My Teen tells us and his friends that he is 'depressed and a mess'

[Anonymous]

It's social media. Children psychologists and therapists have been studying this and are starting to publish findings that (like adults), the overabundance of social media is messing with everyone's brains and causing depression and even suicidal thoughts. It is insane that we are letting this happen to us.

My kids are still in middle school, but I've taken away smart phones and limiting internet usage at home. It has helped.
Kids need to learn to pick up the phone and call their friends and go out and play again. Much simpler, happier world

[Anonymous]

My son was similar. We decided to look for a counselor and psychiatrist. Waiting lists were long and before he got in to see someone, his condition worsened and he ended up hospitalized. If you had told me in October that my son would be in the hospital within a month I never would have believed it.

Anyway, if you decide to get help, it can take a very long time to find someone to see your son, particularly if you want someone who takes your insurance. The lack of mental health resources is a topic that comes up frequently on the SN board and in life in general.

[Anonymous]

You're not going to listen but I'll tell you anyway.

He needs to go to a Sleepaway surf camp and learn how to surf.

If you throw in a beginners New Testament he may be ready for that too.


But you won't do it. And you should. It will work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone else think that this is a pretty good description of .... life itself... and OP's teen is just growing up and realizing it?

The term "depressed and a mess" is hyperbole but no wonder he's using it, as it seems to be in vogue now for everyone to complain about everything.

Two generations ago, our grandparents would have been told to get back to your chores and quit complaining. And they did. And they also recognized earlier in age that life is not an endless chase for "happiness" and "feeling good." We all get down sometimes, OP, including your son. What is different now is that these "feelings" have been elevated to the point of major relevance in our everyday lives.

Yep. Get back to your chores and quit whining that you have a treatable disease, or that there’s no wheelchair ramp, or you’re sad that you had to institutionalize your kid with cognitive delays and pretend he never existed, or that you’re not allowed to eat at the counter because of your skin color, or that your boss harasses you at work and always tries to slide his hand up your skirt or pats your bottom. Suck it up, all you pansies. Ahh, the good old days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You're not going to listen but I'll tell you anyway.

He needs to go to a Sleepaway surf camp and learn how to surf.

If you throw in a beginners New Testament he may be ready for that too.


But you won't do it. And you should. It will work.

+100. Get off the damn phone and do something!

[Anonymous]

If he’s telling friends and they report it to school, he shouldn’t’t have a choice to see a counselor - they should mandate it. But from your end, if he says it again I would tell him that you have respected his wishes not to see someone before but now it’s becoming too repeated and frequent and you have to have him seen. He might balk but counselors are used it it and will break through.

Yes it may be him talking a big game, or he might be hiding something. Better safe than sorry, right?

[Anonymous]

I was highly functional and suicidal. I would take him at his word.

Why doesn't he want to see a counselor? What about just a once-a-month check in with someone? Not "therapy" but more you want him to have someone to talk to, to check in with, someone who's not you. And if they decide together that he needs more or less that's fine, but you want him to give it a try.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone else think that this is a pretty good description of .... life itself... and OP's teen is just growing up and realizing it?

The term "depressed and a mess" is hyperbole but no wonder he's using it, as it seems to be in vogue now for everyone to complain about everything.

Two generations ago, our grandparents would have been told to get back to your chores and quit complaining. And they did. And they also recognized earlier in age that life is not an endless chase for "happiness" and "feeling good." We all get down sometimes, OP, including your son. What is different now is that these "feelings" have been elevated to the point of major relevance in our everyday lives.

Yep. Get back to your chores and quit whining that you have a treatable disease, or that there’s no wheelchair ramp, or you’re sad that you had to institutionalize your kid with cognitive delays and pretend he never existed, or that you’re not allowed to eat at the counter because of your skin color, or that your boss harasses you at work and always tries to slide his hand up your skirt or pats your bottom. Suck it up, all you pansies. Ahh, the good old days.

He doesn't have a disease, except for perhaps a little Bethesda Guilt.

[Anonymous]

I'm currently reading Marianne Williamson's Tears to Triumph. The book opens with this poem:

Let my joyfully streaming face make me more radiant;
let my hidden weeping arise and blossom.
How dear you will be to me then,
you nights of anguish.
Why didn't I kneel more deeply to accept you, inconsolable sisters, and, surrendering, lose myself in your loosened hair.
How we squander our hours of pain.
How we gaze beyond them into the bitter duration to see if they have an end.
Though they are really our winter-enduring foliage, our dark evergreen, one season in our inner year–, not only a season in time–,
but are place and settlement, foundation and soil and home

"Discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life." Tell your son if he doesn't allow himself to feel the full spectrum of human emotions he will become shallow and have shallow relationships. He can FEEL his emotions. Emotions are natural and healthy. But they should not OWN him. Feeling the full spectrum of emotions: healthy. Being eaten up by emotions and allowing them to be too out of control so they end up ruining your mental health and relationships: extremely unhealthy, even deadly.

Watch Susan David's TED Talk on how to control emotions in a healthy way:
https://www.ted.com/talks/susan_david_the_gift_and_power_of_emotional_courage

I highly recommend her book, Emotional Agility, as well. This is how you deal with life on life's terms with courage, wisdom, and power. I am happy and positive, but not to the exclusion of my emotions and denial of reality. We are nature- there will be thunderstorms, rainy days, sunny days, etc. I think humanity has desensitized in a big way. Everyone craving constant sunshine. Well, the desert shows how that pans out. Lush green environments need some rain. Besides without emotions we'd be robots.

[Anonymous]

Get him a copy of the Feeling Good handbook. It's a self help book rooted in cognitive behavior therapy that he can work on in the privacy of his own bedroom, at his own pace. It will help him to break out of negative thinking patterns and reframe events in his life in a more positive way.