Teenage depression and parents' reaction

[suziehutton]

I am feeling a bit desperate and lonely. My loved daughter has recently been diagnosed with depression after some episodes of self harm. She has been counselled for a couple of years now but it has become so acute that we sought private psychiatric care. She has been put on anti depressant medication that doesn't seem to be working and we might have to change it soon. So this is heartbreaking for me as her mother - I love her very much BUT it seems I am not coping now. I can't get her to care about anything in her life, even members of her family. She should be sitting GCSEs but this is a waste of time - she has done no work despite major support from the school and the family. The problem is I am so disappointed in myself. I am getting resentful and overwhelmed. I am watching her destroy her life and life prospects. I can't think of anything else I can do to help her. My husband is not helpful - he has just said he will not allow his daughter to destroy his life. He is very remote now. She is suffering and I can't help her. Does anyone have advise who has been here.

OP, this sounds horrible. I don't have experience of this but do have experience of living with someone with MH issues. Please get some counselling yourself. You're quite right, you can't support your daughter if you're beating yourself up and there are things you can do to help her. I know from living with someone with MH issues that you can't do anything to change the way they feel - you won't be able to make your daughter care for other people.
She is not destroying her life by not studying for her exams when she's ill. She's young, she will be able to start again once she's through this period. If it's going to be worse for her to take her exams next month, withdraw her now and focus on her getting well again. You need to focus now on her health and not worry about exam results. She can resit next year if she needs to - she won't be the first young person to do something like this.
Tell her you love her every day. Show her that her wellbeing is more important to you than her exams. And really, get help for yourself so you can support her.
I don't know what to say about your DH, I actually feel sick to hear that he has said that about his own child.

OP, you need to sit down, take a deep breath, be kind to yourself and accept that you have not ruined anything and neither has she.

She is ill. It's no different from if she had been in a car crash or had cancer: you would have accepted that this is a time of her life when you cannot make her exam results or her relationship to other people the priority. The priority here is keeping her alive and gradually supporting her recovery. You would not have tried to force her to care about other things while she was in a coma or weak from chemo, because you would have recognised that it wasn't a possibility at that time. But you would have watched for signs that she was getting better and then gently encouraged her to do a little more every day without feeling guilty or bad about the things she couldn't do. You would have accepted that recovery takes time. That's what you've got to do now, too. She is ill, she will recover, you will help her. It is not your fault.

She won't have scuppered her chances for life either. My dd was ill, physically and with MH issues at about the same age, got very limited GCE's and is doing absolutely fine as a young adult. She is at drama school, which is what she always wanted, she is living independently and though she has not recovered from her MH issues (and possibly never will) she has learnt to cope with them and adapt to them.

My son wasn't ill but decided half-way through Sixth Form that he was on the wrong course, withdrew after the first year and started in the first year at another college. Nobody is going to look at him when he's 25 and care about whether he left school at 18 or 19.

My dd, the same one with the MH issues, is just out of hospital with a totally unrelated illness, which they at first thought might be a brain tumour, then possibly encephalitis (thankfully, it wasn't either, nor motor neurone disease). If it had been, I think most people would take the attitude that things had to take the time they did and that any progress was good news. Looking back, I don't think her MH issues were any different. It doesn't mean I am not prepared to support her to stay active to get better- for one thing, she has to learn to walk again- but I won't blame her or anyone else (not even me) for her being ill.

Cory, that is very sage advice.

Sorry meant to add good luck with your dd'd illnesses and to the you and the op.

Hi @Suzie. you are absolutely not alone, the thread below has been nicknamed 'hanging onto the rope' but there are so many other people in the same boat and the one thing that has come out of the thread time and again is so many parents suffer in silence. It is so hard.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/teenagers/3542520-Is-parenting-a-teen-adversely-affecting-your-mh

As for your DD now, one of the main issues with our system is there is so much pressure on them that this is their one chance, if you screw this up you will be unemployed forever. Its not the case, many kids have repeated A level years and I also know some who have repeated GCSE years there are options. Try changing your focus a little, the main things to consider at the moment are your health and her health (and I'm not prioritising either one over the other as you are both equally important) once you've been able to handle that then you can move on to the practicalities of education and life.

Good luck