Teenage anxiety/depression/problems

[Angelai]

Hi, not sure if this is in the right place.... I have my own issues, but this is about my 15 year old son. Any insight/opinions would be great.

A brief history - my son is 15 years old. From the age of 2 to 14 he lived with my mum, then he spent a year with his father. He has been with my husband and I since June this year (as I said, I have my own issues - this is about my son and how he is now, not the reasons WHY his life has been out of the ordinary).

He is suffering panic attacks and some depression. If left alone to sit on the pc all day he seems ok, but any hint of having to do anything else and he get's all defensive and occasionally angry. I know, normal for a teenager, but it's more than that. Some months ago his doctor referred him to the children and young peoples service for evaluation, we met a counsellor for a session. We discussed the problems, she wanted to see him again. He refused to see her alone, she was happy for me to be present. The thing is, when she suggested to my son that it was perfectly reasonable for him to be feeling the way he was, considering the upheaval he'd been through, he said he didn't want to see her anymore. The biggest issue seems to be that he is desperate to have a 'label' of mental illness. The counsellor refused to give him that, she genuinely felt that anxiety/mild depression covered it - he wanted more. He did tell me that he NEEDS to have a 'condition/illness' in order to be taken seriously, for people to really believe that there is something wrong would somehow earn him special consideration and probably exemption from living and doing 'normally'. As in, it would be ok for him to say things like, 'no, I don't do things like that' (I don't have to do things like that because I'm mentally ill) and 'I'm not well enough/my condition prevents me' (there's no point pushing me, I will not do it because I'm too ill).

I know that teenagers can be challenging, and his unwillingness to do anything or participate in normal family life is not unusual. My concern is his determination to be 'ill'. Also, he doesn't actually want to get 'better'. He is terrified that I will think he's getting better, he must remind me now and then that things are still s**t. My latest reminder was right after school yesterday - basically he told me (through tears and anger) that he feels so crap all the time and the only thing he can do to escape it is go on the pc, and by me telling him that if he got a detention at school for not doing homework I would restrict his pc use, I had caused him even more distress and anxiety. His unlimited access to the pc is the only thing stopping him killing himself (his words). Anyway, slightly off topic there! I went straight to the doctor to make an appointment. I asked my son what he was hoping the doctor would do for him - he wants to be prescribed pills. He wants to be able to say, 'Look, I am so ill I have to take pills'. Again, he is after that 'label'. I asked him, what if the doctor says you need to go to the counsellor again? He told me f**k that, I'll just deal with it on my own. Seeing a counsellor obviously isn't serious enough.

So, I do believe that my boy is suffering. I know how he feels, I know all the physical symptoms he gets (far too well unfortunately). I just don't know how to deal with the fact that, firstly, he is so determined to be diagnosed with a serious mental illness, and secondly, that the only help he will accept is medication. He refuses to believe that there is any point in being happy and that there will ever be anything to look forward to. He is refusing to prepare himself for the real world of life after school - work is the worst possible thing that can happen to him it seems, purely because it would eat in to his 'own' time and he wouldn't be able to sit on the pc all day. He doesn't want to get better because then he would have to face the real world - he wouldn't have an excuse any more. He wants to be considered unusual/different because it would be convenient for him. It would remove the pressure of having to live 'normally' and like a decent human being. He needs this 'label' to exempt him from all expectations and activities.

He has looked into the symptoms of ocd, and tried to persuade me that he had that - even going as far as engaging in what he believed was behaviour that might be considered typical for ocd. It didn't last. He does show signs of anxiety, I'm not dismissing that. I just don't know how to help him when he refuses to listen to anything I have to say (unless it's 'ok, let's go get some pills. I will make the doctor give them to you').

I'm not sure this is attention seeking, he hates having any focus on him. In fact, he is so much like me it's scary. I was (am?) very similar in terms of forever looking for an illness to explain why I feel the way I do. But I can't bear it when any one takes notice of me. For me, I suppose I need a diagnosis for the same reasons as he does - because it would make it ok for me to behave the way I do, and would take the pressure off.

Hmmm.... looks like I'm asking what's wrong with both of us! What I'm really asking though, is how can I help him? How can I make him believe that not having a big name for how he feels doesn't make it any less serious, that I still take his feeling seriously? There is another part of the issue - he needs his peers to take him seriously too. He needs me to believe he's ill so that I leave him alone, he needs his peers to believe it to excuse his odd behaviour (he does not display odd behaviour, he wants people to think he's odd though).

Wow, sorry for such a long one. I really do appreciate the help and advice I get on this site and I hope that at least someone has managed to read to the end lol. I know I need to toughen up with him in some ways, and not keep doing everything for him. But I hate upsetting him so don't push it. That's my own problem, I know how he feels, and I have tremendous guilt for not having kept him with me all his life. I do know this - taking the pressure off, leaving him alone, has not worked. I told him that last night. So what next?

Thanks for reading guys x

[anon122]

hi, im 16 and although my anxiety does not seem to be quite the same as your sons i can relate.

i havent told my parents about how i feel yet because i am worried they will not believe me. i worry because i have not yet received that 'label'.. and until i in fact pluck up the courage to go to the doctors and get that 'label' from professionals i will feel as if my condition is not real/worth worrying about (although in my mind im more certain of my anxiety than anything).

in concern to you and your illness i think you should tell you son that you also have your own problems. he seems to be taking advantage of your willingness to accept everything he does. i am aware that my mum and dad have their own problems and for this reason i have learnt to deal with things on my own. im not saying that this is perfect for me but i think if you were more stern with your son he would be more likely to see the bigger picture.

if it wasnt for my mum and dad being quite harsh as parents i know for a fact i would not still be in education and would have given up on going out etc. i strive for them to be proud of me and for this reason i just about get out of bed in the morning. (i am not in anyway judging your parenting skills! understand that you just dont want to hurt your sons feelings/make him worse etc) i hope this helps.. feel free to message me x

[Angelai]

Thanks for your reply, I'm sorry you are struggling too. It's really helpful to hear your thoughts, it's like hearing it from my son's perspective. As you say, I do need to toughen up a bit for his sake. My mum was so soft with me, and I turned out like this. She had sole responsibility for my son for 12 years, and he's turning out the same... She was/is a wonderful mum, and I know she always did her best for my brother and me (and my son of course) but I realised a long time ago that never having to do anything I didn't want to, never having to stand up for myself, hasn't done me any favours.

You say he seems to be taking advantage of my willingness to accept everything he does - my mum says exactly the same thing. Can I ask you something? When your parents are harsh with you, how does it make you feel? I can see you are glad they don't 'give in', but do you think it has helped keep you from sinking even deeper? It's so difficult to know how far to go, I don't want to lose him. Everything was great with his dad for a year, there were rules and expectations and responsibilities, and my son seemed to thrive. I think it was his dad meeting a knew woman and suddenly putting her very much first (we all have our faults) that started this all off.

The last thing I want is for my son to suffer like I have, and I keep thinking what would have helped me? Structure, routine, stability... discipline?

I'm beginning to understand a bit better about needing a 'name' for how you feel - I guess because I do know exactly how it feels and have been the same myself for so long I just accept, without question, that he is suffering with anxiety. But yeah, when I was younger it was important to me, too, that I could call it something other than 'just' anxiety.

I hope you find the courage to talk to your doctor, it's such a horrible way to feel and so debilitating. Your illness, and my son's (and mine I suppose!) IS real and worth worrying about. We all deserve to be listened to. I also hope you are able to get support from your family/friends in some way, you shouldn't have had to learn to deal with things on your own. Thinking back, whenever I complained of any symptom or feeling when I was young (apart from obvious physical illness) my mum did try to brush it off - her way was to not make a big deal out of it. I always felt that she listened, but she didn't go rushing to the doctor with me everytime I had a tummy ache or the shakes. But, I've always needed to hear it from the doctor - only his/her opinion seems to sink in.

Again, thanks for sharing - it's a great help to me and has got me thinking more, which must be a good thing!

xx

[anon122]

i will not lie, when my parents are harsh with me it does makes me feel a mixture of feelings- angry, upset, alone. i know this isnt the answer you are looking for however it does give me a sense of self-reliance. no matter what my parents say to me i will always love them. no matter what! because i know that they will always love me. im 100% sure your son is exactly the same- at the end of the day you are his mother who is obviously concerned for him - do not be scared about losing him.. this will not happen!

this feeling of self-reliance (not sure if thats the right term) keeps me from sinking even deeper in a way as it forces me to think about my feelings and really really think about them. e.g what do I need to do about this? how long do i want to feel like this? these thoughts, although kinda depressing.. are ones that you can only really figure out for yourself.. and i think without them i wouldnt be in in the state of mind i am now- knowing that my problem is serious and i need to do something about it. i know my parents are not going to be responsible for me for the rest of my life.. i think if you son started to realise this he might start to think about the future when he is living on his own and has to sort out his own problems.

structure and routine is important- its actually something i wish my parents were more strict with. this is going slightly off topic but i often find having a clean bedroom really really helps - this may not be relevant for your son but if it is i'd encourage you to ask him to tidy his room. maybe small things like chores could be the start of you getting to grips with discipline and him understanding that he has responsibilities too.

thankyou as well for your support.. i hope this helps - id be happy to answer anymore questions:) xx

[Angelai]

I'm sorry it's taken me a while to reply, I haven't had the time I wanted to properly think about this instead of just writing something quick.

I think back to when I was younger, and yes, I think I was crying out for stability and routine myself. I guess there were too many times when I didn't really know where I stood, or what would happen next. Although my mum was always a constant, it seemed that nothing else was. She over-compensated by wrapping me up in cotton wool, and never forced me to do anything I didn't want to do. I suppose I was never forced to explore my negative feelings. As an example, if I was really sad and didn't want to go to school, instead of talking about it (or making me face up to it and go) she would let me stay home. She always did everything she could to make things (too) easy for me. And my son was treated exactly the same way for the 12 years that he was with her. About 5 years ago, mum and I were discussing the way my son was behaving and she got a little heated, telling me that he was no different from me. She got defensive, saying that he was treated just the same as I was. My final response to that was - yeah, and look how I turned out! Think on! I wasn't judging her, she knew that, just trying to show her that being too soft wouldn't necessarily help him in the long run.

I agree that he definitely needs to learn to be more responsible, I just need to figure out how to help and encourage him with that. We need to move away from everything being someone else's 'fault' - it's always my fault when homework isn't done or we're late getting to school, or he hasn't had a shower... right now it's 10 to 8 and I'm about to go and try getting him out of bed again without winding him up. I'm just tip-toeing around him all the time and I know it's not helping.

I am so grateful to you for sharing, you understand much better than I do what helps (and makes things worse) because you are in the same place as my son. That makes me very sad for you and I wish I could help you, too.

There is a book, by Oliver James, called 'They f**k you up', it's all about how our parents influence our state of mind, right from birth. Of course, most parents would never mean to harm their children, but it's amazing how the little things they do affect us. It's not a judgement, more of an advice guide on how not to repeat the same mistakes with our own children, and a reassurance that there are reasons why some of us have these problems. A little of the poem that runs through this book...

'They f**k you up, your mum and dad
They may not mean to but they do,
They fill us with the faults they have,
Then add some extra, just for you...'

It's all about recognising patterns of behaviour, and how to break out of the mould that they have (unintentionally) created for us. I do not blame my mum for how I turned out, she did the best she could based on her own experience. I am now trying to figure out how to best help my son based on my experience and what I have learned. I need to get over my own worries first though I guess!

There is a reason for our anxiety problems, and sometimes just learning to deal with the 'symptoms' isn't enough. We do need to figure out why sometimes. For my son and myself, we both need to step up, take some responsibility. As debilitating as the anxiety is, we have to be committed to helping ourselves too.

Your insight is a great help to me, thank you xxx

[Siany]

Hi there,

I'm 18 now but what I can remember about being your son's age was that when I was in school, it was almost deemed 'cool' to have any kind of illness, especially a mental one. I always thought it was utterly ridiculous (but that's because I've always suffered from problems of my own) and you could tell when someone was faking something, say anger problems or anxiety.

The only insight I can offer on the computer thing is I have always been the same when dealing with anxiety and sometimes feeling really low. It's a way to shut yourself off from the real world. I used to use books or computers. When you're concentrating on something online or in a book, you're instantly transported from worrying about your own life to worrying about the characters online or in a book and I always found it quite therapeutic although it is a way of avoiding your problems rather than dealing with them.

I think maybe sitting down with your son and talking to him about your problems, and explaining to him that if he has problems then medication wont make them go away, it will only mask the problem rather than resolve it per say.

But it is a rather confusing situation. I hope you eventually shed some light on it, as I probably haven't been of much help!

[hurricanesian]

Hi, I can relate to this situation massively. However, I can only say why I reacted in the way that your son is.
I'm 18 now but I've had problems with anxiety and depression since I was about 6 and to a life altering extent since I was eleven. A few years ago I was almost looking for further labels. To an extent I know that I like my labels because for me personally if I know what I'm dealing with it seems easier. However there's also the aspect that when you're a teenager and all over the place and you have mental health symptoms on top of that it feels like the worst thing in the word, so when someone says it's just anxiety it's easy to convince yourself that it must be something more otherwise you wouldn't be hurting so much. There's also the feeling that some conditions are more serious than others so people will be more understanding and you'll get more help.
Hopefully things will work out for your son so that as he gets older he can learn to accept himself a bit more, it worked for me.
Hope that makes sense.

[Angelai]

Thanks for your replies, it's really helpful to get these perspectives.

Siany, you are so right about it being 'cool' - there are quite a few students at my son's school that say they have mental health issues (some of them do, some don't), at least one that my son has been talking to takes antidepressants. It's like my son wants to 'fit in' with this group. I'm not saying that there's nothing wrong, only that he wants to be able to say that yes, he is just as ill as they are, if you know what I mean? And hurricanesian, I do understand now that he needs that name for it to help him get his head round it, to make it more believable.

I don't want my son to continue to shut himself away, I want him to have more confidence and self esteem than I ever have. I don't want him to grow into an adult with the same problems that I have. I know how difficult it is to help yourself, and usually the last thing you want is people trying to tell you what will work because how the hell would they know? To a degree, I don't care what my son chooses to do with his life - as long as he is happy. That's not to say dropping out of school and going on benefit would be acceptable, more that whatever career path he chooses (as long as it's legal lol!) is ok with me - I just want him to have a passion for something. If that's computers, great, there's the perfect btec for him at our local college. I just need to help him see the importance of being responsible for himself, and how he will need to put aside a little of his 'me' time in order to do the prep work needed to get on the course.

I do feel that I'm failing him at the moment, and although I know that I need to toughen up for his sake, I also know how he feels. I don't want to go to far the other way. I need to show him that he can rely on himself, that he DOES have the skills and intelligence to achieve the things he wants. And, just as important, that I will always be there for him, and love him the same, even if he does fail. I have to show him that it's not about being 'good enough', I just love him and that's it. I don't want him to reach my age (39) and have regrets about not going for something or making the best of what life gives him because he doesn't believe in himself. I have to take a step back and actually give him the chance to show himself that he is capable, stop doing what my mum always did - like still phoning in sick for me when I was in my 20's, as an example!

And yes, I need to help him get a better perspective. Life is hard for a lot of people, and sometimes we have to do things we really don't want to do. Making him go to school every day doesn't mean I don't believe he doesn't feel well. It's just one of those things he has to do at the moment. How to make him realise that putting the effort in, not being quite so selfish with his time, will benefit him so much in the coming years? That age-old parent/child issue - you'll thank me for it later and all that. It would be so easy to wrap him up in cotton wool, keep all the bad stuff away from him, but I can see how that would lead him straight into a life of self-indulgence, an inability to stand on his own 2 feet, zero self confidence and never ending mental health trouble. Soon followed by bitterness, resentment, anger and self-loathing, pills...

Anyway... he has an appointment with the doctor on Monday, maybe I'll try to encourage him to spend some of the appointment time talking to the doctor alone - what do you think? I know (from experience) that while I'm in the room, he will keep looking to me to do the talking, and that won't help in the long run. Also, if he doesn't like what the doctor has to say, like if he recommends seeing the counsellor again, my son will want me to argue against it for him, not make him go. Oh, I don't know what to do for the best!

Your replies have really helped me to understand more of the thought processes going on, I now need to learn how to support him without doing it all for him.

Thank you xx

[Siany]

Yeah, you're completely right there. Also maybe if there are others at his school that have been faking mental illness, he may feel the need to have a label and be on medications etc. to say that he isn't attention seeking and faking it. Schools are bloody horrible, gossiping places.

I think toughening up would be a good idea. But my mum had the same problems with me. When I was in school I would refuse to go, but her threats didn't matter because I genuinely didn't care about life. I didn't want to go out, ground me. I don't have any real friends, ban me from social networking. So she could never win. I think the lowest my attendance was, was 52%. It's only in Year 11 that I began to get stronger anxiety rather than depression and I started getting anxiety about not achieving anything in my future, so I snapped myself out of it.

As a parent there's only so much you can do I think, you need to find that perfect balance of parent/friend. Whereas my mum continually tried the friend approach and it backfired, although we have an amazing, open relationship because of it. I just never respected her during my teen years.

I think it would be a great idea for you to not be present in his appointment. There are some feelings, thoughts and emotions that you just don't feel comfortable discussing in front of your mum or dad.

I'm sure everything will work out for the better in the end. Have a good weekend, good luck Monday and keep us updated! x