Someone help, please

[Pleasehelpme1979]

My DD 15 years old believes she is physically sick and has done for 6 months, she’s never actually been sick. I’ve had her to the docs and hospital multiple times and she had tests and there’s nothing wrong, yet she still feeling sick or do she thinks.

She is extremely anxious and copes with very little. She very rarely goes to school and has no social life at all.

She’s been referred to CAHMS but not seen as a serious enough case.

She genuinely believes she’s sick and I can’t convince her otherwise.

I don’t mean this in a bad way but I have to do almost everything for her. She doesn’t want to get out of bed, dressed etc as she’s “sick”

I believe it to be her mental health but she’s having none of it.

Im not coping, I cry on my own every day, I can’t sleep and I’m not coping at work, I’m exhausted and im not sure how this will ever end.

It’s like she has given up on life, due to this “sickness” everything is centred on feeling sick.

I don’t know what to do or how to keep going.

Oh how awful for you both.

Can you get afford a private appointment for mental health support? Can she speak to the pastoral lead at school? Can you opt in to a health plan which covers your household via work? (Some ppl have this / access to talking therapies for their household and don’t realise)

Would it help her to -

listen to wellness podcasts
have something visual in her room to remind her that her blood tests were normal etc
make a mood board/collage of what she’d like her life to look like

it must be so tough, hang in there

I’m so sorry op this sounds very hard and so draining for you.

I was your dd until recently. I was diagnosed with severe health anxiety. It started with just anxiety, panicking about things etc and then extended into being worried about being around people who were unwell. I’d then question how I felt, double check my symptoms and then worry for the next 4-5 days.
This moved onto finding it very hard to do anything and go anywhere. I was crippled by it. Part of me knew it was all in my head but my head was telling me I was sick. It was telling me that I was aching, I felt shaky, my head was heavy and I had no energy.

It took one really supportive dr to listen to me and actually get me help. I went onto anxiety medication, I completed course after course of cbt and I spoke to a therapist. My dh came with me and was told to start getting firm with me. He could reassure me once but then was told to not answer me, he was told to be direct and try carry on without me. So if we had plans and I felt I couldn’t go then he would. I felt awful and so did he but it actually helped.

I know this is different as it’s your teenage dd but I’d go back to the gp and fight again for her. CAHMS has such a long waiting list, they are massively understaffed solid sadly may be a while before she’s seen but ask your go what else they can do in the meantime. Speak to the school, tell them how hard you are finding it and ask what resources they have available to support your dd.

Are you a single parent? Do you have anyone else to help carry the load? Could you maybe even get away for the night to just have a break?
Id also suggest contacting social services. Ask for their support and be honest with telling them how exhausted you are.

… also, assuming you’re confident there is definitely no actual physical illness? (I say this as someone who had a very well hidden paraganglioma all through my late teens)

Does she tell you any specific symptoms?