Depression 101, for Newcomers

What if saving your child’s life was up to you? 

Or, perhaps it's your niece or nephew, or your neighbor.  In our patchwork mental health system, it might be. 

As school starts again, someone near you will start living a bare bones version of life (my daughter’s way of putting it.)  As school, band, sports and social activities pick up, so does the pressure.  Even years later, I’m still stunned by how fast depression took over our household, an unwelcome and yet persistent guest. 

Here are some lessons we – a once depressed teenager and a panicked mom – learned about depression.

Hard lesson #1: the depressed teenager looks like a typical teenager.  It took me too long to see that my daughter was struggling with depression because the outer expression of depression looks like, well, being a teenager.  Sleeping a lot.  Being in your room a lot.  Irritability.  Not wanting to spend time with family.  Self-doubt.  Check. Check. Check. 

Hard lesson #2: treatment takes a long time.  The first, second and third therapists may not be right.  We had counselors who were too nice, or too rigid, and one who got overwhelmed and just stopped calling us back.  Classy.

Hard lesson #3:  write it all down.  I naively thought we would get a great counselor, start some medication, and life would go on to our new normal.  Wrong!  Write. It. All. Down.  This is going to be slow, and you’re stressed, too.  After trying three or four of five medications, you won’t remember. 

Hard lesson #4:  this will be your new full-time job, on top of your paying job, and working to have your own life.  I see so easily how kids slip through the cracks, without a parent who has resources, free time, health insurance and a flexible job. 

Hard lesson #5:  there are mini joys.  One summer, our daughter did a day program an hour away.  To avoid sitting in rush hour traffic, we left early and then used our extra time to go to breakfast. That felt like a gift, to have those hours together every day, when a typical teenager would have been off doing something else.  Plus, pancakes.  Once, on a bleak winter night, we went out and ordered all the desserts at a restaurant. All of them.

Biggest and best lesson:  get help.  All the help.  The night my daughter took all of her pills, I heard her run down the hall and start throwing up.  “I didn’t really want to die,” she said later, “but I didn’t really want to be alive either.”  In our messed up system, an attempt at suicide earns you a ticket into the inpatient mental hospital, which was what she needed and couldn’t access before that. 

I regret so much that I didn’t see earlier.  If your child is struggling, I hope you’ll consider the possibility of depression, and get help from a trained counselor and a psychiatrist.  As early as you can. 

--Mary Austin and Lucy Smith (all content approved by Lucy)

Top image via Pexels, bottom image from Lucy.