Just after a bit of advice regarding my teenage daughter's mental health. I have never suffered with any type of mental health issues so finding it really hard to understand what she is going through and how to help,
She has always been a clingy child and always needed adult reassurance - she has never been able to cope being away from me or her dad even as a child school residentials and sleepovers caused her anxiety. When she was about 14 she was very slowly beginning to break away from me and her dad - she went to the shop on her own twice and lasted a whole night at a birthday party sleepover - 3 days later lockdown happened - when she went back to school after lockdown when everybody else started getting their lives back she retreated back into herself even more - she stopped seeing friends out of school, refused to walk home from school unless I met her , and generally wanted to stay home for ever. In her mock GCSES her mental health really declined and she was having panic attacks and being sick before all her exams and the same for GCSE's. Unfortunately due to her poor grades due to her anxiety she ended up at college doing a BTEC course even though she is a high achiever with low exam results no sixth form would allow her to do A levels and with the exam anxiety she suffered in GCSE's we thought A levels would probably not be ideal. However as part of her BTEC she has do work experience in the spring and already she is being sick and not sleeping at the dread of having to be around people in an adult environment without me.
In the summer I was very scared she would just sit in all day every day which she loves and gets very cross because I don't allow her to do this so I made her apply for jobs and she got an interview on zoom and works one day a week in retail. For the first 6 or so shifts she was being violently sick and I had literally deliver her to the door. Now 6 months on she doesn't give it a second thought.
My thinking was the more new things she does the more her anxiety would hopefully subside but it actually is getting worse and more prolonged before anything new.
She is angry at me for not just letting her stay home all the time because she is happy and anxiety when home with me or her dad and us making her doing things is what causes the anxiety. It doesn't help that I have a friend whose daughter is 23 and hasn't left the house since for longer periods of time than a hour for 4 years. She doesn't have a job and her parents are happy for her not to have one as she is so happy and content at home reading and watching tv. Apparently because she doesn't go out she doesn't spend money so she doesn't need a job!!
I love new adventure, visiting new places, meeting new people and generally being out and about. I very rarely get nervous and spend time overthinking stuff like she does. I am in essence the completely opposite of her.
She says I am her protector and she only feels safe when I am with her as she feels the world and the people in it are very scary.
We paid some private counselling last year but at £50 a session we do not have the money to fund this and the GP said CAMHs waiting list is about 3 years so he wouldn't refer her - he do however prescribe propranalol which she takes occasionally but the problem now she is getting older there are more new things she needs to try .
I would just like a bit of advice as how people cope with these horrible feelings of dread. We have tried beating it but it makes her so ill trying to get out in the big wide world.
I would like to know if this is something that will get better as she gets older or if I want her to feel happy and well do I let her stay home with me where she feels safe and secure.
I ask on this board as I was interested if teenage anxiety gets better over time or if she will always feel this way. Are there people out there who can really be 100% happy never going out or seeing people??