Hi-
I'm new here and am looking for some support and advice. I have a 17-yr old depressed son. I'll give you a bit of history:
His father and I have been divorced for about
2 years and separated for 5. His father has battled depression for many years. We had a very amicable relationship for the first 3 because he was on meds. Last summer, he stopped taking them again. The result was that our relationship deteriorated rapidly; as did his relationship with the kids. In September of this past year, my son had an argument with his father. The end result was that he stopped going on visitation. He has been living with me full time ever since.
I started noticing his grades taking a nose-dive in October. (He was an A student). He went from being a social kid with good grades to withdrawn and failing. In the beginning of November he started counseling. After about
3 visits the counselor recommended an anti-depressant. He started on a low dose of Lexipro. The pediatrician upped his dose. I took him to a local hospital for a psych eval, in which he was deemed not suicidal and they released him. The ped switched him to Zoloft and recommended a psych eval by a psychiatrist. I took him 2 days ago, and he received an "official" diagnosis of depression. We are currently awaiting counseling with a Clinical Psychologist. We had parent/teacher conference last week, and the school is on board with a successful day being that he is showing up and staying in class. We are also going to try for a 504 Plan.
I am lucky: my son knows he's depressed, asked for treatment, and wants to feel better even though he isn't yet. We are very close. He's very
open with me about
his feelings. I try very hard not to harp on him about
his grades (I'm a teacher in his district). I encourage him to hang with his friends and his girlfriend. I'm taking him for snowboarding lessons Friday in hopes he'll like it and it'll give him some exercise.
My struggle is this: this is NOT my son. I have SUCH a hard time when I ask him to do something like take out the garbage and he just lays on his bed and says "OK" but then doesn't. Some days are better than others, but overall he's down most days. I guess sometimes I just "forget". And I'm HUMAN. I've been up since 5AM and I'm TIRED by 8:00. I shouldn't have to BEG him and ***** for an hour. Tonight I lost it. My daughter and I took it out. Then of course that made him feel worse. Sometimes I just get so frustrated and don't know what to do. I'm lucky if I can get him to shower more than twice a week. Again, this is not normal behavior for him.
I guess I just need to know that I'm not alone and that what I feel sometimes (the frustration and anger) is normal. The last thing I want to do is make him feel worse. And I know that as close as we are, he has voiced sometimes that he doesn't feel I support him. That would be in times like tonight.
Does anyone have any words of wisdom?
Thank you..
Post Edited By Moderator (getting by) : 1/15/2014 7:42:34 PM (GMT-7)