“I just wanted my daughter back.”

Jo* remembers finding her 15-year-old daughter Aria* sitting on the bathroom floor at 2 am. Aria was crying, exhausted and telling her mum she couldn’t face another day.

“I sat beside her and held her. I remember thinking, I don’t know how to make this better. I don’t know how to keep my daughter safe.” Jo shared.

Two years earlier, Aria’s parents had separated. The family moved house, she changed schools and friendships she had relied on disappeared. Then came cruel comments at school and online.

Gradually, Aria stopped being Aria. She gave up netball. Her bedroom curtains stayed closed. School became a daily battle, and she stopped joining the family for dinner. Her younger sister noticed too. She learnt to keep the television down and stopped knocking on Aria’s door. The whole family had begun tiptoeing around her sadness. 

“I missed her, even though she was right there.”

When Jo reached out to Family Works, she didn’t know what her family needed. She just knew they couldn’t keep going like this.

Their Family Works psychologist Nickie* started by listening. There was no pressure for Aria to tell her whole story. Slowly, they built trust. Jo was supported too, learning more about depression and how to stay connected when Aria withdrew. 

“I’d been trying so hard to fix everything. I learnt that sometimes Aria didn’t need me to fix it. She needed me beside her.”

Small steps for big change

Aria learnt to recognise when her thoughts were spiralling, ways to manage overwhelming emotions, and how to put words around feelings she had been carrying alone.

Together, Aria and Jo worked towards small goals. Opening the curtains. Eating dinner together. A short walk outside. Messaging a friend. Returning to school for a morning. Those small steps became bigger ones. Today, Aria is back at school regularly, seeing friends and playing netball again. But for Jo, the biggest change is at home.

“Aria annoys her little sis again,” she laughs. “They argue over the remote and steal food off each other’s plates. Last week I heard them laughing upstairs, and I just stood in the hallway listening.”

“For so long, our home felt like it was holding its breath.
Now there’s music coming from Aria’s room. I have my
daughter back, and her little sis has her big sister back
too.”