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At a loss :(

I am new at this and sharing my experience online or anything. I am hoping for some honest, kind, helpful suggestions and thoughts. I beg you not to be judgmental and critical. My daughter is 21. She is a dramatic,  compassionate, person who is either very happy, very angry, very depressed, very low self esteem. Rarely a happy medium. She has seen a psychologist thru her 6-9 grade yrs. It has been determined that she is borderline bypolar/adhd. Her focus and attention span in class was hard. She would get thru the day and let her frustrations out at home.she stopped all help, medical or counselor in 10 grade. By 11 grade had started to 'self med' herself, along with the help of her friends :( with maruaguana, then tried spice,  always 'trying or attempting' what friends tried. She is a hard worker, very compassionate person when things are good. But has grown very down on herself, not happy at all. As of late had begun dabbling in hard drug that she had come clean to us about and wanted help for. She was trying to better her life but kept taking one step back, not caring, then trying, then messing up again. Vicious cycle..recently she was involved in a head on collision that had put her into icu then to pshycal therapy.she has come home a wk ago and now we are working on in house therapy, counseling, drug and head. She has neck brace on and broken hip which has her even more down and feeling 'stuck'. I love my daughter more than I can ever express. Her and I are a lot a like and tend to butt heads. She has never liked counseling but I am determined since she is in our house under our help and care she will get it! But she has fallen to staying in her room,in dark since her serious concussion hurts. All the signs of depression are things I am seeing. Face full of pimples which she is not use to and has battled this yr has her hating herself more if that's possible. I try to let her know I am there to always talk and help. I realize I need to back off and nag less, but I also don't want her to just stay in her room in depression. I feel like I am walking on egg shells around her anger. I am in charge of her med and recovery at home but we have resorted to not talking much these past couple days :( I guess what I am looking for here is someone that has either been there or has knowledge in this type of stuff that can help me deal with this and help her the best way here at home. She has her first counselor, psychiatric, since accident today.hopefully all goes wel:((
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Avatar universal
  I'm sorry to hear about your daughter's accident,  I hope she gets well soon.
  I'm sorry to say I don't have any experience helping with people overcome drug addiction/use but I do have experience with counselors and parents wanting to get their child help (I was the child) so I thought I might be able to give you a new perspective. When I was in middle school I wanted to self harm and often considered suicide but I didn't want to tell my parents because I thought I would be locked up in an asylum. However one day I ended up telling them and to my relief I wasn't locked up, but they made me see a counselor. Unfortunately, she wasn't very nice to me and made me feel worse than I already did so I never liked going to see her. For me going to a counselor was humiliating and embarassing because I thought I was crazy and thought people would treat me differently because I had these "crazy" thoughts and needed helo for it. Whether or not this is the case for your daughter, and this is to my speculation don't take my words for her feelings, but if she went to a counselor for three years then she might have felt like it wasn't working and so she tried to use other means. What caught my attention in your post was that
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Avatar universal
I am sorry to hear about these struggles. I am also a daughter of a similar situation. It's very hard to get out of a funk that low. But the last thing you wanna do is make her feel like you're mad at her for it. She can't help it. My mother acted like I was sad on purpose but really it's just, when things go wrong, we want to get out of it but there's no motivation. The best you can do is just make sure she knows that it's not her fault that she's sad and know that one day she'll see the sunshine.
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Avatar universal
Thank you so much for your reply! And for your insight into being the child and counseling. My daughter never like to talk with counselors, to talk about her feelings.didn't want to bother. Convinced herself they didn't help so she didn't try. As much as I wanted to force her to counseling this time I knew I couldnt. She would just go into defensive mode :( instead I tried just telling her how much it is needed to reach for that better more happier life. She did end up going the other day. For the first time she found someone she could just sit and talk comfortably with, or she was willing to try this time. Whatever the case it went well and she is on some meds we believe might work. My husband told me as well about giving her space. You are very right. There are times I need to back off and I have noticed by doing this she has called for me to help or talk more. Today she was in the kitchen and I asked her to open some cans of food for me as if she wasn't in a wheel chair and she acted happy to do it! I am thankful for the slow change that I see in her. I can't help but fear the old her coming back. But she seems to really want to change. Her and I are learning how to be around each other comfortably again. I pray with all my heart this change is for ever and she finally has true happiness. That she can like herself. For right now it's one day at a time, taking each moment as it comes, thanking God I still have my daughter!! Again thank you for your reply
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Avatar universal
(My sincerest apologies i accidentally hit post when i wasn't finished) You had said "She has never liked counseling but I am determined since she is in our house under our help and care she will get it!" It is a good thing that you want her to have help and your intentions are good, but I would advise against expressing these things in a forceful manner or tone because it is only counterproductive. When people want to make someone do something (especially if they don't like it in the first place) they often want to rebel against it. For your daughter counseling may have a bad tatse in her mouth whenever counseling or help is mentioned so it would be best not to make it sound forced. Never give up on her! She needs you and I believe that things can turn out alright, just keep working at it. Sometimes it's good to give her space and sometimes it's good to be right by her side as a shoulder to cry on. After her accident she might be feeling like she is not worth much or very helpful, if she can't move very well. If she isn't able to do certain things she couldnt do before because of her injries she might not feel like she is not helpful.  If there is anything she can do in her state right now ask her for her help! She might feel like she is being productive and that she has purpose (because she does). It's just trying to make her see it. Helping others might be able to help her a bit.
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