Safe Space for Abbie
Donation protected
Abbie
Abbie is our awesome 9 year old daughter. She's kind, funny, very creative and makes our world a brighter place. She also struggles terribly with anxiety, her emotions and her behaviours when she becomes overwhelmed. Abbie has been going through the ASD assessment process for around 2 years now, unfortunately covid has put a hold on her assessment which means it will be even longer before she receives a diagnoses and has access to more support and therapies.
Background
Abbie began having panic attacks in 2017 on a daily basis. These would have lasted several hours every evening and had a massive impact on her sleep pattern, mood, school life and home life. Through support of CAMHS and family Abbie was able to develop strategies that largely helped her cope during panic attacks and they began to reduce. CAMHS observed some ASD traits and a referral was made for Abbie to be assessed.
Over time Abbie has struggled more and more to cope with her anxiety, despite her panic attacks reducing, social situations such school and being in unfamiliar public places (and sometime familiar), relationships with family members and friends, her emotions and when overwhelmed - her ability to control her behaviours/actions.
While Abbie is receiving support presently from CAMHS, ASD services, family intervention support and some other therapies we fund privately ourselves as well as from our family, Abbie and our family are struggling to cope with the challenging behaviour that Abbie can present with on a near daily basis. When Abbie becomes overwhelmed in her thoughts, emotions and/or anxieties, her 'fight of flight' mechanism kicks in and Abbie will display some very challenging behaviours and regularly hit/kick/bite and throw items at anyone in the house. We call these meltdowns, or the 'anger monster' when Abbie talks about it. Over the past several years Abbie's meltdowns have progressively gotten worse in the level of violence Abbie presents with and the harm that has been caused to all members of the family, including Abbie. Abbie's meltdowns can be triggered by anything, and a lot of the time we don't know what the trigger has been. Abbie's meltdowns regularly last several hours and can happen on a daily basis. On her most difficult days Abbie's meltdown have lasted up to a continuous 8 hours.
While we utilise every strategy available to us, the impact on Abbie and the rest of our family is taking its toll, particularly on her younger brother who has developed anxiety and is having to cope with the risk of/and actually being attacked.Abbie would also regularly present as suicidal, asking those around her during a meltdown to kill her, and attempting to harm herslef by banging her head on walls/furniture and trying to access sharp objects like knives, scissors etc.
Due to the risk Abbie poses to both herself and other around her when having a meltdown, we unfortunately have to restrain Abbie (which we refer to as 'safe holding') on a regular basis to keep everyone safe.
The Safe Space
No parent wants to have to restrain their child or watch them harm themselves, it's awful. It is the only way we can ensure everyone, including Abbie, is safe. Safe holding is a last resort, as it does not help Abbie naturally calm down and causes us the parent, who are trying to support her through what can only be described as a traumatising experience for her, to become triggers. This means we have to continue to safe hold Abbie until she burns out, often having to swap between mum and dad, grand parents and even on occasions emergency services when things become too unmanageable.
When safe holding Abbie we are no longer able to use calming strategies which is incredibly frustrating for us as we are having to chose between our children's physical well-being in keeping them safe from harm, and support our daughter who is terrified and overwhelmed in calming down and regulating.
Enter the Safe space. Safespaces is a company that design specialised equipment for adults and children who present with behaviours that challenge who are not safe in an ordinary room. A safespace would provide Abbie with her own space in her bedroom to help her manage her anxiety (One of Abbie's most successful strategies when anxious is to 'den' in her tepee, under her weighted blanket, or in a cupboard/wardrobe). Abbie is able to zip herself into her safespace and relax in a safe environment. This particular safespace comes with a bed which she will sleep in every night As Abbie struggles with anxiety/panic attacks mostly at night time this has the potential to have a massive positive effect on her sleep pattern, self confidence and mood.
A safe space is also designed to be an extremely robust space that can be kicked, punched and head-butted safely by eliminating hard surfaces. This means Abbie can channel her anger and outbursts within the safe space, removing the need for safe holding and enabling us as parents to talk to Abbie safely through the windows, implement calming strategies and having a positive effect while keeping everyone in our home safe from harm.
There are many safe space designs to choose from, the safe space we feel Abbie will most benefit from is a Hi Low, as Abbie is able to sleep in this area, giving her the most out of her safe space as it can support her both at night with her anxiety and during the day with her challenging behaviours as well as a place to escape to so she can regulate. Here is a link to the Safespaces Hi Low
About safe spaces link;
About safe spaces
Why we need your help
Until now we have self funded all private therapies and sensory toys to help Abbie and when we were researching safespaces towards the end of last year to see if they would help Abbie, we had planned on saving up and purchasing it ourselves. We began saving after Christmas 2019 towards our £7500 goal and have struggled to make any headway towards saving funds given that we have only one income as Abbie's mum had to give up her job to become Abbie's full time carer. We have had to accept that this is beyond our means and it would take many years for us to save the money which is time Abbie and our family would be missing out on it's benefits and support.
With the help of kind individuals we are hopeful of raising the required funds to purchase the safespace and possibly some additional funds to buy the sensory projector set/fibre optics kit which would help provide a calming atmosphere for when Abbie is struggling.
Abbie's journey of self regulation and understanding/managing her emotions is not going to be a quick and easy one for her. A safespace will be with her for years to come and help her in her journey, while having a massive impact on family life and everyone else in the home too.
It is my intention, when the day hopefully comes that Abbie is no longer in need of it, to donate the safespace to another family who are in a similar situation and would benefit from the support a safespace offers.
Thank you
Abbie is our awesome 9 year old daughter. She's kind, funny, very creative and makes our world a brighter place. She also struggles terribly with anxiety, her emotions and her behaviours when she becomes overwhelmed. Abbie has been going through the ASD assessment process for around 2 years now, unfortunately covid has put a hold on her assessment which means it will be even longer before she receives a diagnoses and has access to more support and therapies.
Background
Abbie began having panic attacks in 2017 on a daily basis. These would have lasted several hours every evening and had a massive impact on her sleep pattern, mood, school life and home life. Through support of CAMHS and family Abbie was able to develop strategies that largely helped her cope during panic attacks and they began to reduce. CAMHS observed some ASD traits and a referral was made for Abbie to be assessed.
Over time Abbie has struggled more and more to cope with her anxiety, despite her panic attacks reducing, social situations such school and being in unfamiliar public places (and sometime familiar), relationships with family members and friends, her emotions and when overwhelmed - her ability to control her behaviours/actions.
While Abbie is receiving support presently from CAMHS, ASD services, family intervention support and some other therapies we fund privately ourselves as well as from our family, Abbie and our family are struggling to cope with the challenging behaviour that Abbie can present with on a near daily basis. When Abbie becomes overwhelmed in her thoughts, emotions and/or anxieties, her 'fight of flight' mechanism kicks in and Abbie will display some very challenging behaviours and regularly hit/kick/bite and throw items at anyone in the house. We call these meltdowns, or the 'anger monster' when Abbie talks about it. Over the past several years Abbie's meltdowns have progressively gotten worse in the level of violence Abbie presents with and the harm that has been caused to all members of the family, including Abbie. Abbie's meltdowns can be triggered by anything, and a lot of the time we don't know what the trigger has been. Abbie's meltdowns regularly last several hours and can happen on a daily basis. On her most difficult days Abbie's meltdown have lasted up to a continuous 8 hours.
While we utilise every strategy available to us, the impact on Abbie and the rest of our family is taking its toll, particularly on her younger brother who has developed anxiety and is having to cope with the risk of/and actually being attacked.Abbie would also regularly present as suicidal, asking those around her during a meltdown to kill her, and attempting to harm herslef by banging her head on walls/furniture and trying to access sharp objects like knives, scissors etc.
Due to the risk Abbie poses to both herself and other around her when having a meltdown, we unfortunately have to restrain Abbie (which we refer to as 'safe holding') on a regular basis to keep everyone safe.
The Safe Space
No parent wants to have to restrain their child or watch them harm themselves, it's awful. It is the only way we can ensure everyone, including Abbie, is safe. Safe holding is a last resort, as it does not help Abbie naturally calm down and causes us the parent, who are trying to support her through what can only be described as a traumatising experience for her, to become triggers. This means we have to continue to safe hold Abbie until she burns out, often having to swap between mum and dad, grand parents and even on occasions emergency services when things become too unmanageable.
When safe holding Abbie we are no longer able to use calming strategies which is incredibly frustrating for us as we are having to chose between our children's physical well-being in keeping them safe from harm, and support our daughter who is terrified and overwhelmed in calming down and regulating.
Enter the Safe space. Safespaces is a company that design specialised equipment for adults and children who present with behaviours that challenge who are not safe in an ordinary room. A safespace would provide Abbie with her own space in her bedroom to help her manage her anxiety (One of Abbie's most successful strategies when anxious is to 'den' in her tepee, under her weighted blanket, or in a cupboard/wardrobe). Abbie is able to zip herself into her safespace and relax in a safe environment. This particular safespace comes with a bed which she will sleep in every night As Abbie struggles with anxiety/panic attacks mostly at night time this has the potential to have a massive positive effect on her sleep pattern, self confidence and mood.
A safe space is also designed to be an extremely robust space that can be kicked, punched and head-butted safely by eliminating hard surfaces. This means Abbie can channel her anger and outbursts within the safe space, removing the need for safe holding and enabling us as parents to talk to Abbie safely through the windows, implement calming strategies and having a positive effect while keeping everyone in our home safe from harm.
There are many safe space designs to choose from, the safe space we feel Abbie will most benefit from is a Hi Low, as Abbie is able to sleep in this area, giving her the most out of her safe space as it can support her both at night with her anxiety and during the day with her challenging behaviours as well as a place to escape to so she can regulate. Here is a link to the Safespaces Hi Low
About safe spaces link;
About safe spaces
Why we need your help
Until now we have self funded all private therapies and sensory toys to help Abbie and when we were researching safespaces towards the end of last year to see if they would help Abbie, we had planned on saving up and purchasing it ourselves. We began saving after Christmas 2019 towards our £7500 goal and have struggled to make any headway towards saving funds given that we have only one income as Abbie's mum had to give up her job to become Abbie's full time carer. We have had to accept that this is beyond our means and it would take many years for us to save the money which is time Abbie and our family would be missing out on it's benefits and support.
With the help of kind individuals we are hopeful of raising the required funds to purchase the safespace and possibly some additional funds to buy the sensory projector set/fibre optics kit which would help provide a calming atmosphere for when Abbie is struggling.
Abbie's journey of self regulation and understanding/managing her emotions is not going to be a quick and easy one for her. A safespace will be with her for years to come and help her in her journey, while having a massive impact on family life and everyone else in the home too.
It is my intention, when the day hopefully comes that Abbie is no longer in need of it, to donate the safespace to another family who are in a similar situation and would benefit from the support a safespace offers.
Thank you
Fundraising team: Fundraising team (2)
Skip Mckibben
Organizer
Natalie Mckibben
Team member
