DD admitted to me she uses cocaine

[hello12456]

sorry this is my first time posting on mumsnet and i'm a state right now and don't know what to do.

My DD16 has suffered with poor mental health since she was 14, is now suspected bipolar and borderline personailty disorder comorbidity. She has had a pretty traumatic couple of years, abusive relationships, rape, drug addiction and had to move school due to her abusive ex attending the same school as her and a police investigation being carried out.

All in all, its been a horrible few years for her and for me and her father as well. However, after a period of depression, i finally felt we were doing better, but she has just come to me crying saying she uses coke frequently, and by frequently she says everyday. Not excessive amounts, but she said its the only thing that gets her up in the morning for sixth form.

She's certainly not an idiot, and maintains to me that every substance she's ever put in her body has been tested prior, but she obviously knows it's wrong to be relying on such a toxic substance like this, and that it's only going to get worse if she doesn't stop.

I don't know how to help her, she struggled with MDMA abuse when she was 14/15 but just kind of snapped out of it, without my knowledge and later opened up to me about it after she'd got clean.

I'm obviously happy she's talking to me, but I seriously don't know how to help her. And I'm so angry at her for being this stupid, but i feel so guilty for being angry because she's just a kid who doesn't know how to handle what she's been through. And i feel like such an idiot for not realising when i spoke to her every morning she was bloody high.

Any advice is appreciated.

"She's not an idiot" then a few paragraphs later "I'm so angry at her for being so stupid". Eh?

MDMA at 14?
Abusive boyfriend at that age?
Cocaine at 16?

She needs therapy, no amount of Motherly love will fix her problems that have driven her to do drugs.

Expensive drug. How can she afford it? A coke high lasts about 30 mins, so im surprised it helps her at college

She really needs a lot of therapy at the moment. It sounds as though she's had a really difficult time and is trying to self medicate.

doesn’t help her at college, helps her get out of bed, she doesn’t hate college itself she just struggles to get up in the morning

she works and earns about 500£ a month

she’s been in therapy for 2 years, i agree with it being self medication for sure, therapy has helped massively with her mood swings and outbursts but supposedly not the drug use, will just sticking at therapy help or is there any alternative

That's a lot to go through in a lifetime, let alone as a kid within a couple of years.

Is there anyone at college she could speak to? Or a councillor? Doctors? I don't really know what lines to go down, they're just suggestions.

Drugs won't take the problems away, they just hide them. Just like any addiction. No advice really, just hope she gets the help she needs.

You've mentioned quite a lot of mental health issues and trauma. Is she already involved with mental health services? It might be worth looking for local drug agencies in your area that could offer her support and advice. You could talk to her GP and they will refer on to appropriate services for her. I think with all of the issues she has going on, she is likely to need professional input to help her with this.
As a start, you could look at helping her to manage her money in some way so that she doesn't have so much spare cash to buy cocaine. You could also suggest that she deletes and blocks the numbers of whoever she is buying it from or whoever is likely to sell it to her.

yes she’s with CAHMS but they’re absolutely bloody useless, luckily we’ve been able to pay for private therapy for her for the last couple of years which has helped a lot in some areas.

thank you for the advice I’m going to ring GP tomorrow, I’m proud of her for being able to admit this as an issue that she wants to resolve, much progress from her constant denial of there being any problems in her life

It's definitely positive that she's admitted it and is looking for help. Her therapist potentially may be able to help with the drug use as well if they know about it. Hopefully her GP will be aware of local services and can sort out a referral quickly. If not, there will be local drug services somewhere in your area that can offer support for her.

yes it is a lot and i’m so proud of her for surviving this she’s the strongest person i know and i feel dreadful i couldn’t protect her from any of it.

thank you for the suggestions, going to ring the GP tomorrow.

Sounds like she needs really serious help, poor girl

14 is an extremely vulnerable age to be doing MDMA and at 16 her brain is still developing. This is really bad news. I think I'd zip her off to Alaska to spend a year chopping wood and reading books in a log cabin to snap her away from this slippery slope. It's either act now - or prepare for some pretty dire times ahead. If she's already started relying on these things to make her feel better (rather than randomly just to dance and have fun like most experimental teens) then her brain is becoming wired to addiction. Act now.

Involve social services. They'll help you.

And this is from experience.

she has a social worker, obviously i’ll have to bring this up to them.
what sort of help did they provide? referrals?

shes always had a very addictive personality with everything in her life, but also could drop everything very quickly, her social smoking escalated very fast to 10 a day before she suddenly stopped that too, claiming she just “went off of cigarettes”.

self medication isn’t the way, and because she’s so young obviously it’s very concerning because her brains reward pathways are getting messed up whilst she’s still developing, so you’re right it needs to stop before it causes permanent damage in the future and she knows that.

issue is i don’t want to punish her for this, because she opened up to me and i appreciate that and i don’t want her to ever feel like she can’t talk to me. Alaska would be ideal if i didn’t want her so close to me so i can try and keep her safe. failing miserably right now

Hi op, this post rang a lot of bells as your daughter sounds like my sister in her teen years. We're in our 40s now so mental health/trauma wasn't talked about so much then.. not in our family at least

You sound like a great mum and have already accessed a lot of support for her. I could write an essay about our family's experiences but in short, the only thing that has worked (and worked long term, really well) is a relatively high dose of SSRIs.

Wishing you lots of strength dealing with this, it must be soul destroying.

You're not failing. Luckily she is young enough to be at home with you, and she's talking, so you can look at the choices. Alaska is a whim really, I meant for you to take her there, not her going alone. It's impractical of course in the real world unless you have plenty of resources to go for it.
I think it's worth it at this stage though, I really do. 16 is such a critical and pivotal age.

thank you for your kind words, i’m trying so hard to keep it together for her and feeling like i’ve failed to protect her made hearing that really lovely.
antidepressants aren’t an option because of the suspected bipolar, as they don’t want to trigger mania, but drs hoping to get her on lithium as soon as possible to hopefully balance her moods and i’m praying for it to be successful but CAHMS are so slow with absolutely everything it’s infuriating.

haha i’d love to get her away from all the problems home has brought her and go to some far away country, preferably hotter than alaska. unfortunately that will remain a dream unless i win the lottery.
i’m so grateful she feels she can talk to me, because honestly i would never have known, me being naive i suppose, and yes she is at such a critical age, even after knowing about everything that’s happened to her for over 18 months now sometimes it still takes my breath away how young she was when this all happened to her and how very strong she is