Author wishes to remain anonymous

My daughter suffered extreme health anxiety, and got to the stage of limiting her food, not attending school, and just sitting on the sofa as that was “safe”. She lost some weight and spent most of the time in an anxious/emotional state. 

This affected her schooling, my employment and our whole lives were impacted. 

The GP was not very helpful at all, would not prescribe medication, wouldn’t see my daughter as it wasn’t classed as an emergency and generally didn’t seem worried. They referred us for counselling but explained there was a waiting list. They did refer CAMHS but with the same explanation.

After some time went by, I arranged private therapy for my daughter, and in the meantime, I rang CAMHS personally and they saw us within 48 hours. They were very helpful and reassuring and just knowing that we were now “on their radar”, I didn’t feel like we were struggling alone. They did indeed explain that there was a slight wait, but it was roughly two weeks and we carried on with the private therapy whilst we waited. 

Overall, we then started attending CAMHS on a regular basis, spoke with a psychiatrist who prescribed medication, and this combination of treatment enabled a huge improvement to my daughter. She completed all the sessions of talking therapy and was signed off by the mental health nurse. She is still under the care of a CAMHS psychiatrist due to her age and the medication that’s prescribed, but we only see [the psychiatrist] now every 6 months. 

Our experience of CAMHS has been excellent and I cannot praise them enough. They make you feel listened to, and that you’re not “abnormal” and you realise that what you are going through affects so many other people as well.  

The care was specific to my child. She was able to share her experience in a comfortable environment and eventually enjoyed these sessions. 

Our family is now recovering from all of this, however I don’t feel like we’ll ever be quite the same. We had a great experience of CAMHS help but I wish this was the same for others, as many I’ve spoken to seem to wait so long. 

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