I tried typing in detail all of the things we'd done to help DD since this started but once I reached 1000 words I lost the will to live.
In short we have tried CAHMS (3 times), a lcoal mental health charity, a charity the rape crisis center referred her to and medication - Citalopram - it made her feel nothing. She'd rather feel shit than feel nothing. She now won't entertain medication at all because she never, ever wants to "feel nothing" again. Online counselling - they wanted to phone her - she can't speak to people on the phone. They felt she needed more support than could offer over text and email and signposted her back to CAHMS.
Wrt to education - when she left school my uncle offered to pay for private school for her - it's out of town so no chance of bumping into her rapist or any of his friends and her cousin goes there but she said no. She was worried she would be bullied and thought it would be too strict. Social services reffered her to "hospital school" a small classroom in the hospital designed for children with DD's needs. She refused to get into the taxi they sent for her because she was expected to stay there the entire day and it was too far away for her to get herself home if she couldn't cope. I tried to work with her social worker to arrange half days/an hours visit etc but apparently this was not possible and they'd already bent the rules allowing DD to attend without a formal diagnosis. Being prescribed medication is not, apparently, a formal diagnosis. To get one of this she needs to actually speak and explain her physical and mental symptoms. This was her first social worker who vanished without a trace shortly after engaging with us. I actually she'd been discharged from social services until her new social worker rang us a few months ago.
I applied to college on her behalf last year but she wouldn't do the interview as they were still over the phone. Her new social worker wasn't involved then.
Her new social worker has now arranged for DD to attend an interview at a local college at a different time (they normally do group interviews) to the other students and with only ine tutor and myself. She knows this tutor as she was my tutor when I went there and DD would come to meet me at the college to model for me. She attended that interview a few weeks and was signposted to a part time,very relaxed course with a small tutor group aimed at helping people back into education.
I have tried pleading and begging. I've tried withdrawing luxuries such as phone and internet access. I can get her to physically attend the gp. She will not speak to them. She won't even make eye contact with them. I cannot force her to agree to any of the treatment they offer and without her speaking to them it is hard for them to formally diagnose her with anything other anxiety and depression as opposed to manic depression or BPD which she has a lot of symptoms of. She will herself admit she fits the criteria for BPD.
Wrt her socialising - she has small tight knit group of friends she's known since primary school. When they all started going to college they started hanging out at a local student bar. She was desperate to go with them and even got herself dressed a few times but backed out when it came to actually leaving the house. We eventually got her there by me taking her just us two on a quiet, weekday. I then had to go on her very first night out with her and her friends. Since then she's been invited every week. I have to physically walk her into the pub because she panics about walking in alone and all her friends live on the opposite side of town. She plans to go once a week. She manages to make it less than once a month. Approximately 1 out of three times she does make it I have to pick her up because she wants to leave early. I did refuse once. She walked home alone, in the dark and rain and then rang me hysterically crying. I had to use find my iPhone to locate her because I couldn't get any sense out of her and go and get her. It turned out, once I'd calmed her down, she couldn't walk past the park and couldn't reach our house without passing it. She'd been trying to get home for over an hour. We live 15 minutes away but she kept taking different routes to try to avoid the park but kept getting lost as she taking herself down streets she wasn't familiar with.
Wrt her staying in her room. This happens intermittantly. A depressive phase can last anything from a few days to a few weeks. When she confines herself to her room she doesn't shower. She doesn't really eat. She will drink bottled water if I deliver it to her bed and she will eat shit like crisps and toast if it is delivered to her bed. She doesn't even feed or interact with her dog who is normally treated like an actual child by her.
I tried starving her out of her room once. She last nine days and visibly lost a lot of weight. She never asks for food or water. I assume she drinks tap water from the bathroom when I don't bring her bottled water. During these phases I go in every morning, open her curtains, sit on her bed and try to talk to her. If I'm off work I suggest things we could do together. She never responds to me. She hides under her duvet and pretends to sleep. Her phone is switched off for most of the time. Once she starts coming around she will turn her phone back on and start eating more and texting people but it takes a few days after this for her to actually work up to leaving her room and few more days to leave the house. Her friends message DD2 to check she is okay and still with us when she turns her phone off (she talks about suicide occassionally).
My friend is not coming around to the house this week. She never was. I'm going out with my friend next week and DD is invited and will be pushed to come. My sister is coming around this week. I think DD has gotten the dates mixed up or lost track of how long she has been in her room. She only turned her phone back on yesterday.
She has now showered and did briefly appear downstairs when I was with my client. She loves hair and the client is a family member and one of DDs safe people. She's back in her bed now but is still texting me.
£60 a week is enough for DD. My question was how do young people who don't have parents to support them survive? I was expecting the amount to be higher when they never asked who she lived with.
The idea of her having her own money was to encourage her to do more on her own in the future and to take some pressure off me. I currently work two jobs in order to support her financially. Her social worker is currently lisasing with CAHMs and other experts to check if there is any more support we could get i.e a home visit from a mental health professional where DD is not expected to speak.