Camhs assessment

[SausageCasseroles]

So from Google I'm realising that camhs are for the most part pretty useless. This is terrifying.

My daughter tried to kill herself last week and in talking with her (she doesn't want to talk but in answering the questionairs and in her hospital psych assessment) it would seem she has constant thoughts of death and harming herself.

Yet she has no ACES, isn't unhappy at school, no obvious triggers (other than being autistic).

We have the assessment today. Is there anything I need to do or so to get support?

And if they don't what on earth do I do!? From reading about camhs general lack of support I'm actually now really scared.

Oh just to clarify.. I’m just suggesting to focus on the MH now for the initial assessment to get you in the door. Once you’ve been accepted into the service, that’s when a clinician with good knowledge of autism will be really valuable. It may be different where you are, but it’s likely there will be different stages of the process, each with a different clinician (just to make it even more confusing!).

In my experience most Camhs workers genuinely want the best for clients. Hopefully your experience will be ok .

We found the waiting list for CAHMS not great! Our GP supported us with a referral to a physiologists (private) for an initial consultation. The outcome of that assessment helped us decide what the next steps would be & we could share it with CAHMs. We accessed private therapy for our daughter while still on the waiting list.
We did eventually get seen by CAHMS but we found the process quite disorganised- appointments cancelled, she started with one therapist who was actually leaving so then had to see another one - daughter didn’t like it being online either.

if you have something through work - use it - we still had a pay something towards it.

4 years on she is her final year of uni applying for grad jobs. She still has wobbles at times, so occasionally will go back to counselling. Through both the uni and a local therapist to her that she found. This comes from her understanding herself - not waiting for a complete spiral.

As a whole the Mental Health approach in this country is shocking desperately lacking funding.

Thanks Springboks.

Yes that helps a lot. We were referred after the hospital assessment which may have sped things up but impressed we got seen in less than a week from referal...

And yes I don't think camhs are evil/etc just need to get in and seen by the right person.

From Dr Google it looks like gateway can either offer short term help (or self paced online help which won't be suitable right now) or refer up?

I think I'm likely nd myself and so overwhelmed that I want to get this right.

I see now the distinction you're making and that helps thankyou. Yes I'm seeing the autism as a great big scary risk factor myself but get needing to focus on the mh issues . This is so helpful thankyou. Genuinely.

Yes agree completely re mh provision being shocking. If it was better then surely it would save the country money long term anyway.

I think I can only access 6 sessions for myself through employee assistance (public sector) so no private health care. I have so many times this year wished I was in A profession eoth private health care...

Other things that we found useful/helpful in the early days (in no particular order, and ignore what isn't useful!):

1. Meds - but with a REALLY slow titration, and close monitoring all the way. Fluoxetine is always prescribed first. Sertraline was better. But very dependent on the individual.
2. Distraction activities, but with very low demand - colouring books, fimo clay, anything that they're vaguely interested in
3. Very low demand. Things like watching a TV series whilst you eat - it got him downstairs with us to eat, but took away all the pressure to talk etc
4. The 'partnering not parenting' book (Never Let Go - Suzanne Alderson) - you're probably doing it all already, but it helps to have the validation
5. No school. Signed off by the GP, initially for several months.
6. Letting him know how ill he was - and that he needed to be taken care of and to recover, and that that was going to take lots of time.
7. Taking care of him like he was recovering from a really bad bout of flu. Recognising exhaustion, letting him rest as much as possible.

There are loads of schools for high achieving autistic kids - they're just hard to find. DS is actually residential for 2 nights a week at the moment, and that's also great. But it took us 2 years to get his EHCP sorted and the school named - and he needed that time to be well enough to go. He can stay until he's 20, when hopefully he will go off to uni as an independent adult.

Feel free to PM if you want any other info.

OP..
Sorry for the long post!
Sorry for what you are going through.
My DD has been on low mood issues for a while.
She took 2 overdoses within 3 months and so I know what you are going through.
It took the first overdose for us to get actually seen by camhs.
She had an initial assessment where they identified she had suicidal thoughts. She was also referred to eating disorder clinic which rwviewed and promptly discharged her back to camhs stating her disordered eating was due to her depression.
Camhs then offered low mood group therapy which DD wouldn't accept.
They then offered her a monthly check in with a counsellor. She only had 1 session with the counsellor who then referred her to psychiatrist who put her on AD.
In the initial few weeks of AD, she took her second overdose.. a much higher one this time.
We are now being monitored by intensive home treatment team who will discharge us shortly back to camhs.
In the meantime, child services have also got Involved and are trying to see what they can do.
In short, we are lost in the system.
The camhs psychiatrist suggested autism screening which we will have to initiate.

Your case is slightly different as your DD is already diagnosed with autism.
However, do keep repeating the suicide risk as that is the only thing people take notice of.
Your DD needs help with getting to the bottom of those negative thoughts and a coping mechanism. Finding out the trigger for that is key...in our case it is school and studying...

I also think the biggest plus of camhs is their multi disciplinary approach.
They can bring therapists, psychiatrists etc in
And they involve parents in the session.
The last 15 minutes when I get called in to join DD are really helpful.
It's a shame that they cannot provide consistently good service because of wait lists etc.
With a private therapist, I have no clue what DD and therapist discuss.
Camhs is different on that aspect. They involve you.

I hope your meeting went well..its a long tiring journey..
We are just few months in and I am utterly exhausted. But we will get there.

Take care
Xx

I'm a CYP counsellor and suicidal ideation is common in autistic people. It's the constant masking and how society wants them to conform that causes trauma.

Good luck.

Notanothernana- yes that's exactly what I think is happening. Do you work through schools/camhs?

Any suggestions that I can do to help?

Wow dark sounds a long journey. I know my dd triggered some of the eating d questuons but I don't think she has she just doesn't want to eat when she's low/doesn't have an appetite.

The assessor was clasifying it as "low mood" and "needing support with low mood." I did add actually what I'd like is her not to spend every day wanting to kill herself....

Have you asked school if they can refer to free of cost counselling?

I'm going back years to my experience but yeah CAMHs are utterly shit. I was attempting suicide and they just filed it.

I'm autistic and what I will say is don't rely on services to help you/her. Obviously get the help you can but personally the thing that helped me was my diagnosis. Realising I'm different and that's ok and to stop trying to 'fix' myself to be like everyone else. I know myself now and l le if I push myself to do too much I burn out and want to check out if life. I take breaks. I will literally tell people "I'm not doing people this weekend". Try work with her on that. Autistic doesn't mean broken it doesn't mean wrong or lesser etc etc- her that message through to her. She can have all the therapy in the world but she's living with you every day you can help her most. Don't push her to go to school if she's struggling there. Read up on burnout and let her recover from that if that's what is going on. She needs to learn what she can manage and not push herself past that. I had a breakdown every 3 years till my mid 20s before I worked out my limit (but I did not know it was autism so you have that to start from).

Work out what helps her. Let her info dump on her special interests. Don't hug her if she's not a higher. Hug her for hours if she needs that. Work out what she specifically feels better for and what specifically vais her struggles. Pay attention to sensory stuff. Took me having an autistic kid myself before I worked out if I'm not I can't self regulate. She will have stuff she just can't stand but is expected to just deal with because everybody else does.

And the light at the end of the tunnel is once you are and adult and not at school you have so much power to tailor your life around your individual needs. You can do this with what you wear your chosen job etc etc and nobody else will know or will need to know it's that way because you are autistic. You are just an individual with the power to make choices.

I remember my teens. They were dark. My parents pushed the responsibility for helping onto services that just couldn't/wouldn't help. Obviously you are different people. But just be aware of how she may be feeling a burden and a disappointment/embarrassment/weakling. Make sure she knows adult life is different and you chose to have a kid and supporting her is not a problem because you love her etc etc.