Thank you so much for having me along for the chat everyone! A Youth Mod or two might pop on and share their thoughts a bit later, so keep an eye out!    Night night to you and yours!  ... View more

Agreed, and then i just want it all to stop happening.  ... View more

It's something that i find pretty frustrating. So many guys are missing the emotional intelligence they need to see that whole conversation as a bad idea. I think that's something that i hope changes, i wonder how we do it? How do we build some serious emotional intelligence in our young men?  ... View more

Whoa, tricky question.    When i wear my community manager shoes i think of the impact of that on those who are survivors of assault. What is that like to see people saying that? I am inclined to protect our space from people seeking support around opening up about what they have done we have too many survivors who are going to feel unsafe and we will protect them.    From my own perspective... I am not sure yet. But i don't see how it helps.  How does this help those who are opening up about the suffering they have experienced with #metoo? This should be a moment for survivors and everyone else should probably STFU and listen. Pardon the French.  ... View more

Interestingly I'm not hearing that @Ngaio-RO. Most of our members who have been ready to talk about what they have survived have a lot of support from us and the professionals we offer them referrals to.  They know that it's their choice to disclose or not and feel okay with sharing- or not.    With that being said, this is a fairly new thing for our members even if the phrase has it's origins back in 2006. So I'm conscious that this feeling is perhaps bubbling away in the minds of some of our members. We're readying ourselves for those conversations.  ... View more

You've got a smart cookie there @taokat!  ... View more

@Ngaio-RO that's a good question. As always there's a lot of different responses. For many this brings up memories of what they have survived and that can be distressing. For others it brings hope. A ubiquitous and terrible problem is finally being spoken about openly and en masse and with that comes hope for change at long last.    Our Mods have organised a conversation with the Sexual Assualt Response Centre in Western Australia to offer a bit of extra support around the intense feelings this is bringing up for many.  ... View more

@taokat if you'd like would love to hear what she had to say. So cool that you had a chat with her about it :)  ... View more

@taokat!  Greetings !    ... View more

Nice to see you @taziness! How's it going?  ... View more

Hey everybody! Looking forward to this evening's chat!   ... View more

@taokat thanks for sharing this. Psychosis is a tricky one! For many those pesky positive symptoms have a way of cropping up quite unexpectedly. Sorry to hear that it's come up again, i can imagine feeling the adrenaline rush and the wave of worry that comes with something like this appearing unexpectedly :(.    It's hard as a carer and a mum and i want to take a moment to remind you how awesome you are for being there for your daughter, day and night in such a caring and considerate way. There's some serious emotional labour to carry there and you're truly a strong human for carrying it so well.   I reckon it's pretty understandable to have a "fumble" and as far as fumbles go, you still gave her some great support and encouragement to continue working on something that you both know has helped in the past. As far as fumbles go... well you didn't drop the ball (sorry worst metaphor/pun ever).   If you're worried about being dismissive;  i feel like you know much more about how to explore and reconcile that with her. And ultimately you are doing your best and your best is very amazing!     Hope that helps. I know were's small, so do we have any other parents with a child experiencing psychosis? If you read this later, please feel free to dive in and share your thoughts with the wonderful @taokat :)      ... View more

Hi @Linda1972 i am so sorry to hear this is happening to your son, to know this is happening and to have that uncertainty about how to proceed is so tough, my heart goes out to you.   Unfortunately our expertise is around how to support parent's in Australia who are between the ages of 12 and 18 and our focus is around mental health. So while we can try and offer support, we don't know as much as we could about this particular topic. Could there be a service that works on family relationships or relationships near you? You might also want to check out this list of parenting communities click here.  ... View more

Hi there @Worriedmum123 It's lovely to meet you! Well... e-meet you anyway. How's your day going?    Oh and if you click here you can jump to a little thread where we answer random questions and get to know each other a little bit :)      ... View more

Hi there @Goleby i can hear how worried you are about this and particularly the impact of missing school work, school is such an important time for shaping one's future and i can certainly understand the concern. It seems like there's a few things going on here, he hates school at the moment and reverts back to old habits after trying to change.   If you'd like to, I'd love it if you shared with me what you have explored with him so far, have you shared your fears about not engaging with school? What are your hopes and fears here?  ... View more

Great, well if you'd like to make a new topic, then go for it!   For me the goal of a new thread would be to give parents having trouble with bullying or other issues in schools the information and support they need to get started. What do you think?    Here's some ingredients that help threads work well in the type of community we have, you might find you're thinking along the same lines already:    These threads are here for a long time so think in time-frames of 5 years or longer. Someone has to be able to read the thread and get what they need- even if you've moved on to bigger and better things. We can't give legal advice, so if there's something legal- we should help the person find services they can contact rather than digging into the issue toooo much. Keep it simple, when we're stressed (and naturally this is stressful) it's hard to process lots of information, so perhaps give your readers the top 5 things needs to know if they're having trouble with their school would be enough, then we can all jump on and help them out :)  Engage the community and share the load: we're a big group of parents that care about our kids,so if we make a thread we should ask a question or two to help parents feel they can get involved, either by sharing their own story, or offering ideas about what helped them.  Let me know what you reckon?    And now that i have made that gigantic post.... how're you doing today?  ... View more

Hi there @emma8 i am sure there are many people out there who would benefit from a short guide about the "do's and don'ts" of dealing with an issue like this at a school.   It can get very complicated very quickly and so i was wondering if you could make a new topic to help parents who might experience something similar get a better understanding of their rights and those of their childs, and what services and supports are out there to get more advice. Would you be interested in helping out with this?  ... View more

Hey @taokat sorry i didn't get a chance to tackle this sooner.   I'm so sorry to hear that things didn't go well when your daughter reached out to make contact with her father. I can hear how incredibly painful and distressing this has been for both of you :(. We're here and listening if you need to talk through that more.   I guess i just want to quickly consider safety first, is there a risk that he could use this "loophole" to continue to harass or be abusive? If that's the case, would you like us to help find some supports to helps stay safe from that?   I think as far as helping to reduce the impact goes this is tricky. I think it's okay to experience some pretty intense feelings around this, it's natural and a part of processing an incredibly tough experience.  So to just be there for her through that, to listen and to show her the love, respect and support you have to give her as an amazing mum will be a huge and wonderful thing.   Without talking to your daughter i can't say for sure, but i feel like i am hearing some grief and loss as well as perhaps guilt about not feeling like they were able to do what their father wanted. She might not understand that the way he reacted is a product of the issues he carries with him and hasn't been able to resolve and not in any way her fault or have anything to do with the great person she is. That's something she could explore with us over on the youth forums, with a counselor and with you.   I think i need to chew on this a bit more and i imagine @Ngaio-RO will have much more wisdom on this than i do when she's back in tomorrow. Perhaps some community members who have been through similar experiences could share too. For now; let us know if we're heading in the right direction.     ... View more

Hi there @Cameo i just wanted to welcome you to the forums, and also thank you for sharing you and your son's story. I am so glad to hear after all this time that you're finding some tools and supports that are effective in helping your son find his path to recovery. I'm sorry to hear that your experiences haven't been ideal with some of the professionals you encounter.   I'd love to know more about how you found the mental health OT. Would you feel like sharing some of the skills, tools or other things that they have worked on with you and your son?   Thank you again for sharing. I think this story will give others who are still looking for answers a lot of hope and encouragement to continue searching.   If there's anything we can do to support you, please do let us know. ... View more

Hi @Mum2017 I'm so sorry to hear that. That sounds absolutely frustrating, upsetting and incredibly stressful. It must be painful to work so hard to support your son and to experience a reaction like that :(.  How can we help you best at the moment?   Also just a heads up, i edited your post a little bit because it contained a graphic detail which is something that we try not to post- just incase it brings back similarly tough memories for others. This is not a big issue in any way shape or form, just thought i'd let you know. Hope that's okay. ... View more

@taokat wrote: The forums are a fantastic resource, and I'm so glad to be a part of it. Parenting can be a tough gig and I love the support and the sharing of advice that can really help families. I've seen your posts and amazing support @taokat you are a huge part of what makes the parent's forums great. A true founding member and a very skilled supporter.    I think all of your reasons are true in part for each young person that chooses not to tell their parents, we all have out secrets too, sometimes there's not much rhyme or reason to it!     This next paragraph could be upsetting for some. I know that some of my members have parent's that are... not so nice... for example one member was scared to come out because their parents threw out a sibling for their sexuality.   So unfortunately not everyone is as fortunate as your children are to have such a great parent looking out for them. I actually wonder what we could do if we supported a parent who had views like that. What could we do?      ... View more

Hey there @Oceanentity i think it's absolutely great that you're working through the coaching process. Would love to hear a bit about what you're exploring in coaching- only if you want to share. We've also given you a bunch of ideas to explore in this thread so far.   Let us know if there's anything you'd like to explore a little more or have a go at :)    Thanks again for sharing! ... View more

Hey you guys are doing amazing things over here too @taokat !    For some reason a lot of our members don't like sharing their involvement on the forums. I recall flying a member up to Sydney for training a couple of years ago now. They'd been participating on the forums for several years on a daily basis and we'd walked with them through some incredibly tough times, encouraged them to talk to their parents as well as a doctor and celebrated as they found their way to recovery.   Never told their parents a thing about the community in that whole time!      ... View more

@Lily17 I've just been reading through this thread and again and again i read about how thoughtful caring and considerate you are for your children even though it's incredibly tough because of the hardships of your past.    You mentioned the loss of your bond with T1. Is this something that you're thinking about building back up over time, or are you more feeling like you just have to wait? Something else?      ... View more

What a great read! Time for me to go and mindfully drink a cup of tea :)  ... View more

To answer your second question @taokat ; it's tricky to pin it down to any particular issue. I would say that there's a cluster of issues that are most common.   If you trace the issues back to their roots they're often on the anxiety spectrum although i would say many of our newer members don't have enough experience or mental health literacy to put a name to it. So we hear about issues like being unable to sleep, overwhelming worry about future events or concern about social interactions.   We also speak to a lot of people who engage in self-harm or non-suicidal self-injury and a lot of our work is around supporting them to find alternative coping strategies as well as helping them engage with treatment.   There are also much more serious issues that members of the community seek support from us for although this is generally 5-10 of our members at any one time.       ... View more

@taokat I think you're spot on around what motivates youth to join. I would also say the anonymity is a huge component of that sense of safety and security. Many of our members experience a significant degree of stigma around mental illness and help seeking. A lot of this is self-stigma however they also perceive that those around them would have a stigmatised response. A lot of our work in the community is around helping youth to feel comfortable disclosing to their parents, school counsellors and GP's and often once they get to that point the support they get is fantastic :)  ... View more

Hey @Lily17. This situation is incredibly complex and I hope you're proud of how well you're handling this, even though it's tough.   Your post about practising Chi and just having some time and space to stretch out in the pool and it got me thinking. I am wondering what support you have for engaging with the school and even just day to day life at home. Do you have respite breaks where someone else takes over for a spell, or a carer's advocate to help you get the school to pull their weight? Would you be interested in some case management or support to take the load off?    If you're interested in a little backup, I think you might be eligible for some support through Carer's Australia. To find out a little more you can find your local branch's number by clicking here.         ... View more