Why is it so difficult to get MH help for teenagers?

[ihatethecold]

AIBU. If my dd had a broken arm the health service would fix it.
They wouldn’t say we will try help you but it willl take 6 months, sorry about that. Or if you have money you can try find and find the help yourself.

It’s so frustrating. 18 week wait to get an assessment, the school won’t do an educational psychologist assessment until she has been seen by Camhs.
We are 10 weeks into the GP referral.

My dd is not getting any better, every day we are sticking a plaster on her mh issues.

This has been our life for over a year now. My poor DD is so tired.
It’s heartbreaking that kids are not being treated very quickly. 😔

It's such an awful situation. I can only speak for my area but under Labour NHS services were funded much better and there were also numerous charities set up to help specific areas such as an eating disorder clinic, one for teens and young people offering counselling and support and one for adults. Over the last few years not only have NHS services been cut putting huge strain on those charities but third sector funding in general has dried up meaning those services have either gone or been slashed. What's left of them have massive waiting lists and people now only get a couple of weeks of counselling which helps no one. The eating disorder clinic is closed and the NHS clinic have such high criteria only a select few get help.

However I'd also say as someone with physical conditions too I get zero help with those, and get more help with my mental health. My mum recently had suspected MS and had to wait a year for her first appointment. It's shit across the board for most people sadly.

I think it's beyond appalling they don't recognise private reports though. It would mean those that could afford help now get seen quicker and those that can't afford it have a slighter shorter wait as those people leave the list.

So sorry to hear so many people in the same position

For those with teenage DC with milder depression, can I recommend a book called 'Blame My Brain' by Nicola Morgan? It describes in easy to read detail everything a teenage brain is going through and was really reassuring to my teen DD that at least some of the turmoil she was experiencing was just part and parcel of being a teenager rather than something being really wrong with her.

I have a forlorn hope that someone in the government will eventually realise that it is more economic to provide early intervention than to make short term monetary gains by delaying treatment & having to provide more expensive support later on.

There also needs to be much more communication between schools, charitable services and CAMHS to provide support for children. One of the things that has annoyed me the most in our journey was that CAMHS refused to offer advice to services that did have the staffing levels to be able to provide support but were wary of making things worse (in our case both school and youth targeting support). Net result is that as well as CAMHS not offering support these sessions were withdrawn as well.

Sounds interesting Libertymae.
I will have a look at that.
My dd is currently half dressed for School but has got in my bed crying saying she can’t face going.
I think she just can’t see how this will end so becomes very down about the whole situation.

I am so sorry to hear about your situation, it's awful that it is all too common now :( Because of the cuts there are a few places popping up with advice sheets to help children and their families. At 14 some of the advice on Mind might be relevant. On Twitter there are a few services offering resources and advice. It might be worth looking at @worrinots @happifulkids @actionhappiness

It is such a difficult situation to be in, especially when there's no end in sight. You don't need to force happiness when you do family things, sometimes just spending the time together and acknowledging that things are rubbish helps to release the built up tension and frustration and opens up a conversation.

I really hope you hear back soon.

I keep hearing about the pressure on mental health services, especially for young people. Referrals were rare, but doable in my teaching days in the 80s/90s/00s. What is happening to our youngsters? Even if some are seeking help for challenging life situations, rather than being mentally ill, why do we have such a demand for mental health services? Are we better at diagnosing mental health issues or do we have a generation with exceptionally poor mental health? Genuinely interested to hear what others think.

I think we have a generation of teenagers with poor mental health unfortunately.

My dd was so badly bullied just over a year ago that the police were involved and the bully got a community resolution order.
The long term effects of being bullied have destroyed my dd’s MH.

I think we have a generation of teenagers with poor mental health unfortunately.

Then they will be passed onto the non-existent adult mental health system, the reality is the unofficial MH service for adults is prison.

it is to save money.

though it is looking like it has cost them two ambulance call outs
four trips to a and e
a hospital admission
four gp appointments so far
an out of hours appointment
and more than a month of missed education.

loads of money saved there then.

Echo what pp have said, you will be in a queue for a queue. We were at crisis point with dd (sh/suicidal) and still didn't get seen for 5 weeks. Then another 4 month wait for cbt. And now we're in another queue for an asc assessment. I have been have phoning weekly, sometimes twice weekly but I feel that, because dd is supported at home, she is at the bottom of the pile.

It's just terribly sad ... our children aren't getting enough help. Luckily DS school are so supportive and it's day by day at the minute for him.
This morning was a positive although I've had a message off him saying he's struggling. I feel like I'm leaving my newborn with someone every time I leave him.
I worry when he's not with me. I worry every night, I check there's no meds at reach for him, I check he's still in the house during the night. In the morning I check he's still breathing!
Why should it take for suicide attempts and thoughts for our children to get the support they need?
He's talking that's a good thing. I know I'm lucky in that sense. That actual struggle to get him through the door is heartbreaking at times.
I'm a single mum... I'm living in fumes... I'm drained... luckily his dad is great and involved too... my parents are my support. But I worry about us... I worry about the impact on DD too.
If I could take this for him my god I would in a shot

Has she been referred to CAHMS for her anxiety issues alone or does her GP think there are other issues with her MH?

I’ve spoke to a clinic that treats youngsters privately today. They said because the camhs waiting list is so long it’s having a knock on effect that their waiting list is 3 to 4 months.
She said they never used to have a list but now they are overwhelmed with parents trying to get their children seen privately.

I was at school in the 70s and 80s and I had really poor mental health including self harm (though I had absolutely no idea that other people self harmed until I was maybe 20 or 21) and I was regularly bullied, but mental health services weren't accessed by anyone I knew - though I did okay academically so maybe I wasn't enough of a "problem" - I did miss school but seemed to go under the radar. It was definitely not considered in the way it is now so there wouldn't have been the volume of referrals. I think schools could do much more but they are all stretched and under-funded too.

Weren’t your parents trying to help for you Gerbil?

Ditto We - our former family doctor blithely said to me about 10 years ago, "well of course, we didn't recognise then that children could have depression"

Can I really recommend, to OP and others, Johan Hari's new book on depression? I tried starting a thread about it over on Mental Health, but no responses yet. I think some of what he discusses, in terms of root causes, could be hugely important and beneficial quite widely, for families as well as sufferers. I don't completely agree with everything in it, but it's the best and most useful book I've read about depression since Christopher Cantopher.

ihate my abusive father was the problem and my DM was scared of him, but even so it wasn't the done thing. They took me to the doctors because they thought my hair was falling out though I was pulling it, but nothing came of that though I was probably only about 5

Tory cuts, in a nutshell.

The Tories would quite literally prefer your child kills themselves than raise taxes on the rich to get them some help. That's not an exaggeration.

I’m sorry to read that Gerbil.

Because CAMHS are overrun with referrals for people who don’t have mental health issues therefore delaying the process for those who do. Where's the evidence for this statement?

It’s very difficult to get a referral from a Gp so I really doubt that statement.

Thanks, on the plus side it made me absolutely determined to do everything I could for my DD when she was anxious. Lots of people were sceptical when I took her out of school but I really felt it was the right thing. The year before that was horrible though, it's so difficult to see your child suffer and I remember being desperate with tiredness and trying to keep work going, I also thought it was going to break me, though DD asked to be home educated in the end so that made it easier.

Hefzi at the age of 14, during a particularly nasty breakdown, my GP turned to my mother and said he was aware I had clinical depression and was going through a breakdown, but the NHS simply didn’t recognise that children could go through that and she’d just have to take me home and hope for the best.

The nineties were fun.