Leslie
05-24-2003, 01:50 AM
This is a follow-up to the problems our 13-year-old daughter was having with being bullied at her middle school for looking too Goth or Punk. We encouraged her to try to ignore her tormentors, and--to make a long story shorter--we thought that things had finally settled down somewhat. We thought that she was happier at school, and that she was working hard to bring up her grades.
However, although most of her grades have, in fact, improved, on her last grade-check she had a D- in Language. *Language*, for crying out loud. When she was tested, several years ago, for admittance into a program for gifted children, she scored above the 99th percentile in verbal & language skills, including reading, comprehension, etc.
My wife and I (I am not Leslie, but Leslie's husband) felt betrayed at this poor grade, felt that she had been lying to us about the effort she was putting into her studies. Our deal with her has always been that if her grades were satisfactory and her priorities seemed clear, then she could have a reasonable amount of freedom. ("Reasonable"--some irony, eh?) So, a deal being a deal, we informed her that she will not, in fact, be attending the rock concert next week to which she had been insisting that we allow her to go.
Enter, Screaming She-Demon. "How could you do this?" "This isn't fair!" "You can't do this!" "My life is over!" yadda yadda. But in our best "dispassionate cop" voices, we insisted that this was how it had to be.
Of course we felt like ****, but I assured my wife (privately) that we had to stay strong and calm and not give in to our daughter's hysterics, no matter how upset she seemed to be.
However, a couple of hours later, her grades abruptly became our least concern. Our daughter confronted us with the information and the physical proof that--are you ready?--she had been contemplating suicide. She made us read a stack of poems she had written, grisly and angst-filled things, and showed us the scars on her arm where she had been cutting herself. She said that she felt terrible most of the time and that she wanted us to "send [her] away" to somewhere where she could "get better." She completely broke down while she was telling us this, and she said that she hadn't come to us earlier because she was afraid that she would "get in trouble." (She did not, by the way, make any threats like "Let me go to the concert or I'll kill myself!" This was a sincere revelation, not a shock tactic to try and get her way.)
"Shock" may be too mild a word for how we felt, but we remained calm. We comforted her, talked about our own battles with depression (it's rampant on both sides, unfortunately), and assured her that help was available and that we would get through this together.
Internally, of course, we were not calm at all. The only positive spot in this whole mess is that *she* came to *us*--voluntarily!--hopefully before it was too late. And when she later called a friend, I eavesdropped and heard her telling her friend that she had shown us her poems and told us about the cutting. Her friend's reaction apparently was amazement that our daughter had told us, but our daughter responded that she was tired of feeling terrible all the time, that she wanted to get better.
We have not left her alone for a single minute since then, except in the bathroom or while she is asleep. The morning after the revelation, while she was at school, I searched her room thoroughly and found a stack of other poems in the same vein as those she had already shown us, poems that reveal an intelligent, scared, depressed kid who loves herself, loves her parents, but hates her life and hates how she feels. I know, I know, I betrayed a trust in searching her room, but--not to put too fine a point on it--to hell with that noise. I've not done it before, and I had to make certain that she wasn't keeping anything in her room that she was planning on killing herself with. The next day we went to a counselor, whom our daughter will begin meeting with regularly week after next, and she was prescribed a beginning dose of Wellbutrin by the M.D. who works with the counselor. (So far she's had no side effects, and she has been less tired at school.)
Oh, and as if all this wasn't enough, the night after the revelation, we were told by a friend that her daughter had told her that our daughter's boyfriend--who is a worrisome 16, compared to our daughter's 13--is doing drugs. Jesus. We actually *like* this boy--he's interesting and polite, and not in a creepy Eddie Haskel kind of way, either--but what in the world are we to think? The drug charge could be just empty talk, but then again--maybe it's not. And unfortunately I wouldn't be at all suprised to learn that almost any of her friends were doing drugs. She's identified herself with the "outcasts," as she calls them, the "disaffected youth," and, if I may speak bluntly, most of them seem like pleasant but very, very stupid young people, at least as far as making choices about things like drugs, sex, et al.
(Side note: We do not at all like the age difference between our daughter and her ostensible boyfriend, but forbidding her from seeing him seems like an invitation to further dishonesty. He can visit our house when we are home, they could attend chaperoned school- or church-sponsored dances, and closed doors are absolutely not allowed. Our daughter, fortunately, so far has been entirely agreeable to these limitations.)
Plus, despite our daughter's "confession," most of the time since then she has been as distant and closed-mouthed as ever. We're having a very difficult time differentiating between her depression-inspired moods and her standard, pain-in-the-*** teenager moods.
I know I sound flippant here, but it's either that or curse and cry, and I've engaged in too much of those already today. But I needed to tell *someone* about this situation, and these forums seemed to be the appropriate place. If anyone has comments that won't frighten me more than I already am, I would appreciate them.
However, although most of her grades have, in fact, improved, on her last grade-check she had a D- in Language. *Language*, for crying out loud. When she was tested, several years ago, for admittance into a program for gifted children, she scored above the 99th percentile in verbal & language skills, including reading, comprehension, etc.
My wife and I (I am not Leslie, but Leslie's husband) felt betrayed at this poor grade, felt that she had been lying to us about the effort she was putting into her studies. Our deal with her has always been that if her grades were satisfactory and her priorities seemed clear, then she could have a reasonable amount of freedom. ("Reasonable"--some irony, eh?) So, a deal being a deal, we informed her that she will not, in fact, be attending the rock concert next week to which she had been insisting that we allow her to go.
Enter, Screaming She-Demon. "How could you do this?" "This isn't fair!" "You can't do this!" "My life is over!" yadda yadda. But in our best "dispassionate cop" voices, we insisted that this was how it had to be.
Of course we felt like ****, but I assured my wife (privately) that we had to stay strong and calm and not give in to our daughter's hysterics, no matter how upset she seemed to be.
However, a couple of hours later, her grades abruptly became our least concern. Our daughter confronted us with the information and the physical proof that--are you ready?--she had been contemplating suicide. She made us read a stack of poems she had written, grisly and angst-filled things, and showed us the scars on her arm where she had been cutting herself. She said that she felt terrible most of the time and that she wanted us to "send [her] away" to somewhere where she could "get better." She completely broke down while she was telling us this, and she said that she hadn't come to us earlier because she was afraid that she would "get in trouble." (She did not, by the way, make any threats like "Let me go to the concert or I'll kill myself!" This was a sincere revelation, not a shock tactic to try and get her way.)
"Shock" may be too mild a word for how we felt, but we remained calm. We comforted her, talked about our own battles with depression (it's rampant on both sides, unfortunately), and assured her that help was available and that we would get through this together.
Internally, of course, we were not calm at all. The only positive spot in this whole mess is that *she* came to *us*--voluntarily!--hopefully before it was too late. And when she later called a friend, I eavesdropped and heard her telling her friend that she had shown us her poems and told us about the cutting. Her friend's reaction apparently was amazement that our daughter had told us, but our daughter responded that she was tired of feeling terrible all the time, that she wanted to get better.
We have not left her alone for a single minute since then, except in the bathroom or while she is asleep. The morning after the revelation, while she was at school, I searched her room thoroughly and found a stack of other poems in the same vein as those she had already shown us, poems that reveal an intelligent, scared, depressed kid who loves herself, loves her parents, but hates her life and hates how she feels. I know, I know, I betrayed a trust in searching her room, but--not to put too fine a point on it--to hell with that noise. I've not done it before, and I had to make certain that she wasn't keeping anything in her room that she was planning on killing herself with. The next day we went to a counselor, whom our daughter will begin meeting with regularly week after next, and she was prescribed a beginning dose of Wellbutrin by the M.D. who works with the counselor. (So far she's had no side effects, and she has been less tired at school.)
Oh, and as if all this wasn't enough, the night after the revelation, we were told by a friend that her daughter had told her that our daughter's boyfriend--who is a worrisome 16, compared to our daughter's 13--is doing drugs. Jesus. We actually *like* this boy--he's interesting and polite, and not in a creepy Eddie Haskel kind of way, either--but what in the world are we to think? The drug charge could be just empty talk, but then again--maybe it's not. And unfortunately I wouldn't be at all suprised to learn that almost any of her friends were doing drugs. She's identified herself with the "outcasts," as she calls them, the "disaffected youth," and, if I may speak bluntly, most of them seem like pleasant but very, very stupid young people, at least as far as making choices about things like drugs, sex, et al.
(Side note: We do not at all like the age difference between our daughter and her ostensible boyfriend, but forbidding her from seeing him seems like an invitation to further dishonesty. He can visit our house when we are home, they could attend chaperoned school- or church-sponsored dances, and closed doors are absolutely not allowed. Our daughter, fortunately, so far has been entirely agreeable to these limitations.)
Plus, despite our daughter's "confession," most of the time since then she has been as distant and closed-mouthed as ever. We're having a very difficult time differentiating between her depression-inspired moods and her standard, pain-in-the-*** teenager moods.
I know I sound flippant here, but it's either that or curse and cry, and I've engaged in too much of those already today. But I needed to tell *someone* about this situation, and these forums seemed to be the appropriate place. If anyone has comments that won't frighten me more than I already am, I would appreciate them.