Published on 12, July, 2020
My daughter, 18, is suffering with really bad anxiety. Chloe has a job cleaning a house, 3 hours a week. She also has a babysitting/child sitting job which she goes to once every few weeks. I'm am off work this week so she is going to clean one of my customers houses. To help with her anxiety, I am making her a jobs list of what she needs to clean.
Her anxieties are also based around money. She really struggles to save so always ends up having no money left at the end of the month. She mainly spends money on petrol because of how many miles she drives a week. She can drive over 100 miles a day sometimes. She says she loves driving because her brain is stimulated at all times and she can listen to music. If anyone knows what activities she/we can do which can substitute the driving, please let me know!
Her anxieties are causing daily frequent tears and high emotions, however I can see she is bottling it in. She is hard to get her to see family friends, but they are very understanding in her needs which makes it easier for everyone.
I am trying to keep routines the same, for example she is obsessed with Criminal Minds and is watching the series, making PowerPoints about the profilers/agents and the criminals, which is impressive. I am using visual timetables and schedules with her again. I am also offering tablets to stop her menstruation this month because this will make it all worse. I am also giving her tablets to help her sleep again.
If anyone knows of any other ideas or opinions, please share them, whatever they may be. She is really struggling.
What about walking? She can have her music on and still be moving, or gym stuff?
Has she been checked out properly for things like endometriosis? These things often get missed in girls and young women, there can be all sorts of medical reasons for painful periods and not all of them gynaecological, it could be back problems from something like an old injury or fall? Is it the bleeding itself that gets to her or is she suffering premenstrally too? I'm guesing that she's not anaemic, either in iron or B12? It can be such a struggle to get menstrual problems taken seriously, either going on the pill or having a baby seem to be the standard medical answers, not that there might be something actually wrong, thats treatable, many women have to wait years to be diagnosed properly and it's so wrong.
I find forensics interesting too, but I did find Criminal Minds got a bit to depressing after a while, may be you could steer her towards either studying psychology or forensic medicine, just to widen her focus a bit?
Does she know what she's anxious about? Or is it more amorphous general anxiety? Could her anxiety and menstral cylcle all be linked? A lot of women have a week after thier periods feeling "normal", then the anxiety starts grinding in after the mid month, ovulation cycle. You say you're going to give her tablets to stop her periods this month, but is it really helping her, I get that short term it could. Is she one the pill or something already, as that can cause all sorts of hormonal upsets, it's possible to have two hormonal cycles battling away in your body, your's and the one imposed by the pill?
I don't know, I'm just throwing some ideas out, I hope things settle for you both, I remember to well the monthly roller coaster and am so glad I no longer have it.