A girl, 14, has spent three months in hospital and could be there for a year.
Her family says Rose Grady no longer recognises them after suffering from a mental breakdown.
She started to struggle at the start of lockdown when she could no longer go to school or take part in her favourite activities - incluyding swimming and playing the piano.
The lockdown restrictions meant Rose was also left unable to meet her large group of friends face to face, Rose’s mother Susie told HertfordshireLive.
Susie's mum was sadly diagnosed with a degenerative brain disease and her father fell ill with cancer.
By Christmas 2020, her local area was in Tier 4, meaning they could not celebrate the festive season as they'd hoped to.
On top of everything Rose was going through a beloved pet also died.
She began to eat less and became depressed and withdrawn.
Her situation deteriorated quickly, says Susie, with Rose now facing regular episodes of psychosis and hallucinations.
She has been in hospital for three months and cannot perform basic tasks, such as feeding or cleaning herself.
Susie said: “She is very depressed. She doesn't want to be here. She doesn't think there's any point. She feels like she's trapped, locked in a room.
“She has no socialisation with other children, and she doesn't see her friends. She doesn't speak to her friends. She doesn't speak to her family.”
Before the pandemic, Rose was a happy teenager with a close group of friends.
She had plenty of hobbies including swimming for her local swimming club and playing the piano - she was also predicted top grades in school.
“I think it was very difficult for teenagers to understand why they couldn't see their friends or why they couldn’t do anything that a normal teenager does," Susie said.
“They were just spending way too much time in their rooms and not really doing anything particularly healthy.”
“She didn’t want to leave her bedroom," Susie added. "She was just quite unhappy really. She wasn’t thinking anything good about her life.
“School was shut again, so there was just a lot of time in our bedroom doing online learning. I think actually that was quite detrimental.”
Susie and her husband sought advice from their GP. The family still hasn't been given a diagnosis.
“They wanted to do more tests on her because she’s always presented as quite a complex case," Susie said.
“But then, unfortunately, Rose took matters into her own hands and basically decided that enough’s enough and she wasn’t going to continue living. So we then had to take her into A&E.”
Rose was admitted to hospital on April 30 and has been there ever since.
She is back to a normal weight, as she has been fed more than 2000 calories a day through tubes since she was admitted.
However, her mental health has deteriorated.
Susie said: “They can’t get on top of it at Harlow hospital because it’s a general children’s ward. It’s not an intensive care unit for what Rose needs.
"It’s impossible really. She’s just in the wrong building.”
Susie is at the hospital every day, waiting in the corridor in case anything happens, making phone calls to try to get Rose help and staying up to date with the doctors.
“I just sit in the corridor like a vigil,” Susie said.
“I talk to the doctors, and then I go home and recharge for another day. It’s very monotonous but very stressful.”
She added: “Some of the things they have to do to Rose every day are quite high risk. She has feeding tubes they put in every day and at any point that could go wrong and I could get a call saying you need to be here in half an hour.
“It’s split the family in two,” Susie said.
“My other daughter really doesn’t understand why she can’t see her sister and is asking when her sister is going to come home. These are questions I can’t answer at the moment.”
Rose could need a PICU bed for six months to a year. If she was in a private psychiatric hospital for 12 months, it could cost the family around £350,000.
Susie added: “You can’t talk to her. She really needs talking therapies to begin, but they can’t do that at the moment because she’s so agitated and distressed so we’re still not at that point where anyone can speak to her.
“This has got a lot worse. When she was admitted, I brought her from school. She knew who her family were. She knew who I was.
