teenage depression

[dumaurier]

My fourteen year old daughter who up until afew months ago was a happy,quirky girl has rapidly transformed into a sad,anxious shadow of her former self.After a frought few days at New Year I took her to see our GP who referred her to our local adolescent mental health unit.She has had 6 or 7 sessions with a counsellor,but seems to be spiralling downwards.She is due to see a psychiatric Doc nxt week and I'm pinning my hopes on this appointment.In the meantime I feel thoroughly wretched.We are a close family and this has affected all of us.Just wondered if anyone has any words of advice or support.My DD is refusing to go to school and I have not gone to work this week as I don't want to leave her even though communication is sporadic.

I went through it from the age of ten or eleven and just knowing my mum was there for me was a big help, even though I didn't show it!
I developed school phobia and at the time, no professionals understood it. I was made to feel like it was all my fault and I was being difficult.
Just be supportive, let her know she can talk to you when she's feeling up to it and with the help of the thankfully more supportive medical profession we have now, she will get through it. She's lucky to have a kind mum :)

Thanks so much for your message,LadyApricot.Yesterday was a particularly bad day for my daughter.I felt completely useless and more bewildered than usual by her behaviour,so much so that I decided to sign up to Mumsnet in the hope that someone out there may have experienced something similar.I have very supportive friends,but don't want to continually burden them with all of this,so it was lovely to log on this morning and receive a message from someone who knows.

Yeah, Lady Apricot I am agree with you.You have explain very well.Thanks for sharing your ideas.

Friday just gone it hit me in the face that my gorgeous 15yr old daughter is depressed. Boy that was hard to type. She used to be happy, witty, fun to be with. Now she is angry, desparately unhappy. she has written these words, "broken, miserable, sad, why am I like this?" In talking she has thought about suicide as she believes she is a burden to her family and thinks we are better off without her. She isolates herself by staying in her bedroom, does not want sleeovers anymore, only chats via her phone and pc. She cries for no reason, but keeps saying how angry she is. She asked me if she was mad. I took her to the GP 2 weeks ago as I suspected soemthing wasnt right and the female GP put on the pill thinking it was her periods. In the last week she has got worse so Im involving the GP as of tomorrow. Its so hard, I keep crying as I feel like a failure, have I failed as a mum as I cant make my daughter happy? Im keeping her off school for a few days as she keeps crying in lessons. The school is aware. Am I doing everything right?