I have an undiagnosed autistic 19-year-old daughter. We have long suspected that she is autistic. She doesn't like plans to go awry, likes sticking to a routine, and has had teenage type tantrums since the age of approximately 6. She has mild learning difficulties and developmental delay that was disagnosed when she was 3. We are waiting for an autism assessment, which is currently suspended due to coronovirus. Unfortunately, this doesn't help my daughter.
She has had problems with depression since around the age of 14. She was bullied in high school, which is and continues to make her depression worse. At the age of 16, her depressive symptoms seemed to slow. Two years ago, she broke her leg, tripping in the street. She spent 3 weeks in hospital and needed an operation to straighten said leg after a month. Her depressive syptoms have slowly made a re-occurance, becoming worse a year ago, leading to suicidial ideation. She has complained of voices, telling her to harm herself since. They have got worse over the past few months. We have spent a few nights in our A&E, leading to 2 community mental health team appointments. One, where she was told that she might be autistic, and the other where she had a test of some kind, and referred to autism services. This would, we were told, take a year to a year and a half. After half a years wait, she received a letter informing her that this was suspended due to Coronavirus, about half a year in to our year to year and a half wait.
Her voices seem to have turned into visual hallucinations of a room full of people. The bigger, the room, the more people she sees. They are not known to her and they are all shouting horrible things, which I will not repeat, save for them all telling her that she must harm herself. We intend to telephone our GP first thing tomorrow. If, as most appointments have been over the past year, and barring a phsyical cause of the hallucinations, we are turned away with a "Yes, autistic", type of comment, I do not know what to do next. Her likely autism has been dismissed as such with most mental health services in our area. We cannot get any further help. Ringing of suicide helplines, gets her told to go to A&E, some of whom will call an ambulance or police, some of whom will not.
From various conversations with her, the auditory and visual hallucinations make her overly anxious, which makes said hallucinations worse. I am the only person available on hand to help, or whom she will accept help from. She is not comfortable with many people and finds it difficult to express her thoughts and feelings, making counselling difficult to impossible, if it were on offer, which it is not. How can I help her to ignore all her voices and people telling her to harm herself and help her control her anxiety about them? I have tried to teach her mindfulness, that she is not extremely receptive to.
Any suggestions greatly received.
