Dear Melissa:

Thank you! You mentioned the book “Stuck in the sick role“. I am looking at Melissa Deuter. com/ getting stuck in the sick role, and I find these quotes very interesting: “A growing number of young adults move home to re-group, and sometimes don’t manage to regroup at all. Some, instead of formulating a new plan to take on adulthood bit-by-bit, opt to return to childhood roles and behaviors. They return to their childhood bedrooms… Not only does moving home create the conditions that lead to inertia.. leads many young adults to regress, acting younger, less mature, and less responsible… This dynamic can leave young adults overwhelmingly anxious and frozen in their tracks. They look to Mom and Dad to provide… Stuck young adults can do their most efficient work at avoiding, manipulating, and skirting growth… From their young adult perspective, they feel overwhelmed and confused. Perhaps even ashamed. The plans meant to lead them into adult life failed, and now they are trapped at home, terrified and embarrassed… Stuck young adults don’t know where to begin. Their parents are disappointed in them, and they are disappointed in themselves. Everything seems impossible. They wonder what is wrong, and they wonder how to fix their broken lives… They want to hide underneath the covers and cry. If a mental disorder wasn’t the cause in the beginning, one certainly can come and add intolerable weight to the failures and confusion of young adulthood”.

Here are a few quotes from your previous posts, Nov 2021: “my therapist says she might be manipulating me to get attention… She feels very bad at school though… a constant feeling of dread. When she is home she feels safe“, Dec 2021: “I focus on resting and just being glad nothing terrible is happening right this second“,  Oct 2002:  “I am scared.. When my daughter is suicidal it triggers strong fear“, Nov 2022: “She prefers not to be touched. She does not like a lot of sensory things like certain noises, fabrics, food textures“, Dec 2022: “She is hiding out from life is how it feels. Today she felt very low almost paralyzed.. like a small fussy child. But she has stopped mentioning suicide so I feel hopeful“.

My input today: reads to me that your daughter really is stuck in the sick role, just like the title of the book states, and that she is likely to stay stuck unless you have her move out of home, maybe to a group home arrangement where she lives with other people her age in a very structured setting, and under the management and supervision  group home supervisors.

anita