If your child needed mental health help

[Anonymous]

If your child needed help with mental health at 18+ is there anything you wished you had done differently? Either earlier or when it came to a crisis?

[Anonymous]

We make tons of decisions as parents none of us are perfect.

Do your best now because one can not go backwards

Sending hugs

[Anonymous]

My first born, age 21 DS, died by suicide. I would give anything to do things differently. He said he was ok. He wasn’t. I should have insisted on therapy, instead of just suggesting it. I wish I would have taken him for a neuropsych evaluation. Hindsight, he was technically an adult but he still needed me to take control. If you think something is off with your child please listen to your gut.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My first born, age 21 DS, died by suicide. I would give anything to do things differently. He said he was ok. He wasn’t. I should have insisted on therapy, instead of just suggesting it. I wish I would have taken him for a neuropsych evaluation. Hindsight, he was technically an adult but he still needed me to take control. If you think something is off with your child please listen to your gut.

I am so sorry for your loss - may his memory always be a blessing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My first born, age 21 DS, died by suicide. I would give anything to do things differently. He said he was ok. He wasn’t. I should have insisted on therapy, instead of just suggesting it. I wish I would have taken him for a neuropsych evaluation. Hindsight, he was technically an adult but he still needed me to take control. If you think something is off with your child please listen to your gut.

I am so sorry for your loss - may his memory always be a blessing.

Amen. Thank you for sharing, you helped more people than you know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My first born, age 21 DS, died by suicide. I would give anything to do things differently. He said he was ok. He wasn’t. I should have insisted on therapy, instead of just suggesting it. I wish I would have taken him for a neuropsych evaluation. Hindsight, he was technically an adult but he still needed me to take control. If you think something is off with your child please listen to your gut.

I am very sorry for your loss.

Thank you for sharing your and your child's story. It was very kind of you.

[Anonymous]

My 22yo had a psychotic break 18 months ago and it's been incredibly hard to pull him out of the psychosis. Currently on his third hospitalization/psych hold. We wish SO SO much we'd been a lot stricter in high school about him smoking pot. I think that was the gateway to everything that came afterward and it has such strong ties to psychosis. It seemed like this came out of the blue, but in hindsight there were signs of what was coming. However, we didn't know what to look for, or that we should be looking. We have no family history of anything like this. It's a living nightmare and something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

The only piece of advice I have is to try to get your child to sign a release enabling you to speak with their medical care team once they are 18. We didn't have this in place and it made things so much harder. We couldn't get him to update it and have just been told it expired.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My 22yo had a psychotic break 18 months ago and it's been incredibly hard to pull him out of the psychosis. Currently on his third hospitalization/psych hold. We wish SO SO much we'd been a lot stricter in high school about him smoking pot. I think that was the gateway to everything that came afterward and it has such strong ties to psychosis. It seemed like this came out of the blue, but in hindsight there were signs of what was coming. However, we didn't know what to look for, or that we should be looking. We have no family history of anything like this. It's a living nightmare and something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

The only piece of advice I have is to try to get your child to sign a release enabling you to speak with their medical care team once they are 18. We didn't have this in place and it made things so much harder. We couldn't get him to update it and have just been told it expired.

The same thing happened to my sibling. Give yourselves a break and let yourself off the hook. He may have been smoking pot to self medicate for symptoms he already had that he couldn’t manage otherwise. You don’t know for sure that keeping him away from marijuana would have kept him sane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My 22yo had a psychotic break 18 months ago and it's been incredibly hard to pull him out of the psychosis. Currently on his third hospitalization/psych hold. We wish SO SO much we'd been a lot stricter in high school about him smoking pot. I think that was the gateway to everything that came afterward and it has such strong ties to psychosis. It seemed like this came out of the blue, but in hindsight there were signs of what was coming. However, we didn't know what to look for, or that we should be looking. We have no family history of anything like this. It's a living nightmare and something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

The only piece of advice I have is to try to get your child to sign a release enabling you to speak with their medical care team once they are 18. We didn't have this in place and it made things so much harder. We couldn't get him to update it and have just been told it expired.

The same thing happened to my sibling. Give yourselves a break and let yourself off the hook. He may have been smoking pot to self medicate for symptoms he already had that he couldn’t manage otherwise. You don’t know for sure that keeping him away from marijuana would have kept him sane.

Yes, this may very well be the case.

For the PP with the 22 y.o. son, just do the best that you can and realize it will not always be as best as you wish. Even if hospitals/treatment professionals say that can't LYK, just letting the psych and crisis teams, med staff, etc know that there is someone who cares about this young adult can make a difference.

OP, before our DCs left for college, we had them sign medical forms. Had no idea how this would come into play when we did this.

We still have to have our DC give permission each and every time they have a new treatment team. So far, they have agreed to it. There may come a time they will not, but so far we have been fortunate.

GL to everyone on this thread.

[Anonymous]

PP w/22yo son. Apparently my son did sign something with the current hospital because they called my husband today (nerve-wracking past 5 days while we wondered where he had been taken). Thanks to the above posters -- I really do appreciate your supportive thoughts. Sensitive responses are not that common on this forum!

OP: I didn't mean to hijack your question! I think the unifying thread here is to try to get your child to sign medical forms. There is also a "crisis form", I think available on the NAMI site or possiby through the behavior health site of whatever county you call home -- you can complete it with ID, insurance, medical history, prior meds and hospitalizations etc. and have a couple printed and on hand. That way you can give it to police or medical care team in the event of an emergency, vs. scrambling through a drawer to look at medications or whatever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My first born, age 21 DS, died by suicide. I would give anything to do things differently. He said he was ok. He wasn’t. I should have insisted on therapy, instead of just suggesting it. I wish I would have taken him for a neuropsych evaluation. Hindsight, he was technically an adult but he still needed me to take control. If you think something is off with your child please listen to your gut.

If he said he was ok, what made you think he wasn’t?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP w/22yo son. Apparently my son did sign something with the current hospital because they called my husband today (nerve-wracking past 5 days while we wondered where he had been taken). Thanks to the above posters -- I really do appreciate your supportive thoughts. Sensitive responses are not that common on this forum!

OP: I didn't mean to hijack your question! I think the unifying thread here is to try to get your child to sign medical forms. There is also a "crisis form", I think available on the NAMI site or possiby through the behavior health site of whatever county you call home -- you can complete it with ID, insurance, medical history, prior meds and hospitalizations etc. and have a couple printed and on hand. That way you can give it to police or medical care team in the event of an emergency, vs. scrambling through a drawer to look at medications or whatever.

PP: Is this what you are referring to? https://www.nami.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/INFO-Preparing-for-Crisis-ENG.pdf

Or is there a (somewhat) universal form? If so, I would be grateful if you have a link, even if it is to a county. Not having success with our county.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My 22yo had a psychotic break 18 months ago and it's been incredibly hard to pull him out of the psychosis. Currently on his third hospitalization/psych hold. We wish SO SO much we'd been a lot stricter in high school about him smoking pot. I think that was the gateway to everything that came afterward and it has such strong ties to psychosis. It seemed like this came out of the blue, but in hindsight there were signs of what was coming. However, we didn't know what to look for, or that we should be looking. We have no family history of anything like this. It's a living nightmare and something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

The only piece of advice I have is to try to get your child to sign a release enabling you to speak with their medical care team once they are 18. We didn't have this in place and it made things so much harder. We couldn't get him to update it and have just been told it expired.

The same thing happened to my sibling. Give yourselves a break and let yourself off the hook. He may have been smoking pot to self medicate for symptoms he already had that he couldn’t manage otherwise. You don’t know for sure that keeping him away from marijuana would have kept him sane.

Mine too. I think it began as self medication and then became something of a vicious cycle.

[Anonymous]

OP here, thank you for the reminder on forms. My child has a chronic incurable disease, type I, so I definitely will need that as college is a super dangerous time for them. Mental health also hits them hard because the disease makes it impossible to ever be mentally unwell and not risk your life. I'm trying to not hover, but make sure they are set up with the right support is and when it's needed.

[Anonymous]

Another parent of a kid who became psychotic as a young adult (21). The forms are a great idea. It’s not foolproof because we found hospitals still ask and my kid refused to allow us to get information and I can’t tell you how hard those periods are when you don’t know where your kid is.