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Teenagers

Parenting teenagers has its ups and downs. Get advice from Mumsnetters here.

Original poster

My daughter won't leave house - anxiety/panic attacks

30 replies

tigergoat · 22/02/2023 18:01

I posted recently about my 14 year old daughter's emetophobia linked to her anxiety. She is under CAMHS but hasn't received consistent support since November for various unavoidable reasons. When she was seeing them regularly, she was making progress. We are waiting for contact from a new MH nurse trained in CBT- hopefully within next couple of weeks. However, now it is half term, she is refusing to leave the house at all because she's afraid of having a panic attack and barely leaves her bedroom despite me trying to coax her on short walks every day. Thankfully, she has lovely friends who do come over to see her. School is difficult for her because of her anxiety and panic attacks but she attends regularly. Hoping to hear from anyone who has been though similar and come out the other end and to hear experiences of CAMHS working or not in the long run. Also, if anyone did go down the road of anxiety medication and experiences of that please. Thank you!

OP posts:
Mysa74 · 09/06/2023 07:22

Hi tiger, did she get to school? how was the concert?
I so hope it went well?
My DD made it in for 1030 the first day and 9am the second. 3rd day they were short of staff and had visitors so didn't have anyone in the second session to keep an eye on her so asked her to go back into the classroom for a bit which tripped the anxiety. She shut down completely. I had calls from the school to go and talk to her which didn't work so we took her home for lunch. Couldn't get her to go back for the afternoon. Thursday she went in at 12. Today we've told her to just go for the afternoon and try to join in, she seems happier with the ½ days.
I'm worried that the writing is becoming a bit of an addiction if you know what I mean? Shes only happy in front of the screen or with her jotter escaping into her fanfic world...

AceofPentacles · 09/06/2023 07:31

I suffer from emetophobia and also autistic. CBT didn't work for me as rigid thinking makes it difficult. What did help in bad periods of panic attacks was self hypnosis. There are lots of apps so you can find one that's suitable. Personally I used Paul McKenna I can make you confident twice a day and within three weeks I was able to go out again with no issues .

HeBeaverandSheBeaver · 09/06/2023 12:25

Dd suffered from age 14 is now 17. A year of private cbt helped. Expensive. We got the first 20 sessions on dh health insurance.

Then diagnosed with adhd and now poss and probably ASD.

Dropped out of sixth form but got GCSEs and decent results.

Finally getting her back on track Her phobia has been massively better for a few years but the adhd and asd has been the root cause of this I'm sure.

Glad your dd is getting better now.

mayflowergardens · 09/06/2023 15:15

TeenDivided · 31/05/2023 12:03

If they have a different illness you wouldn't rule out medication, so don't rule it out for this.

DD is on Fluoxetine (anti depressant, but has anxiety reducing impact too) and Propranolol (beta blocker). Getting on the meds (Propranolol at 15.5, AntiD at 16.5 approx) was a game changer for her, and allowed her to engage better in therapy and school/college work. We are 3 years in and still a work in progress, but so much better than before she started the antiDs 2 years ago.

We never did get to the top of CAMHS wait list before she turned 18. We went private for Consultant Psych and got therapy via another route.

Have she experienced any side effects?

TeenDivided · 09/06/2023 15:22

@mayflowergardens
No I don't think so. She ramped up very slowly initially.
She takes it in the morning with breakfast.

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