Depressed and suicidal teen
After catching my 14 yo daughter smoking pot in her bedroom, I went through her text messages and discovered she has been getting high regularly for several months, and was also raped recently. I've known she was depressed but not how bad it was. She has been doing poorly in school but not totally failing- she is very smart but insists she is stupid. She is basically refusing to discuss anything with me, outside of expressing that she is angry and wants to kill herself. What have you done that actually helped your teen recover from a similar situation? Forced therapy seems unlikely to be helpful. Keeping her at home will just increase her isolation as she refuses to engage in any activities or consider online school. Seems like a lot of people try a lot of things most of which don't work. I don't want to over react but the suicide talk makes me feel drastic and immediate action is needed, this isn't run of the mill experimentation.
Parent Replies
I work with families of children and teens who have attempted suicide. This is every parents worst nightmare and I am sorry you're going through this. Your daughter urgently needs mental health support. Please find her a good therapist, or a support group if she prefers. If insurance allows contact the psychiatry department at Children's Hospital Oakland, or at least ask them for guidance. If she is actively suicidal call the mental health crisis services or go to the ED. Encourage her not to isolate but also give hr space when she needs it. Make sure your home is free of any obvious risks (hiding medications, razors, etc for example). Be there for her, listen, empathize. Make sure other adults in her life are there for her too. Monitor her online activity. You say she was raped; has she talked with you about this? has this been reported? to police? school? doctor? Is her rapist someone she still has to face every day? Have you or she been in touch with a local rape crisis center or rape crisis hotline? Also you may also want to get mental health support or yourself, this is a huge amount to be dealing with. Please take good care.
I'm so sorry you and your daughter are going through this. My daughter and I have been in a similar situation and it was devastating. If she is in immanent danger of hurting herself (especially if she talks about a specific plan to hurt herself) take her to the hospital so she can get hospitalized for 72 hours (5150). Lock away any pills (advil, Tylenol, and prescriptions), knives, etc at home and take out anything from her room that could be harmful to her . We even put a sound alarm on my daughter's door at night so we could sleep and know if she left her room to venture around the house so we could hang out with her. I didn't trust what was going on with my daughter at all.
Work with a psychiatrist to determine if she needs medication and where she is at in terms of depression and any plans to commit suicide. Dr. Ray Hearey in Orinda was helpful for us. He also called Alta Bates and gave them a heads up that we were coming to the hospital when she needed a 51/50. When she is stable enough, DBT therapy might be helpful -- this sort of thing is geared specifically for people like your daughter. I would check out Clearwater DBT in Oakland. They have group and individual help for teens and adults suffering in this way. My daughter refused to go to the group (only individual therapy) at Clearwater but we all (especially parents) learned skills that could carry us through everything. I would say DBT and meds for my daughter helped us most. My biggest revelation from DBT was that I had to work on a continuum of acceptance and change. If we were struggling with 5 issues I had to pick one or two issues to change and accept the other 3 or 4 issues as is until we had more capacity to deal with it. It is insanely hard to wait and see what happens when your child is suffering. There was no cure all answer. I thought about sending her to a wilderness or art based camp and or a therapeutic boarding school (we used Shayna Abraham, from Prepare to Bloom therapeutic educational consulting to research good choices) and each time I got close to doing so I got scared off by thinking about how I would lose my daughter for a significant period of time (18 months on average) and how unregulated most of those places are and how many many kids don't get much better from attending these pricy places (they sometimes get worse). My daughter also refused to go to school so we sent her to Tilden Prep (Walnut Creek and Albany) which was a great decision. It really helped give us some time to deal with getting her stable (and boost her academic confidence). We did that for a year and then sent her back to public school. And we got through it. My daughter is in high school and is relatively happy and adjusted. She still has ups and downs and still takes meds but is doing really well. There is hope for change.
I am a Holistic Health and Wellness Coach and have helped a few teens with their depression and anxiety with CBD Hemp Oil. It is not considered cannabis because it comes from Hemp and there is no THC in the oil. It is an excellent anxiolytic and CBD has been used for PTSD as well. The only down side/side effect is that it will not work well. Teens feel grounded and the anxiety moves out of their body, they can focus and function better. CBD is also a huge detoxifier, as I am sure with the stress she has endured, she has what they call neurotoxicity- which makes it hard to concentrate. CBD is a great detoxifier. You definitely do not want her smoking cannabis, as most likely it has high amounts of THC which can exacerbate the depression.