To not want to live like this anymore

[milkfreecocopops]

Have name changed. Please do not flame me. I desperately need your help. I absolutely feel I am losing it. I feel like I am losing my mind and having a breakdown. I sat and completely broke down yesterday. This is no life.

My dd used to be a lovely child. She has some additional needs including Dyspraxia and a processing disorder. She is also on the list for Camhs for Aspergers assessment. She has started puberty although not periods and she is horrendous.

She is 13. I feel like I have tried everything. Tried calmly talking to her, tried rewards, tried consequences, I have read the Explosive Child, read the Get out of my Life book, tried non confrontational. We spend quality time together, there is only us.

She is physically and verbally abusive to me continually, it is constant, if I go out of the way she follows me, if she cannot get to me she will go berserk in the house. She will not go to her room to calm down. I am sick of the constant verbal and physical abuse. I am sick of living in fear in my own home of being kicked, hit, pushed, scratched and bit, of her pulling at my clothes and hurting me and the constant put downs and being talked to like I am shit on her shoe. I am sick of being told how useless a Mum I am, how much she hates me, how worthless I am and she wishes I was not here. She is incredibly angry all the time mostly because she cannot have a life where she can do what she wants without consequence and because she has to go to school. She is definitely not being bullied there she just hates school and always has. She tells me her abusive behaviour is my own fault.

I am ashamed to say that I did lose my calm with her once in between being hit, grabbed, screamed at for four hours and said something in anger, she now uses this continually against me.

I am sick of the constant threats. If I remove her X box because of her behaviour she smashes the house up (it stays removed btw). If I ignore her she climbs all over me or grabs at me. She does not behave like this at school. She threatens me every time I make school aware how she is behaving and tells me I have ruined her life and she will not get a job or work because of me but that's fine because 'that's what you want anyway'

She says sorry when she realises she has gone massively too far but it means nothing. We are at risk of losing our home because she is screaming and banging the house down continually.

I have no support from ex and little family support.
She behaves at my parents because they will let her sit on Youtube from 5am till midnight so she has no reason to misbehave.

I am done.

I know you have said she doesn't like it when you tell school but I would be tempted to tell her teacher. What do they do differently at school?

This is a horrendous situation .

Could school give her reward time if she is good at home and vice versa.

How is she with her friends ? Could you ask her to invite them over more often if she is better behaved in front of them. This might give you some rest bite. Then hopefully they will invite her to their house.

Think you are doing the right thing in removing her xbox.

I am constantly black and blue and it is soul destroying especially when all your effort has gone into making something special for your child. My DS has severe learning difficulties so in a lot of ways makes his behaviour more acceptable, but always stems from the ability of not being able to communicate. Get all the help you can, respite is my saviour.

Please put yourself first. Even if you just take some temporary time out, see your GP, contact all the local Housing Associations, contact Social Services and get some of your life before it is all gone.

SS can care for your daughter for a while and give you a break.

I have no practical advice to give but I just wanted to offer support and a virtual hand to hold. This sounds an impossible way to live. I hope some of the suggestions of those wiser and more experienced who have posted will prove helpful to you.

My youngest can be like this but is only 6. At the moment I can restrain him but I am dreading it when he gets bigger.

I have been on a course called 123 Magic. It is aimed at up to 12 years but they do a teenager program as well. It is available as a book too.

I found when I started implementing the program things got worse for a while but eventually they did get better. I have also accepted that he is never going to be 'normal' (whatever that means) and so have different expectations for him. Things that have worked with my DS2

routines - harder to argue once a routine is established.
clear expectations of what he isn't allowed to do with consequences if he does do them - the program stipulates exactly what to do if a rule is broken

It also has lots of great ideas for getting them to do things they don't want to do.

I would also masking is a common thing with ASD - where they behave at school but let it all out at home.

What would I do? I would go to GP/phone CAMHS and cry - a lot. I have found this really rather helps!

OP, I work in CAMHS. I am aware that lengthy waiting times for an ASD assessment are a national problem so it's likely that you will be waiting for a while. You can call CAMHS and ask to speak to the Duty Worker for advice, tell them that your DD is on the waiting list and that the situation has deteriorated. They won't re-prioritise her position on the waiting list, but they will be able to signpost you to any organisations locally who could provide support. Some CAMHS teams also offer pre-diagnosis interventions (such as anger management groups, parenting workshops etc) for families who are on the ASD waiting list so definitely worth asking about that.

In the meantime, you can contact Social Services and ask for support (you don't have to tell them you want her "removed", just that you feel you're not coping with her behaviour, that she is violent and that you need support) or ask school to initiate a CAF. A CAF should ensure that you are allocated a Family Support Worker who can advise with regards to behaviour management, housing and any other social issues impacting on you as a family. If you feel that you are at immediate risk of harm due to your DD's aggressive behaviour then I agree with pp that you should not feel guilty about informing the police, you are not helping your DD by allowing her to think that she can take out her anger and frustration on you with no consequences.

The fact that she is able to manage her anger and behave appropriately at school suggests that there is a certain amount of control here but that's not to say she doesn't experience high levels of distress. It's very common for children with ASD to present very differently in different settings. She needs to know that her behaviour is not acceptable though and that you will not tolerate violence in the same way that it would not be tolerated outside the home. The police are used to dealing with these situations and will be supportive, they should also have good links to SS.

Give yourself a break. It may not feel like it at times but you are clearly a good Mum, you're doing the best you can for your DD in very challenging circumstances but you shouldn't have to cope alone. There are agencies out there whose job it is to help you

OP, I'd also suggest writing to your MP and asking fir help vis a vis the CAMHS assessment time. The government have to know when services are failing in order to provide more resources. You are entitled to this assessment - it's part of the NHS - and every MP needs to know how far out of step MH waiting lists are vis a vis lists for physical care.

Don't know if this has been suggested but have you thought of recording one of her episodes (if possible) and showing them to her when she's calm? It's amazing how differently we can see ourselves through someone else's eyes. No other advice, sorry.

Can she articulate what she hates about school, and could things be put in place to make school more bearable for her? if she does have asd she might find school enormously stressful and exhausting, leaving her no alternative but to explode at home and at you.

How are things OP ?

OP so sorry to hear this! What a struggle.

I also work at CAMHS. Yes definitely call the duty worker there or better yet the person who is the care coordinator for your DD--if she's on the waiting list for an ASD assessment then she is someone's responsibility at CAMHS. Keep calling to talk to someone. Be open about the urgency. Ask for an appointment asap.

I'm not sure about SS. They usually have terribly high thresholds but there is something at least in my area called family intervention project where they come to your home and work with you on things directly in terms of behaviour management / routines. They can be really good.

Unfortunately with the caseloads and waiting list as they are, you have to be demanding and repeatedly call GP / CAMHS to get anywhere. It's a disgrace and we should all be writing to our MPs about the terrible stage of children's mental health services.

But I also want to say that if it were me and my DS, what I might consider doing as a priority would be to visit a really experienced child psychotherapist of family therapistperhaps privately if you can afford itand at the first instance have a few appointments on my own as a parent. What I want to say to you is that an ASD diagnosis may give some additional information about certain aspects of your DD's behaviour / way of thinking, but it won't solve the emotional / family dynamics that have clearly gotten out of hand and which have a history. You need to explore what's really going on, I think, what drives this anger and how you respond / how you feel, if you want to get anywhere that will make a lasting change. This needn't take ages. We all work with many families such as yours and sometimes even a few appointments may be extremely helpful. As I said if it were me I would go privately just to avoid the CAMHS waiting list and choose someone experienced. If you absolutely can't afford it, there are also low fee therapists including family therapy services. It may be that your DD underneath all that fury has a lot to say to you (and you to her) and I'm not sure if rewards / consequences will necessarily do the trick or am ASD diagnosis for that matter. Don't completely discount whoever talked about PND playing a role. All research shows it does play a massive role on children's development which is NOT the same as blaming you! It's just part of the story of what happened between you and your DD at that point in your lives. It may be that that too, as well as some other things in your relationship, need to explored, together with some robust solutions about the urgent situation now that can't go on.

But FIP as first step if it exists in your area and pester CAMHS / GP for more support. Good luck. I really feel for you.

Oh gosh I've just seen this and it's so scary reading it because she sounds exactly like my dd (diagnosed asd & spd) only my daughter is 8 it's so hard and I sympathise with you so much. My dd is getting too big and too strong for me to restrain her and she has really hurt me and my younger dd sometimes when she has kicked off-not so much dh yet as he can still restrain her quite easily. It got to the stage a couple of years ago that we changed her bedroom door for a stable door and put a lock on the bottom half so that when she was at her worst I could push her (not in a nasty way) into her room and the locked door acts as a barrier between us so she can't hurt me anymore but I can still keep an eye on her and (try) talking her through calming down (she follows us around the house hurling abuse at us too).
Personally I think she has pda (pathological demand avoidance) but they don't recognise it where we are. We've got cahms involved but they don't seem to grasp how it is-they recognise that she puts herself on par with us, hence the reason she doesn't think our 'rules' apply to her and they put some house rules in place (as she accepts authority off others outside the home) with a consequence system which works as much as our own did-when she's in the zone she's there and no consequence or threat of makes any difference to her. I don't even think she realises what she is doing never mind can control it like the cahms women reckons.
I've too had my pnd blamed when we was going through the assessments and even cahms say 'it's because mum is too soft/a pushover' as to why she is as she is. I'm not a pushover I'm probably more strict that dh but they say he's got more authority than me (in front of dd too so that was really helpful to us not
If your n facebook there are some parent support groups for pda, aspergers in girls and autism-it could help to look them up as we all have similar experience and the advice I've had off the pages is worth more than most the advice I have had off the professionals. I would if I was you try and get cahms involved, maybe also worth speaking to the school and seeing if they can help with pastoral care working in on anger management with your dd.
I really hope things are okay today and that you have a plan for getting support going forward. It's hard for me and she's still smallish I dread when she gets older.