To refer myself to SS?

[LifeSucksBigTime]

I am honestly at breaking point with my 12 year old. I have raised another child who is now an adult, and is the sweetest, kindest girl you could meet. My youngest is the polar opposite, and honestly she makes my life a misery.

This could be a very long thread if I went into the whole, complicated story. But the bottom line is that I’m not coping anymore, mentally. She’s getting worse and worse with age (and she’s never been easy, from the word go).

I really need some help. I don’t know who to talk to, whether I should call SS, or the GP, or her school? I do love her but she doesn’t make it easy, she really is a spectacularly unpleasant individual.

Hi OP, I only managed to read half the thread but has anyone mentioned ACE's? And what symptoms they produce in children? I will put a link up in a second. It sounds like this could be part of the issue along with the other things you mentioned.

Early Help Key work and possibly therapy could help?

"Some of the other things exposure to ACEs can impact, are:

The ability to recognise and manage different emotions.
The capacity to make and keep healthy friendships and other relationships.
The ability to manage behaviour in school settings.
Difficulties coping with emotions safely without causing harm to self or others."

ACE's

Another good link

Hi OP,
We're just bobbing on here to say that we're so sorry to hear you're going through this, OP.
We hope you don't mind, but when these threads are flagged to us we like to link to our web-guides, which we hope may be helpful. If you'd like to, please do feel free to take a look at our Mental Health page.
Very best wishes from all at MNHQ

@ImEasyLikeSundayMorning thank you for those links. That does sound a lot like dd. I feel really bad as I feel like some of it is my fault. I know the kidnapping probably affected her, but I think I’ve done things too. I was scared to bond with her too much as a baby as I believed that she was in real danger of being murdered by her father’s family, he made me believe that (it’s a long story of how we got to that point). So I’d consciously hold myself back from getting too attached as I thought it would make things even worse if she was taken. And then a lot of years of me recovering from the whole ordeal of what he put me through, I had PTSD, was too scared to sleep for years and then eventually developed chronic fatigue from the years of living in a heightened state of stress. In recent years I’ve been muggling through ok, but it’s like my stress reserves have all been used up, and when things like what’s happening at the moment happen I just don’t have any coping ability left in the tank, it goes from 0-not handling life pretty quickly.

I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t want to do this life anymore. I’m not going to off myself, tempting though it is, because I’d never do that to the kids, but I really can’t stress enough how I wish I could go to sleep and never wake up.

Thanks, @ImaniMumsnet , I’ll have a look, your message made me cry, though tbf it doesn’t take much at the moment.

Also on that second ACE link, I was worried when I saw the teenage pregnancy bit. Obviously dd has a kind of fixation on having sex, and when she was with my mum a couple of days after she ran away, they went into town to get some lunch and go round the shops. Dd wanted to go into next, and my mum was looking at things and realised dd had slipped off. She went into panic mode thinking shit, she’s legged it. And eventually found her in the baby clothes section looking at stuff there. And the last message on Snapchat that she sent this boy last night was a pregnancy 🤰 emoji. I’m really concerned.

Sheesh, sounds like she might already be pregnant?

No she’s not, I know she had a period not long ago (just before she ran away), and she’s been closely watched since then.

@LifeSucksBigTime Please talk to her doctor about investigating conduct disorder. Her behaviours you have described ring serious alarm bells, and it’s worth considering. If it’s not that then you haven’t lost anything, but if it is then you have at least identified it and have a chance of curbing some of her worst impulses/reducing the likelihood of a diagnosis of ASPD in adulthood.
www.psychologytoday.com/gb/conditions/conduct-disorder?amp

www.webmd.com/mental-health/mental-health-conduct-disorder

@whumpthereitis thank you. Yes I think I should speak to the doctor about this, although a (big) part of me is scared to because if she does have what her father has, that’s literally my worst nightmare come true, so I’m scared to have it confirmed. But better the devil you know I guess (literally).

Feeling a bit lighter this evening, I took on an A level student to tutor a couple of weeks ago (I used to do a fair bit of that before covid), this was arranged just before the running away and subsequent brain explosion. I’ve seen her twice and she wanted to see me twice a week instead of once from next week onwards. Tbh the last two lessons have been massively substandard (not surprisingly), and the pressure of it has really felt like a bridge too far for me mentally right now. I’m struggling to remember the most basic stuff right now, and I was doing her a disservice. I found a couple of people who would be far better than me and passes their details to her, and apologised that at the moment I can’t carry on tutoring her. That’s one weight off my shoulders. I think that’s the solution here, just pare down my responsibilities to the minimum for the time being.

I would again encourage you to look into BCLC (Beyond Consequences, Logic, and Control) which I recommended earlier in the thread. It's an approach that has helped many parents and children in similar circumstances to yours. Since your DD experienced early trauma and possibly has attachment issues, BCLC could really help you both.

My heart goes out to you, it all sounds so difficult. It's such a shame that the teachers have been so unsupportive. I hope you are able to find a better school environment for her.

I hope you're ok OP and I hope the pony is OK. I found out ours is ill recently and it's so so hard (and expensive 😔)

@LifeSucksBigTime Unfortunately there is a significant genetic component to ASPD (I believe it’s around 40%) which is another reason why it should be seriously investigated as a possibility. It’s a condition that needs to be identified ASAP so there’s a better chance of tackling it and hopefully avoiding it developing into full blown ASPD. However terrifying it is, you’re doing the right thing by facing the possibility head on, for her and for you.

There’s still time for her to turn it around with the right support from professionals who know exactly what they’re dealing with.

I’ve experienced a lot of similar issues with my DD who is now 17. Started around the same age as yours although didn’t get as bad as what you are experiencing until later on.
we’ve had self harm, sexual behaviour early on, county lines, going missing regularly, school refusal. Our relationship is completely broken. I suspect she has undiagnosed SEN. She also possibly has some trauma from witnessing domestic abuse, but nowhere near as bad as yours.
I also have another child with ASD and ADHD who is still in primary but has significantly more difficulties with controlling his emotions than my DD ever did at that age so I’m worrying what’s ahead for him.

All I can say, is just fight to get all the help you can and try to accept that there’s only so much you can do. I’ve really had to let go a bit, as terrifying as it is but I realised that my DD needed to want to help herself. Social services didn’t really help practically but I believe all the professional involvement is what pulled her out of county lines before it got too bad.

Shes still not good but much much better than a year ago, she has a job now and as she’s older she comes and goes as she pleases so I don’t see her much and I’ve just had to switch off and hope that she sorts herself out.

Now I just have to try and prevent the same with my son who I can see is going to have more problems if something doesn’t happen soon. It’s utterly exhausting and like you said, you always assume you get to relax and live your life as they get older.

@Freshstarts22 sorry to hear that, that doesn’t bode well for the future. Honestly I will take all the help I can get, although I know the whole system is on its knees (thanks Tories!) so I’m not expecting any miracles. I feel a lot of the problem is the friends she made at secondary, she even said so herself last night. I’m hoping by taking her out of there I might be able repair some of the damage, although I know she has to go to school somewhere.

Also get what you’re saying about having to switch off, I have realised that I will literally drive myself crazy if I try and watch her every hour of the day. If she’s that determined to go she’ll find a way, wait until I’m asleep and go in the night or whatever, and I will just drive myself nuts. I have left her for very short periods in the last week or so, but just checked her location a few times to make sure she’s stayed put.

Yes I’d say definitely take her out of that school. I also had to give up work during that time but fortunately I’ve just amanevd to get myself a new and better job, something I never would have said a year ago so things do improve.
I always remember; nothing is permanent. That’s not no say they get better or worse but they do change andeveolve and you evolve with them.
Like you said, you can’t stop them if they really want to go. Obviously she’s only 12 so it’s a lot different, but once mine got to 15-16 I just had to let go. It became impossible to get her phone ect. I stopped giving her money as a consequence and she ended up involved in county lines, so police and ss said it’s better to give her money to buy weed 🙄

Just keep your head up, you won’t be in this situation forever.

So dd DID ended up going back to school, last week. Partly because she wanted to (she was bored), and partly because having spoken to SENDIAS it became clear that the more evidence I got that she couldn’t cope there, the better.

She went back on Tuesday last week, surprisingly there were no phone calls or emails. But Wednesday morning I got a call from the HOY to say dd had been suspended, for bunking off lessons and just wandering around the school
doing her own thing. When staff found her and tried to get her to go with them she refused (usual pattern), as she knows full well they can’t manhandle her off. So I had to pick her up.

After a reintegration meeting on Friday, she went back to school again on Monday, and was suspended again on Monday evening (same story). Back in today after another reintegration meeting, and you’ll never guess what, she’s been suspended again until after half term. Bunking off lessons again, and suspected theft (which dd told me about as soon as I picked her up and I actually believe her when she said she didn’t do it - basically a girl accused her of stealing money from her and is now threatening to beat her up). The reason I believe her is that if she’s actually done something naughty she always hides it, but it was the first thing she told me about, and was really affronted that she’d been accused.

SENDIAS have contacted the school and told them they need to arrange alternative provision, which I was told this morning they have now applied for. Although dd is saying she’s not going to that either, so we’ll have to see how that goes. The school have also agreed to support me with an EHCP application.

I’ve seen the GP who was great and she took a lot of details and will refer DD to CAMHS in relation to possible ODD/conduct disorder.

I feel that I’ve made a bit of progress but my god it’s draining, every spare minute is taken up by having another meeting or filling in forms. Dd1 has now dropped out of college too and I have no idea what she can do next.

Oh dear, I can relate to the form filling (in a much more minor way -- people don't understand the way that DC having additional needs generates paperwork).

Sounds like the school is finally pulling their finger out though which is something.

Was older DD's college also useless re mental health? Are there alternatives locally? Could she return to her old school for sixth form next Sept?