Thank you for the replies. Had psyched myself up for a tough day but as always you hope everything will be okay so it still hits you as hard as ever each time. Thank you @Sasskitty for the link - had no idea you could do that. It will be my go-to from here on in - what a farce that you can no longer contact the GP that has known your child for 19 years with a quick call and get the sicknote.
Makes me wonder what I’ve been paying my taxes for some days…
Think I am taking the whole VAT discussion a bit too personally as it feel slike a total slap in teh face after all these years - if another person says ‘well at least you had the money to [get an assessment privately/got to a private school]’ etc I will scream. It’s as though ‘being middle class’ and having ‘money’ menas that you are teflon, that your kids are similarly coated… when, as the old saying goes, money does not buy happiness. It doesn’t even buy you security or peace of mind. The fact that daddy is a high earner does eff all for me or my child when I am literally talking her off the ledge or prizing the razor blade out of her hand because she just cannot face sitting in a classroom today or focus on an assignment, in fact it makes matters worse because when social services appear in response to calls to the GP like todays (and they will, no doubt, yet again), they take one look at the house and cars and decide we don’t need help or that we can buy it in (you can’t - when they’re in cahms no private therapist/[sychiatrust will touch you).
The fact that she has 10 GCSEs grades 7-9 doesn’t offset the atom deep sense of failure she feels for not surviving 6th form, for not being able to mask it long enough to get through the day, to not even last one full term at 6th form in the two years she tried. In stead dad sits at his desk at the office and cries; I sit in the lounge, hiding from the decorators, crying and hoping my son doesn’t see. And we both know no-one will help - not camhs, not social services, not the Adult MH service, not even the ASD/ADHD service, because the closest thing we ever had to ‘support’ was when we were in a child centred independent school that we can no longer afford.