Freshman S-depression, anxiety, panic attacks-withdraw now, or stay and probably fail out?

I’m always a fan of a quick and to-the-point answer - “I decided not to pursue the sport. Way too much of a time commitment with the amount of studying I need to do.” And, then stare and smile. Everyone completely understands how difficult it is to transition into college, especially when juggling a sport and academics.

His hometown identity must be wrapped up in sports, is that right? Is it a small town? Changing identities is hard and that question might be kind of loaded for him. On the other hand, two of my son’s friends stopped sports in freshman year (they had been recruited athletes) and were pretty comfortable with it. Fish has good advice…matter of fact and short.

I am really concerned about that coach’s email. I do not think your son should take the clothing back himself. I hope he will show that email to the counselor, who can perhaps intervene in some way. The coach no doubt has not idea of the reasons your son had for leaving the team. It seems as if it would be hard for your son to tell him. Since the coach is so intimidating, perhaps either your son can write him a short note/email or a dean or counselor can do it. If the coach did know the reasons, then his email would be abusive.

The last thing your son needs is this kind of attitude from the coach, He seems like a kid who likes to hold up his end of the deal, who wants to persevere and not let anyone down, and this must be painful. And explaining is embarrassing. I really hope the counselor can help him out with this one.

But I really also hope he doesn’t end up alone, face to face with the coach, shorts and shirt in hand, while he gets an angry lecture from someone who has no idea what is going on.

The coach’s email was out of line and unacceptable. Your son should show the email to the counselor and you need to tell him not to believe what the coach wrote. He wrote it out of anger and does not speak to your son’s character. It is up to you, but I would write to the coach to tell him to back off and he had no business to speak to your son in such a manner.

I know of many Div 1 athletes who quit their sports after they started college. It is why I usually advise students not to choose a college because of the sport. The college should still be their #1 choice with or without sports because too many people stop playing once they realized how demanding college sports were. Tell your son, life is all about choices. It takes a grown person to be able to make a choice.

While you are trying to get him through the semester without withdrawing, I think that it’s important to start planning now for how to handle if your son does actually fail out this semester or is put on academic probation . I am not trying to be pessimistic, but his self worth seems to be tied to completing the semester . If he does not, he will need tremendous support . Until people start viewing mental illness as a true medical condition , and not a sign of weakness, people will continue avoid reaching out for help. Most people would have no difficulty withdrawing for a physical condition like cancer, mono, etc. Unfotunately, that’s not the case for anxiety and depression. Good luck to your family.

I don’t think a parent should get involved with the coach. But a counselor or dean who knows the situation can respond. Even if the son is willing to tell the coach himself, which would be unbelievably painful and shaming it seems (though wish it wasn’t any more shaming than cancer, as carolinamom says), I think, naturally, a member of the administration or a counseling professional would have a lot more credibility and authority.

Also, the coach may not be understanding even when he does hear the real reasons. We have found, in the case of professors or staff who do not understand things like this, that they will nevertheless comply when an authority tells them to. This is not a case of compliance so much as a need for the coach to apologize and refrain from further abuse.

He sees the counselor today, right? I hope he shows the email to the counselor, and maybe that will be end of story from your son’s point of view.

Perhaps in the future the coach will realize there are indeed legitimate reasons for leaving a team. He most likely loses members every year and has built up some anger about it. Some applicants use sports to get in, and the don’t play. I would say to your son that this anger is most likely not personal.

But let someone in a position of authority deal with it. Someone else can return the shirt and shorts : )

Our D16 received a critical, guilt-producing, pressure-flled email from a club coach in high school. She had our blessing to not attend the upcoming tournament and to quit the club, but she could not escape the coach’s disapproval and attempts to change her mind.

It’s just one of those things where you have to encourage your kid to do what they think is right, but not to expect the peanut gallery to agree. No need to over-explain yourself. It’s okay to stand firm with a deciion you know in your heart is right, even if others disapprove and are apt to judge. Triage.

The varsity sport plus father’s recent death plus adjusting to college…it’s completely understandable that your son is struggling.

That letter from the coach . . . . wow. I’ve known coaches like this. Maybe his approach would be different if he knew what’s going on, but maybe not. They see their jobs as similar to a drill sergeant responsible for building character in their recruits, and to them, that means shoving emotions onto the back burner and pushing on. While that approach might work for a while, it eventually catches up with most people at some point when it comes to things like dealing with the loss of a father at an early age.

It sounds like he’s just looking for a face-to-face confrontation, and that’s the last thing your son needs right now. I would make sure your son knows he doesn’t HAVE to do anything. If he wants to, he can send the coach a quick (final) note wishing him and the team success and leave it at that. If the coach wants the shorts and t-shirt back that badly, your son can leave them at the counselor’s office and have them notify the coach that they are there to pick up at his convenience.

Don’t forget to take care of yourself. I worry that there’s no one there making sure YOU are OK. When you fly, they tell you to grab your own oxygen mask first. You have to be OK to help anyone else, so grab that mask and take a breath when you need to. Take it one day at a time. You’ll get through this. Sending you a virtual hug.

I may be the only one but it might be a good idea for him to see the coach face-to-face. Have your son be completely honest with the coach about why he quit the team. Have him ask the coach for help. It could go three ways: 1) the coach isn’t a jerk and ends up helping your son, 2) the coach is a jerk but your son reacts positively to it, and 3) the coach is a jerk and makes matters worse.

IF he wants to return the shirt and shorts, have him put it in inter-campus mail and get it back to the coach that way. Take it to the counseling session and ask them to stick it in their internal mail system. That will also show the coach that he can’t dictate specific actions of your son anymore

Believe me, I had an urge to send the coach a scathing email but I resisted. If over a decade immersed in youth sports has taught me anything, it’s the taboo of parents contacting coaches. He dropped the stuff off and said the coach didn’t say a word-guess he got everything off his chest with the email!

So he got through that…and his paper is coming along…and he hasn’t gotten his test grade back, so no new catastrophes with grades…and he went to counseling…and last night he went out to dinner with a friend and his father…and break is 5 days away. Sounds good, right?

So why is he on the phone with me last night crying?

He said no matter what he is doing, even things that he should enjoy, he feels sad. He said he often is hanging out with friends and just has to get up and leave for no reason because he wants to cry. He said he sleeps all of the time. And he has headaches. And he said he feels like he is always walking around in some kind of “fog” that keeps him from focusing on anything.

I was hoping that his problems were mostly situational. Several of you have asked if I thought the problems originated from the stress of the classes/sport/transition or if it was the other way around. Since this is all new to me I guess that I hoped it was the former. I thought it was possible that once we addressed the situational stressors that the depression and anxiety would fade away along with those issues. I mean I understood that his response to the stress was not “normal” but yet I hoped…I hoped some temporary therapy would be the answer.

Yesterday the therapist told him that she thinks he should start on medication, but he is resistant, so he didn’t come away with a lot of details. I told him that he needs to speak with her today and find out how she suggests that he get the prescription. It’s time.

Medication is a difficult issue. My children suffer from anxiety. It is not really situational, but is exacerbated by stress. Their therapists want them on SSRIs but they both refuse. They will sometimes take a benzo to get them over the worst of the worst panic attacks. I have not pushed SSRIs mainly because they are mostly functional, as in they work, go to school, interact with peers, go out and have fun. I hope your son finds his way.

I would suggest you re-read my post #7 and make an appointment for him with a psychiatrist for when he’s home on break. Consider the Genesight genetic testing previously mentioned as well since settling on the right meds can be a very long process of trial and error.

What type of medicine? There are short time medicines which can help stop (or at least alleviate) a panic attach and long term aim to provide a long term benefit of minimizing the anxiety and depression. Sometimes the goal of the short term medicine is to provide relieve until the long term medicine start to take effect. These are powerful drugs. Your son is right to approach them with caution. However, a psychiatrist can explain the pro and cons and advise them whether the benefits outweigh the risks. These drugs will require regular monitoring by a psychiatrist. However, understand that drugs are only one tool and that therapy and other techniques will likely to be needed.

One warning: when you research these drugs be prepared to be scared. The list of potential side effects of these drugs can be overwhelming in length. However the frequency of these side effects vary greatly. Your psychiatrist should have plenty of experience with the drugs they are recommending and should be able to alert you to which side effect are likely and what to watch for. The reality is that with time, you should be able to find a drug with minimum side effects.

The fact that his therapist recommend medicine indicates that they feel that your son has a some form of clinical mental illness that is not a short term problem that can be address by temporary therapy. You need to recognize that this is going to take time to treat. Your son needs to have a discussion with the therapist about whether a semester of is recommend.

When we first started down this road, I felt that the counseling center was way too quick to push drugs as the answer. It felt like they were pushing the easy route. Now two years later, I feel somewhat different. The drugs got my daughter to a mind state where she could seriously work on the therapy side of the treatment. Hindsight for us is that initially she was not ready for therapy due to the over whelming anxiety and that medication was needed.

Hopefully, a good psychiatrist and therapist can help your son determine what is best for him. There is no “one size fits all” treatment plan.

@noname87, excellent posts. I was resistant to giving my youngest the meds for anxiety that her therapist recommended. Similar to noname87, in hindsight it’s clear that she needed the meds in order to be able to think clearly enough to learn coping skills. The issue is that if the child DOESN’T learn coping skills, he or she may resort to more serious measures to ease their pain, such as drugs or cutting.

Can you get an appointment for your son while he’s home? I would tell him not to make any decisions about school until he is stable to the extent that he has the time. This is where communication with the dean could help.) Along the lines suggested by @noname87, he can’t think through a good and workable plan until he can simply think calmly.

I’m pulling for both of you. So very difficult.

Is this a new thing?? My D went to college on the other side of the country - I thought she was stable but for some reason she decided very shortly into it that she no longer needed to take her anxiety and ADD medications-- she lied to me about it even though I knew in my heart she wasn’t taking them. She made the semester but was at like a 1.7, got kicked off the horse team (again she lied to me about it) and barely made it through the 2nd semester. She was going to be thrown out soon anyway but she too insisted on trying to stay. I said no.

I am sorry to say she never really went back. It is so hard at this age.

@Midwest67 My ex and I were going through a terribly ugly divorce when my daughter went off to her freshman year of college. I still to this day wonder how much that factored into her already ever present challenges. To make it worse, it wasn’t a rank and file divorce, her father (my ex) had been having a long term affair which she apparently had caught some wind about and felt pretty horrible about her choices to either narc on dad or hide it from mom.

I truly thought she was okay, but I was wrong.

@ProudMomx3 if you reread your post #109, you are basically listing the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for depression. I would second the recommendation of seeking a psychiatric consultation over the Thanksgiving break if that is even possible on short notice, and then scheduling follow-up during the Christmas break. Your son likely needs a coordinated treatment approach, ideally a combination of medication, cognitive behavioral therapy, and exercise/healthy eating to get the spiral turned upward. It sounds like he has made some strides in the positive direction, but right now he might be too ill to keep it going without adequate support.

If the counselor at the college is recommending medication, is he/she going to refer him to a psychiatrist? Otherwise try to find one for him.

If your son decides to try a long term medicine now, then he has a slight chance of knowing if it works before the spring term starts assuming the spring term starts in about 8 weeks. It is likely that the dosage will need to be adjusted at that time. It is also possible that the medicine will do nothing and a different medicine will need to be tried.

In our limited experience, you will know quickly if the short term helps. As I mentioned before, the side effects might take longer to show up. A short term medicine could help him get through finals. If he gets a prescription now, he can try it over Thanksgiving to see how he reacts to it.

I know that it only been 8 days and that you have a lot to absorb.

FYI, my daughter took a year off. She did return. She still struggles but is getting better.