How can I help DD 16 get over crippling anxiety?

[hidinginthegarden]

Especially when she doesn't want to do anything!!

My bright, beautiful and clever DD (16) didn't get on well at school and was on a reduced timetable and we're hoping she'll scrape through her GCSEs to get to college. Her anxiety has exploded since Covid and I hate seeing her in such agony and not being brave enough to do things that most girls her age are doing.

Her mental health's not 'bad' enough for CAMHS to get involved and she doesn't want to see a counsellor. I'm trying to be supportive and encouraging but it's hard when she's upset and crying and saying that she feels sick, about doing really simple things (that I know she can do).

Any encouraging stories of daughters growing out of it or any ideas what I can do to help her get through it?

I'm despairing that she just wants to sit in her room all day of the summer holidays and am terrified that she won't actually be brave enough to go to college in September.

Please be kind - I'm at the end of my tether and it's affecting my own mental health too.

Could you try and build her confidence by doing something new? Like baking / art things? Start small, build up- maybe things that are new to you too?
And perhaps think of ways how you can model good self care- like getting outside at least once a day, going for walks/ excercise to youtube videos?

Is there anything that she's interested in? Animals? Something that she could get involved with volunteering for? Just for half and hour or so at a time?

There's an increasing number of mental health problems which are solved by taking away mobile phones. It would be near to impossible since it's quite possibly her lifeline, whilst simultaneously being her destroyer.

Woukd she try Sertraline? My DD also really struggled through High School with lots of school refusal and Sertraline through the GP has helped.

My DD also can't engage in Counselling but she's recently been given an ASD diagnosis and has some issues with expressing how she's feeling.

Would you DD try this book instead?

Have a look at the benefits of Blue Health too and see if you can get her to walk with you by some local water.

Gentle exposure therapy.

Get her doing (in very small steps) the things she won't do.

Eg if she won't go in to a shop, walk in with her. Then agree with her you will walk down a different aisle, meet her at the end, and see she is safe.

Have you spoken to the college? Many of them,including my own , have summer transition programs, often bespoke to meet needs of their prospective students.
Colleges usually have very good pastoral support in place for those with anxiety.

She's unwell and part of getting better is seeing a counsellor or therapist.

DBT (dialectical behaviour therapy) is recommended for neurodivergent females - this is something you need to look into together. If she wants to overcome this, you need to insist on therapy.

I would also go to the GP with her and explain/investigate everything. Ask for blood tests to rule out any underlying issue. You can then enquire about assessment for ASD/ADHD. Understanding what's underneath the anxiety will open up treatment/support options.

I’m not sure if this is a terrible idea but have you thought of joining your local parkrun? You can go right to the back and just have a walk- it’s a great way to be part of the community without any real interaction. Plus it gets her outside in nature. Then maybe as she feels more comfortable you can consider to volunteer with her? It means for a fleeting second you get to encourage people running and walking without having the awkwardness of needing to talk to strangers. It’s something I encourage my children to do in the hope it will make them comfortable to be in big groups.

How lucky she is though to have you caring for her so much ❤️

@hidinginthegarden my dds anxiety was actually vastly improved by the very unexpected (and probably in your view very much unwanted!) experience of getting pregnant age 17.
she had always been able to avoid things that were too hard for her and this was something she couldn’t. She had to manage appointments and speak to HCP. She then had to actually BE a mother- and God it was hard but she has grown up SOOO much as a result and now can overcome a lot of her anxiety for the benefit of her children (she went on to have more). She still has social anxiety on her own and overthinks everything in life… but it’s manageable.

Her little sister also has anxiety and older dd has said that me allowing her to avoid absolutely everything and not gently push her a bit more didn’t do her any favours so I am trying with dd2 to have more of a “feel the fear and do it anyway”
approach… though she too had a reduced timetable it was seen as a temporary thing and a way to build back to full time which she managed and took control of. I have encouraged her to do some voluntary experiences but she doesn’t have many (any?) friends outside of school as her anxiety stops her from reaching out to anyone and let’s face it- many teenage girls are very much self-engaged and so the girls she is friendly with at school don’t think to ever involve her with anything.
@hidinginthegarden I know how hard it is on you as a mum, it’s like you can’t feel truly settled if your children aren’t. But try to find time together as a blessing as so many parents of teens say they don’t even see their kids and then they grow up and leave. So I try to see that being at home and spending family time is actually a good thing, help her feel her fear and support her to overcome and go to things anyway- she needs this to learn the anxiety is wrong. Watch that new Pixar film- inside out 2… it’s actually very powerful about anxiety and would be a great chance to chat about it all with her.
PM me if you want to offload :)

I think a series of small daily achievements might build her up eg drink 1 litre of water, go for a 20 minute walk, do a guided meditation, building up goals weekly to be more productive/ sociable. Just tiny steps to empower her a bit. The park run goal in a previous post is a brilliant one.

This was exactly my daughter, she's 16 now and during COVId she sat in her room for days in her own. She really hated lessons via Zoom, I think that was part of the problem initially After Covid then she became very anxious, mostly social anxiety so didn't want to go to school or do any activities outside school, just wanted to hide in her bedroom. I remember her sitting with tears running down her face in a restaurant we went to with family, because she felt so anxious.
However now it's almost resolved completely, she's just been away on a weeks DoE residential course that I wouldn't have dreamed of her doing 2 years ago, she volunteers at a school charity project and travels by herself by bus to meet friends.
DoE was really good at building her confidence, especially the volunteering part where we were lucky she could volunteer as a helper at the sports club she was already attending, but finding a good group of friends really made all the difference. She tried a couple of appointments with the school counsellor but didn't find it at all helpful and stopped. I think encouraging but not pushing her to do things she didn't want to (except school) and giving her time to find her feet helped her to work through it, but mainly finding some good friends so she didn't feel isolated was really supportive for her. We were lucky that happened for her though it's not something you can arrange for them. I hope your daughter can work through her anxiety too, it's heart wrenching to watch them struggling.

Following this thread because my DD is similar, except that she’s been prescribed Sertraline which she point blank refuses to take, and has a counsellor who she hates seeing. She won’t leave her room (holidays started early July where we are) last week I was overjoyed because she actually made herself lunch and went to eat it in the garden. It absolutely breaks my heart to see her like this when other teenagers are out there doing stuff, and at the moment I don’t talk to anyone in RL about DD because they don’t get it.

I have tried the step by step, gentle approach but it isn’t working for us ATM. So no advice from me, just sympathy.

Take the phones away and keep them busy.

My Dd was like this.

Then she was diagnosed Audhd.

ADHD meds were a life changer. Like a switch being flipped.

I was similar until around age 16. Terrified of talking to people, hated clothes shopping as I felt like a fraud, that other teenagers would look at me and think “how can she think she can be like us”.

In the main I think I grew out of it (ii think 16/17 is a key age for changes, my eldest DC has become much more confident) but it was also helped by getting a couple of friends from different groups and also going out and walking and listening to music. The latter was exercise and mental break and I think now I would probably have been doomscrolling on the internet instead with opposite views affect.

My eldest DC was very wary for a while of “judgy” teenagers and so felt “safer” around adults. Can you arrange for some volunteering for her to do? A couple of hours a week in a charity shop in an area where she’s unlikely to bump into people from school. Also, I don’t think there is any harm at this age of being her friend - I’m not big on this when friendship groups are stable but if you can matter of factly go to the cinema, cafe, shopping with her without commenting about contacting others her age to do it with then she is having experiences that are parallel to those of other kids her age and that she can refer to if she ever has conversations with them (she doesn’t have to say it was with her mum!). Can only suggest getting her outside and out of herself as much as you can.

My DD collapsed at start of Covid with anxiety and depression. She was y10 at the time, missed all of y11.

Anxiety over germs, crowds, anywhere unpredictable.

I don't think not seeing a counsellor should be an option.

With DD we saw a private psychiatrist after about 6months and she was put on to fluoxetine, and GP earlier put her on to propranolol. These eased symptoms enough to access counselling. She had also done some 'equine assisted therapy' which tied into her love of animals.

Non negotiable was also short walk each day.

DD has slowly slowly improved, with very gentle steps, leveraging her love of animals got her through college with new EHCP. But she still has a much restricted life, but we have our daughter mainly back.

There is a children's mental health board on MN where I have a 'there is hope' thread under an older Teen user name.

re College.

My DD's college had quite a bit of support, but it was only available once we had the EHCP process underway, which surprisingly she was approved for assessment within a few days of us sending in the letter. However as she was 'failing' with her first week of college it was clear she needed support.

Anyway, DDs' college were able to offer:
. access to the quiet learning support room for start of day and free periods
. anxiety toilets (extra wide, automatic doors and taps etc)
. choose where to sit in the room
. red card to leave lessons if overwhelmed
. regular weekly sessions with on site wellbeing team
. no moaning if she couldn't make it in on some days
. only resitting one GCSE each year (but lessons for both)

She also however dropped down a level (or 2) of her vocational course to lower demand and it meant she could catch up easily if she missed some lessons. She's had a 'gap' year, but the EHCP is allowing her to return in September to do the next level up.

Thank you so much for taking the time to offer suggestions, support and hope.
She is active in that she dances and helps out with the little ones. She's been asked to help with a summer holiday dance club but the distress she was in beforehand was awful. Crying and feeling sick. She went and it was fine and today was ok but yesterday felt like it was going to break her.

It's funny, some things she can do but if it's at all out of her comfort zone it's a major trauma. But the ability masks the fear in some things.

I will start getting her out for a walk with me each day without her phone and will certainly talk to college about the echp to see if that will help. And go and see Inside out 2.

But is she ever going to be able to work (how?). Lots of her friends have Saturday or summer jobs and she's just being left out. It breaks my heart.

But she's not open to doing anything about it and refuses to talk about it when she's calmer! I feel out of options. I'd get her to a counsellor if I could.

Please make an appointment for her to see your GP. I don't want to alarm you, but she coud potentially have a serious psychiatric condition. Get it checked before everything escalates.

DD had no part time job during college, she needed non college days to collapse and recover.
This year (not at college) she has done some unpaid work experience which has led to occasional paid days that I am hoping will continue in half terms and holidays this year. I think it unlikely she will manage paid work and 4 days a week at college.

Propranolol is very good at calming panics. I would definitely ask GP about that.

Why does she say she doesn't want to see a counsellor/therapist?

I'd really recommend reading/listening to the book 'The Anxious Generation'.

My best friends dd aged nearly 16 has had an awful 2 years. Didn't leave the house for a long time. Now diagnosed adhd and then ASD. Had to go private because the nhs waiting time to even be seen in Surrey was 2 years but a few months ago she was told it's now become 8 years. Sertraline, counselling , loads of books and online therapy and a personal therapy.

What have you tried up till now. Gp? How are school supporting?

Don’t worry about the jobs, loads of kids her age don’t have them and there are plenty of threads about kids of 16/17 finding it really hard to find them.

There's info about exposure ladders here: https://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/~/media/CCI/Mental-Health-Professionals/Anxiety/Anxiety---Information-Sheets/Anxiety-Information-Sheet---06---Situational-Exposure.pdf

And general resources:

https://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/Resources/Looking-After-Yourself/Anxiety

Thank you all. (Sorry not good at tagging user names on my ancient phone).

She doesn't want to see a counsellor as she saw one for a short period before starting secondary school and didn't feel it helped. She just won't talk about it and whenever I try to bring it up, I'm making it worse and she just closes down.

She did talk to a guidance teacher at school who I could maybe enlist her encourage her to see someone - albeit she's not at school any more. I thought it was a school problem and that it would get better when she finished.

When I spoke to the GP, they said that they wouldn't refer her as she isn't self harming. But I'd take her somewhere if she would go!!

She won't come to the dr either - is totally terrified. She has acne and I'm sure they could give her something to help.

Maybe I just need to stand firmer about the dr. But I don't want her to think I'm against her too.