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16 year old becoming withdrawn

I have a 16 year old son who seems to be spiraling into depression.  He was a model kid pre-pandemic, when he entered Hugh school as a freshman.  He played sports, made lots of friends and was an honor roll student.



‘We kept him pretty isolated during the pandemic, and since the return to school, things have gone downhill quickly.  His old friends are friendly to him, and from what we can tell they interact at school, but my son is no longer included in their social gatherings.  He has tried to reach out and is either lied to or excluded.  Neither he nor we know the exact reason, other than the fact that many of his friends continued to socialize during the pandemic while we kept him mostly isolated.



Feeling left out has begun to affect him in other ways.  He is sullen. Lacks motivation. Grades are slipping, and in his junior year when he should be preparing for college, he does little but sit around his room.  We have tried talking to him, but he has closed himself off to us, and we are very concerned about his mental health.  Any advice is appreciated!
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Hello there!  Are you still actively seeking information or to discuss this issue with your son? I see there was one other response, I too have a 16 year old going on 17 in a few weeks that literally experienced the EXACT same spiral once COVID hit. We have since had him in therapy and he started medication but that has only helped just a little bit.  I am curious if you have moved forward or seen any improvement?  Thanks
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Hi Lakelife1208. Tell me more about your son.  Mine is still struggling. It seems like one day forward and two days back at times.  I keep the faith and we are really trying to dig into therapy.  He's had many depression spirals now but what is catching my breath is the ocd intrusive thinking that has really surfaced.  He can get caught in asking question after question until he can't answer them and then can't sit with the uncertainty the unanswerable questions leave. It's awful.  My son will begin partial inpatient hospitalization as soon as they have a spot (wait list).  He's going to do a teen program that includes an hour and a half of school each day.  He's a senior so we're trying to keep that going. They say he will do this program for a minimum of two weeks but could be up to two months  I'm past even caring as long as it helps.  Tell me more about your son.  What medication is he on?  We have switched a new one.  It's been two weeks.  I feel like I see improvement but then we just had a really bad day. This is the hardest thing I've ever dealt with in my entire life.  
973741 tn?1342342773
Oh my gosh, so sorry I didn't see this.  My son also spiraled deeply into depression. He swears it wasn't pandemic related but it was around that time that it began. However, depression is such that something like that can be a contributing factor but often there is more going on. What have you done to treat it? My son became suicidal and had to go inpatient.  We are now in the mode of psychiatric care of medication and psychotherapy for therapy.  I DO see improvement.  My son is 17 and a senior.  He is applying to college and am hopeful he can continue to improve his mental health.  

My son was also dropped from his social circle, I might add. Another contributing factor. Different reasons for this but part of it was that he was depressed and not himself interacting. But the friendships weren't deep enough to withstand that.  We backed off.  My son is okay without those people as friends. He has only a couple of friendships right now but they are safe. Accepting people who don't put notions onto my son of how he should be.  

write back to me, and we'll talk. We're actually living kind of the same life!
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