ColoradoDad
New Member
My 16 yr old daughter gets released tomorrow from the psychiatric department at our local hospital, she's been in there for almost 6 days. She ate lots of pills and cut herself. It came as a surprise. We are making our home as suicide-safe as possible now. My wife and I spend four hours a day driving to and from to visit her, and are generally scared about her coming home. In the last year we have noticed her being depressed trying to identify with other depressed kids, wanting to dress depressed, unable to be happy or except complements, and living in the shadow of her two younger sisters who consistently achieve in are praised for it. I dealt with depression as a child, I assumed it was normal because I had a pretty rough fatherless child hood. I was a bad kid and I payed for that in my 20's, hard lessons. I am fairly old school and discipline oriented and right now I am overwhelmed with the dichotomy of being scared for my daughter and hurt that she would want to take her life, and being a pissed about the Atom bomb she has just dropped on our family. The therapists coddle every meeting and maintain that this is not my daughters fault at all and that she has depression, and is not capable of processing these feelings on their own. They suggest that I need to chose my words so as not to offend or make her uncomfortable. I'm baffled. She seems to like the idea of us being in check and having to make sure everything is just so as to coddle her every step of the way. This doesn't seem to reflect real life to me. The only thing that has ever worked for me was buckling down and facing problems head-on. Working harder. To my knowledge responsibility is something you cannot avoid in life, unless you wanter either live in jail, or in section 8 housing waiting for your crazy check, having a nurse stop by to coddle. Life is tough.
My daughter has never used drugs or alcohol. She shows no interest in boys. She is awkward. Acne. Social interaction issues. Lots of problems to work through. I've wrestled with her and she is strong! I am considering MMA as a new program for her. My wife is just as confused as I am and although the hospital is very attentive to our daughter, they have left us alone and we feel helpless and are seeking the tools to make all the right choices. At first I feel like we have failed her, but our other kids are in honors classes with straight A's, very well adjusted. I just don't know.
My daughter has never used drugs or alcohol. She shows no interest in boys. She is awkward. Acne. Social interaction issues. Lots of problems to work through. I've wrestled with her and she is strong! I am considering MMA as a new program for her. My wife is just as confused as I am and although the hospital is very attentive to our daughter, they have left us alone and we feel helpless and are seeking the tools to make all the right choices. At first I feel like we have failed her, but our other kids are in honors classes with straight A's, very well adjusted. I just don't know.