Please help with 15yr old self harming and anxiety attacks

LE3

I work in a school & see loads of children with anxiety, especially at this time of year with exams looming.
Please encourage your child to find a "safe" member of staff they can go to - their head of year maybe, or the school nurse, or even the receptionist ... We have a couple of students who suffer from severe anxiety/panic attacks that know they can go to the medical room at any time to find a friendly face or just to calm down - they are usually back in lessons within 10 mins
Please talk to the school to see how they could help

pandora205

I'm an educational psychologist and work in schools including a secondary school. Your son's school will have a link EP who can support school in addressing exam stress (both for groups and individuals) and school related anxiety. As the previous poster has mentioned this is actually quite common at this time of year but needs to be taken seriously.
Your GP should be able to refer to the local CaMHS service if there are significant mental health issues but often thresholds for their services are quite high. You may find that your school has a link CaMHS (tier 2) practitioner who runs drop ins in school.
Your first port of call is really whoever deals with pastoral matters at school. This may be the SENCo or could be the head of year or pastoral deputy. Schools should have various support in place for young people with emotional difficulties, especially at this time of year.

hollyh

Thank you so much for your replies. He's gone to school today because he has an appointment with the counceller he wanted to keep. I'm going to ring the school later and try and get an appointment and take him back to a different Dr Monday.

pandora205

One final thought - if your son is doing GCSE exams and his performance has been affected, you may wish to ask your GP for a note confirming his problems as this could be submitted to the exam boards if his grade is lower than expected. It is much more difficult have this taken into account after the results are out.

jellyhead

LE3 wrote: »

I work in a school & see loads of children with anxiety, especially at this time of year with exams looming.
Please encourage your child to find a "safe" member of staff they can go to - their head of year maybe, or the school nurse, or even the receptionist ... We have a couple of students who suffer from severe anxiety/panic attacks that know they can go to the medical room at any time to find a friendly face or just to calm down - they are usually back in lessons within 10 mins
Please talk to the school to see how they could help

A few children at the school my son goes to have a 'time out' card which allows them to leave a lesson and go to the pastoral office.

I don't know how it would work in exams though, unless perhaps he could do them in a smaller group with other pupils who get extra time or whatever?

I hope you get some support from school today.

Facebook can be a mixed blessing. Their best friends are on there, but also a fair amount of people they just 'know' and even close friends might not be sympathetic towards things they don't understand and haven't experienced themselves.

My son's friend got a hard time on facebook when she went through a phase of pouring out all of her teenage emotions. A few of her 'friends' were really quite cruel, and almost everyone was dismissive and thought she was just attention seeking. It was better when she had a break from facebook and just talked to some close friends on MSN, or in person.

If he gets a lot of joshing in the classroom about what he's put on facebook that won't help his anxiety levels if he's in full time school (is he an old year 10, or a young year 11 on study leave?).

Reassure him that his best is good enough, and that he probably doesn't need a dozen a* to get on in life. Resits aren't the end of the world.

Does he need to take all of these exams? Are they early ones, or is he resitting something that could just be left at the grade he got last time?

hollyh

He's in year 10 they have split the exams throughout years 10 and 11 i believe so next year it'll be even worse. He's in the top 2% of intelligence for his year group so they have high hopes for his grades. I think that may be putting him under a lot of pressure though because he's expected to do very well.

Regarding facebook he doesn't know i've been on there. I deleted his status not messages. I doubt he'll even notice to be honest.

Shovel_Lad

hollyh wrote: »

Regarding facebook he doesn't know i've been on there. I deleted his status not messages. I doubt he'll even notice to be honest.

I really think you should tell him what you have done. I don't want to overly worry you, but how do you think he will feel and react if he finds out that a status he has posted has "disappeared"?

Under normal circumstances, a person may feel puzzled, confused, annoyed even if a status mysteriously vanishes; but as you have said, he has been talking about "hearing voices again" plus the anxiety and the other problems you have described makes me feel that this could trigger a dangerous reaction from him. People have been posting that they don't believe him, maybe he will stop believing in his own actions too. I'm not saying it will happen, but do you want to risk turning his anxieties into full blown paranoia?

amyloofoo

Shovel_Lad wrote: »

I really think you should tell him what you have done. I don't want to overly worry you, but how do you think he will feel and react if he finds out that a status he has posted has "disappeared"?

Under normal circumstances, a person may feel puzzled, confused, annoyed even if a status mysteriously vanishes; but as you have said, he has been talking about "hearing voices again" plus the anxiety and the other problems you have described makes me feel that this could trigger a dangerous reaction from him. People have been posting that they don't believe him, maybe he will stop believing in his own actions too. I'm not saying it will happen, but do you want to risk turning his anxieties into full blown paranoia?

I very much agree with this, sometimes you have to put yourself in the mind of the other person to see how even well-meaning actions may be misconstrued. If your son is experiencing mental distress, behaving in a way he may see as 'underhand' or may not understand at all could be very damaging to your relationship. Even if it doesn't trigger an unhealthy mental health state, it could damage the trust and confidence he has in you, at precisely the time that you'd want him to feel able to confide. Complete honesty is definitely the best policy here.

Racheldevon

Hi
Agree go to your GP/another GP and ask for a referral for CAMHS. If the GP is unhelpful, see another one. The school nurse can also refer to CAMHS, as can other professionals. The threshold is often high as someone else said. Speak with the school re: exams in terms of possible extenuating circumstances. The school are also likely to have counsellors who work with pupils - speak to the head of year, or someone else at the schooll about linking your son into this - even with a referral to CAMHS that may take some time, but often this option can be useful alongside this process, and often implemented quickly. It would also be worth the school/ school nurse considering a CAF (common Assessment Framework) to support your son

doodoot

Lots of hugs to both you and your son.

As a mum of an 11 year old with severe anxiety I can totally sympathise.

It's not uncommon to hit a brick wall with GP's when it comes to MH issues with children, and we learned this to our son's cost many times.

CAMHS have been wonderful in helping him and he is now taking medication to ease his anxiety, but it took a lot of pushing for that initial referral. :mad:

If you are still hitting a brick wall, try giving your local CAMHS a call and ask if they accept self-referrals or speak to your son's school Pastoral Officer and/or SENCO and request one from them.