Family in crisis - where to look for help?

Hi, I’m a newbie to this forum and I desperately look for  help for my 17yo son and my family.

My son has been suffering from OCD for last 3 years. He is most likely to have ASD and was referred for assessment last year but he doesn't agree to have this assessment. He had CBT two years ago and it helped a lot with some aspects of the disease. Last summer we were back to CAMHS as he decided to starve himself and stopped eating. I must say that he is still angry with me for these therapies and consider it to be carried out against his will.

In the current situation of lock down, my son's condition deteriorated a lot. He is disconnected from the world doing rituals all the time until exhaustion like a broken machine. Unfortunately, my husband got involved in the rituals as he wanted to take some stress away from him and help our son but this turned against him. Now my husband has to do all the rituals and my son is absolutely dependant on him. My husband has to put him to bed, take him to toilet, put his shoes, walk him to the park etc and all this takes almost 24 hours as my son doesn't need much sleep. His dinner last for almost 8-10 hours and at best we go to bed 3-4am, at worst 6.30am.

The problem is that my son doesn't agree for therapy and medication. We are in contact with CAMHS but they cant do anything unless he agrees.

We don't have any family life anymore, we are exhausted and tired. We are family in crisis and need help asap to be able to further support our son. We need help with how to manage this situation to improve it and not to make it worse, we need somebody to work with us towards convincing our son to start therapy. We feel abandoned and isolated with our problem. I'm sure there must be some help like family therapy, I just don't know where to turn to find it. CAMHS seems to be useless in a current scenario.

I hope there are people here who maybe have been through something similar and could suggest where to look for help and how to convince our son to go for therapy. Thank you.

Parents
  • Hello there

    I worked for 10 years with children and YP with behavioural difficulties, primarily those on the autistic spectrum, am diagnosed with ASD and had OCD, anorexia and severe anxiety as a young person.

    I am very sorry to hear of the enormous strain you are all under.  It is completely understandable that you are at your wits end and reaching out for support.

    I take it that your son is still in education?  Ask his school/college for an Early Help referral - they are able to do this for you with only your verbal consent.  An Early Help worker will work with your family to help find a way forward and can work with other professionals to ensure that they are fulfilling their duty.  I have worked supporting families in very similar situations to yours - in some cases CAMHS have done home visits in order to build up a rapport in a safe environment for the young person.  It is within their power to do this and I feel that this is an avenue that they should explore.  As someone else has mentioned above, private therapy is also an option if this is within your financial capabilities. 

    With the seeming severity of your son's mental health issues, I would argue that it would be difficult for him to give informed consent either way and the adults around him should be working in his best interests with or without his consent.  I know that is likely to be an unpopular opinion amongst some; however, when I was my most unwell as a young person I self-harmed very severely, developed septicaemia on two occasions, attempted suicide, had extremely low blood pressure due to the anorexia, had developed an arrhythmia due to bulimia, abused substances and was just generally pretty high risk all round, and I still refused to engage with MH services.  Fortunately, the choice was taken out of my hands; I was very angry about this at the time but now am certain that my life was saved by adults acting against my wishes in my best interests. Ultimately, I accept that I did not have mental capacity (in the legal definition of the term) to make choices for myself because I was so unwell. 

Reply
  • Hello there

    I worked for 10 years with children and YP with behavioural difficulties, primarily those on the autistic spectrum, am diagnosed with ASD and had OCD, anorexia and severe anxiety as a young person.

    I am very sorry to hear of the enormous strain you are all under.  It is completely understandable that you are at your wits end and reaching out for support.

    I take it that your son is still in education?  Ask his school/college for an Early Help referral - they are able to do this for you with only your verbal consent.  An Early Help worker will work with your family to help find a way forward and can work with other professionals to ensure that they are fulfilling their duty.  I have worked supporting families in very similar situations to yours - in some cases CAMHS have done home visits in order to build up a rapport in a safe environment for the young person.  It is within their power to do this and I feel that this is an avenue that they should explore.  As someone else has mentioned above, private therapy is also an option if this is within your financial capabilities. 

    With the seeming severity of your son's mental health issues, I would argue that it would be difficult for him to give informed consent either way and the adults around him should be working in his best interests with or without his consent.  I know that is likely to be an unpopular opinion amongst some; however, when I was my most unwell as a young person I self-harmed very severely, developed septicaemia on two occasions, attempted suicide, had extremely low blood pressure due to the anorexia, had developed an arrhythmia due to bulimia, abused substances and was just generally pretty high risk all round, and I still refused to engage with MH services.  Fortunately, the choice was taken out of my hands; I was very angry about this at the time but now am certain that my life was saved by adults acting against my wishes in my best interests. Ultimately, I accept that I did not have mental capacity (in the legal definition of the term) to make choices for myself because I was so unwell. 

Children
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