Hi Paula,
Sorry to hear about your daughter is self-harming. I am mum to a 17 year old son and 15 year old daughter who is in year 10. Obviously, I'll just focus on my daughter and to put you in the picture we live in Greater Sydney and are just coming out of an extensive lockdown which has had a significant and rather complex impact. To the best of my knowledge, our daughter doesn't self harm but we've had periods where she's withdrawn into her room and barely spoken and it's been awful. At times, it's felt like I've needed to leave a trail of crumbs outside her door to lure her out. I have tried to connect with her by trying to walk in her shoes and see things through her perspective and not being critical. recently, she started getting eyelash extensions which she's paying for via her Macca's job. I'm lucky to wear lipstick these days and rarely wear makeup, but she's a dancer and after wearing false eyelashes there, it's a small step to eyelash extensions She also wanted to go blond when school went back, and her hair is really dark and I couldn't see the point. However, she wanted to make an impact when school went back and I sensed some social anxiety so off we went. That turned out to be quite a bonding experience as we went to my hairdresser who is a close friend and we had a wonderful afternoon. Tonight we drove her and two friends out for dinner together and my husband and I went out together and we later drove them all home. I felt like a quiet night at home, but again thinking of how much they'd missed out in lockdown, off we went. It was fun and informative listening to them chat in the car and they chatted a bit with us as well. I am a night owl and often pick the girls up and I never complain because I want them to be safe. These little drives go along way towards connecting with my daughter.
Obviously food and body image is a huge issue for young women and girls and they tend to cover their tracks well. My daughter is one of the youngest in her year and has a digestive issue which makes it hard to gain weight and she is often sick. However, a friend of mine with an older daughter who had issues with anorexia gave me a few tips. One of them is hiding food in their socks and bra. Her daughter used to hide cheese in her socks. Another one was having a shower after meals to cover up being sick.
Another issue which might crop up is alcohol. Our daughter bought a bottle of vodka from a boy in year 12 and took it to school and was drinking it straight. Indeed, you could argue that falls into self-harm. It also shows a need to numb some painful emotions. However, that was more of an aberration and a wake up call. The Christmas school holidays gave her a chance to reset. Start over.
I think that my advice would not to try to be your daughter's best friend but to be a guide and try to be a good role model yourself, which is incredibly difficult. My daughter keeps to herself a lot but I try to get her to come to me with problems and to be part of the solution. Tonight my husband forgot to put her jeans in the dryer to wear out and so I ended up ironing them about four times to sort them out, which is totally against my image of who I am as a person but I knew she was depending on me. It doesn't take much for the teenage world to fall apart, especially with the lockdown.
I don't know if any of this helps. I guess I just wanted to share some of the ups and downs of our household.
Best wishes,
Birdwings
