Has anyone had a kid take a leave of absence for mental health reasons?

Parents Forum
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It is hard being in the position where we are right now. DD stressed herself out in high school — no social life, little free time, took classes way above her academic capacity — to get into her “dream” school, an elite tippy top. It is notorious for being competitive and intense, but we thought that just being accepted is a signal that she would be able to handle it.

We knew she was burnt out from high school (and had developed minor mental health issues from how hard she had pushed herself), but she was so excited for Dream U that she dove straight into college after high school. However, the competitive, cutthroat, intense nature of the college really caught her off guard. She became depressed at school, didn’t get great grades as she learned that this school was not a good fit for her at all. Then COVID sent her home halfway through her freshman year, and she spent the rest of that year and all of her sophomore year at home doing online school from her childhood bedroom. Not ideal, but at least she was insulated from the pressures of her elite, competitive college.

This past fall she was back on campus as a junior, but was essentially socially a freshman. Every week, a crying, sobbing phone call about how much she hates her school and can’t find a supportive group of friends (apparently most juniors lived together last year during COVID off-campus and had solidified their friend groups), how hard school has gotten for her and how worthless she feels on campus. Starts tanking in her classes and trudges through finals despite severe mental health complications. She decided to take a leave of absence for this semester and is at home in therapy.

It has been incredibly difficult, to say the least. This is doubly so because we couldn’t afford the EFC the elite school spit out for us (we do get a good amount of financial aid, but not nearly enough), and DD had to take out loans as a result. She complains she’s taking out loans just to be miserable. I can’t disagree, but it’s too late for her to leave her school. I just want her to finish that dang degree and leave. But her mental health is too fragile to deal with competitive U. It’s so painful watching this unravel, and she’s my only kid so I have no experience with any of this at all.

Anyone else in this situation? Just wanted to see if I’m alone.

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My D24 has had a similar experience. We have her set up with both an academic coach and therapist. She has dropped down to three classes in an effort to reduce stress. She has been doing better, but still seriously spirals on occasion and discusses coming home. Like your kid, she feels stuck at this point, at a school she proclaims to hate and a major she hates as well. We discuss transferring a lot. She is terrified of staying, really doesn’t want to be home, and can’t pull the trigger on a transfer (and I’m not sure that will solve her problems anyway.) I wish she had taken action earlier, but with this all happening during the pandemic, we thought surely things would get better and they just never did. I’m sorry you are going through this too, it’s so hard to see them suffering when this should be one of the best times of their life.I have a friend who works in higher ed and says there are SO MANY college students who are experiencing this right now.

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I’m so sorry your daughter is going through this. It sounds serious.

“but it’s too late for her to leave her school.”

No, it’s not. The best advice I got when our oldest developed a severe mental illness in college was that life is not a race and you want “to keep the ball in play,” meaning you want them to stay alive long enough to develop the coping skills they need. My 20-year-old nephew ended his life just months before he was due to graduate from college early. That was almost 7 years ago and our whole family will never recover from his loss.

You don’t want to look back in hindsight and realize you should have brought her home.

Have you contacted a local NAMI chapter for support? They have an outstanding course called Family to Family for loved ones of people with mental illness. It was a lifesaver for our family. It meant so much to me that I volunteered to become an instructor and now I’m about to learn how to train others to teach it. I urge you to take it.

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My S is currently at home after taking a medical leave this semester. It’s been tough but he is doing much better. He is on medication for anxiety and depression and is in counseling. His is all due to Covid not academics or school fit really, though his grades did suffer. He has ADD and the isolation and online classes were a horrible combination for him. We know 3 others who are in similar situations. He hopes to go back in the fall but we are taking things day by day right now. His therapist said there are many in this situation. Good luck to your D.

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We got our D to start on ADs as well. We pretty much had to have an intervention to convince her to try as she was (and frankly still is) extremely opposed. But what a difference it has made.

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It’s never too late to change course and safeguarding your daughter’s mental health is the most important thing you can do. Something similar happened to my neighbor’s daughter a few years ago. She was at a HYPS but found that reality fell short of the dream and experienced some mental health challenges. She never finished there but ended up going back to our state flagship where she has excelled and will be finishing her degree this spring.

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I’m so sorry you are going through this. My D20 is a lot like yours - head down through HS to focus on getting into her school of choice only to find the experience fell short. In her case, it isn’t a competitive environment but the definition of “work hard, play hard” and she feels she isn’t academically prepared. Plus, she spent her entire first year as a prisoner in her dorm room with no in-person classes or activities and with a roommate who wouldn’t speak to her. We got daily phone calls where she was sobbing so hard I couldn’t even understand her.

I took her to her doctor, she started on medication for anxiety and depression but they made her dizzy and lethargic. She decided she couldn’t deal with the process of medication adjustments with telemedicine appointments and no privacy. Student Health Services was useless with no available appointments and not enough staff.

She is better this semester, actually has a few friends and likes having in-person classes but still feels she is drowning in the academics. She gets a lot of financial aid and her school has no student loans for some families so she has been very resistant to transferring. We are learning to adapt to the phrase “C’s get degrees” and accept that “the student who graduates last in their med school class is still called Doctor”. At one point, she was looking at grad school programs but is focusing on graduating with her BA for now. It isn’t a race anymore, just a journey that has an end.

You need to do what is best for your daughter. She may not be able to see what that is right now. If she needs time off, make the arrangements. If after a break, she wants to go back, let her. If the option is taking part time classes at a local state school and transferring, take it - even if it isn’t the name on the diploma you all dreamed of.

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I have not been in your exact situation, but you are certainly not alone. The government has acknowledged there is a mental health crisis among our young people and the pandemic really took a toll on so many.

Among D22’s peers, who were sophomores in high school when remote schooling began, mental health issues have derailed college plans entirely for many. They are not even in a position to apply to the Dream U’s of the world, but are now aiming for community college or no school for next year.

I really worry about these kids who are applying to schools now with flawless applications. When I see the lists of clubs founded, research projects completed, prizes won, and community service hours amassed, I think that one wouldn’t even know a pandemic had taken place to look at them. Despite tossing in a question to let applicants describe any pandemic-related hardships, it feels as if expectations were not lowered one iota. In fact, admissions became even MORE selective.

It sounds like your daughter got caught up in that pressure to perform constantly at an exceedingly high level — which took its toll on her ability to focus on building meaningful bonds with others and self-care.

I hope her leave is helping her separate her sense of self-worth from her accomplishments and to recognize that she is enough, just as she is. I am wondering if there are avenues to completing her degree that would be more life-giving to her, when she is ready. Maybe she could do a study abroad program where everyone is making new friends and course expectations are less intense. Or do an internship for a term or two at a not-overly-intense workplace, building experience for her resume outside of the pressure of the classroom for a bit. Maybe lighten her course load during the year by completing as many credits as possible through summer courses (online or at an easier school if credits are transferable).

I understand the impulse to want to just get it over with, but I don’t think mental healing can be rushed. In the end, maybe a late transfer is the only healthy choice for her. It may delay graduation, but it will be worth it if she is in a more relaxed and happy place to start her career.

As someone going through the application process now, I know that the pandemic really changed how we viewed the process. Before, I was very focused on D22 getting into a school with a strong reputation and academic programs that would give her an edge in getting a great job — in short, I was worried about her long-term economic security.

Then COVID hit. After seeing her loneliness and sadness about missing out on experiences during high school, I started to give more weight to enabling her to have a traditional “college experience.” Like we had back in my day, when there was a lot of goofing around and less focus on career preparation— the kind of experience generally seen as too frivolous or expensive in light of the cost of college now.

But now I think building a group of forever friends and experience memories is just as important as building a resume. And if she deems she will not have the time or energy to do that at a prestigious university, then so be it.

Because you are already more than half way in, deciding the next move is harder because almost any choice probably involves more expense. But better to have a healthy child (even one with debt and no degree) than to have a miserable suffering child with an elite degree hanging on the wall.

Best wishes to you and to her. I hope the therapy is making a big difference.

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College somewhere will always be available. Right now, your daughter’s mental health is THE priority.

Have her talk to the Dean of Students about taking a leave of absence fro her current college. This doesn’t mean she HAS to go back, but it leaves the door open if she wants to.

Then, welcome her home, and get her in counseling, and whatever else she needs to improve.

She can make a decision about college later.

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You aren’t alone. In the end your daughter’s mental health is most important not her grades not the college she graduated from. From personal experience once the mental health starts to improve the other things fall in to place.

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Is there anything she can do to help in the short term - take a lighter load/drop a class? You are not alone, hope she is getting all the help she needs.

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Yes. Will PM you.

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No advice - just sending hugs to you.

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To clarify, she already is on a leave of absence from her school. Has been since January.

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To clarify, she already has taken a leave of absence from her school. I looked into the possibility of her taking a lighter load for future semester, and unfortunately for DD it’s not a possibility.

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Thank you all for the supportive words. Feels better to see that I’m not alone. But it still hurts regardless. Dream U was admittedly my dream as much as hers, so it’s immensely painful seeing all this happen. I know that’s bad to admit, but I think I was (and admittedly, still am) wrapped up in the process from great high school performance —> great college —> great post-grad opportunities.

DD has been searching for a therapist for the past month and has done first appointments with several different therapists for the past few weeks. She feels like she hasn’t “connected” with any so far and doesn’t find therapy helpful. She has been going to several therapists, all with a wide variety of different therapy styles. Still says none of them really appeal to her.

She also told me today that she just bought a plane ticket to a state on the other side of the country to go work on an organic farm next week. Um… WHAT !!! I told her this is a bad idea for someone has mentally unwell as her, and that she needs to focus on finding a therapist she likes. I also told her that this is not the time to be making hasty decisions so quickly — such a rapid change is too much for someone as fragile as her to handle. We got into an argument and she pointed out that she needs to be in this same state for this summer anyways for her internship*. Ugh, fine. But still distressing.

*She has a summer internship lined up at a high-powered corporate place known to be pretty intense and cutthroat. Really worried about that but DD is adamant this is “crucial to her resume.”

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Same thing happened to DD here. She quit the medications last semester. Now insistent that she’ll never take meds.

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We found a great psychopharmacologist through this board. Meds are all she does (no counseling) It can take a bit of time to get them right but once that happens it can make a big difference. She is very conservative in her approach. Lowest dose that is effective. Happy to share contact info. She’s actually not far away from us but we do zoom meetings.

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You are not alone. I work in a mental heath field, and I see a lot of teens and young adults in her same predicament. I know I don’t know her personally, so I can’t be sure, but by your description she sounds like she struggles with significant perfectionism. It has gotten in the way of her development for a number of years (“no social life” etc), and now has contributed to a mental health crisis. I agree with other posters that you were 100% correct to pull her out of school so that mental health can be the #1 priority.

But let’s fast forward a few months, and assume her mental health is in a much better place…what now? So often, the temptation is to go back to the bad fit school to try to salvage the degree. A mentality of I have invested too much time and money not to gut it out and suffer through. But that’s the the exact “overachieving” mentality that put her at risk for this mental breakdown in the first place–her idea that her suffering doesn’t matter and that happiness is something to put off “just a little longer” until she has achieved the goal she has decided she must achieve or she won’t be able to live with herself. Perfectionists have this superhuman ability to tolerate pain…until all of a sudden they can’t.

So what I tell parents is: Her #1 job right now is to focus on her mental health recovery. But after her depression/anxiety etc are in remission, her job is still not done. Then her next job needs to be to focus on her happiness. “No longer depressed” is not the same as happy. This is not a battlefield where she needs to bandage herself up and get back out there. She needs to learn she deserves to be truly happy and fully flourishing.

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Yes.

Stanford’s soccer player, Katie Meyer, reminded me of what could have been, had we not intervened 5 years ago, and pulled him out.

These are different times than when we went to college. The pressure to succeed for everyone is ridiculous!

Please rescue your child. Now is the time to do it.

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