Hi attahua
I hear your frustration with your child. You certainly have your hands full with a patner with mental health issues as well. I am surprised you find any time for yourself. I struggle as a single mum and all though her dad and I tried very hard to both be there for her, his mental health issues took their toll on me so much so that even though we have been separated for over 16 years, he was becoming so dependent on me I was struggling to be there for our daughter. So I can only imagine how hard it must be for you.
I understand the difficulty of getting your daughter to utilize the appointments you make, but I guess they really have to be ready and willing to take the help that is offered. For so long my daughter would go to appointments I arranged and it seemed we were getting nowhere and like you it was me that would end up in tears spilling my guts. Something that changed for me though was I constantly reminded my daughter that it was her that was choosing to be there and her that she was making the choice to be there. Initially I had to take a huge leap of handing the entire process to her. She had to make the appointments, and if she needed help to get there she had to ask me. Basically I was giving her the control. In doing this for a bit of the time she did nothing but as I constantly reminded her she had the choice I was also sending a subliminal message that I believed in her to be capable of doing it. This was a huge loss of control on my part and really hard for me to do but it worked? I believe because she knew that I believed she was capable of doing it and in turn she then took the professionals advise and took the help he was offering. The old adage you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink, has a lot going for it.
