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[quote=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.

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