Parents of anxious kids/ teens support thread

[Stilllivinginazoo]

Hi
Welcome to parents of anxious/ teens thread.idea is to share tips and advice and listen and support each other on days things are getting tougher

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How's everyone else doing today?

Spoken to occupational therapist and school are demanding to know if she's signing him off.as their correspondence is via email she's no idea what this entails...if it's just a supporting letter she's very willing,if it's a doctor's note she can't magic one of thoseschool are also reiterating their policy of learning in school but "might offer a little home learning" IF she signs him off.ffs.i give up and will order some workbooks for him and start looking for ideas to at least keep him in the educated loop.no formal education this school year(year 8) is scaring me

Hi Stilllivinginazoo

I ended up taking my son out at end of year 7 and I enrolled him in an internet school, where he stayed until year 11.

Not for everyone though because of cost, but it is a growing form of education.

Sue

I might have a look at that but costs would be a major issue for us

Hope this Monday morning us calm and productive for everyone and lack posting is a sign things are ticking over ok

Took D's to our church wellbeing clinic yesterday it's informal during a cafe session and has puzzles,colouring,crafts etc out to just chill out with as I think it's important he continues to be around people.we managed 40 mins,which considering how things have been lately I will call it a win
Viking I haven't forgotten about your photo of winter I promised the weather has been very cold but just cloudy no good frosty mornings etc X
Phil how's things at yours?

Hi everybody,
I’ve just found this thread and thought it’d post about my 17yr old dd.
She has been asking me to book her into some kind of retreat for teens to help solve her anxiety/depression.

For a lot of her life, I’d say she has suffered from low mood and bouts of anxiety. She has awful social anxiety in many ways but masks it at times so people think her outgoing.

She says even when she is doing cool stuff, like going out for dinner with friends, going to a concert etc, she always feels straight after that nothing e citing ever happens and even whilst doing these things, says she is never truly happy.

She says feels numb a lot of the time; feels nothing. But I feel it’s as if she actually feels everything (emotionally) and the world perhaps overwhelms her.

When she is down, she watches the Monte Car,o movie over and over again and it seems to momentarily cheer her up. She wants a life of adventure and dreams and sunny times etc and seems to be shunning her every day reality, which is university decisions (she is in Yr 12), chatting to us about how she feels, making decisions that aren’t expensive ones!

She says she isn’t brave enough to kill herself but most days feels as though she doesn’t want to be here. In the past, she has said why did I have her if life is so boring. She hates living in the U.K. and wants something more adventurous. I tell her she is only just turned 17 and she has her whole life ahead but she says I just don’t understand.

Anyway, she has been asking me to look into a teenage retreat type break where she can relax and talk to someone about her anxiety. I’ve looked at the Linden Method Retreat but I’m dubious. Her head seems so full of worries all the time. It must be so scary for her as she can’t fully explain to anyone how she feels and she says she doesn’t trust me (I may on occasion have divulged the odd thing to my mum and it’s got back other but nothing super secret- although I know it’s important not to break her trust).

Does anybody know of a short break for teens with depression/anxiety that’s not the Linden Method?

Forgot to mention, I’ve the past few yrs, I’ve often wondered if she has ASD and she certainly has many traits. Our 14yr old D.S. has high functioning ASD and I do worry for her that it’s not actually typical anxiety for her....but ASD induced anxiety.

verbena welcome
No help on the retreat front,I would add wanting exciting tea etc can be part normal teen not appreciating what you have(iyswim) this is not intended to undermine how you think she's feeling,so please don't take it as anything more than an observation of my own teenagers!!
I'm glad she manages to get out.
I hope you have something you do for yourself and have rl support.it can be very draining when they aren't well
Please feel free to post anytime,good or bad days

Hello everyone - for all struggling to come to terms with life being different than they had envisioned. I went through this when my children were diagnosed with ASD. Please allow yourself to grieve if need be. Life eventually gets back to normal - with ups and downs along the way - like any other family.

Zoo many hugs x. If this thread is anything to go by - you are not alone. I think struggling to keep a child with anxiety in school is not unusual. There will be another path for your DS x

Blubberhouse thank you so much for your story - you've certainly had a lot on your plate. "Grasping at straws" I think is something many of us relate to. Your youngest's story resonated the most with me.

DS1 still out of school. Getting bouts of depression which was bound to happen in the middle of winter and getting more and more anxious about going out. His school wants us to reconsider the school across town with an ASD class. DS1 is too anxious to travel both ways every day to this school (subway and bus) in sketchy neighbourhood. I emailed the Vice Principal Monday to please look into other high schools in quieter neighbourhoods.

Welcome Verbena - I've heard that ASD presents itself differently in females, so you may be onto something? Would you consider mentioning it at a gp appointment?

Viking

Upadate from me. DD has been allowed to come home for lunch which is great but she has been at the receiving end of a lot of online harrassment about it from "friends". They are also relentlessly questioning younger DC at school about it. It seems that its always one step forward, two steps back for us.

to everyone struggling and their DC

I checked out an online tutoring type school thing for my DD (she's doing GCSEs) and it was £750 a week. Er ...

sayatika good news about dd

Thanks ladies.
Last night we chatted and I asked her to do a basic online ADHD for teen girls quiz...just to see what it showed. She did it today at school and said she answered yes to only 4/29 questions. I just did it myself for her (she’s not here), and I ticked yes to around 17/29 of them.

I read up about ADHD compared to ASD last night and to me, that might be something to consider in the future.
She says it’s not her at all but I will chat it through with her when she is more relaxed.

I have Netflix taking care of me in rl . I just like to zone out and watch prime or Netflix....then It’s back to reality!

Sayatike my son did online schooling for a lot less than that.
I’m pretty sure Interhigh School is around £9000 per school year for GCSEs, which is works out as around £257/week.

Verbena37, my son "went" to InterHigh for a year when we were abroad. It cost about £2-3k but I wouldn't recommend it. I've heard there are much better ones. Which one did your son use?

verbena37 ah the Netflix chill out.cant beat that!

We've been to camhs today.occupational therapist is contemplating building a cacti terrarium with D's to build his confidence in her which after last week's chat is a lovely touch,showing she's really turning into the kind of things he is interested in.school are saying a letter stating he's not well enough to be there is adequate "signing him off" so thats being taken care of today

sayatike he went to Interhigh for year 8. It cost £3k. But I know gcse yrs cost more.
It was just enough to support him with at least some academics during his inability to make it to mainstream but in the end, it didn’t work out for him because it didn’t lower his anxiety enough for him to participate.....and we applied and got an EHCP.

In theory though, I thought it was fab.

Evening all. Tentative improvement continues but DD1 did have a panic attack this evening - not sure why, I guess things just go up and down. She’s much better in the mornings now and most importantly seems happier. As well as the anxiety I was beginning to think she was also depressed - my biggest fear is that one day it will all just feel like too much for her. Her mood has lifted now though.

However, she still won’t eat or drink until she’s back in the house after school. The therapist wants her to try to eat something small but she’s absolutely digging her heels in. She’s not restricting her intake - when she gets home she eats loads. Actually I think she’s eating more than she would if she ate in a normal pattern. My instinct is to let it go - as her anxiety lessons eventually she will eat again - but the therapist is determined that eating is the main issue. I’m not sure - I think the main issue is the emetophobia. Any thoughts?

Thanks all.

Bigbus I agree with you and if she's eating plenty outside of school hours it's purely the emetophobia talking,not an eating disorders of any kind.i can say that with confidence as I was similar at school.

Panic attacks are just random sometimes no rhyme or reason to it.i find acknowledge it,but try not to ponder why.as for depression I fret D's will get very low as it's proven untreated anxiety can cause it to spiral.as part of our daily life we practise positive mindfulness (examples pretty sunrises,beautiful patterns in frost,a cashier with a lovely smile,a happy tail wagging dog)sounds crazy but I've read lots that say building a positive mindset and appreciating the little things helps the way you see life.ut does take practise but I find myself in a much better place for it and he is starting to realise how feeling negative Vs positive effects how he copes overall with challenges

Hello everyone. I've spent ages reading this thread and you all sound lovely, so thought I'd dip my toe in...
My DD15 was diagnosed with anxiety/depression nearly 2 years ago. She showed me the self harm cuts on her arm and told me she wanted to die. We were lucky to get a CAMHS appointment really quickly and she's been seeing a lovely psychologist pretty much every week since then. After a year she said she was tired of trying to fight this and asked to go on AD's. She's been on Citalopram since April. They have made a huge difference to her, but haven't 'cured' her by any means. She is taking her GCSE's in a few short months and is very stressed about them. I am finding this so hard. I have taken to comfort eating and have put on almost two stone.

Welcome parlsey

Oh lovely,that sounds very hard on you.do you have real life support?it's very hard watching your child suffer and feeling so helpless to make things better

Please feel free to offload here,we are a very supportive bunch and it's good to know someone will listen.xx

Hello Parsley and welcome. This group has helped me so much.

It’s interesting to hear you have got some benefit from citalopram. The doctor my DD1 sees mentioned fluoxetine if she doesn’t respond to therapy which was not a good thing to say to DD1 because then she thought maybe there is a pill that will fix everything. She’s only 12 and like you I’d like to try some talking therapy first though I’m not anti medication by any means.

I also struggle with comfort eating (and the odd glass of wine at the weekend) - I’m fine during the day but in the evenings I find myself eating rubbish. I’m back at Slimming World which does help and I’ve started exercising again. I wish I was one of those people who went off their food when stressed. I seem to respond to any emotion (good or bad) with eating!

Thank you for getting back to me!
Zoo - when this first kicked off I was very reluctant to talk to anyone, but after a few months I realised I needed support too. DH is old school and inclined to believe DD would 'snap out of it.' I would offload onto him and he would want to 'fix' it and we would both get frustrated. Now he's better, accepts that this is a long term, jagged line. I started opening up to friends and got lots of sympathy and support, even though none of my friends (many with their own teens) had experienced anything this extreme.

Bigbus - our psychiatrist wanted DD to go onto fluoxetine, but in the end went with citalopram because it has a lower dose and he thought that would be better, because of her age. She very quickly went up to 20 mg though. It seemed to kick in within a couple of days and she sleeps better and on the outside can seem to be her old self for a lot of the time. I don't have a problem with medication, but worry that it is just masking what is really going on in her head, not curing her...
Good luck with SW and exercising. I do like swimming and walking and find them both to be very therapeutic. Food is a bit more complicated for me. Reading back what I wrote earlier makes it seem as though DD and her stress has caused me to overeat. Actually I have always had problems with food and - hands up, am greedy and either have an 'on' button (eat everything in sight) or am in sensible mode!
Lovely to meet you - and fingers crossed for a decent weekend...