Reply to Teenage son just told me he is suicidal and depressed......

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Reply to "Teenage son just told me he is suicidal and depressed......"

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[quote=Anonymous]

OP -  While our daughter was not suicidal, she did have serious mental health issues starting at age 18, and we did find that having a psychologist or other therapist who is associated with a psychiatrist in a group practice or just as part of a team was very key as they were able to communicate easily on both ends.  Also, the firs time she dropped out of college and we started in we wrote a letter for the psychologist's information on how we saw things going from our vantage point as parents and about out family somewhat.  In our case we had two other younger daughters - one of whom has special needs  and anyway sharing the particular dynamics of the family was important.  Her sessions were always just one-to-one.

I also think you have to expect that this is a long-term process of therapy and maturation and developing coping skills that will work for your son and the life ahead of  him.  20 years later she is doing quite well married, the higher wage earner, two kids in elementary and a supportive husband.  She has a psychologist who is at a similar stage of life, a psychiatrist whose specialty is women who could have been post partum etc. and is on medication which at times might need a bit of tweaking.  She knows what she must do to keep her anxiety in balance - but it took time to reach this point and there were highs and lows for about a decade (age 18 -29). And, I will say her mental health condition did put stressors on the entire family at time which did lead to the relationships today with her sibling.

It is important to keep an open mind on how the therapist interacts with your son and to keep looking if the first one does not work.  And, I would suggest that you and DH if there is one get some advice on how to support your son and manage your family life in general.  A thing to remember is that genetics can so easily play a part in mental illness just as in physical illness.  In our case this poor daughter got the mental health on her Dad's family and the cancer on my side of the family and imagine being asked why she had to go through both - a serious cancer at age 29 did a lot to get rid of any extra anxiety.

All the crap of social media and the Internet were not around when our girls were growing up, but I can only imagine that is adds so many layers of pressures or escapism to the lives of stressed teens today and so many just do not have the coping mechanisms.  Whatever guidelines you are given neeed to be done in such a way as to not seem to be a punishment for your son so maye best to come from his medical team.[/quote]

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