rely on you as a pseudo counselor. It must be very hard though, I feel for you!

@TellMeDinosaurFactsWe extend it slightly to ‘If you hate everyone, eat. If you think everyone hates you, go to bed. If you hate yourself, have a bath.’

I don't think you went wrong at all. It sounds like your children are undiagnosed neurodivergent and the world is bloody hard for ND people. You are doing your very best for them. It is bloody exhausting. But you are doing a good job.

Completely. DD1 (20) is very unwell. She's lucky enough to be under the learning disability service so she sees a psychiatrist regularly to adjust her medication, a psychologist weekly, and a nurse regularly too. She's just being taken on by the Intensive Support team. The social worker emailed to suggest direct payments so that I can get a break but I'm struggling to think of anyone who would cope with her.

DD2 has been unwell for years. DD3 also has significant needs.

The reality is that even under CAMHS DD2 was only seen once every 4 months (now aged out) and DD3 is still under CAMHS and hasn't been seen for ages.

You really are dismissing the realities of MH struggles many families are dealing with.

Sad, tired and anxious is not it or even close. Parents try all that, over and again. Many of these kids are hugely resilient and dragging around huge struggles on a daily basis with next to no help. Treatable conditions then become very hard to treat conditions.

OCD can get more entrenched and harder to treat with time.

I have a 23 nearly 24 year old and this is still an issue - except he doesn't talk to me until it's too late (after a self harm episode for example). So I would gladly trade a few long conversations for the ever-present concern I mostly feel.

They are talking to you OP which is good, and as another poster suggested if you can also encourage them to find ways to relieve the stress themselves then that would help them.

My DS can be quite young for his age at times, so will often revert to playing with Lego or cars etc as an escape from his thoughts.

He will spend the afternoon playing with his cars, then go off to his Nightshift and his work responsibilities - it's like living with two different people!

It is very draining and difficult and the weight of responsibility feels scary. I have tried to find a balance between being there for my DD who has struggled a great deal with anxiety and OCD and making her deal with things a bit more herself. She has also had therapy weekly for several years. When she asks for reassurance I will ask her a question back to try and get her to reassure herself. When she is panicking with intrusive thoughts I remind her how she has told me she feels is best to deal with them herself. Sometimes I just bear hug her for a while without saying anything and this calms her down. Sometimes distraction, we often watch comedy shows together and this can lift her mood. Luckily she accepts when she is overtired and understands when I tell her we can talk about the problems the next day. I don’t think anything is achieved by talking too long at bedtime when I can tell half her worries are exacerbated by lack of sleep at that moment. Instead we put on a relaxing hypnotic recording I have that is meant to help you get to sleep and just lie there try to and meditate. It can take a while for the compulsions to die down but it does seem to help and she asks for it now herself. Am not saying things are easy but along with Sertraline and a bit of maturity, things are slowly improving. I completely get how hard it is. I had therapy myself too during the worst point as I needed it to keep myself strong and balanced.

Honestly I don’t think this is a great or healthy dynamic. You are creating an over reliance for them on you. I was doing this with my older DD until I felt completely burnt out and instead we got an excellent therapist. After a few sessions, where he was much more boundaried than I was being, he had her back on track, she has popped back into him as life gets on top of her once in a while but now I’m more of her mother than a really crappy therapist with her.

My point exactly , nervous, sad and tired shouldn't get you anywhere. They are perfectly manageable emotions that everyone on the planet will feel at some point.
They don't need medical intervention however when we teach our children that instead of being nervous/sad/tired they are anxious/depressed/burnt out it escalates the situation.
I understand the sector is underfunded - shouldn't that be even more of a reason to want to keep ourselves and our children as resilient as possible? If we get to a point that the majority of the population 'needs' the help of mental health services no amount of funding will make that possible.

It does feel a bit like social contagion all this talk in schools about emotions. It's made my older DC quite anxious at times and so far I've tried to tell them not to worry too much about analysing your emotions but doing things that make you feel better. I hope this doesn't get worse as they get older.

I absolutely agree with this. Having come back to teaching after a loooong break I am very concerned at the quantity of ‘mental health stuff’ thrust at the children based on some very shoddy research (or none at all) and with almost zero professional back up.
Children are now brilliant at recognising and naming feelings (which is good), but are given very little input on dealing with them, let alone being told that not all feelings need to be validated, and a good night’s sleep might just do the trick.
And then parents, usually mothers, are left to pick up the pieces. As can be seen on this thread.