Sorry for the shameless post for traffic, but things are a bit desperate.
DD is 22 and has ASD. She has always suffered with anxiety but it was manageable. She takes sertraline to help with it.
She doesn’t have many friends or what you’d call a buzzing social life, but she does have a few friends who are into similar things as her, they are scattered around the country though rather than living locally.
Just over a year ago she went to Japan with one of her friends and got really sick on the plane. She’s always suffered with travel sickness but this was the first time she was ever sick on a plane. Then for the next week (half of their holiday) she was too nauseous to go out or eat much at all, and spent that time stuck in their room. I managed to get her friend to take her to an international clinic where they gave her an anti sickness injection and some pills, and she managed to get out and about for the second week.
Since then, she has been feeling nauseous a lot. She’s been to the doctor and it doesn’t seem like there’s anything physically wrong, and both the doctor and DD agree that it’s a psychological issue.
It’s really getting in the way of her life. We’ve been paying privately for therapy for her for the last 4 months with a therapist who uses various methods including hypnotherapy. I’d say her general outlook and mood, and desire to get out and about has improved, but the feeling sick remains.
Day to day she seems ok now, but it’s literally every time there is something she really wants to do, eg a concert or convention, she’ll end up vomiting too much to be able to go. It’s happened several times now in the last year, she’ll travel to London to her friend’s place, feel ok, then the morning they need to go and do something, she starts vomiting. She’s just on her way back now after another failed attempt at having a social life and she’s feeling broken and like there’s no point in trying anymore. It’s hard to argue with her at this stage, I’ve been encouraging her to keep trying and believe that she can do it, but without fail she starts throwing up and isn’t able to go.
Even times that don’t involve travelling, like recently it was her birthday and her friends came to stay here, they were planning on going out, but DD woke up in the morning and started throwing up.
BTW she doesn’t drink or do any drugs, so there’s no way that’s an element to causing sickness.
She can’t go on like this. GP doesn’t seem helpful. Private therapy doesn’t seem helpful. I’m not sure what to do next, but she’s so low and what kind of a life is it if she can’t do anything fun without being sick?