Can we talk about parenting suicidal children

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a parent of a teenager who tried to overdose on pills recently. There weren’t many signs but DC is claiming they had severe depression. DC is in behavioral health clinic now. I would appreciate any support, tips, tricks. The drs want to put DC on Lexapro. Not sure when DC will come home. We will invest time and money into family therapy.

I'm sorry, PP. I have been in your shoes and it can be a very lonely place. I had no one that I could really talk about it with outside of my spouse and two close friends. I felt it was my child's story to tell (or not tell). The immediate aftermath was a very hard time full of fear and anxiety, but meeting with a therapist just for me helped a lot. We are now five years out and DC is in college and doing very, very well. I don't think about it much anymore, but it took at least two years with no further attempts before I could let down my guard enough to feel even semi-normal. Once in awhile I get that same sense of dread/worry, but it's more about me and PTSD than about any risk to my DC.

[Anonymous]

On Instagram, there are a lot of parental advisors (including professionals), support networks, and parents who have BTDT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Its not about you.

That’s BS. It’s like telling an alcoholic’s family that “it’s not about them.”
They absolutely inflict stress, anxiety and fear on their family

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
It sucks. Takes away almost all of your natural parenting instincts due to fear. I hate it.


not to mention sleeping terribly and lightly at night, waking at every noise, to run to kid's room to check on them and make sure they didn't decide to hurt themselves. You then go through your day like a zombie and/or in an agitated state. You find 95% of your attention goes to the suicidal kid and the other kids are close to ignored. Very sad and destructive for whole family.

Do not allow this to happen. Letting the most challenged family member (whether the issue is mental health, addiction or otherwise) control the entire family dynamic is destructive. That is the best advice I ever received. And it was given to me by a parent who had let the most troubled child control the family dynamic. That child went on as an adult to completely disown the parent while the remaining child, with whom the parent had had a strong relationship, was killed in an auto accident at a young age---leaving the parent to grieve and feel guilty.

This. It's sad when people have challenges, but when all is said and done, there is no guarantee after focusing (wasting) all of your resources (financial, emotional, psychological, etc.) on the one child that there will ever be any progress, let alone capacity for any kind of healthy relationships (familial, romantic or platonic), while the kids who absolutely would benefit from those resources go without and ultimately sustain different damage (even if not obviously apparent because they are still functional).