DD14 is begging to go to hospital...again

[Parents! Get help here!]

Here we go again. Every time our DD-14 shows some modest improvement in functioning (yesterday, she completed her first day of cyber school and attended 2 in-school classes), she regresses. Ever since last night, she's been screaming at her dad and me, saying she hates us because we refuse to take her to the hospital. She's calling us horrible parents who don't care whether she lives or dies.

She's been to the hospital 5 times in 6 months. She comes out no better than when she went in... .oftentimes worse because the hospital allows her to remain "stuck" in a state of regression. In the hospital, she doesn't have to work to get better or apply her coping skills or go to school. She refuses to do any schoolwork today. The only thing she says is: "I want to go to the hospital and you're horrible parents for not taking me there."

My husband is the strong one but I fear I might cave and agree to have her admitted. Although she wants to die, her "attempts" so far have included swallowing a mouthful of shampoo and taking 5 Mucinex tablets. Her emotions are out of control and all she really wants is somewhere where she can just be catered to and she doesn't have to work so hard to get better. But, in her case, hospitalization is reinforcing the very behaviors that we (and her therapist) are trying desperately to break.

HELP! How do we hold firm to our decision? Any words of advice? I'm desperate.

[MidnightRunner]

Here we go again. Every time our DD-14 shows some modest improvement in functioning (yesterday, she completed her first day of cyber school and attended 2 in-school classes), she regresses. Ever since last night, she's been screaming at her dad and me, saying she hates us because we refuse to take her to the hospital. She's calling us horrible parents who don't care whether she lives or dies.

She's been to the hospital 5 times in 6 months. She comes out no better than when she went in... .oftentimes worse because the hospital allows her to remain "stuck" in a state of regression. In the hospital, she doesn't have to work to get better or apply her coping skills or go to school. She refuses to do any schoolwork today. The only thing she says is: "I want to go to the hospital and you're horrible parents for not taking me there."

My husband is the strong one but I fear I might cave and agree to have her admitted. Although she wants to die, her "attempts" so far have included swallowing a mouthful of shampoo and taking 5 Mucinex tablets. Her emotions are out of control and all she really wants is somewhere where she can just be catered to and she doesn't have to work so hard to get better. But, in her case, hospitalization is reinforcing the very behaviors that we (and her therapist) are trying desperately to break.

HELP! How do we hold firm to our decision? Any words of advice? I'm desperate.

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[Yepanotherone]

I’ve been in this situation oh so many times , particularly when my DD was younger and right in the throws of “ coming out “ with her mental health problems  at 15 . She would hang over the bannister and announce “I need to go back to the hospital and you need to take me right now “. With a heavy sigh and a heavy heart my mind would be saying “ here we go again !”
I used distraction that would involve getting her out of the house for a bit , away from her room where she could sit and ruminate on her thoughts . Find something that your DD really likes to do . For my DD it was browsing through thrift stores . So when she would announce her desire to go to the hospital I would say “ let’s go to the thrift store first, see if it makes you feel better , then see how you feel after that “ . She did recognize after a while that this technique of distraction did help , and that after finding a few bargains , she’d decide that whatever was bothering her at the time wasn’t worth another hospitalization. We started to use “ let’s go thrifting “ as a kind of code thatvshe wasn’t feeling great and needed my help to distract her . Sometimes distraction worked , sometimes it didn’t . But if I had acted on her every impulsive decision to take her to the hospital without first trying the distraction then our ER visits would have been ridiculous! I also took her to a walk in clinic a couple of times  rather than going to the hospital on her demand , that helped too where she could talk to a therapist and regulate herself in that moment , rather than me dashing with her to the ER .
The request for hospitalization is an escape but for my DD was also based very much on impulse .
After 7 hospitalizations my DD ( now 17 ) reports she is absolutely done with hospitals and one of her main goals is to stay out of them ! She slowly realized that being admitted was quite disruptive , and while the first 2 or 3 admissions might have been a “ novelty “, she eventually got sick of the whole routine and “ same old same old group therapy and rubbishy food “. It’s was on the 6th admission when my DD really started getting upset with herself and hated being in the hospital, then on the 7th ( earlier this year ), she was so sickened and upset at herself for being back in again and resolved with her therapist that she was NOT going back in again .  
Fingers crossed your DD will also come to this same conclusion. It sure does help family life to improve when not being constantly turned upside down by hospitalizations !

[MidnightRunner]

Thank you so much for your response, Yepanotherone. I'm so relieved to know that we're not alone in this crazy situation. And I love how you've handled this with your own daughter. Who doesn't like to go thrift shopping! So yesterday was insane—DD was raging at us, saying that if we didn't take her to the hospital she would call 9-1-1 herself and that she has a "secret plan" to kill herself—all very scary stuff. But we've been here before, many times. And luckily, everyone on her treatment team felt like taking her to the hospital was a giant step backwards. This morning, DD got herself up and dressed and started doing school work at her desk. She is still very low energy and annoyed with her dad and me... .but she's more consumed in thoughts of how to score good tickets to the Taylor Swift concert than in getting herself admitted to the hospital. What a difference a day makes. I feel like I'm just learning to navigate these crazy, wild emotional swings. My instinct is to cave in to her requests in an effort to keep her safe. But I'm finding that cooler heads often prevail and like you said, distractions can work wonders. It's nice to hear, too, that your daughter's views on hospitals slowly evolved over time. I have to keep telling myself that the way my DD is now at 14 will not necessarily be the way she is at 16 or 18 or beyond. Thanks again for your response.

[Yepanotherone]

It is indeed scary and you’re never 100% sure if you’re taking a gamble by not immediately rushing to the ER !  I did learn over time to still my beating heart each time my DD would request “ you need to take me to the hospital “.  I would suggest calling her therapist , or psychiatrist or suicide hotline but she never once agreed to any of that . The mental health walk in clinic was a good compromise and a good resource to have near by .
I would say the fascination with hospitals definitely wears thin as our DD ‘s get older . At first it feeds into the “ I’m mentally ill “ identify that my DD had labeled herself with long before her first appointment with any therapist or psychiatrist then of course there was all the drama and attention from friends in the hours leading up to the hospitalization , then the stories to tell her friends when discharged . Many of her friends at the time  also had mental health issues and hospitalizations were a recurring theme in amongst her circle . Each of the friends seemed to take it in turn to be the” stable one “.
As my DD has grown more mature ( she’ll be 18 next month) , she’s definitely drawn a line in the sand with hospitals . She’s been in every adolescent mental health units in this area within a 60 mile radius at least once , and says she has absolutely no intention of wanting to ever be admitted to the adult mental health units which of course once she reaches the age of 18 , would be where she is admitted to very shortly .
My DD was hospitalized pretty much every 3 months . Her last one was at the beginning of March this year and after 2 weeks there and a whole lot of gut wrenching decisions that we couldn’t manage her at home ,she was literally hours away from being carted off to a longer stay DBT RTC 2000 miles away . She escaped this by the skin of her teeth ( long story but basically insurance bailed at the last minute ) . So I think the fear of going to an RTC if she’s Hospitalised again was perhaps incentive enough for her to really work hard on managing her impulses and emotions .
One skill I’ve seen her use frequently since this last discharge is showering . She’ll take a shower in the middle of the night frequently ! She alternates the temperature of the water between hot and cold and that seems to help her regulate . My husband initially complained ,saying “ what is she doing showering at this time in the middle of the night ? She’s in there for ages ! She’s wasting water ! What on earth is she doing ?” And I’ve had to say to him “ just leave it ... .it’s this ... .or she’s going back into the hospital ! Which would you prefer ! ”.
She’ll also doodle and draw in books as another coping strategy. The secret is for your DD to find something that works for her and of course she’ll have to decide for herself that hospitalizations are no longer the way forward . We are quietly celebrating the fact by DD has managed to stay out of hospital for nearly 9 months . We don’t make a huge thing of it as too much praise and attention to it may backfire ! But we’ve acknowledged the work she’s obviously put in and the progress she’s made ( no cutting now either for 6 months and this is huge as my DD was a severe daily cutter ) but we don’t go overboard with the congratulating as it is common for our BPD’s to regress if given too much praise and attention to the progress they’ve made .

[Yepanotherone]

Midnight runner did you read my thread posted not too long ago entitled “ my healing my journey “?   

[MidnightRunner]

Thanks again, Yepanotherone... .and yes, I did read your inspiring post about what you've been doing to take care of yourself. As for me, I attended my first in-person parent support group last week. It was a small group of parents with children who have mental health issues. I was the newbie in the group and within the first 10 seconds of telling my story, I broke down crying. But everyone was so supportive and I left feeling energized and much more hopeful.

It's now been 4 days since my DD's maniacal meltdown. She still harbors resentment towards my husband and me for not taking her to the hospital but she has calmed down considerably. Granted, I think if I woke her up in the middle of the night and said, "Let's go to the hospital," she'd be all for it. But I consider this standoff a small victory. It's kind of like Ferberizing your child when they're an infant. It kills you to hear them wailing and begging for you to take action but you know that the more you give in, the less they'll be able to rely on themselves over the long run. It may have helped that her primary therapist as well as the therapist at her IOP all supported the decision not to hospitalize her (thank God for mental health professionals whose recommendations aren't based on the fear of liability). Of course in DD's mind that just meant that no one took her suffering seriously... .but hopefully, a small morsel of the logic behind our reasoning made its way into her head.