When you’re told that your child has to see a counsellor your heart sinks, you start blaming yourself for failing your child. I of all people should know better, but I couldn’t help but place the blame upon myself. Why wasn’t I able to help her?
I can’t stop her feeling the pain she feels, it destroys me to know she’s hurting inside and I can’t do a thing to change that. Of course she knows she can talk to me, we have spent hours talking about how she’s feeling, but I can’t get her out of the grasps of depression and its worrying and frustrating.
I want to take it all away, but I know I can’t. The effects of teen depression are clear to see, her depression is real and it’s crippling me as I have always tried to steer my children away from this disease because that’s what it is a disease that eats you up on the inside. I hurt because she hurts, I feel useless because I know how it feels to be depressed, to feel alone despite being surrounded by people who care.
I don’t want her to feel worthless and useless I want her to feel the beautiful and caring young lady that she is. I want her pain to stop, I want to rip away this dark cloud and tear it into tiny shreds and stamp on it.
When your child has to see a counsellor it makes you feel a failure
Am I to blame? Are my genes to blame? Could I have done more?
I know I’m over thinking things that are not true. I know the reasons why she’s feeling the way she is. She’s a child who was raised in a domestic violence home and recently began seeing her father again, she is afraid he is still the angry and frightening man she remembers him as. Her grandmother passed away a few months ago followed by one of my best friends a few weeks later.
She’s never dealt with death before so two people she loved and was a big part of her life dying within weeks of each other was to too much to cope with. She worries everyone she loves will die now. I can’t promise her anybody else she loves won’t die; it’s an empty promise as nobody knows when they are going to die.
I am torn between knowing her seeing a counsellor is the right thing to do yet can’t help but feel it’s just the start for her ….
I was thirteen, the same age as she is when I was first assigned a child psychiatrist after attempting to take my own life and while my own daughter isn’t suicidal she is struggling with life. Will this just be the start for her, like me will she now live a life under the dark cloud of depression?
How can I not worry?
I am diagnosed with bipolar and mental illness has plagued my life and stolen so much from me, I do not want this life for her or my other children. I know the reason she’s feeling life is difficult, but there’s that niggling worry in the back of my mind.
It started soon after she began having regular contact with her father we had spoken in some length about this reconciliation and I knew her fears, I felt them too. But she wanted to see him and I had to respect her wishes, despite wishing she didn’t want too. I know she still fears him. I know she knows he will be OK for a while and then snap again. We have the court cases and social services to show that. We have tried contact in the past; it ended badly, traumatizing her.
Then there was grief, consumed by sadness and fear that everyone she loves will one day die, this is life and I can’t protect her from death.
I took her along to the GP as I knew I wasn’t abe to help her, when she said those words that your daughter has to see a counsellor I felt relief, pleased I was being taken seriously, relieved she was going to get professional support to help her, followed by guilt and worry.
I have to keep reminding myself that when your child has to see a counsellor it’s because there’s a problem that needs fixing and depression can be treated, I know that. I have to believe this; I have to make her believe this. I have to accept this isn’t my fault. This is just situational depression and does not mean she will never escape the mental health service.
When your child has to see a counsellor it has nothing to do with your parenting capabilities, I am worried mother whose teenage daughter is depressed. I have to forget I am a mentally ill parent who’s terrified her children will follow her path. I know I am worrying over nothing, can someone reassure me it’s not my fault.