Hello, hope everyone is well.
I am updating here in case any parent is looking for advice in the future and sees this. The more information out there on this the better.
Its been a while since I posted. Things have slowly improved. I haven’t been assaulted by my daughter since the end of April. Although only a couple of months it’s a massive improvement on the daily beatings coming my way before as well as the constant police visits.
i think I said previously that my friend came to stay with us for just over a week. She gave me the strength to push harder for help. As a result of her being able to help deal with social services ( who were not doing much ) we had a result. The services sent in specialised carers. They go into homes where child to parent abuse is going on. They came and sat with me every night , including bank holidays and weekends for about a month. They came late afternoon / early evening as that was classically peak ‘kicking off ‘ time. They would leave each night at midnight. So, between the carers and my friend we had four or five weeks of someone else in the house every day. That broke a pattern. On top of this I enrolled in a programme which works to recognise patterns and helps parents to lay back down the rules of the home.
my daughter is back to attending school part time and will go back full time in September.
it’s still early days but I wanted to give some hope to folks out there experiencing similar. Every day is becoming a little easier. I worry about a flare up again but until that happens I am just keeping the work going and building on the progress we have. Things are not perfect and we still have the verbal nastiness daily. It’s less angry but more trying to wind me up.
I will update into October once the going back to school has been full time for a month.
I thought it was hopeless. Whatever the underlying cause is of all this hasn’t been cured. She hasn’t really spoken to anyone in depth or been diagnosed with anything. Cahms tell me that it’s not a mental issue but a behavioural one. I’m having rouble seeing the line between what would be classed as mental and what would be classed as behavioural here. However, my aim is to get her to a point where she will open up more as perhaps then we can make some headway to that. I’m not an expert on mental health but the thing that made the most sense to me is some type of personality disorder which a previous poster mentioned several times. However, one step at a time.
if you are reading this and in the same position as I was when I posted my original message here for help then I want to say to you - push harder for help. Write to your local MP, get in touch with Social Service regulators. As a parent or as anyone - you should not have to be beaten black and blue in your own home or anywhere else on a daily basis for the services to help you. Your life is important and you matter.