Published on 12, July, 2020
My daughter 14 has been under camhs for 2.5yrs. When first referred she had developed a phobia of eating,, due to a choking incident. We did lots of cbt/exposure therapy. She was diagnosed with arfid and after looking at her as a whole and how she responded to the sessions, which wasn't well ans progress was painfully slow, she was referred ans diagnosed with Autism.
Her eating is now manageable at her usual restrictive level and her weight is stable. She suffers so badly with anxiety, she wants to do social things,, but just can't. Our recent camhs sessions have been to face her fears slowly, that's not gone well at all, she now refuses to engage with camhs at all and just has a meltdown. So next appointment is a review and medication was going to be suggested at this appointment if she hadn't progressed.
I want her to be able to enjoy her childhood without anxiety crippling her, so I'm at the point I think we need to try, but my daughter refuses to take any medication because anything unknown /new triggers anxiety, but the meds might help the anxiety.. So how do you deal with this? Also have people seen benefits with medication in teens?
Medication in this instance is pointless, Anti Anxiety medication used at an early age can affect brain development which can have negative complication in the future. The human brain typically stops developing at age 30.
I have been given so many different medication from age 16 to 24 and nothing has help the anxiety. The best thing you can do is explore autism friendly stress management and grounding to help her learn coping strategies.
I do not blame her for dis engaging with CAMHS, Has she been left alone with them because they can do some horrific things in secret from parents. I've had a similar session at CAMHS where they accused me of attention seeking, Turns out I did have autism and ADHD. Sometimes they ignore and dismiss what saying to them and they repeat the same thing until they get the response out of you that they want.
And yet I have just been reading many many examples on my local autism forum, of teens who have really had their lives turned around by being prescribed the right medication - ie. certain anti-depressants to help with anxiety, enabling them to take back a bit of control in their lives. So I wouldn't say that medication is pointless. I would say that everyone's experience is different and that you need to find what works for you. Medication will, I believe, be of enormous benefit to some people, but not for all.
She's only recently started going in alone, she's done 4 sessions without me and about 50 sessions with me. To get her to engage during the sessions where I attended we played a board game through the session and only when she rolled a 6 would they do things with her, to get her to enjoy the sessions and engage, she will not discuss what they do now, I oy knew what her 'homework' was as the lady discussed after the sessionm she did look into grounding techniques, but not with camhs with a different service, but I think she was too young to grasp them at the time, perhaps something that we could revisit