Reply to Everything for my teen is a mental health diagnosis

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[quote=Anonymous]My 13 year old daughter has anxiety and OCD.  She has been seeing a therapist for 6+ months and the therapist understands her treatment to be going well, and that her OCD was never severe (she actually has very few rituals) and that it was more the form her anxiety started taking (I'm not minimizing the OCD, just making clear that its not very disabling for her).  Her therapist has also said that she doesn't think a diagnosis of depression is appropriate, even though the anxiety was causing some suicidal ideation.  She thinks the occasional suicidal thoughts are more the result of being stuck in an OCD thinking loop, and that makes sense to me as well.  Mostly my daughter is highly functional, a good student, a great athlete, and a kind individual with friends who like her.

However.  My daughter has told all her friends that she suffers from "severe" depression and "severe" OCD.  If she is rude to me or her siblings and I call her out on it (calmly saying, "hey, try again - that was a bit rude") etc, she claims she was having a panic attack and that she "can't control it."  She also now says she doesn't understand ANYTHING we say to her, and she claims its because she's autistic (she has been evaluated, and shows no signs).  She will text her friends that I tell her she's awful and that I don't understand her mental health conditions.

This is all devastating to me.  I have struggled with anxiety and OCD as well as depression in the past, and I have the utmost respect for the seriousness of these issues.  I also know that therapy (and medication) can help (and is helping).  But it's so hurtful to know she's texting her friends about me in this way - and I'm sure THEIR moms read their texts as well.

She is also changing schools next year, which was entirely her choice, because she doesn't like her current school socially and it's not academically challenging.  But she's telling her friends I'm forcing her to leave because of her mental health issues.

I'm pretty sure I'm just supposed to suck it up and not care what she says to her friends.  Because apparently we live in a world where it's more socially acceptable to have mental health issues than to say you simply want to leave your school.  But I'm struggling with how to respond when she claims any and all misbehavior is the result of a panic attack / OCD / autism.  Or how to get her to stop using her mental health issues as an excuse for everything.

I was prepared to have a teenager and be the "mean parent" at times.  I was NOT prepared to have all these diagnoses - some valid, some not - thrown in my face every time I try to correct her behavior.

Advice? Support?[/quote]

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