College DD is Driving me Crazy

[Anonymous]

My 19-year-old sophomore daughter has convinced herself she’s infertile based on some symptoms she won’t fully share and things she’s read online, she is anxious. She’s extremely upset about it and cries often, and it’s become all-consuming for her. She also fixates on how this would affect her future and is afraid she’ll be alone forever if she can’t have children. She’s in college and has so much going on in her life, but her anxiety seems to be taking over. She refuses to seek any kind of medical evaluation or anxiety treatment. I’m not sure how to help her or how seriously to take this—- what do you think?

[Anonymous]

The Adult Children forum might get you more answers

[Anonymous]

Has she ever been anxious like this before now?

[Anonymous]

Without a gynecologist telling her that she’s not infertile she will continue to believe it. Ask her where online did she read this?

[Anonymous]

Encourage her to seek therapy for her anxiety. If you think it will help persuade her, require her to go to therapy in order for you to continue paying tuition or doing something else that's valuable to her.

Other than that the best thing you can do for her is to refuse to participate in her anxiety. Do not allow yourself to get into a pattern of trying to reason with her or convince her that she's wrong or being silly, and don't allow your every conversation to be about her anxieties. ***These actions only make anxiety worse.***

The best thing you can do for her is say things like, "well, if it turns out you're infertile, I'm sure you'll figure it out." Then change the subject. Or say things like, "I think it would be good if you took a break from worrying about this. What are some things you can do?" And help her brainstorm ideas to distract herself--go to the gym, watch a favorite show, go get some ice cream with a friend. Then keep encouraging these activities.

The anxious mind thinks that it has to keep worrying. The key to beating it is literally teaching yourself to stop thinking about your worries. The more you focus on the worries, the worse the anxiety gets. So don't let yourself get caught up in inadvertently making things worse. It's hard, because we want to listen and soothe and persuade them to think differently and convince them that they shouldn't worry. But you need to try to do the opposite. It's really OK--in fact necessary!--to say, "I don't want to talk about this anymore. I know you're worried. Let's talk about something else."

--mom of a young adult with anxiety

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Without a gynecologist telling her that she’s not infertile she will continue to believe it. Ask her where online did she read this?

Not true! Short of getting pregnant, there's no way to know if she's infertile. A GYN might ease her mind for a bit but very soon she will ask herself, "but how does the doctor KNOW?" And the anxiety starts right back up again. Or the anxious mind finds something else to be anxious about.

Anxiety is a pattern of thinking that must be dealt with. The problem here is not that she thinks she's infertile. The problem is that she is obsessed with the idea that she could be and is anxious and perseverating about it.

[Anonymous]

Does she think she has PCOS?

Have her visit a higher tier gynecologist and have them assess her and talk with her about her fears. They may be able to advise.

Buy her a copy of this book.

Toni Weschler
Taking Charge of Your Fertility (Revised Edition): The Definitive Guide to Natural Birth Control, Pregnancy Achievement, and Reproductive Health

I ran across this book after I no longer needed it and I wished I had read it while trying to resolve my infertility.

To be honest, the early steps of infertility treatment do not involve things that your daughter can be doing now because she is not trying to get pregnant. Things like taking daily medicine.

If she has issues like anorexia, irregular periods, fibroids, PCOS, those can be addressed now. Or if she caught an STI like chlamydia (I'd assume she's been treated if so).

There may be some scientific research out there that would be helpful. But you'd need to know what her symptoms are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Encourage her to seek therapy for her anxiety. If you think it will help persuade her, require her to go to therapy in order for you to continue paying tuition or doing something else that's valuable to her.

Other than that the best thing you can do for her is to refuse to participate in her anxiety. Do not allow yourself to get into a pattern of trying to reason with her or convince her that she's wrong or being silly, and don't allow your every conversation to be about her anxieties. ***These actions only make anxiety worse.***

The best thing you can do for her is say things like, "well, if it turns out you're infertile, I'm sure you'll figure it out." Then change the subject. Or say things like, "I think it would be good if you took a break from worrying about this. What are some things you can do?" And help her brainstorm ideas to distract herself--go to the gym, watch a favorite show, go get some ice cream with a friend. Then keep encouraging these activities.

The anxious mind thinks that it has to keep worrying. The key to beating it is literally teaching yourself to stop thinking about your worries. The more you focus on the worries, the worse the anxiety gets. So don't let yourself get caught up in inadvertently making things worse. It's hard, because we want to listen and soothe and persuade them to think differently and convince them that they shouldn't worry. But you need to try to do the opposite. It's really OK--in fact necessary!--to say, "I don't want to talk about this anymore. I know you're worried. Let's talk about something else."

--mom of a young adult with anxiety

+100

[Anonymous]

On the off chance that this isn't a troll: OP, tell her to make an appointment with a GYN and stress the importance of contraception and protection against STIs regardless of whether or not she is infertile. A baby at 19 is a bad idea.

[Anonymous]

If she doesn’t want to share with you, can you offer to cover a visit so she can discuss it with a PCP or infertility specialist? It could be anxiety but there truly are many conditions that interfere with fertility and if she had one, there may be more Hope than she realizes (e.g. IVF). Most gyn/PCP can do bloodwork but really a fertility clinic consult where she could learn more about options when/if she wants to become pregnant is likely the best place. My guess is that if it is anxiety-based, they will also tell her that.

I think you can also tell her you don’t want to talk about this anymore and/or that you don’t know how to help unless she shares more info and continue to offer resources. If there is a counseling center at her university that might be a good place to process this.

I’m hope things improve for you both soon

[Anonymous]

I would make her a gyn appointment, because any 19 year old should be seeing a gyn anyway. Try to find someone good and try to explain to her the issue before she goes in.

Will she be home for summer? My next step would be to find a CBT trained therapist to work with her on the anxiety. Becuase with anxiety it's not about the specific issue they are anxious about -- if it's not fertility, it might be grades, or climate change, or ICE, or job prospects or whatever. The CBT program is about learning ways to teach your brain not to run in circles about these things, and to calm yourself. It's a brain circuit malfunction, and you can train your brain to work around it (or develop the circuit or whatever -- I've lost the metaphor). Anxiety is actually one of the most treatable conditions, because the therapy generally works and the meds also can work well as well.

[Anonymous]

OP here. I truly appreciate the thoughtful responses.
She has struggled with anxiety since early childhood (around age five). When she was younger it didn’t always present as constant worry and felt more manageable, but it intensified during her teenage years. At that time, therapy was helpful and gave her some solid coping tools. Over the past year, things had improved significantly. Recently, though, her anxiety has resurfaced and is now centered almost entirely on fears about infertility.

She isn’t always able to articulate exactly why she believes she may be infertile. At times she references possible hormonal or autoimmune issues, but the symptoms she describes are fairly nonspecific: fatigue, occasional late periods, appetite changes, and sleep disruption, etc. These are concerns that could be evaluated fairly simply with a blood test and could stem from a wide range of causes — many of which would have nothing to do with infertility. Despite that, she remains reluctant to pursue medical evaluation or testing.

She’s also hesitant to re-engage in anxiety treatment because she worries that addressing the anxiety will inevitably lead to medical work-ups, and she fears that testing could confirm her worst assumptions. From the outside, it appears that her current distress is being driven far more by anxiety than by any confirmed medical condition.

Most of the information hers seems to come from online articles and social media. She will also be home this summer, but not for more than a few weeks in total.

[Anonymous]

I would tell her if she refuses to get actual medical advice rather than Tik Tok or Google advice, then I refuse to listen to her talk about this. If she wants to spin in circles she can do that on her own time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Without a gynecologist telling her that she’s not infertile she will continue to believe it. Ask her where online did she read this?

Social. Media.

It is insanely toxic. Social is 100% the cause of your daughter’s mental illness: anxiety.

She is an addict. Seek treatment for her phone addiction.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like all of her symptoms are from anxiety, truly! She should for sure get a medical workup to ease her mind though. But I would definitely be concerned about that level of fixation and try to get her to work with a therapist. Lots of reasonable OL options now.

I have PCOS and I had maybe four periods a year if I was lucky. Even then, I got pregnant easily once I took metformin. There are very few medicial conditions that prevent a young woman from conceiving.