It’s early in the semester. She might be able to take a personal leave of absence rather than a medical one. With a personal leave, she decides when to return, without any medical people having to be involved. It’s simpler.
What a resource this place is–thanks, everyone! I spoke with someone at Pitt this morning, and he was helpful. My DD can drop all of her fall classes and preserve her academic scholarship & active student status. She’ll be free to return to Pitt up to and including Fall 2019 without any sort of medical verification; if she wanted to return in Spring 2020, she’d need to reapply for readmission. She’ll receive a full tuition refund for the current semester.
I appreciate the reminder to get out of the binary way of thinking. Because I suffer from depression myself, I can get in the doldrums of black/white “this is a crisis” thinking, and my own coping mechanism is to take charge and seek answers everywhere. It’s important that I sit back and let my DD (and her psych) drive this process and figure out what comes next.
My DD is talking about returning to Pitt in the spring, and I will try to balance confident reassurance with the reminder that she doesn’t need to jump right back in to suit anyone else’s expectations. She’s her own toughest critic (as are so many of us who suffer from depression), and it’s all too easy for her to follow what she thinks is the One Correct Path to success.
Wonderfully, her older brother called and spoke with her last night for 90 minutes. He reminded her that there are detours along the way, but everything will be okay. My DD was grateful and relieved.
I’m sorry so many of us have to deal with mental health issues. Thanks for the online support! I’m lucky to have a great group of friends, as well as a large & loving family, to have my back as well.
If your daughter is taking classes that are taught in two-semester sequences, she needs to check course availability very carefully if she’s considering returning in the spring.
Sometimes, the first half of a two-semester sequence is only taught in the fall and the second half is only taught in the spring. If the sequence is required for the student’s major and the student misses the fall semester, it might be necessary to postpone the sequence to a different year. Whether or not this will work depends on the way the major is structured.
I realize that your family’s priority right now is your daughter’s mental health. But nobody wants to pay for extra semesters because they didn’t think about two-semester sequences.
One thing that helped us parents was to have our D’s therapist describe her struggles with depression and anxiety as a life long struggle. It’s not going away.
The therapist said, maybe think of it as staying sober. If the right support is in place, she will stay sober. But when things get super stressful at school, old habits & behaviors pop up, coping skills deteriorate, and she’s not sober anymore.
The therapist gave us hope that with time and therapy and support in place, she’ll get to know herself better, learn what works for her, learn what doesn’t work.
It also shifted what we thought of as our role as parents. Her “sobriety” for lack of a better word, was her job to manage, not ours. We were part of the support team. Our job was to write the checks for therapy, make sure she had excellent health insurance, and to continue to treat her like a capable young adult.
There were times when it was very tempting to jump in and try to fix everything. I think that’s one of the hardest part is deciding what to do for them, what to do as a team, and what to let them handle on their own.
Best of luck to you!
It is wonderful that your daughter recognized she needs help. I went thru the same thing with my oldest daughter who was already seeing a therapist at school. DD ended up being hospitalized 4 days and then came home. Since it was near the end of the Fall semester and she had really good grades up to that point, she was given time to hand in her finals. At home she really just slept a lot, did journaling and art work while attending weekly therapy and starting on psych meds.
DD took off the following semester. Then that summer took 1 course at the local state college to get back in the swing of things also started group therapy. DD returned to school the following Fall (last year)and is set to graduate on time.
The year that she returned to school she realized if she wanted to fulfil her dream to study sbroad she would have to do so that Spring and she did! We visited her 2 months in and she was showing some signs of depression. Our visit helped but just encoraging her to get out more, making an effort to connect with other students, exercising and engaging in campus activities really helped. She wrote a blog for her school of her experience (paid).
I share all this to show that they are many avenues available to your daughter even if she needs some time away from school. If she decides not to return, Maryland has a great state school she may consider transferring to, hopefully it will be closer to home or she may decide to return to Pitt. At this time, the focus is on getting her back to her baseline.
I found that in addition to therapy, creative outlets (painting, dancing, singing, journaling, etc), engaging in social activities with friends and others helps. As well as speaking openly to trusted friends about her struggles My daughter’s friends were incredible supportive and her going out regularly for fun activities sure helped in her revovery. Also consider getting her a daily workbook on coping skills she can work on daily (Amazon has many).
Don’t forget to take care of yourself, it is incredible stressful to see your child struggling and being uncertain about their future. Be kind and gentle with yourself.
One thing that especially worries me about DD being home this semester is that her awesome support group of friends is still at Pitt. Meanwhile, her close HS friends are all away at their respective colleges. DD thrives on social contact, but she’s unable to stay connected virtually since she has anxiety surrounding online/digital communication, which is going to make it tough for her to get the social activity she needs.
I appreciate everyone’s suggestions and am taking it all in! Many thanks!
I just wanted to reiterate the exercise advice.
I and my DD have suffered from anxiety issues. I do believe that the fight or flight hormones that are triggering during anxiety need to be worked out of the body. If we can’t really run from a bear…we can run on a treadmill! We have both found that regular exercise has helped us keep body and mind healthier!
There are specific therapies geared to phobic anxieties. It sounds like her avoidance of online/digital communication could be a real problem in this day and age, not only socially but for functioning in many areas of study and work. I know there is a program at BU that must also exist elsewhere. Guided desensitization is involved. I even read that an antibiotic was used that somehow imprinted a successful “exposure” in the brain. I would look into that, or find a local therapist who will work specifically on that issue (along with meds for depression). A therapist who uses hypnosis or EMDR could be especially helpful. Your daughter could bring the computer or IPad to therapy and start using social media with the therapist’s help, or send an email to you- that kind of thing. Does she have fears about privacy and exposure? What is the deeper meaning of that phobia?
I’m not sure about the deeper meaning of the phobia, but I’m planning on having her seen by professionals at a behavioral therapy office in D.C. Apparently they’re top-notch in treating phobias, of which she has quite a few. It all is interlinked–the ADD, depression, anxiety, phobias. It’s too much to unwrap for me, so I’m going to rely on a team of doctors to help. I just want her to trust that she can be okay one day, and right now she can’t see it.
Is she OK with using a telephone? What about using a landline? Could she stay in touch with her pals that way? It’s a bit old-school, but they might find some charm in just speaking one-on-one with each other.
Very concerning, OP. Sending best wishes to your family.
Your daughter- and you- might enjoy reading about Allen Shawn, a professor at Bennington who has thrived despite phobias. https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/25/garden/25shawn.html He wrote a great book about it too.
I don’t know how long the phobias have been going on but one kid I know had them especially badly in senior year due to the stress of transition. It seems logical that stress would worsen them.
But great you are finding therapists to do CBT etc.
Yes, thankfully she enjoys using a telephone! She’s such a throwback. 
Thanks for the book recommendation, compmom; I’ll check it out.