Rannveig
Member
Odin's behavior is fine, if a bit cranky, but recently he has been having trouble falling asleep. He says he is troubled by gruesome thoughts (something about scarecrows and various horrible ways of dying) that keep him awake. A couple of times he has woken me up at night crying. And now he is also saying that he's thinking about suicide because he's not happy with his life and doesn't want to chance dying in some awful way later. He said he thought he'd use poison gas, but on closer questioning he didn't seem to have a viable plan (just as he never seems to have viable plans for any of the good, creative things he imagines doing).
There's nothing going on in his life that would explain these feelings situationally. He has loving family and friends; he's bright and confident about his intellect. He does complain that he always gets hurt when he tries to play sports and wishes he liked sports as much as his friends do. But I know his friends are supportive and don't tease him or anything, and his father and I don't care whether he excels athletically. He's a bit awkward but nothing that would put him outside normal range.
I'm glad he feels he can confide in me, but what he's saying has me terrified. A few years ago there was something like this -- he said he didn't feel he had anything to live for. (He was, like, 6!) He seemed to feel better after a few weeks. But now here we go again.
Any of you have any experience with this sort of thing? Any ideas on what to say when he tells me he doesn't see any point to living? Being chronically depressed myself, and also not being a person of faith, I have trouble coming up with reasons for him to stay alive other than the fact that if he killed himself it would break my heart (and several other people's). But he shouldn't want to live for me; I want him to want to live for himself! (I should add that I don't think he's acting out my depression. I don't talk about my depression in front of my kids except in passing, and I function normally except for being tired a lot. My depression really doesn't affect my kids' lives except possibly in some really subliminal way that I can't see.)
Thanks, Ranny
There's nothing going on in his life that would explain these feelings situationally. He has loving family and friends; he's bright and confident about his intellect. He does complain that he always gets hurt when he tries to play sports and wishes he liked sports as much as his friends do. But I know his friends are supportive and don't tease him or anything, and his father and I don't care whether he excels athletically. He's a bit awkward but nothing that would put him outside normal range.
I'm glad he feels he can confide in me, but what he's saying has me terrified. A few years ago there was something like this -- he said he didn't feel he had anything to live for. (He was, like, 6!) He seemed to feel better after a few weeks. But now here we go again.
Any of you have any experience with this sort of thing? Any ideas on what to say when he tells me he doesn't see any point to living? Being chronically depressed myself, and also not being a person of faith, I have trouble coming up with reasons for him to stay alive other than the fact that if he killed himself it would break my heart (and several other people's). But he shouldn't want to live for me; I want him to want to live for himself! (I should add that I don't think he's acting out my depression. I don't talk about my depression in front of my kids except in passing, and I function normally except for being tired a lot. My depression really doesn't affect my kids' lives except possibly in some really subliminal way that I can't see.)
Thanks, Ranny