Tell me about your teen getting to the other side of depression and/or suicidal talk?
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Anonymous
| Thank you. Need some good stories today, feeling overwhelmed and hopeless about our child |
Anonymous
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Hi OP, so sorry to hear you are going through this. I know how hard it is to watch your child sink into depression. As parents, we can see the other side and we want our children to listen to us and do the things they need to do to get to the other side but we can't make them do it.
My daughter was in therapy with a good counselor in 8th and 9th grade but she still got to the point where she was suicidal and her counselor recommended hospitalizing her. That was the worst day of my life. I had always expected any child of mine would probably need therapy but I was supposed to have done things better than my parents did and the idea that I would have to hospitalize my child made me feel like a failure. However, it turned out to be the best thing we ever could have done. First she got on medication and second it was like therapy boot camp. It was a wake up call for everyone in the family. (This was Dominion Hospital which had an excellent program for adolescents.) The medication helped her immediately but it took many years and a lot of work before she was out of the woods. There were other crises as well but now she is graduating from college and has a good friendship network through various support groups so I am confident in her ability to weather any future crises. But there were many years, especially while she was in high school, that I finally understood how my own mother felt about my adolescent depression. You want your child to be happy so it will alleviate your own anxiety but that makes it about you and not them. You can try to take your child by the hand and drag them through it but the child just experiences it as forcing them to do something that feels unbearable. They feel horrible and, based on their experience of life so far, who wouldn't? They need help from a professional to find the tools they can use to escape the darkness they're trapped in. I'm afraid I'm rambling on but anyway, one thing I learned from my own descent into depression as an adolescent - it's horrible to be depressed as a teen but having a crisis and working through it when you're young can make you a stronger adult. It forces you to get help and once you do and see the results, you are not afraid to get help when you need it as an adult. A lot of folks make it through adolescence without a crisis and sometimes they don't address the things they need to address as adults because they're managing okay. It's harder in some respects to change the way you think when you're older - but if you've had to get through this when you're young, well, you are less likely to accept a life that is unnecessarily painful. Anyway, hope this helps a little. I wish you and your family the best and hope that in the years to come this day will just be a distant memory that you have moved far beyond. Good luck! |
Anonymous
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I'm not sure I'd say that we've come all the way to the other side, but we've come a long way.
My 17 year old's struggles seemed to start pretty abruptly in 8th grade, although in retrospect there were whispers of problems earlier. He's diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder (now in remission), Generalized Anxiety Disorder, possibly Panic Disorder, and ADHD - PI. Here are some things that have helped: 1) Psychiatrist and medication -- We hit the jackpot with psychiatrist the first time, and found the right medication (Zoloft) on the second try. It took about 2 months to see results from the medication, and about 4 months before I began to feel like I had my kid back. Since then we've adjusted it upward once when depression symptoms resurfaced. The medication works well for his depression, and seems to control the suicidality, but has less impact on the anxiety. 2) Finding the right therapist -- We're on Therapist #4, a CBT specialist who only treats teens with anxiety, and feel like this is finally the right person. We stuck with person #2 for a long time, and in retrospect, I wish we'd made the jump earlier. 3) Finding the right combination, with sufficient intensity, of therapy -- right now kid's in individual therapy, and group therapy, and parents are in a parent group. Once a week was not enough for my kid. 4) Prioritizing things that bring him pleasure -- When we first started to see behaviors like school refusal, and not doing work, that go with depression, I was pretty behavioral. I know my kid's currency (attention from peers, sports, video games), and I cut these things off, saying "if you didn't go to school you can't go out with friends" or "no video games when the homework's not done". I ended up with a kid under the covers on the couch doing nothing. His isolation deepened his depression, which made it harder for him to be interested in the things that used to motivate him. Now, we have a schedule, with sports, and therapy, and extracurriculars, and school. If he misses something, we move on to the next thing in his schedule. A day when he went to 3/5 things he was supposed to do (e.g. didn't go to class, did go to therapy, did walk the dog, didn't go to sports practice, did go to family dinner at Grandma's) is a better day than a day when he did 0/5 things. He has a form, checks off the things he does and earns reinforcers for meeting a certain percentage of his goals. 5) Recognizing that his mental illness saps his stamina, and that he needs sleep and downtime more than most kids his age. This has meant choosing easier classes, and slightly fewer classes. 6) Yoga/mindfulness classes have been a nice addition to therapy. At the end of this, I have a kid who smiles and talks to family, who has friends, who goes to school most days and is earning passing grades, talking about college (probably starting out someplace he can commute and transferring), is involved in sports and the arts, and who I can let out of my sight without worrying that he'll still be alive next time I see him. From 2 years ago, when he was under the covers, not talking, not doing anything, and I was terrified each day when I went to work . . . That's huge progress. Good luck! |
Anonymous
| These are both great posts. And I will reiterate not to be afraid to leave a psychiatrist or therapist who isn't helping. Things improved dramatically once we had the right team of people. But getting there too almost two years and I wasted time and money with providers who didn't help because it was hard to know what to expect. |
Anonymous
| Would you be willing to recommend and give us the name of therapist number 4? New poster here. My son has anxiety. He has been seeing a therapist but decided today that he no longer wants to see him. |
Anonymous
We see therapists at the Center for Anxiety and Behavioral Change in Rockville. |
Anonymous
Sorry that was me, of the 4 individual therapists. We have seen a couple different people there due to individual therapy, group therapy, and a maternity leave. I counted the practice as a whole as #4 because we have liked all of it. |
Anonymous
Plus 1000. This probably not convenient for most on this forum but Rick Silver at Thrive in Columbia is excellent. After many psychiatrists he was finally able to help our family. Typing on phone so I'll be brief but a fairly high dose of Prozac and several therapists were needed before we came out on other side. Talk therapy for DC was only useful once a therapist clicked with DC. |
Anonymous
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Not my teen, but me. I was depressed and suicidal throughout my teenage years. I was institutionalized for being at risk for suicide when I was 18. With the right support and the right therapist, I was able to bring myself out of that darkness. It's not easy, and there are setbacks at times, but I've been able to climb out and many others have too.
I'm in my mid-30s now with 2 kids of my own. Because of my experiences, I volunteer for the National Suicide Hotline -- I know how hard it can be when you are in that dark place. And I also know that you can come out the other side and live a happy, complete, and fulfilling life. |
Lawrencebrown
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I must say Its really a big issue. You should talk with your kid. Depression is very big decease, no-one can escape from this if fall into it.
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Anonymous
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OP, I'm sorry you are going through this. We had an awful couple of years starting in 9th grade and I have to say, it was some of the worst times of my life going through this with my son. I used to get calls from the school and from parents telling me that my son was talking about suicide. No one wanted to allow their child to be friends with my son so he became more and more isolated. Each day when I would come home, I had to find someone to watch my younger kids for 15 minutes so I could check the house to be sure my son hadn't killed himself before we got there - and because I couldn't deal with other people's reactions, I had to find someone new each day and come up with some new excuse each time. I would get physically ill each day on my way home from work because I didn't know what I'd find. He isolated himself in his room and barely even came out to eat.
He was never hospitalized. His therapist felt that I was capable of keeping him alive and that the damage from separating him from me (he has/had attachment issues due to foster care and adoption) would outweigh the good that could come from hospitalization. To make things worse, as a social worker, I had spent some time working with people who were suicidal and families whose kids committed suicide. So, I knew people who had tried so hard to help their sons and daughters and did everything right, yet their child successfully committed suicide. What really seems to have made the difference for my son was getting his life successful. I was able to get him into a program at school that he liked and where he was capable (he was failing many subjects - and still does unless he has a lot of support). I found a church that had a really good youth group - we tried many before we found a good fit. Boy Scouts and activities didn't work, but we tried that as well. I restructured our whole family life so that we had weekends doing things together - we actually went away every weekend because at home it was too easy to to separate directions. Things got worse before they got better - for months, he was sleeping on my bedroom floor, showering in my bathroom (with a towel over the door for privacy, of course), going to work with one of us when school was out. It was two very difficult years, with one being very dark. But, if you saw him today, you wouldn't believe any of this story. He is medicated for anxiety, not depression. He also takes a low dose of medication for ADHD, which I am not convinced is necessary, but his doctors are and he's doing well so I don't say anything. He has a job, a girlfriend and plans for a future. He does volunteer work. We're starting to look at post-high school education (not college - that's not a realistic goal) and schools are really interested in him. He is extremely successful in his vo-tech program and has found some friends there - he never fit in at our home schools because he struggles so much. But at vo-tech, he is with a lot of kids who aren't successful in traditional classrooms. I could not have imagined this two years ago. I don't have any words of wisdom, just am sending good thoughts to you and your child. |
Anonymous
| I don't have any advice but just popped in to say that I want to hug each and every one of you. |