Depressed teenage son at boarding school - what can I do?

[Lifehasitsproblems]

My lovely 15 yo son has been diagnosed with depression. I took him to the GP last Monday morning and he has seen a counsellor and a psychiatrist since then. I have to wait until Friday before I can meet with the psychiatrist to get some understanding from him as to what is going on, meanwhile my son will see the counsellor again as he's seeing him weekly. I knew my son was getting more and more withdrawn but he's so calm and easygoing when I do see him that I've done nothing about it. He is at boarding school during the week but we see him every weekend. He comes home every Saturday. It took him to be sobbing down the phone at me saying he felt like he was going to hurt himself or someone else before I actually acknowledged there was a problem. How could I watch him stop playing sport, withdraw into his room, not go out with friends, etc and not do anything about it? What if he shouldn't be at boarding school anymore? I've just missed all the deadlines for the sixth form entry at the schools local to us? I feel so awful about this. Does anyone have experience of this? How do you get through it?

I have no experience or advice but want to wish you both well.

What is it about some mothers ( am assuming ssd is a mother) that they seem to get off on slating other mothers who admit they can't cope?

OP teenage boys are really tricky. I have a 16 yr old who is driving home me up the wall at the moment - he is a lazy arse to be honest, and very rude to me, his dad and his brother. I often wonder what us going on underneath, is he OK, is he happy, is he doing well - he doesn't want to engage at all. But your son seems to want you to find out more. Can you bring him home and see if that helps? Forget about 6th form etc. You can always sort that out near home.

How is your son now ?

Gosh when i posted this I was all over the place. It's such a shock to find out that one of your children isn't ok. It's also really hard to know, with your oldest child particularly, what's normal and what isn't. Everyone knows that teenagers are grumpy and difficult so how do you spot a depressed one. I read a few of the replies and although the majority of them were really lovely and supportive and practical I just couldn't deal with the few negative ones and so I stopped looking at the replies. Sorry.
My son is a bit more smiley now. He is talking to us more. Not much more but more than he was. He stayed off school for about a week. He has been seeing a counsellor once a week for an hour each time.
He's obviously not better yet but I feel like we know what to do now. It was all just overwhelming before. It's a cliche but you can only be as happy as your least happy child.

Thank you for your support.