Hi,
Basically a long story but my 8 year old daughter over the last few years has shown a lot of signs that we have thought autism or something else. She has had tics over the last 2 years which come in waves they will be severe where it’s disturbing her school and constant then they will calm down again. The tics have been eye blinking and making a croaking noise with her throat and sniffing her nose. She had an initial appointment with CAHMS around 15 months ago whom said that they don’t think my daughter has behaviour or mental health, they think it’s more ASD and have referred her to be seen by the autism team. She takes everything very literal and if she feels she is getting treated unfairly or there is an injustice it causes a war in our house. Fast forward 15 months and we are no further along with the autism assessment but things got so severe that my daughter has been having intrusive thoughts saying her brain is telling her to kill mum or dad, put a pencil in her head, touch a knife off her, put bobbles around her neck, she has been worrying 24/7 for the past week. She is very worried about germs like touching her tshirt and then touching something else, or fixing her trousers then touching something, she feels dirty. Also she told me that one of her friends in school (p4) male told her that his neighbour (p7) also at the school flashed his privates to him. My daughter has been obsessing over this every minute of the day and says even the thought of this boys name is worrying her. I was worried sick and asked if anyone has ever touched her private body parts or asked to see them or showed theirs to her and she says no. She is worrying about really small things all throughout the day and says she has to tell me all her thoughts for it to make her feel better. This has been sometimes around 70x per day. As some of the thoughts she has been having have been unsafe, I phone the autism team whom passed me back to CAHMS. They arranged an appoint and we were seen with two child psychologists. In assessment telling them everything, also forgot to mention that my daughter has a lot of routine things she does such as shakes her feet coming out the shower 30x each, kisses her teddies in a certain order each night, has a handshake she needs to do with teddy (roll one sleeve up then the other, kiss the teddy. Say no love you, shake the hand each and then kiss it again), pinching her arm while waiting on game loading, loads of little repetitive things like that. She also repeats the same words and has done for years a lot. The main one is love you she says it constant and you have got to say it back each time. When she goes out the living room door she goes love you mum, love you dad, love you honey (our dog) love you Aaron (her brother) every time. She also has been saying she is touching her privates incase there is tissue paper in them. Anyway after assessing her CAHMS have said that they don’t think it’s mental health and all this is because she is ASD. Basically we are in same position as they said they will write a letter back to autism team to keep her on the waiting list. I honestly don’t know how to cope in mean time with all these thoughts from minute she opens her eyes until she goes to bed. I am reassuring her in every way I can but it’s not working. I don’t know how my daughter can cope like this every day is like torture for her and it’s taken her happiness away. Also my daughter mostly is the sweetest extremely caring person and the psychology it’s said that’s part of why she’s worrying so much as she is very empathetic and caring so she is thinking in to everything. I thought she would have OCD and we would get some help for this! Sorry for the long post, I am really looking for someone who has experienced things like this and what help is there? I’m at a loss and really want to help my daughter. We are in Glasgow.