Yeah, TBH for me it’s confusing that kids are switching genders, month to month. I just don’t get it. I can’t keep up with D’s friends.
2 Likes
You and you spouse are a team and communicate accordingly. Your daughter is still part of that team and the team should be communicating accordingly (share your expectations, create a plan, etc.)
But therapists can help you fix you. (Just like my doc and the antibiotics helped fix my ear infection.)
Someone mentioned upstream about how this generation just “dealt with it” growing up. Maybe this generation is feels more comfortable speaking to their parents/getting help vs dealing with it (not actually dealing with it!)??
4 Likes
We’ve been communicating our expectations with our daughter. Our daughter has been avoiding communication. We’ve seen improvement in the last week and we’re encouraged by that. She’s been stressed, and I understand that, but avoidance isn’t a helpful strategy.
4 Likes
Sounds like she got a job offer so that’s amazing! I hope it is something she is excited about. She’ll be ok. Hang in there. It’s hard to sort out how to support young adults and they don’t make it any easier.
1 Like
She did get a job offer and she’s so excited! I think starting a new job will make all the difference in the world for her.
6 Likes
I don’t mean to be insensitive or to take away from anyone’s pain or trauma, which I am sure truly exists from traumatic lived experiences for some - but not most. I have a daughter who suffers from pretty bad anxiety and I just cannot help (sometimes) think - what a brat!! But I never voice it because I don’t want to invalidate her feelings - they are there - even if they are bratty and not REAL anxiety always (sometimes I just don’t buy it). I just feel like a lot of the problems being mentioned on this thread are for the privileged (including my own child). Again, I am not saying that all pain, trauma, and mental health issues are not real problems from real experiences - many are, but I believe for the majority, these feelings are just good problems to have because life is not perfect and we need to solve problems. When you travel or have lived in places where so much of the population is on the lower end of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs you find that these higher-level issues just don’t exist as much because they are more concerned about physiological needs (food, water, shelter) and safety (work, security). Maybe there needs to be friction, challenge, or something to solve in the human experience and our kids are just more privileged and higher on the hierarchy in their challenges and in some ways should just consider themselves lucky to be having these problems instead of others that are lower on that hierarchy. Of course, they hate hearing that - another form of invalidation of their feelings - and they may call that gaslighting!
11 Likes
Okay I have to respond to this one. I know exactly what a migraine is. I know about the nausea and the light sensitivity and the vision disturbances and everything else.
I also know that I have had to power through them at times even when in deep pain because something had to be done–a child needed me, an important job duty, etc.
Once when my kids were little and I had gotten my first adjunct teaching job, I had to drive my kids to the babysitter and then get to that class. At red lights, I closed my eyes a moment and asked the older one to tell me when it was green, just to block out the light for a moment. I probably gave the class an activity that they could mostly do without supervision that day, but I don’t remember. But I was there because I needed to be.
Also, medication is much better now than when you were a kid and your mom had migraines. I can usually dull and often eliminate migraine pain with the medication I have, but it takes some time.
When I was younger I called them sinus headaches because I was told it wasn’t a migraine unless you got a visual aura. Probably many people didn’t know they had them when they did because of that kind of misinformation. Edit: I subsequently when older developed all sorts of visual auras and other disturbances, to the extent of being checked out for a tumor. Fun times!
When I say I have a migraine, I have a migraine. (Now back to the thread topic. Sorry for the derailment.)
6 Likes
Jumping in late to this conversation, but have seen both sides of the therapy talk trend.
I have friends whose kids claim PTSD from their childhoods. One friend walks on eggshells around her DD, terrified that the DD will cut her off completely. The DD has gone radio silent for some periods of time. While there was a lot of conflict in the home when she was growing up, there was also support and love. Typical upper end of middle class home. I can understand the DD needing to deal with issues with her mom, but not true “trauma”.
For another friend, their DS has true mental health and substance issues and has also accused his very loving and supportive parents of causing PTSD. In his case, it seems to be because of mental illness.
One of my kids has pretty significant depression and ADD. He launched and was doing OK, but then boomeranged home. It is very difficult to know how to draw boundaries and set limits with an adult kid that suffers from depression. He is much better than he was, but not quite back to being able to work a traditional 40-hr job. More good days than bad, but still some really bad days. He is working part-time and living with us.
He does not bring up childhood trauma but frustration about how his brain works. He is in therapy and on meds. I don’t ask much about therapy but just check in now and then.
I have been reminding him lately that he can’t just rely on medication and has to use the methods and tools he has learned to fight the depression. It is easy for him to wallow a bit in his unhappiness on bad days rather then going out for a walk in the sun. It is a very challenging line to encourage better behavior without falling into nagging. I also do not want our relationship to become me telling him what to do. He is more likely to talk about how his brain works when he is having a good day than a bad day.
Some days I want to tell him to suck it up buttercup and just get over it and get a “real” job. That most people wake up and don’t necessarily want to get out of bed and go to work. But his depression is real and has been difficult to treat. I am hopeful that he will move out one of these days, but doesn’t seem like it will be any time soon. Very hard on all of us.
I also know lots of families that supplement their recent college grads on rent or cars and especially health insurance. When we had a family plan it made sense to keep the kids on it because there was no cost to us. When DH changed jobs, that was no longer true and found that going on the company policy was much cheaper. Yes, a 24yo should be independent but entry level jobs often do not provide enough income for a decent place to live. OTOH, many kids these days seem to think that take-out every night is the only way to eat! Many of these kids end up completely independent in a few years. A few continue to expect handouts and do not fully launch.
All this to say that it is a complicated issue. The Australian study was not about kid receiving one on one therapy from a licensed therapist but from in-school group activities that don’t seem to help. Kind of like how they figured out that DARE programs were generally a waste of time and resources.
11 Likes
My older s and w talk about boundaries with the woman who watches their kids (their kids adult babysitter won’t follow their request to use paints only on the outside tables or kids craft table, and stained their dining room table). I kinda wish they’d talk about boundaries with their kids (who they allow to walk allo ver the furniture, etc!)
My middle kid literally said, “I have dark memories in every corner of this house.” WTH? We weren’t perfect, but he had a pretty idyllic childhood. No trauma of any type. I’ve learned not to engage him. My daughter, who is a straight shooter, just rolls her eyes when she hears her brother talk like that.
5 Likes
I don’t necessarily think the issues don’t exist. For sure priority is given to water, food and shelter. In many less privileged societies, the crazy uncle (or whoever) is locked away in the attic. Out of sight, out of mind?
2 Likes
I feel for you. Living with someone who is depressed is very difficult on one’s own mental health. Depression and ADHD-Inattentive are also very frustrating for the family because the person often seems to have all the tools but is not “trying” or looks unmotivated while everyone else is putting in the effort to help. Give yourself grace. Regarding his own motivation to do the right things for himself and to take steps to improve, you are right, advice or reminders can feel like pressure. And trust your instinct to keep silent on negative feelings about his job or his self-pity on bad days.
Medication, time and social interaction all help. One thing (which you might already know) is that social interaction precedes motivation, so if you can include him on walks you’re taking, have friends over so he can benefit from company while not having to take the initiative, it can help start the ball rolling and create more good days. Also if you can make your own life as good as you can in this difficult context (date nights with your partner, walks outside, focusing on what you like doing etc.) it will take pressure off you and him. But it sounds like you are doing everything you can already and he’s lucky to have you both supporting him.
6 Likes
And to add to this fine post- a support group for the parents can really help.
I have a friend in a similar situation- anti-therapy, hates “pathologizing” the normal human experience, etc. But her doctor strong-armed her into attending a support group- and to her surprise- it’s been fantastic.
No, it hasn’t “cured” her kid. But it has given her some VERY practical suggestions and tips including the biggest help of all which was a fulltime job in a low stress environment with congenial and interesting people AND great benefits (no, the money isn’t great, but the job has generous health and retirement benefits, paid vacation, etc. which is a lot better than what the son was doing with his piece-meal part-time jobs). And the scheduling is reasonably flexible for a fulltime job so no early mornings (which is often tough for someone with depression).
Hugs Mom2And…
4 Likes
I am in a very similar position with one of my sons. I appreciate hearing I am not alone. And everyone’s advice/thoughts.
5 Likes
I have a nephew who has struggled with depression and has been in and out of the workforce in various types of jobs and bounced back home several times. The suggestion of a low-stress full-time job with good benefits and nice people was not one I’d heard before, but it is exactly what has been so good for him! He’s doing so well these days. Lives independently, has a great girlfriend, and has a few hobbies he enjoys. The job is a perfect blend of working alone and interacting with congenial people with little pressure. It may not pay what some of his cousins are making and doesn’t have the promotion potential but it’s enough to live on and he is making a life.
10 Likes
I’m thinking that at least some of GenZ’s “trauma” could really just be the labeling of the usual ups and downs of adulting. In the dark ages maybe we had different labels, or none at all, but experienced the same pressures.
There was no sympathetic TikTokker crooning about validating those feelings, and so you either dealt with them or not, and probably on your own. Therapy was reserved for something “special” - it wasn’t that widespread, at least not in my circle.
And so yeah, getting a good job goes a long way toward resolving things, because it (again with the word) validates you and your worth. I think getting a job is kind of like a foundation, a baseline, and then you can mature in other ways, but maybe that is harder to do these days - get a good job, I mean.
5 Likes
What a heartening post!
5 Likes
How many folks in your social circle, in your age group, are struggling with substance abuse, food issues, multiple failed marriages?
I don’t think it’s just me knowing so many people from the “suck it up buttercup” generation who are pretty much failing at adulthood-- not in their 20’s and 30’s when they WERE successfully launching- but now, in their late 50’s and 60’s.
So I’m not ready to criticize a generation that seems more willing to deal with their actual issues, instead of forging ahead and THEN making their families deal with the fallout.
Isn’t it better for someone who struggles with same-sex attraction to get some professional help when they are 20, instead of marrying, having kids, and coming out at age 50? I’ll bet the children in these families wish their parent had seen a professional to acknowledge those feelings. Isn’t it better for someone with an alcoholic parent to recognize- perhaps after college in their first job- that their relationship with drinking (with co-workers, every single night, and then a “nightcap” at home) isn’t “normal” and seek help then? Or should they continue their “life of the party” routine until they are 55 and have pretty much passed out during or after their kids birthday parties, graduations, etc?
I’m not loving what I see among people my age who are so proud that they “toughed it out” without professional help.
10 Likes
I highly recommend the eight-week, free class that NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) offers for the loved ones of people with mental illness. Google “NAMI Family to Family Class” and the name of your state and you’ll see what’s offered. I prefer the in-person version, but a lot of people like Zoom. This is not a support group, although it’s reassuring to be with people who know what you’re going through. You learn all about the illnesses, meds, problem solving strategies, communication techniques, etc. It helped me so much back in 2011 that I volunteered to be trained as a class leader. I think the term I’ve heard people use the most to describe it is “life saving.”
8 Likes
It’s been a long journey. Including therapy!
2 Likes