Anxious teenager making me anxious

[coniston19]

I have a 17 ds with severe anxiety and some ocd, that has gradually built up over 3 years or so. He's having CBT therapy but I suspect his strong personality means that this will be no easy fix.

His mental health has had an impact on the whole family but particularly me. I feel constantly anxious and on edge waiting for the next fall out and struggle to separate my emotions from his, although I'm very aware that I need to do so and work hard to give him space.

I've been his sounding board for years and he's self harmed a lot (scratching) over the last few months and has missed a lot of school, so it's been very hard.

Despite all his troubles he got amazing gcse results and seems to manage to pull things out the bag (eg go on school trips) when he needs to so I suspect that there's some stubbornness/teenage rebellion going on as well. It's hard to separate this from his mental health.

Anyway, any advice about how to preserve my own sense of 'self' while this is all going on?

I understand where you're coming from, my 16yo dd has had some mental health issues over the last few years and my own mental health has suffered as a result.

What helped me was finding things to do that's just for me, self care. I go to Pilates once a week, meet friends for coffee, gardening even going to work is a nice break some times!

Have you thought about some counselling for you? Or reading some self help books for anxiety? There's lots of techniques out there that can help with anxiety and it's normally just finding the right one.

I've had counselling for 2 years (hopefully last session next week) to help me recover my 'self' when DD sank with anxiety & depression.
Good friends to phone helped too.

I’m struggling with this - have spent so long worrying about my child I’ve lost the ability to enjoy life. She’s about to two pathways for support - one through school, one through our private medical but I do feel we have a very hard road ahead of us.