To ask for a hand hold

[Mumonthebrink2025]

Trigger warning: suicide

My six year old has been having Nuerodiverse meltdowns since toddler age and I'm still trying to get her some kind of diagnosis to find out what's causing it all. Now she's older it's a lot of rage and violence towards me and the few weeks, she's been expressing on a daily basis after a meltdown that she wants to die and for me to kill her. I keep talking her through it and trying to hold space for what she's feeling. I've asked her if she feels like that all the time and if it's only when she gets her rages and she has said she feels a little bit that way the rest of the time and it's all related to having her rages and she hates the feeling of the anger and hates her life because of it.

Just now she was having another outburst because I was trying to keep her safe in practising her roller skating on the carpet and not on her wooden balance board, and then asking her to get dressed, and she had a huge fit, spitting at me, lashing out. So I said to her our trip out for strawberries was cancelled as I just didn't have it in me now to go through with the battle of her not getting dressed and listening to me safely with getting the bus etc.

So she has another huge fit and said for me to kill her and I said no. Then, and this is the first time this has happened, she said 'im going to do it myself them' and marched off. I said how are you going to do that? And she said 'with a knife'. So I grabbed hold of her and called 111. She's on triage for someone to call back but they said it won't be today. I don't know what to do. She's calmed down after I told her I was contacting a doctor.

I'm in shock so sorry if I sound a bit detached.

I don't know what to do. She has a social worker allocated since the self harm comments, she's been referred for camhs, and we're waiting on ADHD and autism assessments.

You don’t have to actively partake in mediation. You only have to consider it. You can request the certificate and submit an appeal to SENDIST.

@Bananarama2000 respectfully your language is not helpful. i cant talk to my child after a massive meltdown until quite a while after... just look at expert studies / published work all who advocate this. This is different to how i would treat my NT children - i certainly do not "enable" their bad NT behavior and its dealt with pretty quickly. However unlike you i understand that my ND child deserves to be understood and is parented differently and to you it seems like enabling. however yes support for families like ours is a minefield to navigate, sometimes luck and also two tier in terms of ability to navigate the system, the time (which is a luxury) to navigate the system, the ability to read and understand the laws, plus of course money.

@Mumonthebrink2025 you dont need to go to mediation just call the number and get a certificate

I would though again encourage you to post on SEN board as they can help with how your local authority is currently working through these and also expectations

I would also call sossen or similar to get specific advice for your case

No not flounder but also I wouldn’t be doing the same thing as you.

We are allowed disagree, it’s not a one size fits all.

Noones suggesting you need to do the same but you seemed to want to declare a 7 yr old voicing dark thoughts and feelings as the most selfish thing you've ever heard and parents who offer them support and listen to them as pandering. When actually not doing so is actively harmful. Maybe you want kids to close their dark thoughts inside and not share them. Then you can wonder why they aren't happy later on when you 'gave them everything: like the other parents in the 80s.

@Alviemore I don’t believe I used bad language as it’d be out of character, but if I did then I apologise.

However like above, there is not one solution fits all. I personally wouldn’t deal with it in the same way as above. This is my opinion, we are allowed to differ and discuss.

Do you hav children? Hopefully not.

How would you deal with it? Talk me through it.

@Barnbrack You misread me.
Suicide is the single most selfish act a person can commit, in my opinion.
Voicing negative thoughts or feelings would be the starting point, not the final one.

Again,.how would you deal with this?

You realize being able to voice negative emotions reduces the risk of suicide right? Yest you don't want your children being able to share dark feelings with you?you don't think it should be given airtime?

I’m so sorry this is happening to you and your lovely girl. I work on a paediatric ward and we had a similar situation although the child was older. Her mum took her to A&E as she did not think she could keep her safe at home. She was admitted to the ward and did receive the appropriate help. I hope you both receive the right support.

@Barnbrack You’re not the OP are you? Just gunning for an argument?

I personally believe in this scenario there’s been too many leading questions and adult interpretations to what could have been discussed and dealt with waaaaay before this point.
Only my eldest would even know what suicide is and that’s because we had to discuss it in great detail as her friend had showed her some YouTube video. Tbh kids are allowed to watch some utter rubbish on their own now and parents think because it’s on kids it’s ok and they’ll be unaffected.

My child wouldn't know the word suicide, he doesn't watch YouTube unsupervised. His friend died of sepsis, he almost died himself a few years ago in hospital, my mum died. He knows what dead is. He knows it's final. Sometimes the challenges of life feel so big he'll declare he doesn't want to live. What would you do?

Neither do mine but I’m guessing you have A small child.

Like I said it should be dealt with way back with the negative thoughts…but you misread that one too.

He's 7, how old are your children? Also how would you deal with those thoughts?

Holding your hand OP.

Here’s a link to the PDA society https://www.pdasociety.org.uk/

I would get in touch with them for support and also to start educating yourself about things that may help DD. Look at declaratory language and regulation. PDA kids do not respond well to being asked to do things - you need to do it in a very specific way and even then it does not always work.

I hope you get some support soon

This was for my then 11yr old. I’m assuming you will be escorting him on all play dates at 11?

Talk about it. Discuss the why. Not the suicide (don’t even give that airtime), the reason.

My ND 2nd daughter once mentioned things like this, she’d get very upset all the usual stuff nobody likes me etc. Yes you may disagree with it but I’m pretty sure I did tell her how selfish it was. She was thinking entirely about how she felt in that moment with utter disregard to how myself, DH, siblings, grandparents, friends, teachers etc etc would feel if she wasn’t there and how badly it would affect every single person’s life forever if she continued to think about and make a life altering decision on what was really only a particularly bad day/week/month/year. Life really is like a rollercoaster, if you don’t grin and bear it through the storm then you don’t get all the amazing fantastic things that come afterwards. There’s always going to be things that make you question why you’re here and what your purpose is, but you’ll learn nothing if you just give up. Every curve is an opportunity to learn what/how you’d react in the future.
She also has a worry book to write stuff down that we can then discuss and see how much headspace it’s actually worthy of and what’s the best course of action for each thing. Plus then it’s talked about way way before anything sinister.

Ok. So aside from guilt tripping your child so they got to feel ashamed of having feelings that displeased you what did you differently to what I do? Just the massive dose of shame to make YOU feel better?

You realize there's a good chance she still has those thoughts but just doesn't voice them to you because they are met with shame and derision. Putting her at greater risk.

So what exactly were you berating op for? That she couldn't stop her child from voicing her fears as effectively as you shut your down?

I wasn't suggesting your child shouldn't have seen YouTube just pointing out it wasn't the scenario I was dealing with

@Barnbrack 🤣

You asked for an opinion. It didn’t match your own. (Newsflash : We don’t all agree!)

Thankfully for us that was that long ago I don’t actually remember how long. Like I said life’s like waves.

DD is still trying to self harm and I've been completely left on my own to deal with it. I'm now injured from the strain the physical restraining of her has taken in my body, and I've accidentally hurt her whilst trying to keep her safe. Not even a family member or social worker has checked in with us once to see how things are. I'm astounded and disgusted.

I am sending lots of love, OP. You and your daughter deserve so much better than this.

Well things escalated last night where my daughter found a new way to self harm whilst I was on the toilet. She put her fingers in the doorframe and took the door and slammed it as hard as she could into her fingers.

I've had the police round, and they chatted to her, but it didn't help and she attempted to do it again in front of me. Her eyes were like a rabbit caught in the headlights and she said 'i can't help it I really want to hurt my fingers' I tried to calmly talk her round but she did it and I had to grab the door before it hurt her fingers. I've injured my knee and it's becoming more and more difficult to get to her or hold her off from being violent towards me then harming herself. We've been having lots of cuddles and talks and she's been crying even harder about how she just can't cope with her anger anymore and really wants to just die.

So I bundled her up in the buggy and went to the GP ,as the hospital is an hour journey away, and I couldn't cope with the self harm a second longer and I told the GP surgery I was on the edge of what I could cope with and I needed help and I felt like my daughter needed to go into care as she was no longer safe at home with me, as I couldn't stop her harming herself. GP called the hospital and they said they wouldn't admit her without her going through A&E and then social services and the police had to be involved and all they could do was take her to my mum's for the weekend, which I protested to, as my mum has severe mental health issues and I had stopped letting her have my daughter for me at the weekends as my daughter was becoming distressed and saying that my mum was mean. Plus my mum lives in the dark with boarded up windows or with bits of material stapled to the window frame, doesn't have an oven or a washing machine out of choice, and hardly leaves the house. I've voiced all this to social services and begging them to just set up some trained qualified rest bite service for my daughter until she's on medication or in school, as they don't have any other support they're offering. I'm just using this time to try and get on top of paperwork and anything else I can do to make the future a little bit better.

I've called SEN mediation and they said they've got a 96 percent success rate, so I've set up mediation for an EHCP and they've said they aim for a meeting within 30 days. 11 days until her London assessment where hopefully they'll write a thorough report which shows professionals the type of support she really needs and that this isn't just a parenting behavioural issue, as they keep trying to say to me.

Bloody hell @Mumonthebrink2025, what more has to happen for someone to give you the help you so badly need? I'm so sorry you're still being failed so badly by the services who should be helping you. It sounds beyond hard, and I have no advice for you, as you're clearly doing everything you possibly can. I'm so frustrated for you.

I know I posted this before, but it bears repeating; you sound like an excellent Mother, and your DD is so lucky to have you.