To wonder how you stop worrying and manage to live your own life if you have mentally unwell children

[Victor1aPlum]

Or are you doomed to a life of constant unsettled worry, sadness and anxiety in the back of your mind?

What would be the consequences of you ignoring those texts?

Obviously answering them isn't helping if the texts keep coming in.

You must feel like you are driven crazy. If anyone was texting me that many times I would feel like I was losing my mind. Presumably those texts are making demands on you as well. It must be unbearable 💐

Following a I'm in the same situation and completely relate to the OP.

Totally get this particularly re your boss and the texts.

Re texts it does drive you nuts but when you’ve been where we’ve been with my dc you don’t ignore texts. Many used to be from services re appointments or education before dc turned 18 -which is a whole new can of worms!

Lost count of how many times I’ve had to hide in the stock cupboard or pace the car park on my phone.

Things also change. My ds is an adult now and since he turned 18 and was responsible for his own health care it hot a bit easier. He got taken more seriously. He got more proactive. He got worse, then he got a bit better. He is on meds now and possibly in the best place since he was aged 14.

Unfortunately you also need to get your head around that no ones coming to help, no one will save them. Camhs is utter, utter useless shit. If you have any money, get what ever private help you can.

I couldn't have done at the time. That's where I find peace.

This is me with DD27.

i try to balance the emotional load with exercise, seeing good friends, crafting. I know I’ve got to keep well for my family and my depressed child.

IME, I just don't.

One of my children has made numerous attempts to end their life over the last 10 years so I spend pretty much all my life on suicide watch & in a state of perpetual worry.

One of our dogs has saved them several times now by alert barking to wake us, but when she goes (she's almost 12) I think it's going to get even more difficult.

@Theoscargoesto

You know how you find out how bad mental health services are when you or a loved one needs to use them? Well my chemotherapy has been like that. Very uncaring.

I’d also like to know the answer to this and I wonder if any professionals can comment.
Like if you’re a therapist and deal with parents in this situation, what is the advice?
I’ve found that when dealing with professionals and clinicians about a teens mh, there’s very much a culture of the teen being encouraged to engage with the professional alone (camhs etc). This is fine, but when the teen doesn’t engage in any meaningful way (or tbh at all), they are discharged from the system and stuck on.a waiting list. There aren’t really many opportunities for the parent to describe what they’re dealing with on a daily basis. And tbh when you’re experiencing this kind of scenario and knowing that if you had spare cash it’d all be spent on private therapy for the child as a priority , then the last thing you’re thinking of is spending £50 upwards per hour on a therapist for yourself . I did see a therapist alone with lots of experience in this area and expressed a thought I’m sure other posters have had, that if this was a physical condition (like cancer for example), it surely wouldn’t be so easy for a child to disengage from treatment simply by deciding it’s not required. The therapists answer was that actually yes, plenty of people refuse cancer treatment and that’s THEIR PERSONAL CHOICE. Which I didn’t feel was particularly helpful or productive.

I have recently discovered that my teenage daughter is suicidal and self harming. I am absolutely broken and don't know how to deal with this. I feel that I am bottling all of this up and won't speak to any friends or family about it although i have spoken with school. It was school who told me what was going on but i have been in denial untilI recently. I am going to ask school to refer her to camhs but other than that what do I do?

Holding out a hand of solidarity. Ds2 took an overdose out of the blue 3 years ago and he is currently waiting for an autism assessment.

I also know how you feel OP and it has made my anxiety 100 times worse. I suffered from anxiety before DD became unwell so I don’t blame her but it’s made me unwell too worrying about her. It makes me so sad she’s missing out on so so much, I want to just cuddle her and make it better for her but unfortunately I can’t do that.

I can only be there for her, when she wants to talk, try not to get angry when she stays in bed until 5pm then stays up all night, when she has so much therapy but it doesn’t seem to be working and it seems to be getting worse, when she hoards all sorts of dirty things in her room rather than face cleaning as it has to be “right” or she won’t do it. She also won’t apply for DLA as she’s too scared, luckily DH and I can still support her. I worry about her future as I can see her the exact same in 10 years time.

It also annoys me that no one, friend/family wise asks about her. I spent a whole night with a couple of friends hearing all about their DC (how wonderful they were etc) which is great everyone is proud of their DC but when I got home I realised that they hadn’t asked one thing about my DC and they never have done. It’s as if she doesn’t exist now.

I feel your pain OP

You could be me, our DDs experiences sound so similar. And the friends thing - I came back so angry from a meet up with three of my closest friends recently - we talked about all their kids, they asked about my eldest who is fine, but no one asked about my DD, not even the one whose daughter had been good friends with her prior to all her mental health difficulties. Even when I brought her up myself they just nodded and changed the subject. It's a very lonely place to be.

My sympathies to all of you dealing with this, I wish I knew how to to stop worrying, but in all honesty I'm drowning under the stress of trying to keep her in one piece.

@headache you can apply for DLA if you're daughter is under 16. La is money for the parent. If they are 16 or over then it's PIP but you can be the administrator although it us their money.

I think you and your partner (when there is one on the scene) have to be so generous and protective of each others' free time.

We encourage each other to go out with friends and take up hobbies etc, because our mental health suffers if we can't switch off pretty regularly.

Realistically you don't. You try .. the worry never goes away

I’ve managed with a lot of stoicism and focusing on how to create the best life for me.

I’m understanding and supportive but realised I can live her life for her and she will have to go through it.

It is what it is.

Oh, so much this!

My DD is autistic with ADHD and she simply can't engage well with therapy: she doesn't have insight into her emotions, she doesn't get the nuance, she will just say things are 'fine' when they're demonstrably not.

That got her discharged from CAMHS and has cost us at least £5k in private clinic fees so far.

You’re only as happy as your unhappiest child. This saying is sadly true.

I have 2, both pulling on me all the time. DS’s dad is crap so he won’t speak to him, DD’s dad is not crap but she prefers to speak to me.

l wonder what I’ve done wrong. They’re both so lovely but so troubled. I just get one sorted and ……

I feel down and unhappy a lot of time. Trying to hold them both up. Sometimes l wish l hadn’t been so sympathetic when they were little. They both love sympathy. I live in fear of them doing something terrible. I hate it. I wonder what it’s like to have normalish kids who don’t cause you any excessive worry.

@MurderousCheekbones yes similar scenario , solidarity.
I have, in desperation, shown text messages (in the 100s like an another poster) to express the ‘I don’t feel I need therapy’ is very much not the case, but they’re resolute that a person has to want to engage.

Ooooh this x100.

Especially when your SM child can’t engage. They want to engage but can’t. So just get booted out. So discriminatory apart from anything else.

But Sm is a hidden disability.

I was in this position until last year with my daughter and it was the most awful stress I have ever experienced - and I have had a very rollercoaster life. I swam everyday to relieve the tension and that helped a bit. While I was swimming I would face my fears head-on. Moving through the water made me brave enough to do this.

However, I would say, that the reason I was quite so taut with responsibility and pain is because my daughter was not taking responsibility for her problems and choices and using me to carry the load. And conversely, she was not having to face her choices or lack of choices because I was a barrier to any consequences.

In the end, through pure desperation, I did find boundaries. As a result, she started helping herself and is in a far better situation. In fact she has turned her life around completely. And our relationship is wonderful: so good to have fun with her.

I have bipolar disorder and it too me years to take on the management of my own disorder. It really was only when I became a parent that I stopped taking risks and started putting all my efforts into stability.

As a parent we can love and listen but bearing the load of another person's happiness or even their life is much too much; and, often, impossible. I am talking about near adults though. Obviously it is different if the child is very young.

This is where I am. I am militant about having time to myself and having a life of my own. I have also stepped back from trying to fix everything. As mums we want to fix it all, but we can't.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow does sm mean selective mutism? That must be really really hard but in our case it’s more about deception in some ways. Saying everything is ok to professionals ensures that like @friendlyflicka describes, I’m a barrier to any consequences of actions. I have lost any authority to parent in an effective manner, because consequences or challenges to unacceptable behaviour will simply be met with threats of self harm or worse.
Obviously it would be negligent of me as a parent to ignore these threats , (indeed, camhs advice is to take them seriously every time), but when they’re aimed solely at me and totally denied to therapists , it feels (dare I say) emotionally abusive. More so when I’m denied any opportunities to express what I’m experiencing because it’s considered irrelevant by every professional , who will only engage with the child.