We have a 30 year old DD who has un-diagnosed mental health issues.
There have been various incidents through the years, mostly involving alcohol, the worst of which was assaulting a member of the family and the police called (by her). Due to the severity of this issue she was told she could no longer live with us. This was never followed through as a full alcohol ban was implemented and there was a moderate improvement.
She is a heavy cannabis users and this seems to be her crutch on living daily life. Without this, she is unable to cope with reality and every days wakes up crying and the most minor thing (spilling something) can trigger what she describes as an episode, this will generally involve her hitting herself in the head violently, shouting and screaming and more crying.
Self harming (cutting) is also a constant issue.
She has 2 elderly cats that she looks after and says she will kill herself when they go and also has told us she’s described in depth to the GP on how she will do it.
After an episode and a smoke, despite causing mass tension in the house, she will frequently come in all happy as if nothing has happened.
After a change of tactic in how to deal with her, we now try and calm her down and make sure everything is good for her to wake up to. This sometimes works but sometimes doesn’t.
She’s asked us to not approach her with issues just as she wakes up and wait for a couple of hours.
It feels like we are slowly having to do everything for her and more and more is getting put on our plate just to keep the peace.
We think this is not actually doing her any good as nothing is really improving and her coping strategies are not getting developed.
It seems we have a 10 year old in a 30 year olds body.
We have sought help via the NHS and local council, especially the head hitting and self harming. There advice is to call 999 (or 111 crisis) but as soon as we say that’s happening she just says she’s going to work so the police/ambulance would be wasted. She also works in security and says she would lose her job.
They also advised us to not stop her smoking cannabis if that was her coping mechanism, we are not convinced on this point.
From her side, she is constantly cancelling mental health and GP appointments and starts and stop prescribed medication a lot, blaming the GP has not prescribed correctly.
We are concerned that at some point the head hitting will be one hit too many..
We would appreciate any advice anyone else has with similar situations as we don’t really know how to improve this situation.
Thank you