My niece is 17. She lives 250 miles away from us, with her father who is my BIL.
Recently she is going through a tough time emotionally and mentally, and has taken it upon herself to confide in me. She also sees a counsellor once a fortnight.
Last year when this all started, she came to stay with my wife and I for a while, and we persuaded her to speak to a doctor, who referred her to CAMHS re her low mood. This referral was rejected for not meeting the threshold.
She was using copying mechanisms at the time, such as writing all her bad feelings into a journal, which she would them stab and cut with a knife. Not particularly healthy, but better than cutting herself...
She came to stay with us for a week in October, and confided that she was having issues with food. She refuses to eat more than two things per day, regardless of how big or small those things are. One thing could be a small chocolate, or a full meal. She recognises that this is psychological, although states that it makes her feel in control. I persuaded her to speak to her counsellor about this, and also her step mum. Step Mum has put her in touch with a nutritionist, who she is meeting with regularly to talk about healthy eating etc.
My niece has now started self harming. She scraped her knuckles down a brick wall a few weeks ago, and again I managed to persuade her to talk to her step mum, who cleaned her up and had a chat with her.
Last night, she text me and seemed very erratic, stating that she had cut herself as she had eaten a bit of chocolate and felt terrible, and wanted to further harm herself as what she had done was not enough. I spoke to her at length about this, and asked her to go downstairs to speak to her dad or step mum as I was worried about her. She did this, but didn't tell them about the self harming, only about the panic attack re the piece of chocolate.
She stated that she can't tell them about cutting herself and begged me not to make her tell them. Despite my best efforts, she wouldn't tell them, and has asked me not to do so either.
Am I being unreasonable in not disclosing this to them? She is talking to her counsellor about her self harming, and if I tell them she will lose her trust in me and will likely not confide anything in anyone anymore, to the point that I feel it would likely exacerbate the self harming situation even further
I'm torn... Help.