Our family unit put to the test.

[Daniellep]

Our 9 year old daughter has been diagnosed with PTSD and anxiety . She has been living with it for a few years. We finally sought professional advice after we ran out of home options and at home self help strategies. We are a whole family in crisis. She is seeing a psychologist twice a week who is working hard to help. Often we find it difficult to have down time in our house and when she is in crisis all of us get very stressed. It only seems to happen when we have finished running around for the afternoon and it's time for home work/ tea and bed. Its worse when all 5 of us are together . It causes friction amongst siblings and my partner and I. Does this happen to other families? How can we help her instead of all getting worked up? Any real life suggestions would be help ful. We would like to reclaim our evenings and have a more positive and calm approach to help her. 

[geoff]

dear Daniellep, can I firstly say how sorry I am for all of you, and secondly what you said is so common and really heartbreaking.

What your daughter must have been through at such a young age, is certainly not what anyone would want to deal with, as well as the pressure being put on you and the rest of the family.

I don't know of the circumstances, so to start with, click onto 'Resources' at the top of this page and order 'all the printed material' from BB, it's all free, but what it might do for you and the rest is to tell you about depression, because I feel as though the rest of the family may feel left behind and all the attention is on your daughter, and excuse me if this upsets you.

Have you approached her psychologist and mentioned this matter to him/her, because it's a very important issue.

I don't know how old the other children are, but is it possible to feed them at different times, however this may not be what you want.

There are a few questions which you can answer only if you want to; how is she coping with school, friends and home work and is she being bullied at all, not at home but at school, pretty personal and I'm sorry, but it would be great to hear back from you sand tell us a little more. Geoff.