<p>Perhaps there is a misunderstanding. Someone can sabotage treatment overtly or covertly. It doesnt mean they dont care for you. Quite the opposite–sometimes misery loves company.</p>
<p>Maybe. I do have that impression sometimes, but I’ve written it off as being paranoid. =/</p>
<p>You love your mom, and she loves you. Unconditionally. No question.</p>
<p>That being said, we are all capable of hurting the people we love, and in fact often do. Your mom may be sabotaging your treatment for a variety of complicated and irrational reasons. This does not mean that she doesn’t love you, just that she is making poor choices as a result of her illness.</p>
<p>You can look at her behavior with an analytical eye and see what is wrong with it, and love her anyway. That’s what unconditional love is all about. You can’t change your mom’s behavior, but you can change your behavior in reaction to her. I agree that the greatest gift you can give your family is your own good mental health, so ignore or work around your mom’s dysfunctional behavior and find a way to get to that therapist! </p>
<p>Also - your feelings are your feelings. If you feel resentful, angry, or frustrated, there’s no shame in that, and it doesn’t mean that you’re a bad person, just a human one. Those are normal, healthy emotional reactions to the type of situation that you are in. Look at your feelings and own them, then you can get past them. It’s our behavior that we should feel pride or shame in, not our feelings.</p>
<p>Good luck to you - we are all rooting for you.</p>
<p>I guess she is being something of a saboteur, then. I’m relieved that people agree with me on that one. I’ve called my psychiatrist about having an appointment on Friday after 5, so that my dad can take me (rather than my mom, who either complains or tries to pry on the ride there and back again). This will all be so, so much easier when I get my license. Ack!</p>
<p>Good mental health is a good thing! Like lollipops and rainbows. Mm, lollipops. Thanks for the help.</p>
<p>I feel like I should update, since it’s been almost two months. (Already! Goodness, time flies.) I went to a couple of appointments with a social worker, but it didn’t really amount to anything because our car situation hindered my ability to go and while he was a very nice man, I didn’t exactly come back feeling any better or anything. I may reschedule sometime, but there’s no opportunity to between now and the second week of April because I’m so flipping busy.</p>
<p>I did, however, go to my doctor and talk about a couple of things and she’s prescribed me Zoloft for my anxiety. It’s only day two, so I can’t give you much of a prognosis besides that it makes me feel either really nauseous or really tired, but my dad (who was on the same medication a couple of years ago) seems to think that it’s normal and will pass if I continue with it. I’ve been feeling a bit better anyway, though, lately, for the most part – except for my normal anxiety with going to school, etc. Having missed today (mostly because of the medication and laziness because I was so absolutely exhausted last night that I came home and slept instead of writing an essay due in twenty minutes), I’ve missed marginally less school recently, although this is still my second day this week. I’m resolving not to let myself miss any more, though, until absolutely necessary; this is day 16, and I’ve still got three months left. Well, I mean, except for the one I’m missing to get two teeth pulled in April. Joy for braces. <em>Twirls finger</em></p>
<p>I guess I’m doing okay. Not perfect, but not bad either. I have a girlfriend now, and although she lives five states away she makes me happy when we can talk, and blah blah. Other friend issues have mostly resolved themselves. And I’m okay with knowing that I will probably be moving out to go to college in June, especially since I love my family best from a distance. I’m by no means on top of everything, because of this damned anxiety, but it’s a start.</p>
<p>Good luck to you – please continue to keep us posted.</p>
<p>It is so kind of you to fill us in. you are using your head to allow yourself a trial with Zoloft since you are still stuck in your family “soup” for the next few months…with no way out till college…and you need TIME, SPACE and new people in your life to start to build an identity that is only partly about your mother and her issues…and more about YOU and your own gifts and your own life.
If Zoloft isn’t perfect, tweak things with your doc or alter the choice of medication but give it a trial period that is for real…you need to use your strengths to get out and to get to college…and my own personal hope is that you will be one of the scores of freshmen at each school that uses a college counselor to work further on dealing with the fallout from flawed parents who still of course love you.</p>
<p>You are clearly very bright and you have talent. Everyone arrives at college with baggage…you just want yours to be more managed so you can free up energy to find your own way to the friendships that will sustain you in college and as an adult outside of your parents. No parent units can do it all for their kids even the almost perfect ones.</p>
<p>People with “baggage” write great novels, are teachers who are insightful and compassionate, and are some of the most interesting adults in our society. </p>
<p>You will not be able to sort it all out fast…it will take time…give yourself a few years…check in and out with talk therapy since you are blessed in verbal talent…this will be as important to you as meds or more so…Go back now and then to your freshman counselor at college…don’t expect to be symptom free…sort out how much is genetic and how much was simply the ongoing anxiety you feel when you have a parent who is bipolar or at least different…from the mainstream.</p>
<p>Stay open hearted like you are now, read, learn and seek out people like you including the adults paid to listen to smart 18 years olds who often have parents who create some drama for them…</p>
<p>respect yourself and get to school daily…don’t let your high school transcript get sucked into the issues that you didn’t create in your home…pull yourself out on your strengths…</p>
<p>I sure hope some joy and friendship and love of learning is ahead for your freshman year of college…you deserve it and you will see that there is “anti-depressant” all over the place in aspects of college life and classrooms to help you move on.</p>
<p>take care of yourself and check in again!</p>
<p>Skull, I’ll be happy if this plan works for you, and I’ll admit I haven’t reviewed the old posts to remember why your busy, but letting a primary care doctor “tweak” your medicine, getting advice about side effects from your dad, and being “too busy” ( although I understand there is a transportation issue) for the therapy just doesn’t sit right with me. I know it probably happens a lot, and plenty of people here might feel (and tell me) otherwise but I have to put that out there. I also remind kids your age that this maybe your last mental health coverage for awhile, and having a good set of skills for managing “depression” will be useful through you life.</p>
<p>It’s understandable. I mean, yeah, it really doesn’t seem okay, but I don’t have much choice – I can’t go to another therapist, my doctor actually put me on Zoloft for anxiety plus unrelated bladder problems. Um…that didn’t seem right to me, either, to be honest, that a depression medication would help my bladder, which makes me think placebo effect, but I’ve been wanting to try meds for a while. I don’t have much time between when I leave anyway, because I may be moving out two days after graduation…meh, what would you suggest?</p>
<p>I know this is not the place for MY rant but… How old are you? Did your parents consent to the use of psychotropics? Where the risk, benefits, alternatives, and course of treatment described? Did you, your parents, and your doctor choose medications OVER finding a way to do the therapy? What will happen after you graduate? Are you going to stop the medicine, someplace else, in another town, without follow-up? </p>
<p>I can’t make a suggestion on a forum for YOU, but for kids who “need” medication ( and I won’t try to define what that means here), this would not be a good plan.</p>
<p>Do you mind saying more about why you are so busy, or is that above some where?</p>
<p>I have a sibling with severe bipolar disorder and paranoia, and the chaos and difficulties it generates are challenges for the whole family. I’m so sorry you’re having to cope with all this, though it sounds like you’ve really done a very good job coping for this long. </p>
<p>In addition to the counseling – whenever and however you can get there, you might see if there is a local National Alliance on Mental Health/Illness (NAMI) group in your area:
[NAMI:</a> National Alliance on Mental Illness](<a href=“http://www.nami.org/]NAMI:”>http://www.nami.org/)</p>
<p>They have a great website, and they also offer groups for family members of people with mental illness. You might it helpful.</p>
<p>Also, do check with your school counselor – sometimes schools offer (but don’t particularly advertise) support groups for kids dealing with issues like someone in the family has a mental illness, or a parent has cancer or some other serious disease. Again, getting to talk with others who are dealing with the same may be a real help.</p>
<p>Good for you for seeking out help. As a hospice counselor once told me when I said that I was depressed because my dad was dying, “What would be remarkable was if you didn’t find that depressing.” I hope that the sun shines brighter for you in the upcoming days.</p>
<p>NAMI is a great organization…I used to work with them professionally and it is a great relief when you have a child, sibling or parent with a biochemically based illness that is painful for everyone…to have a group to share with to help you gain insight and most importantly perspective.</p>
<p>Shrinkwrap, I think you should perhaps read the whole thread before posting. Skull does have a parent with a major mental illness and others in his family have been affected. He has legitimate concerns about his own vulnerabilities and needs to figure out if he is having a reactive depression…or if he has more intense emotions than the mean…because of genetics…and this will not sort out quickly.</p>
<p>No one here is recommending drugs with no therapy. Skull…you should be absolutely sure that treatment is much much more effective with talk therapy consistently throughout any tough chapter in life combined with medical supervision and some medication use. I would personally like to see Skull seeing his nice guy social worker until he goes to college as well as the meds with his Doc…not advocating skipping talk time.<br>
I would very much like to see him make a long term relationship at college with a staff person…who does the talking portion of treatment, would know Skull well, and could be a touchstone as Skull ages up so he could check in without going over his personal story a gazillion times with a new person.<br>
People grow and change a lot from 18-22…and the frontal lobe is not fully finished much less the whole part of life where you sort out what kind of person you want to be and who you need around you to be a support. Life is hard. Life is really a puzzle if your parents are not able to be well ever. Young adults sometimes put their own lives and development on hiatus waiting for an adult who is mentally ill to “change” or get well. </p>
<p>I don’t want Skull to miss school period. That is sabotaging himself. He has talked to medical person about emotions that interfere with his being fully functional…and I would say that most young adults would be pretty worn out by a mother who was ill by this age. </p>
<p>Stay in school, Skull. Go back to see the social worker a few times before heading off to college even if he is no magician (Most therapists are not very instant helpers).</p>
<p>I hope you find a counselor when you are in college who is someone who will support you and be on your team the full four year haul.</p>
<p>“Shrinkwrap, I think you should perhaps read the whole thread before posting. Skull does have a parent with a major mental illness and others in his family have been affected. He has legitimate concerns about his own vulnerabilities and needs to figure out if he is having a reactive depression…or if he has more intense emotions than the mean…because of genetics…and this will not sort out quickly.”</p>
<p>I got that part. She seems a little skeptical about the label, and I know what that’s like. I think I posted pretty early on, and followed this thread, but could not find the part about why she was busy. The older threads suggested she was not really doing much. </p>
<p>Skull, earlier you referred to a Psychiatrist. More recently a social worker. Was it both? How many visits with either? One of them may be willing to help you figure out if your primary care doc is up to this.</p>
<p>You may be the LAST person to want to have your meds “tinkered” with by a primary care doctor. You are someone who could absolutely benefit from figuring this out NOW ( at least the part about whether now is the time for a med trial); NOT letting your parents off the hook by choosing the script.</p>
<p>I’m a she, not a he. :**)</p>
<p>Also, I’m so busy because the 2nd/3rd quarter is insane; I stay after school for health class every other day, plus I had quiz bowl practice the last two weeks, plus I am in the stage crew of the school drama program so I’m at school until 8:30 nearly every day, on top of homework, orthodontist appointments, trying to keep up with my friends’ lives, and finding a way to motivate my brother to get serious about his grades – that’s a lot more than was going on in the first half of the year, although I can understand why you thought I wasn’t doing anything.</p>
<p>I’ve been seriously deliberating going on medication for a long time, since at least the 10th grade. If you want to know, I have had anxiety problems for as long as I can remember; in kindergarten, fourth grade, and sixth grade, I would throw up in the morning every day because I was terrified of going to school, and I have bad problems with stage fright and self-sabotage. Moreover, when I have periods when I’m in the dumps because I’m upset, I get into this unshakable phase where I stop doing my homework, yell at my friends, don’t keep my commitments, etc. It’s awful, and I don’t want to keep doing it for the sake of myself and others. The situation got even worse in 10th grade when I developed a fairly severe form of anorexia and since then have been working to convince my parents to try medication.</p>
<p>I plan on continuing with therapy; everything you’ve all said is true, and it would be incredibly stupid to take this stuff unsupervised. The drama production ends at the beginning of April, and I might have a couple of days off between now and then, so hopefully I can convince one of my parents to take me once a week. And for the record, I’m 17.</p>
<p>ha…well…I should have realized that in Middle Earth…girl babies are named skullduggery. Did you learn that word in Quiz Bowl prep? I have to look that up…I think I know what it means…</p>
<p>good for you for pushing your folks towards your getting time with someone every week…you have a lot of decisions to make before the end of the school year and a lot of changing going on… and you could use impartial adults who would get to know you, including your doc and therapist.</p>
<p>Nah, it’s just one of those words I liked so I made it into a username, if something is bothering me I’ll say something like “what is this tomfoolery!?” or “such skullduggery!” and ya, I’m a word nerd. :]</p>
<p>I think my doctor knows me better than my therapist, to be perfectly honest, but when I get more minutes on my phone I’ll give him a ring to see whether I can get in for another appointment anytime soon. The doctor had me make an appointment for two weeks from last Wednesday so that she can check to see how things are doing medication-wise; she, too, said that I should continue with therapy when I’m in college. I never meant to imply that I’m not – just that my therapist doesn’t help too much and it’s horrible trying to get in to see him without missing something.</p>
<p>(As it is, I miss too much of everything; so much school already, and I’ve missed a lot of my commitments with drama because of absence, and I’m not going today because the medication is currently making me nauseous, but if I feel better by noon I’ll go…)</p>
<p>Thanks for your help, everyone. And I’ll check out that NAMI website.</p>
<p>glad to know tha that your doc is someone who has followed you a while and is someone you trust. And that you do expect to connect with someone in the college counseling office for an ongoing ear and support system.
Missing school and not showing up for being a part of things you value is a symptom…and I know you will make progress on addressing this. It is important in life to stay with your peer group–you don’t have to be in the pack…but you must stay connected in ways that matter…because you learn so much from people in your own age bracket, and you may have learned all you can from Mom and Dad, no matter if your Mom was ill or a superstar. </p>
<p>My last son is leaving for college this year, and I will miss being the center in his world a lot–so it is a loss for me…at the same time…I will turn outward and take a look at how the other fifty-somethings are reconstructing their lives sans children…and they are who I will learn from re coping and creating the next chapter in life. I can’t expect my sons to help me…this is what I mean about how being connected to Your Generation socially is so crucial. Your parents are crucial to your stability, yes…and they have been imperfect…but at the same time, you are approaching the same turn in the road that everyone else your age is approaching…which is that awkward shift towards finding people in your own era to call “friends and family”. The coming years can be lonely and difficult at times but also exhilarating…and the point is that you need to be able to experience this without also longing for your parents to be fixed, which is out of your hands. These are the years you are supposed to work hard on your own identity and be self centered…you will also have years where you are supposed to focus on your own children or on helping your parents later.</p>
<p>While everyone has baggage…and most do…you need for yours to be “not so heavy” and not the kind of baggage that keeps you holding back and not embracing your life. You can expect to find friends who will care about your parents’ issues and let you vent in the future, but if you sort a good bit out privately with a therapist…it is easier on your friends to figure out how to listen without tehm being overburdened. </p>
<p>My oldest son graduates from Duke this year. He has had good teachers etc but I think he learned much more from “knowing” a hundred other people his age than he could have ever ever learned from his parents or from the teachers for that matter. Things about coping, dealing with stress and disappointment, things about resiliance, sticking it out, buckling down, things about how to play and relax, how to set goals and follow through.
College is a place where you can borrow on the best of what other families produced in their kids…you can try to have new outlooks that are not what you learned at home, and you gain momentum for getting ready for the workplace coming up later.</p>
<p>My son isn’t necessarily LIKE each of his classmates but nevertheless, he is getting himself prepared for life merely be observing them and being part of their lives, their ups and downs, their challenges, and their adventures. That is the way of the world…you have to depart some from parents and start to set your inner “clock” on the concerns and opportunities that are peculiar to your generation’s time in history…and you will grow up with them, pair off, break up, have children, and enter the bumps and dissonance that is the work force with them.<br>
If you are having trouble showing up for your busy high school interests, then you are very right to go seek out help now even though you are in a transition as high school winds up.<br>
So much of life, I have learned starts with having the fortitude to show up for your commitments. Believe it or not, lots of adults struggle with this. You have to show up even when you are a “work in progress” and an incomplete human being.<br>
You are a smart person who is gaining insight and clearly enjoys many things in your generation in high school. Don’t allow your parents to stop you from getting into a relationship with new adults who might help you…realize that this is part of life for your age…moving out from parents and seeking out what you didn’t quite get at home…everyone will be seeking out new adult mentors. While it looks like you should spend a consistent time with your future college counselor till you have moved to a new phase of life…you will also be seeking out adults in other ways at college…just like everyone else.<br>
Hope the play goes well and the spring brings some pleasures…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Unless you have a horrible gut feeling about this therapist, I’d highly suggest giving it more time. With therapy, you can often feel worse before they start to get better. That doesn’t mean the therapist isn’t helping… you just have to give it a bit longer. I’d say a minimum of six weeks. Again, if you have a really horrible feeling about this person, then look elsewhere, but you are setting some incredibly high expectations of both the therapist and yourself if you expect something to happen after two visits.</p>
<p>Best of luck.</p>
<p>That’s true. I dunno, I just don’t want to inconvenience my parents by making them take me when I already mooch for rides enough as it is. I should make another appointment, though. :/</p>
<p>I think it’s impossible for me to stop sabotaging myself, I’ve missed three days of school for being sick/full of anxiety and I don’t want to do anything but curl up and cry/sleep/be useless.</p>
<p>your parents should be making sure you see both your therapist and the doctor. And you should be in school…since they are not functioning as they should as your Parent Units, you have to be your own best parent right now. </p>
<p>I know you would not allow your daughter to miss school and feel this badly. You wouldn’t. </p>
<p>You have to care about your self and visualize a future for yourself. We have wonderful medications compared to when I was your age now, and I know that talk therapy is a huge effort…but talk therapy must be party of your life and must become a habit and necessity, not a maybe thing. </p>
<p>You are smart. You know this stuff. I know you don’t really want to be at home as people your age drift off. You can’t even help your siblings (that I noticed you fret about) if you are not stronger and able to get to the next place in life…where you belong…with peers. When you do leave home, and you will, you need to be able to manage this malaise and depression so that you don’t overburden your friends. </p>
<p>Honestly, you must want to reach out and to want a future for yourself that is different than this. If you can’t quite imagine what a more normal life is yet…get some help. How you feel today is completely optional…and doesn’t have to define your life truly…so have some faith in your ability to be well and get help.</p>
<p>You will get positive attention from being in therapy. I am not saying therapy is magic or even easy…or even efficient or perfect. But it is positive attention and your life needs an adult in it right now who is clear and can see what the priorities are for helping you. You deserve this! Go get it. If you have to do some remedial schooling in high school so be it, but you can’t skip school, school is one of your Strong Suits…you can succeed in school if you show up. Get an adult to help you set realistic goals for next year with you, too.</p>