Anxiety - how to help my dd age 18?

[Snog]

My dd has struggled with anxiety for a few years now. She is now 18 and it is really affecting her life and her future education.

CBT seems to be the only thing on offer round here and has a wait time of around a year. We were on the list in the past but having waited for months we were only offered location and times that were not possible to do. I am considering private therapy which will be a financial stretch but worth it if it helps.

Has anybody had any success in helping their child with anxiety? What worked for you?

Praise her , desensitize her to situations , be kind , caring , understanding . Tell her blushing is normal , practice social skills with her .

Thank you Lola.
I do try to be caring and understanding. Her social skills are pretty good I think. Can you expand on how to desensitise her to situations as that sounds good?

@Snog With you present ask her to converse with people tell her that you will intervene if things get uncomfortable :at the shop, at the bus stop, on the train , at a restaurant... you get it this may take a while before she cracks it and gets used to it ...next , ask her to keep a diary and write down the conversations she has alone with people in her diary and go through the diary with her daily asking her if she felt ok about the conversation :what could have gone differently etc ? And advise her. next maybe get her to recite something in front of family members /friends (maybe do this a few times) and then maybe think about getting her into a drama class , maybe keeping a diary here too . Maybe Ask the doctor if they will prescribe her propalonol too ... these are beta blockers and tell her to take one before she converses .. good luck

What exactly makes her anxious and what is she worried will happen? For example, is public transport an isssue? If so, is she worried about the other people, it breaking down, having a panic attack, looking silly, etc. Once you know these things you can start to tackle it. Small steps and lots of patience. I’ve had anxiety on and off for over 20 years. It’s not easy but if she can try and beat it early on, that’s best.

I assumed it was social anxiety feel a bit silly now

What causes her anxiety?

Thanks everyone for trying to help, it means a lot because I am really struggling to help her.

She was unable to go on a planned group holiday abroad this week as so worried about what she would eat on holiday (the others had agreed to eat vegetarian and my dd is v fussy and hates vegetables!)
And worried about not having any time alone to recharge after being sociable. Also petrified of NOT going on holiday and what her friends would think.

She's also worried about her new course in a September, about getting a job, about phoning anyone, and everything I would expect her to look forward to is just a terrible worry and she feels overwhelmed by life.

Some of that would be classed as social anxiety, so you weren’t wrong lola212121

You could take a CBT approach with each worry, so for example with the holiday and not wanting to eat vegetables, was she worried about saying she wanted something different? What were her thoughts? Did she think people would think her strange? Be annoyed with her? Then get her to look at the evidence for each though, and how much she believes it as a percentage. Then look at other thoughts she could replace it with.

She needs to retrain her brain to sort of argue against the worrying thoughts. Easier said than done!

Also, she could try mindfulness as that bring the focus into the here and now rather than the future. This is a good skill to use daily and when feeling anxious, but I’d also try the CBT approach.

Also, do some graduated exposure. For example she doesn’t like phone calls. Get her to phone someone where the pressure is allow, or where it’ll be a quick call. Do this many times until she feels more comfortable with it, then step it up a level.

She could also try EFT, Emotional Freedom Technique - have a look online for how to do it and watch some videos.

Medication is also an option, depending on how bad she feels and how much it’s affecting her.

Do you know what’s triggered it or is it something that’s come on gradually?

Where the pressure is LOW

She has always been anxious, it's particularly bad at the moment I think because the move from childhood into adulthood is stressful

I've had CBT myself for anxiety so I have tried to help her with some of the techniques that I remember. She is quite resistant to this and just says it doesn't help.

It's very difficult knowing what is anxiety and what is teenage reluctance to grow up and take responsibility/ laziness. She is really hanging back from taking ownership and agency with her life. So at the moment I am insisting that she help around the house, cooking a meal each week, hoovering and cleaning the bathroom. She is not happy about this and claims she is then too exhausted to do anything else.

She also has a crap diet with zero fruit and veg which she refuses to change whilst insisting she is trying to improve it. And won't take any exercise. So to some degree I feel she is refusing to help herself but she insists that diet and exercise are not the answer.

I wouldn't lean towards calling it usual teenage reluctance, it doesn't sound like it is tbh and she likely feels worse than you realise.

My dd had crippling social anxiety and general anxiety. She couldn't go out, she couldn't go to school she couldn't make phone calls and she was getting worse and had depression. She had counselling and CBT for years but tbh the only thing that made any difference at all was medication. It totally changed her.

Once she was on the medication she was able to control her anxiety a lot more and was able to go out and do things she never was able to do. It also made her more receptive to the cbt and was able to engage with it a lot more which also made a difference.
Absolutely one way to combat anxiety is to desensitise to the triggers but my dd couldn't take the step to do what caused the anxiety in order to begin to retrain the brain, but she can now and is so much better and leads a relatively 'normal' life. She'll most likely always have anxiety but she is able to manage it now.

I also have a daughter with no mental health issues and could see the difference, and I knew it wasn't purely teenage angst.

I'd also get your dds bloods done to check her B12, folate and vitamin D levels. A deficiency in these particularly can have a negative impact on mental health and cause symptoms of anxiety and depression. If she doesn't eat vegetables her folate levels maybe low for example.
My dd had these deficiencies and treatment has also made a huge difference.

Of course not everyone wants to go down the medication route and it will depend on the severity of her symptoms and just how much it's affecting your dd.

@ineedtostopbeingsolazy thank you very much for this advice and information. Really good to hear that your dd is able to manage a lot better now and yes I also think that my dd will probably always have anxiety and the aim is to minimise its impact and manage it.

Unfortunately my dd is refusing blood tests as she has had a traumatic needle experience. She has had a better experience since but is still very reluctant to have them. She also can't take tablets so it's more tricky to get supplements into her. And seeing the doctor of course makes her super anxious and she has no faith that they will help at all.

I'm reluctant to try meds but I'm definitely not discounting it - was it an SSRI that helped your dd?

This happened to my dd about the same age, luckily we were on bupa at the time. I went on their website and found a psychiatrist who was local to her (she was at uni)

We were able to get an appointment within a week or so I think. The dr prescribed antidepressants and referred her to a counsellor who she saw weekly for a time.

We were lucky that my daughter really liked her counsellor (the anxiety made her very picky). This turned her life around ( tho it took a few months)

We no longer have bupa but have told her that if she has any problems we will pay for her to go and see the therapist again. It is very very expensive but worth it. If it’s the cost of a family holiday we don’t take then that’s ok. It’s worth it not just for her benefit but the whole family.

I just feel desperately sorry for anyone whose finances don’t allow for this.

The only problem is finding the right therapist. I chose a highly qualified psychiatrist (I looked up all the relevant qualifications) who was also working out of a hospital as well as private. It was her that chose the female counsellor.

My daughter is 19 she also suffers from anxiety especially in social situations. She had counselling but she has also just started anti depressants which she was unsure about as was I . But she’s been on them for a month and we can already see a difference in her and she is managing to interact more socially and has got a holiday job which she feels a bit overwhelmed with sometimes but is determined to stick at it. Not saying medication is always the answer and everone is different but it’s definitely helping her . She is on a ssri called setraline if that’s any help xx

Also my daughter hates taking tablets but hers are very small and the pharmacist who was lovely told her she can crunch them up when she takes them xxx

I suffered terribly from anxiety in my late teens. After several unsuccessful attempts with the NHS (overly long waiting times, no consistency with therapists...) my parents found me a private psychiatrist and I can honestly say it changed my life. As well as talking therapy, he prescribed me an SSRI (which I still take to this day, and my anxiety is pretty much under control!)

I am forever grateful I was able to do this privately. As a PP said above, I too feel awful that this isn't within everyone's reach. If there is any way you can afford to do this, I strongly suggest you do.

This is going to sound mean but don't constantly reassure her all the time and don't try to preventevery situation that causes her anxiety.

The reason for this us that while it is great to have somebody there helping you and reassuring you and removing you from anxiety inducing situations, it makes you less able to cope with them in the long run.

Does that make sense?

Thank you for the replies which I so appreciate. We have created a shortlist if possible therapists to try and I'm giving some thought to medication, it's really encouraging and helpful to hear other people's stories.

The thing to remember with SSRIs is that your DD will probably feel worse for a short while before she feels better.

Doctors don't always tell patients this and it can be a shock to start feeling worse when you start taking the medication that you are expecting to make you feel better.

You have to give the medication a chance to build up in your body and then you will start to feel better.

There are many different SSRIs but the most common ones (that I can think of) are fluoxetine (Prozac), citalopram (Celexa), escitalopram (Lexapro) and sertraline (Zoloft).

For reasons unknown some people swear by one SSRI and other people swear by another SSRI.

The thing to remember is that if one SSRI doesn't work then you can try another one and there is every chance that the new one will work and really help the patient.

Snog yes she's on an SSRI and the pp is right in saying that if one doesn't seem to be working as well as you'd expect then try another.
I'm sure that there's a syrup type of SSRI if she can't take tablets, maybe fluoxetine I can't remember but there is that option too to look into.

Maybe once her anxieties are more under control she'll be able to go for bloods.
Wishing you all the best.

I'm sure that there's a syrup type of SSRI if she can't take tablets
I haven't looked properly but here are two that do for sure -

www.medicines.org.uk/emc/product/414/smpc
Citalopram

www.medicines.org.uk/emc/product/8040/pil
Fluoxetine

If you want any help or advice then feel free to ask because I have tried all of the ADs that I mentioned earlier.

I took my dd to the GP this week as things have been getting worse rather than better and I felt like I was out of options...so the GP said she has probably been quite ill for some time and prescribed citalopram.
We are waiting to get through the initial side effects and hoping it will have an effect.

Big thank you to everyone who has been so supportive on this thread. It is tough seeing your child struggle.