At my daughter’s school, the process starts with the counseling center. I would have him start the dialog with them and discuss the options. If he is getting counseling then I would not worry the last issue. The goal, if possible, is to keep the counseling center in they loop so that if it is necessary to withdraw it will go smoothly.
You can recover from Cs. It’s the Fs and Ds that can be tough.
FYI, any parent that says they were not scare during this battle is likely lying.
It would be really helpful, as others have said, if someone at the college knew about his current struggles (a dean for instance). And it would be helpful for your son to be involved in counseling so that the counselor can help advocate (and, of course, help you son with his anxiety/depression). Registering with the disabilities office would help too, but that would require the counselor or other professional to provide diagnosis and right now that seems a bit much for your son. He certainly is persevering!!
Another thing to consider is registering with disabilities. That way if he needs accommodations in the future, they can help. They cannot provide any accommodations until you son is registered (which can take time). He needs that to be in place if there is any chance he will need it.
At our school, the way disabilities works is that at the start of the semester the disability office sends a generic letter to each professor that my daughter has stating that she is registered with disabilities, No details about what that disability is. It is then my her responsibility to explain to he professor what accommodations she needs. The goal of any accommodation is not to give a student an edge but to attempt to even the playing field.
^That’s how I’ve seen it work at two different schools, also. And it has to happen EVERY semester, even if it’s the same professor.
Since my son’s illness was so severe, the first time he went through the process I accompanied him to his professors’ offices. They were all so kind! One told us he gets several students with a disability every semester! Another shared her own struggles with depression as a teenager. I was blown away. The second professor was my son’s advisor, and even asked her secretary to help him register for classes online.
Well, the downward spiral has begun once again. (As you all knew it would…) Not full blown with crying and panic yet, but I can tell that’s where it is headed. Two thing seem to have set him off.
First, he has an 8 page paper due next week and he seems to have no idea how to complete this task. When there was plenty of time until the due date he was optimistic and convinced himself he could do it, but as the deadline approaches he realizes he is in trouble. I have begged him to get an appointment with his Prof, take what he has done so far, and just be honest about the difficulties he is having. I also suggested the writing center because I believe they will help with brain storming and organization but I don’t really know? I don’t think he is going to do either as it seems he is already to the point where he is immobilized with anxiety over it.
On top of that the friend that I mentioned earlier went home for good today. S feels really guilty because he spoke with the RA about his concerns and feels he is directly responsible for his friend being forced to withdraw. I have only gotten bits and pieces but he did mention that the friend was taking antidepressants and was mixing other “bad drugs,” and that he had texted another student asking where he could get an gun, etc. so I am pretty sure that S’s discussion with the RA was not the deciding factor. However he is really upset to be losing a friend, plus he feels he might not have done the right thing.
I suggested that it was time for him to check in with counseling and asked him to call for one of the 20 minute slots today. He insists that he isn’t going to go to counseling any more because he is afraid that he is going to get kicked out of school too. I tried to reassure him that they don’t send students home unless they feel they are a danger to themselves or someone else, but he doesn’t believe me. I was adamant that he call for the appointment, but I don’t know that he actually will…
He was headed to class after we spoke. I asked him to call the counseling center before class, to speak to the Prof after class to make an appointment, and to call the writing center. After that I told him I wanted him to report back to me that he had done all three. Talk about magical thinking…pretty sure he isn’t going to do any of them. I am bracing myself for the next call. One more week until break!
Have you contaced the Dean’s office?
I’m sorry to hear this. Right now what your son is doing is “help seeking, help rejecting”. He is reaching out to you, but not taking your good and practical suggestions. The best way to tackle anxiety is by taking action (counseling, writing ctr, talking to professor). Your son is being avoidant, which will just make the anxiety worse. Has he ever experienced major stress or anxiety before? If so, what seemed to work for him? If he has managed it in the past, it’s good to remind him that he has the skills to tackle this. I wish he could get something immediate for the anxiety (fast acting meds) to help him through this. Otherwise, it seems that he is setting himself up to fail. The writing center would help him so much right now. If he is refusing getting help then it’s probably because on some level he wants to leave school. I feel so angry on your behalf that the school hasn’t been able to give him an appt with a psychiatrist or therapist. What’s the point of having a health center?
In your son’s high school, was he required to write papers? How did he do that? Did someone help him or write them for him? Has he always stressed out when he had an assignment due or is this a new development? It’s still not clear what comes first: the outside stressor triggering the anxiety or the anxiety causing him to not be able to deal with the “stressor” such as writing a paper. Hang in there and remember that you can only help him as much as he allows you to help.
One more thing: if he isn’t already doing this, he should absolutely, positively be going to the gym or running or doing yoga every single day. It’s almost as good or better than meds in managing stress/anxiety. If he can’t do anything else, he should be doing that.
I’m so sorry that your son is having such a rough time. One of my DH’s best friends had to take a couple of years off from college when he was 19-20 years old because he developed bipolar disorder. In his case, he’d become so manic that he would hallucinate and it was a really bad situation.
However, there’s a happy conclusion to this example. DH’s friend returned to school, then went to grad school to get a teaching credential & master’s degree in education. DH’s friend is now married, has 3 kids, and lives a happy & quiet life and teaches math at their local high school.
Like somebody else mentioned…this might just be a temporary detour.
I became very depressed & anxious in college, the year after my mother passed away. I had managed to get through the trimester immediately after, but then did not stay for the last trimester. I took it off, as well as the summer.
When fall rolled around, I thought I was ready, but things were different. I found I could keep up with the classes with multiple choice type of answer tests and quizzes, maybe do alright on short answer tests and quizzes, but for the life of me, I could not produce a lengthy paper. I did “okay” with facts and figures, but weaving together concepts from various long readings into something coherent? My brain was not operating the same way it was before the shock of my mother’s death.
After turning in a terrible, obviously incomplete paper for one of my classes, the professor who did not know me from Adam took the time to pluck me out of class, ask me what was wrong, and sent me straight away to the Dean’s office.
I think she may have called the Dean’s office right then and there and told them to expect me.
I was so resistant to withdrawing, insisting on powering through, even though I knew I was drowning. The Dean’s office was kind, but practical. Under no uncertain terms, he laid out what he thought was the best course of action. I cut back on my course load by doing some selective withdrawing. I made an appointment with the counseling center. I did end up failing one class in my major, which I had stubbornly refused to drop.
I stayed over for the summer to work, and take some classes, stayed in counseling, and graduated. I graduated half a year “late”, but I crawled across that finish line and got my degree.
Honestly, I could not find my way out of that hole. I didn’t understand what was happening to me, why I didn’t feel better, why everything that was easy or managable before was now so very hard and felt impossible.
I was relieved to have some adults at the school tell me what I should do. I’m not sure I would’ve been open to family members telling me. It’s not logical. It’s just the way it is sometimes for some people.
Just sharing this in hopes it helps.
I can’t stress enough how important it is to get the dean involved now, today. In my experience, the dean went out of her way to help my child. She had so many resources, really knew the steps that had to be taken, in what order, all to make it as possible as it could be for my child to be successful. And that meant withdrawing 3 times from school. We’re still not there all the way yet, but things are getting better. For your son’s sake, call the dean.
This really struck a chord…his father(my husband) died right before he started his junior year of high school. Of course I wonder how much that factors in to all of this…
I imagine that the loss of his father is a big factor, from my own experience, which resembles that of Midwest/
I know you are making active suggestions and waiting to see if he follows through, but I think this is a time for more active intervention.
You can inform your son that you feel it would help him if you, the parent, gave things a nudge, with an email to the dean. This can just be a quick heads up message, as in (My son is very independent and I try to stay out of things, but he is experiencing some anxiety and depression at a level I think could benefit from help from the school. I am just giving you a heads up and would appreciate any advice you might have to give him (or me). Thank you.).
Remember that without a release, they cannot answer you, but you can write them.
He is so afraid of being forced to leave, but that will only happen if it really is the best course. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. Your son is insisting on normalcy but things aren’t really “normal” for him right now. He needs help. I still think the long term view argues for medical withdrawal, but with a resistant kid, he can at least talk to an advisor, or dean, who can tell him the best path to follow.
Kids don’t understand that things can be okay even when they depart from the norm in terms of the course of the college years. We adults do. I am sure the dean or advisor or counselor can get that across to him in some way.
Excellent advice, @compmom.
I think kids are affected more by traumatic life events than we realize. I had NO NO NO idea my 16-year-old daughter was struggling after her brothers were diagnosed with mental illness. She insisted she was fine and outwardly appeared that way. Her Girl Scout leader finally confided in me that she WASN’T fine and we got her help. She says that the day she was diagnosed with anxiety was the best one of her life, because she knew somebody would be able to help her. When I speak to groups now, I urge people to take siblings of diagnosed kids to counseling, no matter how they appear to be doing.
Also, a delayed reaction to a death is not uncommon, especially during transitions such as the one from home to college.
Wow. I am so sorry. That wasn’t long ago and could very well be a huge factor. Grief counseling might be something worth looking into as well. Grief can show up later than one would think.
Is it possible for him to get an appointment with an outside psychiatrist to get evaluated and get a medical withdrawal? This way he won’t get kicked out of school, can take a medical withdrawal, and get himself healthy. Is it possible for you to go there and attend the appointment with him (not the evaluation, just be there for support). Also, you going there will indicate to him how important it is that he withdraw. There is no question in my mind that he must withdraw. Going down with the ship is just a bad idea.
We are going through this also. In our case, when our daughter feel anxious, the anxiety feeds upon itself until it becomes a full blown panic attack. At that point, there is no getting through to her. Luckily, she has a prescription for a short term medicine to calm her down. If we can get her to take it then after about 15 minutes she is rational enough to have a discussion.
Before this, my kid had a daily planner that kept track of every little thing. She never avoided her work. Initially when the anxiety started it was difficult to get her to take action to deal with the anxiety. The issue is that the anxiety (and related fear of making a mistake) makes it difficult to start a task. Everything becomes overwhelming. Once started she will often calm down and focus. Often homework that involves problem sets will have a large calming effect. I have found that writing draft emails that she can then rewrite in her own words helps.
As I mentioned before, anxiety will twist your son’s world view. It can reach a point that the person will shut down.
I think that this has reached a point where you need to intervene. Call the school counseling center and demand a meeting or at least an appointment with a medical doctor who can evaluate if medicine is needed.
The bottom line is he can recover from this. Withdrawing will make the process and road to recovery a lot easier. No matter what happens, I would not send him back in the spring without a professional evaluation. Even with that, a semester or longer off would likely be needed to get treated and stabilized.
I would go up to school now to work this out with him and school. When someone is sick (mental or physical), he/she may not be able to make the right decision. I think he needs you to step in now to help him make some rational decisions. It may be taking a medical withdraw, coming home to get some help. I do not believe this is the time to listen to what an 18 year old wants. This is time for you, as a parent, to make an adult decision for him.
D1 was very sick freshman year. She called me to let me know she didn’t feel well. I asked her if she was getting food and fluid. She said she was too sick to get out of bed to get food and all of her friends were too busy with classes to help her. I then asked her if she wanted to come home. She said it wasn’t necessary. I knew, as her mom, it wasn’t the case. I told her I was driving up to pick her up that night to bring her home. It was an 8 hr drive round trip. She cried when I told her I was coming for her. When we took her to the doctor next day, we found out her throat was so infected that it could have closed her airway.
It’s hard when the young person is so resistant. Our instincts as parents at this point in our kids’ lives is to honor their autonomy, and our relationships with them are so important that we often don’t want to intervene, unless given permission by them. However, this is a case for intervention. I think the best approach might be for you, the parent, to work things so that someone at the college works with your son asap, so it is off your plate and you can support him without directing things. Many of us think, and strongly, that he should withdraw, for his health and also to keep his academic record clean. If he is over 18, there is not much you can do other than to refuse payment for next semester, not an elegant solution. Hoping you can get the attention of the appropriate person at the college, and/or convince your son to do so. Perseverance has pros and cons…
I value everyone’s opinion tremendously and every post that I read makes me a little more knowledgeable and a little more empowered to deal with this situation each day. Home in 6 days!
He managed to keep it together yesterday and actually did make the appointments with the prof and the writing center. He went to both appointments this afternoon and said they were both “good” and that he’s now up to 4 pages. He also has an actual full hour counseling appointment tomorrow! Hopefully he will make it there.
His biggest worry today was how he is going to respond over Thanksgiving break when everyone asks how his sport is going…He was already amped up about that and then he received a flaming email from the coach which included gems such as “unacceptable behavior”, “failure to live up to commitment,” “lack of character,” “lack of responsibility” and my personal favorite: “big problems down the road.” Ugh. The purpose of the email was to request a practice t-shirt and shorts back that all the team members had been GIVEN…and he has to personally deliver them.