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

Colinsmum, yes, please do PM me. I might add here that I do not have a depression history myself (with the exception of mild PPD after DD's birth, which was more anxiety/intrusive thoughts than depression), so I find a lot of this pretty foreign and confusing. I definitely did not have feelings like this as a child at all, despite having a pretty awful childhood, so a part of me is like "What? I don't get it! Your life is so good!" which I realize is an unproductive response.

Anyway, it actually is quite helpful to me to talk to people who might have more of a sense of what DD is going through. I get anxious (I AM anxious!--just not depressed) that she is going to depressed for life, never be happy, that this is going to trip her up in so many ways, etc. She has SO MUCH potential. She has this gorgeously creative mind, she learns effortlessly, and when she sets her mind to something...look out. She is actually a fabulous friend, and that reassures me. But inside the family....man.

Oh Ultramarina - I hated those days when I'd go to bed feeling like a bad mom with an out of control kid. ((hugs))
It sounds to me like she is working hard to keep it together during the school day. I get that there isn't much to do about it at this late date, but what is in the works to change things for next year. No matter what the diagnosis, a gifted kid with a short fuse NEEDS stimulating setting to handle school.

I'm glad you backed off the yelling and lecturing during the storms. It may or may not be helping her (and I bet it is) but it's certianly having integrity for you, and you may as well. Now I'm going to 'challenge' you to take that approach one step further (a la 'Transforming the Difficult Child Workbook' by Lisa Bravo) while you have a few months before the appointment.

1) Talk to the school and let them know what you are seeing at home and see if there is ANYTHING that they can do a) for next year, and b)to wiggle things for the rest of this year. At the very least, get the teacher's agreement for a daily email each day for the next 2 weeks telling something praiseworthy that happened in school so that you and DH can start rebuilding her self image of herself as someone worth of appreciation instead of as a big giant mess. You'll feel better too.

2) Consider a once a week 'homeschool day' just you and her traveling to a museam and send younger brother to the babysitters for the day. Expensive, but cheaper than many many other things. Put your resource where your mouth is will be much more effective to convince her that she still has a special relationship with you than all the verbal reasurrance in the world.

3) Set the timer while she is in the house for 10 minutes. Walk over to where she is when it goes off, and notice what she is doing. Find ways that she is putting your family values into action and say those aloud with sincerity. Keep it verifiable. Small is fine. Then do the same for your DS, and DH if he is home. Then head back to whatever you were doing, reset the timer and keep repeating until bedtime. Expect blowback, and up the ante with 'Thanks for saying in words that you hate what I'm doing, that's a respectful way to get your point across.' Suspend this during emotional storms.

There is more to it, but these are the first steps to get in place before the rest can be started.

DS15 was going through 'mental puberty' around age 9. It was a mental awakening to that developmental need to establish independence and grow out of a childlike dependence that hits our kids much too early. So my guess is that she is rebelling against the pressures of 'needing to grow up' and acting more immature. It may also have some physical puberty underpinnings. Depression does show up as anger - I've been watching http://bigthink.com/ideas/16713
Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison talking about the difference between grief and depression. I do think that there will be some level of grief, for us and for our kids, as we transition from one chapter of life from the next. So yup, get a professional involved to have an outside opinion, as well, but do what you can at home. Excersize, Sleep, reasonable nutrition, reasonable limits on screen time, reasonable amounts of outdoor time, no 'attention-binges' in response to negative behavior - as parents we are in charge of some of the basics, and a small change can make a big difference.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

Here is the "good" news: I actually called the psych office again and mentioned self-harm threats. Our appointment is next week.

We are really careful about nutrition, sleep, exercise, and outdoor time...one wonders what she'd be like if we weren't. She is almost always happy when outside (although her current hobby--fishing--can be hard on a kid...sometimes you don't catch a darn thing...)

*I* feel better about myself since changing our approach--a lot better. So that's actually worth a lot. I wish I'd seen a change in HER, though. Maybe in time? It's a little scary to feel like I just sit there and "let her" act like that, I admit. I do need to positively recognize her more. I try.

School is over in three weeks, so it's just done for now. I think next year may be better. This year was almost like K in a way, since it was the first year at the magnet for all and they were all coming from different schools with different levels of exposure to material. I admit that I have learned helplessness about all this. At her previous school, all my efforts to get harder material were stonewalled. I just gave up after a while. I figured if they wouldn't differentiate for a kid as noisy and obvious as DD, they just wouldn't, period.

Ultramarina,

Forgive me if you've already had this recommendation, but the book "The Explosive Child" really helped a dear friend of mine who was coping with the same sorts of things (outbursts followed by contrition) at about the same age:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Explosive..._1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1336499083&sr=1-1

I have read The Explosive Child. Somehow it wasn't as helpful as I hoped it would be. I do find the method works pretty well for sibling issues. This website has been really useful to me lately:

http://www.ahaparenting.com/

Although I don't know if it is helping DD, it is helping me.

Ultra, I'm glad you're seeing the psych soon. I hope you can get a full neuropsych workup as well.

Do share this family history in detail with the clinician. It takes a lot of expertise to tease apart depression vs. anxiety vs. Asperger's in a child, especially a gifted child. From what you wrote, I see all of them as possibilities and I'd want an expert to sort it out diagnostically AND give you a supportive action plan that will help your DD feel better.

Hang in there. Parenting a child like this is exhausting, but it can and will get better...
DeeDee

FWIW, I asked for an Asperger's eval as well, but their first available is January.

See if they run a cancellation list; often people pull out of evals, leaving them with open slots. That was how we got it done.

The psych you are seeing soon may also be able to intercede for a sooner appointment, or recommend someone appropriate with a shorter waiting time.

Best,
DeeDee

Yes, the woman on the phone said the psych would probably be able to intercede if she saw signs that DD was in need of that eval. We actually have a local autism "clearinghouse" whom I contacted to ask for recs for someone to eval a gifted, older girl and this was where they sent me, so I'm hesitant to go elsewhere.

To be fair, no one actually has been diagnosed with Asperger's, and that particular issue is only one side. But...the whole extended family is in agreement on one individual (who is now a young adult and remained undiagnosed...sigh) and most people who are old enough to remember another person (who was also, btw,an actual world-renowned genius in his field) also agree.

Ultramarina,

So sorry to hear that you DD is miserable. I would definitely say that kids can experience friction at school and still toe the line in behavior there. But the price that they pay for storing up that friction deep down inside is huge. You are the safety valve. You are the safest place to release all of that pent up anger and frustration, and so you get the brunt of it. It is not due to bad parenting. I think it is a testament to how much she trusts you to love her unconditionally that she knows that she can vent all of that raw emotion at you.

While your story was not exactly the same as ours, there were enough similar themes that it resonated with me. (And my son has every last one of the concerns that ColinsMum linked to, just to let you know!) Last year, DS(then10) was becoming so angry, frustrated, and depressed that by November we knew things were bad. We kept seeing Dr. Amend every three weeks for counseling. DS was rude and abrasive, particularly when he came home from school. He would get in our face and shout and hurl very forbidden curse word he knew. Then later he would cry and apologize, just like your DD. As the year progressed, he just quit at school, with grades plummeting to F's. And he was threatening to throw himself out of the window. His recurrent manta was that he was a failure at everything: socially, academically, etc. He had absolutely no self-esteem, and was repeatedly being told at school that there was something wrong with him because he was so different. (He is 2E with ADHD and sensory seeking behaviors.) The diagnosis of anxiety, social phobia, and depression was so strong that Dr. Amend chose to put him on Zoloft, which only made the matter worse. (But that is a different story)

We found out later that there was a great deal of bullying going on at school, and the teachers were blaming it on him because he was not like the other kids. Having problems with just a few kids can indeed cause a lot of the symptoms that you are describing. Also, you might be surprised at how clichish kids get at this age. Kids, particularly girls, seem to delight in suddenly abandoning old friendships for popular new ones and the power of exclusion. Maybe you could use this line of questioning to open a discussion of "How are things with DD at school?" with her teachers, before moving on to the question of academic challenges?

I agree with everything Grinity says. We needed frequent "mental health days", as Dr. Amend calls them, to finish out the dismal year. This fall we changed to a new school, and they recommended an immediate second grade skip. The new environment at school, new kids and teachers, and a better academic fit made ALL of the symptoms that you describe go away. The change was absolutely amazing. We still have a few snarly days here and there now, but I attribute this to normal pre-teen attitude that quickly becomes more polite when we call him on it. Last year, he couldn't turn his attitude around like that. He was so raw inside with frustration that no amount of typical parenting rules seemed to help him, i.e grounding, being sent to his room, losing computer privileges. It just confirmed in his mind that he was somehow broken and that life was not worth living.

I feel for you and your DD. I hope you get some answers from the Psych. evaluations. Just be sure to let your DD know that you are not taking her to it because there is something wrong with her. Let her know that it is an example of how much you love her and care about her that you are willing to try anything to help her. Then maybe she will open up about what is going on with her. For what is it worth, my DS had a very hard time opening up about how much pain he was in and what was causing it. He had to be out of the toxic environment before he could look back and see how bad it was.