When the school tells you your kid is at risk for suicide

[Anonymous]

OP, if the previous counselor didn’t think Uluru daughter was depressed, what DID that person think was going on with her? Did they just say, “No, this kid is totally fine, no issue at all”?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I had the same experience only with my son. New school, call from the guidance counselor, denied that he would kill himself or had a plan and then he tried. I spent a year not knowing if he would be alive when I got home. I had to check the house before I got the other kids out of the car. May have been the worst year ever. Counselor didn't help because he wouldn't talk. Things got better after I made major changes in his life - different school program, lots of structure, volunteer work instead of being home, etc. Good luck.

Also I am a social worker who worked with families of kids who committed suicide. Things I can tell you are these. No one can imagine their child trying to kill themselves and they never see it coming. It's always a shock. And suicide doesn't happen when things are the worst. It happens when things are on the upswing g. At that point people have the energy to plan and they can't fathom ever going back to the dark place they came from.

I wouldnt have left that kid home alone.

Well then you are luckier to have more resources than I had at that time. It's easy to criticize and judge when you are not walking in those shoes. But I'm not sure who would have paid for that home that I left him alone in if I hadn't gone to work because my paycheck was the only money coming into the house.

If he did the unthinkable, you would have regretted that job.
I didn't leave my son alone for a year when I was worried about the same thing.

Here's the thing. I was a single parent of three (and not the type of single parent who had another parent taking the kids part time or providing support - it was 100% me with no family in the area). Week 1 and 2 and maybe even up to 5, friends will pitch in. But then you're on your own. And this lasted more than a year.

Having worked with families whose children committed suicide, I knew of so many families who were right there when their kids killed themselves. One happened after a therapy session - walked to the front of the car in the parking garage and jumped as his mother watched. Another laid in bed until his parents were asleep and then climbed onto the roof and shot himself with a gun he got from a kid at school. Another went to the bathroom and downed a bottle of Tylenol while her parents were in the next room. I did this for a long time and could keep going. But the point is that as parents in this awful situation, we do the best we can and even always being there doesn't prevent it. I am really happy for you that you got through your child's crisis successfully and that you had the luxury of doing what gave you peace of mind while you were going through it. But it was a luxury and it is not ok to judge those of us who have a different reality.

[Anonymous]

I'm sorry I came across as judging.
I just couldn't imagine my own anxiety I feel I didn't do that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe you dont mean to come off this way OP, but you sound very dismissive.

"She doesn't want.to be alive but she has no plans to commit suicide"
" Old therapist said she wasn't depressed, so she's not"
"l I'm thinking of barging in to make sure she didn't take a bunch of pills" in an "lol" way.

I just hope you are taking this more seriously than you.appear to be.

OP here. I spent the most of the last 24 hours either talking with psychologists/crisis counselor and researching someone to treat her full-time. It is amazing how difficult it is to find resources.

I am taking it seriously but please understand that unless you have been in my shoes, it's hard to understand the surreal nature.

I know something is very wrong. The hard part is assessing whether there is an imminent threat.

And when a licensed clinician tells you your child is NOT depressed, you listen. Doesn't mean something hasn't changed, but it was the last tangible


information we had until yesterday happened.

Op my daughter went to 3east DBT at McLean and most recently by her choice insight behavioral health. 3east was amazing but no insurance. Insight takes insurance and does DBT and cbt therapy

[Anonymous]

My daughter was on suicide? watch all of last school year. She was a homebound student most of the year, hospitalized twice in the ER, taken to a psych facility for kids once. She was on Abilify but it reacted with OTC meds so her doctor put her on Lexapro and Risperdal. I sent her to live with her dad in Oklahoma (we're in Virginia), the school she's in has only 80 students and the one she left had around 600. She's now off Lexapro, hasn't cut herself in months, and is doing much better. It's hard to live without her but I had to save her life. She was in therapy here, she isn't there.

[Anonymous]

Not sure why there's a ? after suicide..... ignore my phone.

[Anonymous]

I quit my job to keep an eye on my kid.what choice did i have?
I would rather be in a homeless shelter with a living kid than the other alternative.

Thankfully we were able to swing it but we are financially in the hole.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I had the same experience only with my son. New school, call from the guidance counselor, denied that he would kill himself or had a plan and then he tried. I spent a year not knowing if he would be alive when I got home. I had to check the house before I got the other kids out of the car. May have been the worst year ever. Counselor didn't help because he wouldn't talk. Things got better after I made major changes in his life - different school program, lots of structure, volunteer work instead of being home, etc. Good luck.

Also I am a social worker who worked with families of kids who committed suicide. Things I can tell you are these. No one can imagine their child trying to kill themselves and they never see it coming. It's always a shock. And suicide doesn't happen when things are the worst. It happens when things are on the upswing g. At that point people have the energy to plan and they can't fathom ever going back to the dark place they came from.

NP. Thank you for this post. This is a very important point - quite chilling, actually - but thank you for pointing it out.

It is also not true. Sometimes people kill themselves on the upswing but sometimes (especially in teens) the trigger that leads from contemplation and ideation to the attempt / completion is humiliation / embarrassment / rejection / sense of worthlessness / hopelessness and they are at what they see as their worst with no way out when they act on it.
Suicide doesn't take a lot of in the moment planning. There may have been planning in the past (they hoarded pills) or they act impulsively or while under the influence and use what they can access now.

I worked with over 2000 suicidal teens in a previous job, many post attempt. There is no one pathway or set of risk factors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe you dont mean to come off this way OP, but you sound very dismissive.

"She doesn't want.to be alive but she has no plans to commit suicide"
" Old therapist said she wasn't depressed, so she's not"
"l I'm thinking of barging in to make sure she didn't take a bunch of pills" in an "lol" way.

I just hope you are taking this more seriously than you.appear to be.

OP here. I spent the most of the last 24 hours either talking with psychologists/crisis counselor and researching someone to treat her full-time. It is amazing how difficult it is to find resources.

I am taking it seriously but please understand that unless you have been in my shoes, it's hard to understand the surreal nature.

I know something is very wrong. The hard part is assessing whether there is an imminent threat.

And when a licensed clinician tells you your child is NOT depressed, you listen. Doesn't mean something hasn't changed, but it was the last tangible information we had until yesterday happened.

Was it a licensed clinician who has the qualification to diagnose? Many counselors / therapists are not trained to diagnose and are not always great at recognizing less typical presentations of different mental illnesses. They may not recognize the irritable, angry, substance using teen as depressed or they may not catch the empty, numb, apathetic but people pleasing, puts on a good face teen as depressed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I had the same experience only with my son. New school, call from the guidance counselor, denied that he would kill himself or had a plan and then he tried. I spent a year not knowing if he would be alive when I got home. I had to check the house before I got the other kids out of the car. May have been the worst year ever. Counselor didn't help because he wouldn't talk. Things got better after I made major changes in his life - different school program, lots of structure, volunteer work instead of being home, etc. Good luck.

Also I am a social worker who worked with families of kids who committed suicide. Things I can tell you are these. No one can imagine their child trying to kill themselves and they never see it coming. It's always a shock. And suicide doesn't happen when things are the worst. It happens when things are on the upswing g. At that point people have the energy to plan and they can't fathom ever going back to the dark place they came from.

NP. Thank you for this post. This is a very important point - quite chilling, actually - but thank you for pointing it out.

It is also not true. Sometimes people kill themselves on the upswing but sometimes (especially in teens) the trigger that leads from contemplation and ideation to the attempt / completion is humiliation / embarrassment / rejection / sense of worthlessness / hopelessness and they are at what they see as their worst with no way out when they act on it.
Suicide doesn't take a lot of in the moment planning. There may have been planning in the past (they hoarded pills) or they act impulsively or while under the influence and use what they can access now.

I worked with over 2000 suicidal teens in a previous job, many post attempt. There is no one pathway or set of risk factors.

Yes, to the emphasis on impulsivity. A suicide of someone I know was 100% impulsive, zero planning. She got caught doing something fraudulent and committed suicide that day. Young people have a very hard time seeing past immediate consequences and embarrassment and cannot fathom that there is a life beyond the now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe you dont mean to come off this way OP, but you sound very dismissive.

"She doesn't want.to be alive but she has no plans to commit suicide"
" Old therapist said she wasn't depressed, so she's not"
"l I'm thinking of barging in to make sure she didn't take a bunch of pills" in an "lol" way.

I just hope you are taking this more seriously than you.appear to be.

OP here. I spent the most of the last 24 hours either talking with psychologists/crisis counselor and researching someone to treat her full-time. It is amazing how difficult it is to find resources.

I am taking it seriously but please understand that unless you have been in my shoes, it's hard to understand the surreal nature.

I know something is very wrong. The hard part is assessing whether there is an imminent threat.

And when a licensed clinician tells you your child is NOT depressed, you listen. Doesn't mean something hasn't changed, but it was the last tangible information we had until yesterday happened.

We went through this a few years ago and thankfully did not lose our DS to suicide, but it was a close call followed by years of therapy, including DBT (highly recommend it), and support from various psychiatrists. There were previous attempts that we learned about afterwards. I also took him initially to a psychologist, 9 months before the attempt, who said DS was completely fine. Well, that was not at all the case, but teens can be very good at hiding it from their parents and he initially fooled the first professional we spoke with. So, my advice is to please get her to a psychiatrist for an evaluation soonest. She needs 24/7 supervision if she is expressing suicidal ideation. Sadly, teens can find multiple means to harm themselves, despite a parent's best efforts to keep them safe. I hope you can get her the help she needs soon and good luck to you both.

[Anonymous]

Hugs to you OP, this definitely does make your head spin.
We got those calls from school starting in 6th grade. DD is now in 10th.

You are going to have to constantly fit puzzle pieces together.
Here's just some of the things we've done/learned along the way:

- In 6th grade, we did pscyho educational testing. DD was diagnosed with anxiety, depression, ADHD. Part of the testing included us talking about her history from my pregnancy, newborn, toddlerhood, and so on. The signs were always there. We just didn't know what they were.

- Got her to a psychiatrist. Started on prozac, wellbutrin, adderall.
- We went to that Mental Wellness conference a PP mentioned and through one of the presentations, we realized that DD has issues with regulating emotion.
- DD starting cutting herself in 7th grade. She would only do it when we were at home.
- Lots of calls from the school counselor. We determined patterns that she would go to the counselor to avoid her less preferred classes. We realized that she needed to be able to express wants up front and not through threats of self-harm.

- It is hard to know when that "imminent danger" is. DH and I went back and forth about taking her to Dominion but eventually decided against it, mostly because of a post I saw here about losing control over her "medical needs " once you check her in. We didn't want to go through that process. I have an adult brother that I checked into rehab a couple of years ago and it was disconcerting how little control you had over anything and how the insurance dictates what treatment you do get.

- In 7th grade, we had her go through 6 months of brain training, meditation type stuff. This wasn't very effective for her.
- 8th grade was really tough. Lots of issues with school.
- In 9th grade, we did 6 months of DBT in a program that has concurrent sessions for us parents. Cost was about $200 a week. The kids had their own sessions and the parents had our session with a separate therapist. This was incredibly helpful for us. We did meet parents who had gone to Dominion and the like. They said their kid picked up other bad habits from other kids. The parent sessions were very comforting to me. It's hard to talk about these things amongst other parents whose kids don't have these issues.

Our main takeaways from DBT sessions:
1. Things that are in conflict can be true at the same time. That's the "dialectical" thinking.
2. Just because you feel it, doesn't mean you have to act on it. It's a choice. We practiced tools/communication strategies on how to make those choices.

- She sees a therapist weekly. Therapy is like maintenance meds- if you don't do it, the brain and the thoughts gets all tangled up. Therapy is focused on emotional regulation.

- We've gotten as much support from school as we can get. She has an IEP.

- Insurance isn't great. We only use our insurance for her psychiatrist. We go out of network for everything else. It's true what they say here at DCUM, the good therapists don't take insurance. Right now we spend $165 a week on therapy.

- If your child does have depression, know that it's a chemical imbalance that she has little control over. I wish the stigma for mental health goes away.

- The crisis line has been good. If anything, sometimes she just needs to be distracted from her own thoughts.

- We really had to adjust our parenting style and got to know our DD as a person-- not just as our child. We know better what her patterns of thinking are. We use what we learn from her medical providers put that into context of her as a person. This is the reason why no one can really tell you what's "best." It's different for different people. These clinicians are only seeing snapshot of your kid during their few minutes in an appointment. If you feel something is a concern (and we really do not say the word "wrong" in our household), observe and listen to your DD. You will need to take information from all sources but not rely on one completely.

- School has improved a lot. She seems to have a better footing on her emotions. I do not feel like i'm on constant suicide watch. She talks more openly about how she feels and we practice thought processing all the time.

- Things we are really focusing on now: sleep, nutrition, exercise-- which I really wanted to do much earlier but I felt like my head was spinning with everything else so we had to prioritize.

- It did feel surreal at the beginning. How can my kid be suicidal? But also know that we've heard stories of kids who have committed suicide with no signs at all, so in a way we are thankful we are able to do something now. We had to accept that this was our new normal and as much as things may get "better", you also have to constantly stay vigilant.

Hang in there OP. Hope this helps a little.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe you dont mean to come off this way OP, but you sound very dismissive.

"She doesn't want.to be alive but she has no plans to commit suicide"
" Old therapist said she wasn't depressed, so she's not"
"l I'm thinking of barging in to make sure she didn't take a bunch of pills" in an "lol" way.

I just hope you are taking this more seriously than you.appear to be.

OP here. I spent the most of the last 24 hours either talking with psychologists/crisis counselor and researching someone to treat her full-time. It is amazing how difficult it is to find resources.

I am taking it seriously but please understand that unless you have been in my shoes, it's hard to understand the surreal nature.

I know something is very wrong. The hard part is assessing whether there is an imminent threat.

And when a licensed clinician tells you your child is NOT depressed, you listen. Doesn't mean something hasn't changed, but it was the last tangible information we had until yesterday happened.

Was it a licensed clinician who has the qualification to diagnose? Many counselors / therapists are not trained to diagnose and are not always great at recognizing less typical presentations of different mental illnesses. They may not recognize the irritable, angry, substance using teen as depressed or they may not catch the empty, numb, apathetic but people pleasing, puts on a good face teen as depressed.

Yes. She was a doctor and licensed clinician.

[Anonymous]

Op update?