Reply to DD 16 attempted suicide Friday. Need tips for ME.

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Reply to "DD 16 attempted suicide Friday. Need tips for ME."

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My best advice is to make sure that you have someone you can be absolutely honest with about your feelings/frustrations/fears/etc. For a lot of us it feels uncomfortable to talk openly about how it's affecting us because we don't want to seem like we are not focusing on our child. Or we can feel like we need to protect our child's privacy or that we don't want our family's "stuff" out there in the world.

But you need to have an outlet where you can speak out loud all the things you are thinking and feeling so you can process it, get comfort, get angry, cry...whatever it is you need to be able to stay healthy and strong for your child.

It helps if it's not someone in the midst of it with you, like a spouse or parent, but instead someone who a little distance but who you implicitly trust. For me it was a childhood friend in another state who I knew had been through this with a family member. For my spouse it was a therapist because it felt safer to share those thoughts with someone who was trained to listen.

I say even though I could not have followed this advice myself in the early days because it felt so hard to even say some things out loud. So if you can't do this now, that's ok. Just give yourself permission to start thinking about who you'll talk to when you're ready to talk.[/quote]

This is good advice. You may not need a therapist, but, having a trusted friend (who is not necessarily close to the situation) will help. It also cuts down on the likelihood of gossip spreading. It is hard to protect your kid's privacy and find a friend/friends you can confide in.[/quote]

I gently disagree with this. I think a therapist is the person you can go to with it ALL, every dark thought you may have and all your deep feelings. You want your friends to feel good supporting you and you don't want to drag them down with you. It is sometimes hard to read when it's just too much for them. I had a different situation, but before I got therapy I felt like I was bringing them down with me and they have their own lives and stresssors. Now I can get all those fears out with a professional and process them and enjoy my friends and the much needed distraction they bring. Friends won't always set a boundary when it's just too much and society has all these sayings about friendship that set up unrealistic and unfair expectations. Spread things out and take the really hard stuff to someone with the background to truly help you work through it and stay resilient.[/quote]

I completely agree - as a parent of a teen with similar issues - we needed and continue to need personal
And family therapists trained in DBT communication skills.

Best wishes OP.
 
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