Autistic daughter whilst managing Bipolar

[Megang1995]

Hi I was diagnosed Bipolar 3 years ago after the birth of my first child

my daughter was later diagnosed autistic not high enough on the spectrum where she needs a specialist setting but high enough that her behaviour impacts my daily living she is very aggressive and has trouble managing her emotions she is only 4 and has a restricted timetable at school due to not being able to cope with full time nursery she has a EHCP in place this has resulted in her being at home a lot the behaviour is starting to have a drastic effect on my mental health and I’m struggling to cope I need to reach out but I’m scared social services will become involved if I say I’m struggling to cope is there an external organisation I can reach out to for help with her behaviour or to potentially take her to activities so we both get a break from each other as I’m scared her behaviour is affecting our relationship as mother and daughter any advice would be helpful sorry for ranting I’m just at my whits end

How is your relationship with your HV?
I have bipolar and my 4 yo has severe silent reflux and 20 food allergies which are a challenge to manage. We were pretty broken in January when we saw a new paediatrician. We had had 6 months of her waking every hour through the night and that was have an impact on my mental health. The paediatrician wrote to our HV to ask her to get involved again and she offered me counselling focusing on parenting a child with other needs whilst also having additional needs myself. It was really helpful.
I'm also seeing my serious mental illness nurse through my GP every 3 months most to chat about life being hard sometimes.
Generally they have been people to have a moan to, without necessarily for them to solve it for me but also not to judge me for finding it difficult.
I have had therapy with the infant parenting service which was to help my relationship with my daughter. My HV arranged this for me
I am also in a local parenting group for parents with children with allergies. It's so helpful to have a group of people in the same situation as me. It might be worth looking to see if there are any groups of this type for parenting children with autism.

In a nutshell, finding lots of people to have chats with has lessened the burden on my mind.