What can I do if everyone is depressed in my house?

[WishfulThinkingToday]

From my DD12 struggling with serious mental health concerns, to DD18, DS17, DS15 all seem sad in their own ways. I am struggling with depression and my DH is struggling but wont admit (works more than full time hours, stressed and having to support everyone’s mental health as well as his own stresses). There is a strong element of ASD/ADHD in the house too, and we are all secluded.

It all seems like we are not doing something right. What can we do to fix this?

So far my DD12 and I have seen psychiatrists to help figure out what is wrong. Almost everyone else is getting assessed for neurodivergence.

How can I change the home environment to help the depression? Is there someone who can help? If I told social services would they help?

I feel like I am struggling and taking everyone down with me.

Please don’t do this. Your family needs to focus on your own health and happiness so you don’t have the mental resources to introduce another living being which would need a lot of time and patience to settle in.

I have found this question hard - yes, they are teenagers, and even more, they are teenagers with autism. So I have started to accept that maybe they are just happy in their rooms doing their own thing. Especially with social anxiety with parents that are socially awkward too. But my DS17 has stated that he is anxious and they have lost touch with their friends to the GP and DD18 has had years of counselling and DD12 is struggling, so I am starting to think we need to change something. It is difficult with my own problems, and I realised they are stubborn when asking them to do something different and they give a lot of pushback and retaliation if they are not onboard, and if they haven’t factored this into their day it is usually the end of the world (again, accepted this maybe due to autism).

I will definitely be looking to getting out more with them - shame it is pretty much the end of the holidays, but I guess there are weekends. They seem to need a day’s notice for any plans or they start to push back.

I am trying to sort out the housework - I already have about 10 ikea bags of clean washing to sort, and the children put them away (after being pestered).

I have my Sister and Mum around, but I find having people around too stressful, so I don’t ask for help. The children also disappear even more, and find it hard to cope with other people around.

What sports/hobbies do the 12 ad 15 year old do? any scouts, guides, cadet forces? They need to be out of the house trying new stuff, making friends, not just existing in a house.

My 15 year old is the only sociable child, and we have been saying - maybe too sociable? He is always out in the city (always at the park with friends), and he has a girlfriend. He goes to cadets, but has been less enthusiastic lately. He is struggling academically, but mentally I think he is the happiest of us all (barring the puddle-hopping 2 year old).

The 12 year old was really sociable, but recently we have had to keep her home (we have been told to keep an eye on her because of suicide ideation). It makes me sad to think about how she loved to hang around with her friends at the park, but she can only do this now with a parent around and it is really weird. We even have to drop and pick up from school now. She dropped all after school clubs when she was younger because she would only follow her friends and they kept changing. She struggles with social anxiety that is getting worse at school, so she is slowly losing her friend circle because she is not being with them as much. She even started hiding in the toilets at lunch time because she said they were too much. I am waiting for art clubs to open for her, they are the only classes she might enjoy.

I almost typed if he was my DH! He has been asking for years, and I tell him I can’t handle another mouth to feed (also have a cat and guinea pig that no one else helps with, apart from the shouting ‘the cat has thrown up again!’ Or ‘the guinea pig smells!’). The idea is great, but history has taught me I would be the only one dealing with everything at the end.

Same here
All autistic and ADHD
I frequently feel exactly as you say
But are you sure they are depressed..
Sometimes we are just chilling in our worlds with no need for communicating
Sometimes I think they are unhappy,when actually they are absolutely fine .
But other times there has been depression too
I found ritalin was absolutely amazing..it has changed my life
Highly recommended it

I keep asking them if they are ok… they say they are, but DS17 says he is anxious to the GP and DD18 says she has had counselling for years and is also depressed. They don’t show emotions easily and I struggle to get them to open up.

The thing is, my DD12 said she was ok for years, and then it turned out she has been self-harming for a year and had past trauma she only told us during the psychiatric appoint and major depression that the psychiatrist diagnosed. She was the one that looked happy, but under all that she was the one that needed the most help.

Now I don't know what to think anymore. I wish I could see inside their heads and get the answer.

I think the ADHD drugs with help some of us (maybe I will actually tidy the house without it being overwhelming, and not knowing where to start / how to do it with so many things to do).

Even if you could see in their heads ,there's the possibility they don't even know themselves.
I've had a huge amount of counselling..all it did was keep present in my mind awful things .. counselling can't change anything and I was re traumatising myself for an hour every week.
CBT was a disaster for me to .
I also self harmed as a child ..that was about trying to find something in my life I could control
My DC all had problems at school ..once they had EHCP and tutors / online learning..no more problems.
Majority issues to mental health caused by school
Amazing how quickly issues disappear when the education is tailored to the child .
Now out of education system... problems long gone

My dad did that too!

Well firstly no more waking up at 2pm. Their sleep patterns sound shite and that will mess with every system in their body. Sunlight and blue skies = happy hormones.

They should be up by 10.

Dinner out can be a picnic in the park.

Go for a walk in nature with no phones, play family board games together. Change your perspective- what are your grateful for - write it down.
Cultivate a positive attitude

We ran a very low demand household
No pressure on anyone
They all got excellent exam results due to no pressure..and they all did exams at their own time ,some much later on than others
I trusted them to know what they needed and what was best for them ..and I just supported them to reach their goals , whatever they were .
But our household had always been like that .. mainly because I had very controlling parents who made decisions for me ..which I then found i couldn't do for myself as an adult.
So ...I don't know if that helps
But I hope things get easier for you op

I like being outdoors and exercising but I wouldn't wake up my teenage sons by 8 on week-ends and holidays. Sounds very extreme.

Note to self; don't post on your phone without wearing your glasses

Show the OTHERS.

Picnic lunch at the allotment every sunday rain or shine.(coffee in flask) Can you walk there?
Everyone spends half hour digging or weeding .
Start with that .

That sounds really tough OP. I know most posters mean we'll but some of these approaches just don't really work with ND kids. My ds17 dropped out of school 2 years ago and it's been really tough on everyone. He won't get up till the afternoon, won't sleep at night. It affects everyone. I would try small tweaks - maybe take one kid out at a time to do something they like rather than wait for a consensus which is harder.

I'm sorry you're juggling such a lot. First thing is to recognise what a great amount of work you're doing.

I'd start very, very small and unthreatening. And cheap so nothing is a pressure. And short.

How about a few attempts at things of this scale:

• everyone who wants to picks a song to play in turn
• walk to the corner shop for an ice-cream
• watch something short and silly together like Creature Comforts
• make pancakes with everyone standing in the kitchen waiting their turn
• play some kind of pointless physical game like carpet bowls or quoits
• play an easy game of cards
• go to buy a new houseplant and have a chat about what to name it
• walk in any green space for 15 mins

You do them, DD2 will always come, you just invite the others. If no one joins in, you'll have had some nice time with DD2 and some ice cream. If others join in with any of them, note which ones and repeat those.

I think this is a fascinating post. We don’t have any ND but I see the mental health impact of ‘high demand’ households on teens (I work in a high school) every day. My dad was a CPN (community psychiatric nurse). He said that the hardest cases to treat were people (often girls) who’d been subject to parental/ family pressure to achieve - good grades, good looks, good behaviour, good university, good job etc. That pressure is so corrosive. The love from their parents, families, felt absolutely conditional on their ‘success’.

So even though we are not an ND family, I have tried to keep demands low - while insisting on things that I know my boys can do.

My oldest is 18. I have a PhD (trying to keep my parents happy). DS18 has just organised and signed up for an automotive apprenticeship. He’s capable of university, he did one year and did not like it. So we are cheering him on for what he wants to do.

sorry OP -getting a bit O/T here xx

So today has passed in a fog of depression / sadness. The fact that we are talking about teenagers here is concerning.

Make a plan for tomorrow which necessitates them getting up before 2pm. Agree something as a family. They will no doubt whinge but do it… maybe a pub lunch for a roast tomorrow?

Read the thread. This is not a family that just pops out for pub lunches. They need solutions that will work for them.

I have

And yes… you suggest big broader changes

but that can’t be achieved overnight

Another day stagnating in front of screens? Or a plan of getting out and going for a meal or even just for a toastie at lunch. Something.

There are seven of them. With wide ranging needs and MH pressures. The OP has said eating out is expensive.

A meal out is high pressure - costs money, in public, conversational pressure. It's not a small thing at all.

Yes
but she also seemed enthused by the idea and said she’d love it

so maybe just a slice of cake in a cafe. Something. Anything. Aside from yet another day stagnating in front of phones

Going out for food is quite high pressure is my point.

Going to a shop to buy a cake and bring it home is lower pressure.

The use of the word 'stagnating' is unhelpfully judgemental on a thread like this.

The Op seemed enthused and keen 🤷‍♀️