Your insurance (his insurance) will have a list of providers, usually, on their website under behavioral health or “find a provider” or whatever.
Psychology Today has an online directory of therapists, psychologists etc., complete with photos, their specialities and their blurbs.
I think it is also good to look up reviews and ratings on Vitals, Health Grades and other sites.
Finally, in some areas, the best therapists do not take insurance. However if you have good insurance, he should be able to find a good one. You can do preliminary investigations, certainly, finding out if they are taking new patients for instance. I think you can end up giving a name and number to your son and then he can call. Does he want M or F, younger or older etc? As someone else wrote…
The school might have a list of local theraoist. Our school was worthless in that regard but it is worth asking Just be aware that there can be a long waiting time to get an a appointment with a therapist or doctor.
Also you might want to consider short term fast acting medication if anxiety is the issue. This is not a solution but can help until therapy or long term medicines kick in.
If he has a mental illness level of anxiety/depression recognize that he will likely need too take time get better. One problem with anxiety is that it feeds on itself. Every worry get magnified until all focus is on worry and nothing else. It can be difficult for the person to move past the worry to action.
Glad your son is doing better. So did the withdraw period pass? He will have to perform now and take the grades he gets right?
Varsity sports is hard for freshman. My son wishes to join varsity sports in college and I have mixed feeling about it. I wish he would just drop it. But you have to let them find their way.
Yes, the withdraw period has passed and he dropped one class in time on Friday. If he needs to drop down any further he will need to get approved for medical withdrawals or take F’s. Funny about the sport because I really believed it was going to be the thing that helped him acclimate the most. You hear so much about the strong team bonding in college sports, but for him it didn’t play out that way.
Thank you everyone for all of the input about finding a therapist; it helps me to at least have a place to start.
Today was another good day:) Only 10 days until Thanksgiving break! Then only 2 weeks of classes until reading period…
For anyone following along, no I certainly don’t believe its over and I have taken the advice to heart about withdrawal but I want to let him finish the semester if possible since he is so adamant about it. I’m taking it day by day.
It sucks that his college doesn’t have a therapist for regular appointments. Are they doing referrals to anybody else off campus who might be able to see him for longer than 20-minute stints? As somebody who pushed off trying to see somebody for many semesters of college because I was so close to the end of the semester, and who is seeing somebody now once a week for the last two weeks, it’s making such a difference for my depression and my anxiety (somebody good, that is). On another note, that person might also be useful in getting medical withdrawals if it comes to that if he’s seeing somebody.
Does he have a trusted adult check-in figure on campus? Not necessarily a professor, but a graduate assistant, somebody who works in student affairs, advisor, somebody from the athletics side? I’ve also found that having somebody who I can see in person is very helpful, even if I just stop by in between classes two or three times a week.
Glad he’s having good days, and that hopefully the bad days don’t derail from the good too much. Remind him that the bad days are just as normal as the good days right now, and that the good days don’t make the bad days any less valid, and the bad days don’t make the good days any less real, and that the bad days aren’t his fault, and they’re going to happen.
The fact that he’s having a couple of good days makes me think his depression and anxiety is circumstantial rather than a chemical imbalance. If I read this correctly, when he dropped the sport and that one class his mood improved. The poor kid was probably overwhelmed and in over his head. These recent developments bode well for him, in my opinion. He should still see a psychiatrist and therapist even if he feels better. People tend to be willing to get help when they are in crisis mode, but don’t feel it’s as important when they aren’t doing so bad. So happy he has had 2 good days!!
Did your son see a pediatrician that you have or had a relationship with? Even if you no longer see them, you could call or go by their office. Even though he is in college, pediatricians can be very connected to the counseling community whether psychologist or psychiatrist. I wish you well, I recently dealt with a similar situation for a friend of one of my students that doesn’t have parental support. I started by calling students services on their behalf and asking for Dean of students who said he would “triage” the student which I thought was a great term. He met with him the next day and lined up the services he needed.
My son had similar feelings at the end of his freshman year. We got him to a therapist right away but when it was time to look at medication, we had to switch to a psychiatrist. Your GP can prescribe the meds but I think it’s good not have the same doctor that is doing the therapy prescribe the meds. My son is on a very light dose (10 mg) and it really has made a difference. Just keep in mind that most meds take at least 3 weeks to start working so the winter break won’t be enough time to know. We also had our son’s DNA tested on genesight.com and that definitely helped pinpoint the right medicine. If you have insurance it shouldn’t cost more than $100.00.
In our case, the doctor wanted us to try a medicine for 6-8 weeks to see if it helped. We had to try four different ones before finding one that help. Even then it took a while to adjust the dose.
Short term medicines were a different story. We knew if it helped within hours. The negative side effects often took a while to show up. Like long term medicines you will probably need to try several different ones. Short term medicine can be fast acting and last a few hours (at least in our situation).
If your son has a diagnosis you should check if he should register with your school’s office of disability. Mental Illness should be covered, and they can be very helpful with dealing with school bureaucracy. They can discus with your son how they can help support him.
You can talk to their office to get a general idea of how they can help. but it would be up to your son to go in and talk with them. My sons college for example will pro-rate tuition if courses are dropped and can be shown by dr note to be necessary. Also getting/resolving incompletes and dealing with professors was easier once registered with disability office.
If your son does need to take time off, look at policies if your school differentiates a personal leave, with a medical leave. A medical leave can have very different rules for returning than a person leave of absence. If he does need medication it can take a while to get the correct meds and dosage and balance with side effects.
Go to Genesight.com. It basically tests how your body will react to certain medicines (I am not. A pharmacist or doctor so I don’t totally understand). The report that comes back gives you “green,yellow and red” drugs. The green ones are recommended, yellow you can use but may have issues and the red S are “no”. Different bodies break down medicine differently and medicines are build differently. My son’s psychiatrist read the report and prescribed based on the information. She was deciding between two different ones based on her diagnosis and then decided on one over the other based on the report. He’s only been on it 4 months but it seems to relay be working. Do make sure your insurance will cover it. It is a simple cheek swab.
In our experience, disability offices aren’t always that helpful. Deans and other administrators, as well as medical and behavioral professionals, were. Certainly register with the disabilities office, yes, and get accommodations. They will provide a letter for your son to give professors, that says he is registered, but won’t reveal the reason. It is up to your son to talk with professors.
When trouble actually occurs on the ground, though, it has been the dean and others who help.
I sometimes felt disabilities offices are there to filter out requests rather than process them in- at least for some of the students.
I had a similar experience to compmom’s - more help from administrators than disability offices. Basically, the deans were better informed. And I will add, that they were very helpful and compassionate, as well.
WITHDRAW!!! F’s follow you for ever. W’s can be explained away when you get the issues taken care of. College can wait…he needs his mental health taken care of.
If he fails, he will go on academic probation…and he really shoudl take a semester off and get his health under control.
You will be surprised how many other people’s kids have had similar issues and had to drop out because of undiagnosed mental health issues that were not really noticed because of all the structure and support families have given .
Definitely talk to the Dean of Students about this.
I have been in your shoes. It is extremely difficult to balance what your son wants/can do and what you feel he needs to do. The distance can make it extremely hard to see the full effect that this could be having on him. I was shocked to learn at how bad things gotten even though we were getting daily two hour plus calls.
If the 2+ hour daily calls continue then I suggest that you re-evaluate the decision to continue and also how to handle next semester. While it can give you son a sense of achievement to have survive this semester, it can take a heavy toll on his mental health, It can also give a false sense of his ability to be successful next semester.
One thing to think about is whether you son is learning the material. Are the low grades due to test anxiety or failure to grasp the material (which can also be due this issue and not anyway relate to ability). If it is the latter then withdrawing and retaking the course again might be the better path. Many courses build on the foundation of the previous course.
One accommodation you can certainly ask for is permission for a late withdrawal. That means, even after the official withdraw date passes, the student can withdraw with a “W.” It can be very beneficial to someone in your son’s position who 1. really believes he can finish the course and/or 2. needs the structure of going to class to aid in his treatment.
Re meds - Wow, what a crazy wild ride that can be. I envy people who can get it right the first or second time or even the third time. I could give you a dizzying list of drugs and drug combinations my own child has been on over the last 4 years. And treatment is still evolving.
Yes, it took about five years to get my son’s meds right. One warning: When a child seems to be doing better, don’t automatically lessen the dosage! Do so very slowly. Every time we’ve tried it with my son, he has relapsed. His brain seems to need a certain level and combination of meds to function at all. We’re fortunate that he is disciplined and managed to take off the weight he initially gained on them.
I cannot believe how many parents have been through this! I am so surprised and I feel so much comfort that I have found people I can reach out for answers and support. Thank you so much; I am so scared.
We are on to day 4 without a crisis phone call! I know, that could very well change tomorrow. I am just counting the days down until Thanksgiving and the end of the semester.
He thinks he can get Cs, even Bs in the remaining three classes…I’m not sure. He had an important exam this morning and he feels okay about it. I wonder if I (he) should preemptively speak with the Dean about the possibility of medical withdrawals from the courses if his optimism doesn’t pan out? Or should I just wait and see what happens over the next couple of weeks? If he waits until the end will it appear that he is just coming up with an excuse to avoid taking the Fs?