Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional And now...tell me about your kid with depression

I know--I've thrown around every diagnosis in the book for DD. Humor me.

I do have a call in to the local university for a full psych work-up. It's going to be a while before she's seen, though.

We have seen a major increase in "symptoms" over about the last 5 months. I would almost say there is a slight possibility that something biological or hormonal may be going on, although what we are seeing is still "her," but ramped up, and the incidents are much more frequent, like almost daily. After some very bad days where I went to bed feeling really terrible about myself, DH and I have taken a good hard look at ourselves to see how we may be contributing. We have given up yelling almost entirely (I would say entirely, during episodes--an occasional "Hey, don't throw food at the ceiling!" still happens). We have stopped sending her to her room and giving consequences during episodes. We have stopped lecturing during episodes. We reflect back her feelings, offer love and physical affection, and just sit with her during them, basically. It feels like the right thing to do, although the behavior continues. Later, after she is calm, we discuss the behavior a bit. She is almost always very contrite and cries and apologizes sincerely once she's calm.

By episode, I mean something like this...basically, she gets frustrated or angry about something, becomes cognitively "stuck," either starts crying (this has become more rare) or becomes screamingly angry or freezingly cold and remote (this is new). She says things like: I never want to see you again, I don't want to live in this family, I wish you would all go away, I don't care about any of you, I never want to talk to any of you ever again, you're all against me, no one is on my side, no one believes anything I say. She thinks we always believe her brother and that we think he is perfect (he does tend to be much milder and more even-tempered than she, but he has his moments, like all kids; no kids is ever described as perfect in our house). She will try to get up in your face and scream as loud as she can. This can be over something like "Please help your brother clean up the living room now."

She has threatened self-harm a couple of times when very upset. When she is calm, she says that she does not mean it and says it to get a reaction. Obviously, this is very upsetting to us. Also, in recent weeks there have been threatening movements towards me and DH, though she has not hit us yet. This is also new; she has not hit us or anyone since she was three year old (she does not hit her brother and he does not hit her). She has started throwing things.

In calmer moments, we have talked to her and asked her if something is bothering her. She talks about her brother a lot--says he says mean things to her. He is 4, and not much on saying mean things, outside of very typical kid stuff, but we've spoken to him about it, in her hearing. I suspect she feels some jealousy towards him because people do tend to dote on him (not us--we're pretty careful--but other people, esp. family). He's also really blossoming intellectually, and may be sort of unintentionally challenging her role as "the smart one." I don't see any behavior from him that is out of the ordinary for a kid brother--really, he worships her most of the time--but it's possible that I miss stuff, I guess?

There are also a couple of kids at school she has some trouble with. It doesn't seem to be huge. I have asked her if she wants me to talk to the teacher about it, and she doesn't. She has a posse of girlfriends at school, and a best friend, and seems to be pretty popular--lots of bday party invites. Her behavior at school is absolutely fine--like, beyond fine. Great. All As, student of the week all the time, etc. School (she is at a gifted magnet) is too easy, and she is aware of that and somewhat bothered by it, but there isn't much I can do at this point in the year. She tested as MG/HG, by the way, but I think she is HG/EG. I don't think we have ever seen her perform at her true potential, but I don't know how much of this is a school thing.

Anyway. Does childhood depression manifest as anger like this? Sound familiar to anyone? I feel pretty despairing about her.

Family history of depression, anxiety, Asperger's, and giftedness on both sides. I'm not sure we should have bred sometimes.

I know I have posted about here here like three other times and I feel a bit silly. I don't talk about her much elsewhere (I do have an in-person friend who "gets" DD) so this is my outlet.

I'm no help on the specifics of depression, but it would seem that if she's threatening self harm, even just in the heat of the moment, you should into see someone for a workup much more quickly than a few months. No matter what, you need an accurate picture of what she's dealing with so that you can respond appropriately and be armed with knowing what to look for if things continue to spiral out of control.

While you're squaring that away, DD's neuropsych has me track DD's moods on moodtracker.com. I don't like storing that kind of info online, so I signed up, saw what it had you track, and I just started my own notepad.

Growing up is such hard work.

We saw a lot of what you describe with your dd in our oldest (now 21). She was a fussy baby who grew into a precocious, delightful child at an early age but grew more and more intense as she got older. I don't remember the exact sequence of things, but I do remember how hard she took news that we were moving when she was 8 years old/4th grade. The following New Years Eve, at 9 years old, when she missed the "ball dropping" due to a misunderstanding (long story, we were watching a movie, had asked the kids whether they wanted to switch back) she had a two-hour meltdown (yes, til 2am) and I can remember thinking, "this isn't just normal kid stuff." We had definitely encountered things before, but I remember that being the straw that sent us over the edge and into counseling. We have had a few diagnoses over the ensuing years: depression, anxiety (GAD), SAD, and even bipolar II. At one point, when she did full emotional/educational testing, we found out she was PG (not a complete surprise, given that she had already been grade skipped after being the youngest in her class to start).
She is now 21, on no meds, set to graduate from college, and doing quite well. I don't really know if any of those diagnoses are correct. I've kind of given up on figuring that part out. She is still intense, still emotional, and occasionally struggles (she took five years for college in part due to emotional stuff, not because of coursework).
I saw a lot of what you are describing - the intense, overwhelming meltdowns, followed by remorse (luckily for us, she was always extremely polite to strangers/school staff; she has a bit of fear regarding authority figures). OTOH, she used to have moments of incredible anger/rudeness/hostility towards us (it didn't help that she went through some really tough emotional stuff - my life-threatening illness, a half-brother passing away, and the death of her dad-although luckily I was remarried before ex's death to a very supportive and loving guy who has been great for her). She is very sensitive still, although now it happens much less frequently. However, right now work and school are both busy and she was unusually frustrated this week and threw up her hands and said she couldn't deal with how "crazy" and "loud" her brothers were being (they're actually pretty quiet and well-behaved). It just seems that her sensitivities are so much greater than most people. Things do NOT roll off her!At least as she's gotten older she can regulate it so much better. Honestly, she also feels sad now for some missed opportunities, mainly to do with college. Although she lived on campus for the first four years, we kept her close at a nearby university due to her age (16)and emotional issues. I think it's hard when you have the potential to be curing cancer (or whatever) and you're just being an "average" (very good) college student, if that makes sense!
I think that you are handling things well - we also learned that threatening/giving consequences/shouting in the middle of any of the meltdowns was hopeless. The most we would do is say "we can't talk to you while you're so upset" - the weird thing is (well maybe not so weird) that she wanted company in a way - hard to describe, but I think it scared her to feel out of control.
We have had a little of the "you like them better than me" (her sister, who is incredibly easy and trouble free) and her brothers (who were younger and she felt "cuter") but I think that came of her own guilt and fears over her behaviors. It wasn't until she was older and more emotionally mature that we really understood her guilt over her actions and how deeply it affected her.
I feel like I'm talking in circles, but I just want to say that I do understand a lot of where you're coming from. The doctor who did the IQ testing basically said that there was nothing wrong with her except her exceptional giftedness. I don't actually believe that, but I do think that it wasn't really about any one diagnosis, but just about trying to help her understand and manage her intensity and how deeply she felt everything.
Okay, still rambling... you may certainly PM me if you want to talk. Hang in there.

Forgot to add (because my post wasn't long enough) - we defintiely experienced the throwing, as well as slamming doors (her bedroom door doesn't close properly even now because it's been slammed so hard so many times). She also threatened self harm on occasion. We did take it seriously - at one point, when she was a teen, we had suicide hotline numbers prominently available in her room. However, I honestly don't think she was suicidal though, as much as overwhelmed and just not knowing how to deal with it. We went through four or five therapists before finding one we had for five solid years (not always weekly, but always at least every month or two) who provided a great outlet for her and often for us as well in family sessions.
She hasn't seen one for a while, but is looking for one now as she deals with her next big life transitions. I'm not trying to overshare or make this about my own experiences, but I just wanted to let you know that you're not alone. It's hard to describe but although I think you obviously should never ignore threats or violence, I also think you have to take into account the source and when such threats are uttered. If my dd19 ever said she felt depressed, let alone suicidal, I'd take immediate action. However, with my oldest, I think at times her saying "out there" statements ("I hate you!" "I can't take it any more") was a way of getting out her feelings. I hope this isn't misinterpreted; we did take her seriously and did not ignore her, ever, but at the same time, we knew sometimes things came out more as a reflection of emotions than any actual real intent or feeling (if that makes sense).

Thanks so much for the posts so far. The threat of self-harm do not read as serious to me at this point. I think they are another way of her trying to communicate that she is really upset. She doesn't say "I want to die" or "I want to kill myself"--she says things like "I don't care if I get hurt" or "Maybe I should just die!" which does seem a bit different. At one point she did say something a little closer to something suicidal, and I did react by bursting into tears. Unfortunately, I have lost a number of friends to suicide, one recently, and the subject is very hard for me. I don't know if my reaction was the right one, but it was certainly honest, and I think she was taken aback. I explained a little but without getting too far into it. She didn't seem to even really know exactly what suicide was and that people really did it, which solidified my sense that this was something she said without much thought behind it. BTW, she is 8.


Yes, I think she is scared by her own behavior and she obviously experiences guilt and shame afterwards.

It is sort of....too bad, in a way, that her brother happens to be an easygoing kid. The contrast is pretty glaring. We never, ever compare them or call attention to it, but there's no way not to notice it. On an average day, she is far more likely to cry or "lose it" than he is. It is hard on him, too. He sometimes gets really upset by the stuff she says. I am the younger sister of an older sib with some mental health issues (undiagnosed, but probably it's a case of depression and anxiety there, too) and I identify with his feelings in this situation.


This may be true for DD as well.

It sounds depression-ish. Anger/homicidal ideation is certainly a symptom of depression. Bipolar II is the overdiagnosed fake bipolar in my BIL's psych opinion, but that's generally tied into limited education more than anything else.

Diagnoses aren't that useful, because the DSM changes all the time for random reasons. I haven't checked out the DSM-V yet.

Isn't depression supposed to occur in all domains, home, school, social, etc., rather than just one?

The threatening self-harm is pretty much unacceptable behavior, but my clients do it all the time.

An nice explanation to them that if they are actually threatening to harm themselves, I have no qualms about getting them committed to a nice psych vacation usually works to make them admit that they aren't serious. If they're cutting or branding themselves with a hot iron, I generally don't care (cutters are just annoying), but if they are actually expressing an interest in killing themselves (or others), that's different.

It sounds like she needs some life coping skills.

As one of our local neuropsychs says, depression *is* biological, but unlike traumatic brain injury, you can recover from it with treatment. He apparently thinks of it as temporary TBI.

A Neuropsych eval might be helpful, too.

Bipolar is supposed to involve highs and lows, right? She doesn't really have highs or any manic episodes or anything. She's not always unhappy but she generally has a short fuse. Again, this has gotten worse lately (everything has). I do wonder about some kind of biological or hormonal change.

She doesn't threaten anyone with harm. I don't think she would hurt anyone in any serious way, ever. I could picture her flailing around and whacking vaguely at us, though. She slams her door, for sure. When she throws stuff, it's soft stuff. She doesn't break anything.

I didn't mention this earlier, but she definitely has low self-esteem--says she's bad at everything, etc, despite ample evidence to the contrary (eg, not getting anything wrong all year, except when she accidentally skips a problem or an occasional careless addition or subtraction error). It's not completely clear to me whether she really believes this or is "fishing." The one area where she still seems to retain some self-confidence is art.

Frankly, I do find it odd (though it's a good thing for us all) that she is so well-behaved at school. I mean, I think she has occasional moments--she is the kind of kid who corrects the teacher--but she definitely does not throw fits and she follows directions to a T. I don't know what it's all about. I have long wondered if this might be an indictment of our parenting in some way. I know, I know, she feels safer at home, etc.

What I'm getting from your various posts - sorry if I've said so before, but there doesn't seem to be an easy way to check - is flashbacks to my own childhood at the same kind of age. For example, I'm sure all but 2-4 of your points here would have applied to me. Also the being a different child at school, and the self-harm stuff.

Good news: I'm here and happy. Bad news: I nearly wasn't. It got a lot worse before it got better.

It's actually hard to say much more without giving out more personal information than I'm happy about on a public forum. If you'd like more detail (which of course might be quite irrelevant to your situation, or might perhaps be useful) and I haven't said it all before, let me know and I'll PM you.


Here I will confidently say "both"! This is an example of doublethink, I'm sure. She is verbalising the contradiction that she feels as though she's useless at everything, but simultaneously knows perfectly well that that's rubbish. She needs you to weigh in on the "that's rubbish" side, but if you can do so somewhere between as though she had made a joke and as though you know just how she feels, rather than as though she had made a misjudgement (which becomes another thing she's useless at!) so much the better.

Bipolar II is hypomania, not mania. So, if you are irritable, whammo, you have Bipolar II!

The DSM-V is coming in May 2013, which will change stuff.

From Wikipedia:

Hypomania (literally, "below mania") is a mood state characterized by persistent and pervasive elevated (euphoric) or irritable mood, as well as thoughts and behaviors that are consistent with such a mood state.

Manic phase can sometime express as extreme irritability, so isn't always obvious as mania.

My DD8 has had the occasional episode of "maybe I should just die," and "I'm bad at everything," which she self-identifies as low self esteem. Any yeah, it's not clear to me whether it's attention-seeking or if she really believes it. We've been fortunate that the episodes rarely last more than a week or two, and then we get a long break. She's over-the-top remorseful and guilty over any misdeeds even then, though, which I see as related. I don't know if it's that she's holding things together but can't do it all the time, or what.

This is a hard age. I'd hoped I'd have a few more years before we got here.


Having had mental health issues as a teen, I don't find it odd at all. I was actively attempting self-harm before I had the slightest bit of bad behavior at school, and that was years after I started acting out at home. Not that your DD is headed down that path, but "fine at school" is not an indication that nothing's wrong. School, even boring too-easy school where you have no friends, has a lot of elements that help you keep it together. Structure, peer pressure, distractions you can lose yourself in.