DD self harming and suicidal

[Jux]

She's 12. The school have just phoned and want her referred to a counsellor. Her school counsellor told her this last week and she absolutely refused. I tried to talk to her about it, but she was resolute.

She's had counselling before, a couple of years ago when everyone was dying; she was referred to CAMHS urgently that Xmas, but they wanted to do family therapy and after the initial sessions DH refused to do any more as he found it too traumatic for himself and didn't see how going over his own childhood traumas would help dd, who at 10 yo was struggling with multiple bereavements.

How can I force her to go to counselling if she won't? Oh, I know no one can help, but thanks for reading.

Hi my dd 13 is being seen by cahms and it was really hard to persuade her to go as we too had family therapy (completely the wrong treatment for problem) last year which we felt was a real waste of time and made her v negative towards any problem. I was so worried about her to get her to go once referral came through. We tried dual handed approach by telling her during a meltdown that we needed to get help for her which at that stage she accepted the idea. When it came close to actual date we reminded her of this previous conversation and .... Went down the bribery route to get her to the initial consultation!!! Know this might not really be right approach but felt at end of the day it was more important to get her to the appointment. She then seemed to accept that follow on weekly meetings would happen (no bribery).
It worked for us and she was very anti going

Thanks meercatmum. I don't have a problem with bribery if it works under those circs.

DH's reason in refusing counselling was that his own traumas from childhood had little bearing on dd's need for counselling over multiple bereavements. He did then go to one to one counselling so it's not like he completely refused help for himself. His own emotional state (and we were both having to cope iwth the same multiple bereavements, don't forget) wasn't helping dd, had taken up almost hte entire session and dd hadn't had a look-in at that point.

I have said to him that if we're offered family therapy this time then we jolly well take it and if he is asked, then he has to give just basic facts of his problems with his dad but keep it as short and unemotional as poss so that the focus stays on helping dd. He has agreed and I hope will be able to do so. He does like a bit of drama though, which really doesn't help anyone.

I do not want to go into hte details of her s-h, but she is not using knives or pills. What has shocked me - apart from anything else - is that she has been showing her scars to children at school. Making a point of it. I suppose this is a further cry for help.

The last time I talked to my gp about this he was a bit fed up; I don't know if that's because he had had various agencies phoning him about it all day (which he had) or because we were just so difficult, or because there was actually precious little help available anyway. I know when I saw him a year or so later to ask for help to cope with my brother's death (once dd and dh's mental states seemed to have calmed enough for me to let myself grieve a bit) there was nothing except that computer program - helpful enough, but hey.

Please sit down and talk to her. Find out why she is resistant - is she scared that people will find out and think she is 'crazy', or that she will be put on pills? Explain why DH refused to go back (will he try again for her sake?), and make sure she knows that this does not mean that therapy/counselling is a waste of time.

Bargain with her - you can go with her, she has to give it a try for xx sessions - it can't hurt - and you won't 'make' her continue if she isnt finding it useful. Find a counsellor who specialises in these issues and has a lot of experience in dealing with young folk. It does sound like a cry for help and she is your priority. It is a crappy time of life - just on the cusp of adulthood.

Your DH needs to see this too - a child should not be suffering in this way. He is an adult, and a parent and should be doing everything he can to help her. If he has problems, then he need to have these addressed too. How can you help someone else out if you are suffering yourself?

Good luck.

Talking to a counsellor makes her feel inadequate, to sum up what she said last night. It makes her feel worse.

She is a quiet, contemplative child and has never been one of those girls who is jumpy-up-and-downy iyswiw. She is very bright - the school say she's one of the brightest in her year. She does find a lot of children her age rather shallow and thoughtless so does have - and always has had - trouble mixing; having said that, she does have a couple of very close friends, unfortunately the closest friend she has also self-harms but in a worse way than dd. That girl uses razor blades while dd scratches, and insists she does it in her sleep and isn't aware of it (the schl counsellor says this isn't possible due to where the scratches are, but I really don't see that myself, it's her forearm).

We knew she was scratching - not always, but there would be a week or a month and then it would stop for several months. We put cream on and don't react, but just express care, concern etc but don't make a big deal, as we didn't want to drive it underground or push her into doing worse.

When she got home yesterday, she was seriously upset and angry with the schl counsellor, and then at us. She saw us as having betrayed her by taking the SCs concerns seriously, and ran off to her room.

We didn't follow, but waited, assuming that she wouldn't come down to supper, but she appeared earlier than that, and after a little while introduced the subject again. I told her I was worried about her which brought on floods of tears. She said that she could cope so long as we (dh and I) were not worried about her. She talked for a long time.

The upshot of what she said was that she feels badly pressured by the SC and some of her teachers because she is NOT running about, being giggly, and so on, but is quiet and prefers to spend her time thinking and thinking about thinking.

She is sad because she still misses all the people who have died (7 very close to us, all within months of each other, mostly under 50 and shockingly unexpected). Christmas was OK but we all feel the gap of the people who are not here any more. There are difficulties with MIL (severe senility and lack of care by stepFIL) and SIL's partner is also dying and is being taken into hospital at death's door several times a month, to be stabilized and discharged - only to have it happen again the next week.

She is extremely academic, but not very sociable. The school are more than satisfied with her academic performance, but very worried about the social side.

Last night, she felt initially that we were dissatisfied with her and who she is because we were talking about what the SC had said, but that was cleared up last night.

She wouldn't talk about her scratching except to continue to insist that she does it on her sleep.

She won't see a counsellor. She is feeling got at by the adults at school as they keep nagging at her to run around and play, to be happy. In view of the problems she has had to face, she finds this too much. Doesn't want to talk to someone about her dead gran whom she misses desperately still, her dead uncle, her dead godfather, her dead friend, her dead aunt, her dead cousin, her other dead cousin, her senile grandmother, her dying uncle. She wants to be able to quietly get on with her life and NOT think about all those people and things. She just wants to be left alone when those thoughts come up.

SC has just phoned and spoken to dh again. I will come back later.

Do you belong to a church or similar where someone there could talk to her about her grief?

Of course she is being 'grown up'. Just how exactly does the school expect a child to act when they have been so close to so much trauma in her short life. Of course she just wants to curl up into a ball - she can't see how she can ever be happy again. It is normal. Have you talked to her about how you feel too? It is crap, it is unfair and she has had to grow up pretty sharpish.

Don't pull her up on the sh in her sleep. You have to take her word and not get into an argument about it. Tell her that it is something you need to fix as she may really hurt herself. If you need to drop to the level of emotional blackmail 'how would it make xxx feel, to see you in pain or suffering? If they we here now, they would say xxxxxx. All they ever wanted was to see you grow up into a fine woman. It is hard, but make them proud...' etc.

Grief generally takes a long time. I have found it to be at least a year before feeling 'normal' again. This is perfectly normal! You have good days and bad days. The number of bad days early on is most, but you get more and more of the good ones, until the balance tips and you become more human again. Being happy is not betraying the deceased or forgetting them. Sorry - the therapist pops out from time to time but this isn't my area of expertise. In my experience, the obese who appear to be suffering are the ones who are coping in their own way -they are working thorough it and will come out the other end. It is the calm ones who go off the deep end and do something silly.

Have you checked out Cruise? Their site has an area for children:
www.crusebereavementcare.org.uk/Children.html

Thank you wahwahwah. She is in the church choir, which was one of the most stable aspects of her life, but it has been somewhat soured in the last couple of years by a woman who is a bossy-boots managing-type, and dd's unhappiness has become more difficult for her friend in the choir (the only other child, a couple of years older than dd) to 'be patient' about. Also, the friend is growing up in ways that dd hasn't got to yet and they have less in common. I think - hope - that this is just a period where they aren't in phase with each other and they will coincide again. It does make dd sad that they are not so close. These two factors make the choir/church less of a comfort for her atm.

The last of those deaths was November 2009 so 2 years ago. She was definitely improving and becoming more out-going at school. DH and I think that things began to go downhill again when problems with her other grandmother, the senile one, surfaced a few months ago, followed very quickly by the appallingly fast deterioration of her uncle. We think that visiting just before Christmas made the ghastly states they are both in very concrete for dd and it was more than she could cope with, thus the sh started up again. It is easy in retrospect to say we shouldn't have gone, or shouldn't have taken dd, but she was desperate to see her gm and aunt & uncle. I had to go to a funeral (old family friend - not known to either dh or dd, but someone I grew up with) and dh had to see his mum and stepdad to try to find out more about what was (and wasn't) being done. Apparently, sFIL was blindingly rude to dh, in front of dd, and ordered him out of the house at one point. All more trauma for dd. Well, for all of us I guess but we're old enough.

She asked us "what the hell do they expect?" yesterday, when we were talking about the concerns that her teachers and the SC have for her, which is really a completely reasonable question.

I had that conversation with her quite a while ago, about possibly really hurting herself, but she made a promise then and has kept it, that she would not do anything silly or dangerous like use knives. She needs us to believe her and to trust her in that. We will keep a close eye on this side of things, but I think we have little choice but to at least show her we trust her to keep her promise.

She doesn't want to talk about her grief. She wants to process it herself at times of her own choosing, ie. not at school, so doesn't want to talk to the SC about at of it. Things will upset her, of course, and she spends time in the SC's room, but it doesn't mean she wants to talk about anything other than the thing which has immediately upset her.

DH this morning has explained all this to the SC. What they have decided to do is just keep a close eye on the situation, not to ask questions about the bereavements or the sh, unless she, they or we think it is escating, getting out of control.

Apparently, she had shown her arm to some of her teachers and told them what she had been doing. They were very worried and talked to the SC about it. It was taken as a massive cry for help. On reflection, I think it was a test to see how far she could trust them. She has trusted us to take it on the chin, not react\over-react (in her eyes), put cream on and give a bit of comfort and show a bit of concern. I think showing her teachers was to find out whether they would take it in their stride (and therefore she could trust them) or get worried and upset (and therefore she couldn't). I'm not sure about this.

I think this contributed to her dismay yesterday. That 4 of her teachers had not understood that she was in control and had gone to the SC, and that dh & I had taken the SC's concerns seriously too. We had, in a sense, betrayed her by not believing that she could hold it together enough herself and for us to even entertain the idea of counselling for her was a dreadful thing to her.

It is not actually out of the question yet, but I think we have to see how she goes for a while.

Part of me thinks that. Part of me thinks we are letting her down very badly indeed by not grabbing a therapist for her and dragging her there. "She'll thank us for it in the end" type thing.

I'm sorry; I have been babbling on a bit, hadn't realised how much! Thank you.

You can't drag someone to therapy. You can do more harm than good really as it could reinforce the problem and make her more secrative. It is good that she talks to you and people at the school. It sounds like you are doing the right things, letting her have space - otherwise she would not tell you anything. Let her know that you are always there to listen to her, not judge. Remind her that she is still a child and you have far more life experience.

She sounds as if she is getting into the emotional 'brace position' with grandma and uncle both being ill.

Just an idea - maybe daft, but are there any dog walking schemes around you? I mean the ones where someone walks the dog of someone in hospital. Obviously, you wouldn't want the person to be terminally ill (that would be too much) but maybe someone with a broken leg or something. People with emotional problems do really well to animal contact (the local pound would be too heart-wrenching). Ditto gardening. It is having an external focus on someone/something that needs attention and nurturing.

It's a bad age for so many reasons, with all the hormones, growing up/not wanting to... My heart really goes out to you.

I'm so sorry to read this.
DD 15 refuses to go back to her counsellor for therapy for ocd...I can't make her.
Luckily (!) she had a huge meltdown at school last week, and has agreed to see the school nurse and other people at school. We are very lucky that the school is fantastic, and she feels safe with them.
We have had a bit of self harming, scratching herself, but nothing else thank god. She confided in a really good friend recently about her problems, and friend reacted "oh god I can't handle your ocd". Cue many tears and tantrums, but things have calmed down.

Hormones play their part too...we are all walking on eggshells at the moment.
Hope everything works out for you.

Thank you so much. Getting this into words helps, but knowing someone is taking time to read and respond helps so much more.

I know I can't really drag her off to therapy; of course you're both right, hormones compound everything and her period was last week, only her fourth and it was very heavy - normal, but they'd been so light before, it frightened her.

She's come home today much happier. Full of ideas of how to take revenge on the SC...., not that she would but it was a funny conversation which had her actually giggling!

Good idea about dog walking. We had a friend whose dog needed walking when she was at work but that was years ago when dd was 4 or 5 and we don't live anywhere near them now. I'll see if I can find anything out.

I shall google 'emotional brace position'. I can guess what it means but more knowledge never hurts, does it?

I made that one up... The joys of being a therapist! I wouldn't google the Tefal protocol if I were you... (I didn't make that one up though)

You say she is suicidal.... Is she? Or is it more self harming. Need to know before I can suggest my thoughts.

Jux, it sounds like you are doing a good job already. I know this must be really hard for you, but it's great that you are just dressing the cuts and comforting her.

When my mum found out I was self harming, she said I was a weirdo and shouted at me.

Never forgiven her. I think as long as you express concern, you're doing ok.

Selks, no, she's not suicidal, thank goodness. She said at one point that she was suicidally depressed, but I think, after the talks we have had, that she is only (huh) depressed.

Yellowraincoat, that's so horrible. I don't understand why a parent would say things like that to their child when they are already so obviously distressed. I'm so sorry. Panic, maybe, from profound helplessness? Anyway, that's what dd's friend's dad did - she needed her head examined, was mad, etc. That'll be part of why she's slashing her ankles in the shower instead. Thank heavens we were more sensible.

Wahwahwah, you are very norty, but I did give up googling after only a couple of minutes! I shall avoid Tefal (something to do with cooking perchance? Maybe not).

Well that's something. (Rather misleading thread title then, but never mind).

One thing to bear in mind with CAMHS is that they can work with the young person's school, so that may be one way to get your DD to engage with CAMHS, if she feels that they may be able to work with her school so that the school develops a more supportive attitude towards her.

Yes, I'm sorry Selks. Yesterday when dh had finished talking to the SC we were under the impression that she could be- probably was.

She has, as I say, said she is suicidally depressed; said so several times since Xmas, but I hadn't been taking it so seriously because she was talking about it, which I took as a good sign. It was once the SC had spoken to dh that we found ourselves plunging rapidly into the complete unknown, what with how seriously the school were taking the sh as well.

Tbh, without this thread I would have handled things yesterday much worse and we may not have reached the comparatively calm conversation we had with dd in the end.

I am very grateful for the help which has been extended through this thread. It has helped defuse everything, and has made a tremendous difference. Mind you, I have no doubt that things will blow up again; either uncle will die or something else about MIL will come to light. It is quite exhausting here emotionally atm.

That's good (to hear that the thread has helped a calm, positive discussion.)

If you feel that she is feeling suicidal then please do go back to CAMHS, whether she wants to or not. In that circumstance you need a specialist monitoring any risk. Best wishes.

You do need to take anything she says seriously, it is fantastic that she can talk to you. She is lucky to have such a great and understanding mum. Who looks after you? Are you getting any time to relax yourself?

(for Tefal, think Tom and Gerry)

Tom & Jerry????

Yes, you're right re taking everything she says seriously. I worry that if I do though, she will see it as an issue and maybe stop talking. So, I suppose I don't actually brush it under the carpet and ignore it, but don't make a big deal when she says it, I tend to say things "Oh are you feeling suicidal darling? That's horrid for you" and see what happens.... A bit pale and pathetic.

Her reaction to the SC and us talking about the sh seems to reinforce the idea that she doesn't want much more than acknowledgement though? Do you think I ought to be being more active about it?

...and of course I googled Tefal protocol, but got lots of pans! (I didn't try very hard, and left it at that)

Tefal is when you have the urge to lamp a client with a frying pan! Some can be very very trying and difficult. Especially the ones who won't try anything to help themselves and expect that you have a magic wand. It is a tough job, so this comes under 'gallow humour'.

I do think that you sound like a 'cool' mum, which means that she is comfortable to speak to you. This is a very good thing as you know what is going on, she trusts you completely and if she is talking, that is a good sign. Keep an eye out for any changes in her though - weight gain or loss (with no obvious cause, so she hasn't gone on a diet or started running)', keep an eye on the sites she visits (there are some very odd sites for young folk), and keep doing what you do!

I find that chattering on helps about 'when I was a girl, my great aunt Betty had the same thing as xx. It was so sad and I didn't have anyone to speak to. I wish I could have because it really made me feel xx. But you know, it did get better but it took time.........'. She may look like she isn't paying attention, but it does sink it. Keep her busy too - I am sure she has a pile of homework but does she have any activities that she loves - skating, riding, gymnastics...? Anything that she can attend and also takes up some spare time (reading up on the subject, watching shows about it...). Something that she can throw herself into and become 'her thing' And also her outlet. I always think that something that she can continue as she gets older is a good skill to learn.

I believe that if you make issues into great big ones, they can reinforce the behaviour and make it into something more serious. I have had arguments with other therapists about this but I do believe that talking and being open is a good approach with young'uns. Remember that she is still a child but is battling adult issues. She has spoken to others and they have not indicated that there is something more serious underlying. I have met folk (not people who have gone though abuse - just going through the normal issues of growing up) who were 'diagnosed' as children and this became this they saw themselves - so a depressive, not someone who had a tough time as a child but got through it ('survivor' in some parlance) so it turns it into something positive - I beat it/got stronger/learned to cope!

Children just need to feel that there is actually someone in control, but this is something that no one can control. So do acknowledge it when she says that she feel suicidal - 'oh darling, I am really sorry that you say that... Is there something I can do to make you feel better... No? Ok, then you need to help me make some cake...., do you remember where I put the eggs.....'.

Good luck, keep talking and giving hugs! She sounds like a great kid and you are a good mum. Look after yourself too!

Could she help out at Brownies - is she too young for that ? Or help out somewhere else? Does she have any interests or things she could do that could distract her? I found that doing a crossword together or sudoko was great and then I taught my daughter to sew - she loves cutting out the pattern and getting out the sewing machine now. I also think cooking and baking are great when you feel like this . I think the important thing is not to dwell on the negative things, try and have some fun together. When they feel out of step with their peers I think it helps if you step into that breach for a while. They pick so much up from you that if she sees you anxious it will affect her -if she sees you lighthearted around her she's bound to pick up on that too - I know that's not easy