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Kathi
I am sorry you are going through such a rough time.

a doctors diagnosis will do nothing for your son. But a kind and wise therapist or counselor can do a great deal.
Existential depression is very real and can be devastating. In the accompaniment of heritable and or biochemically based depression as in the bipolar family of mood disorders it can be very serious indeed. If your son had cancer would you not get him treated?
Labeling your son will not help him you are right, but having a safe outlet to explore his feeling about the meaning of life, Gods expectations for him, and why sometimes life seems unbearably hard. you and your husband may not be the right "safe outlet" for him right now. Even the Christian community might not seem safe to him to be his honest self and express his feelings that might not be so pretty. Many PK and MKs have difficulties with needing to measure up to the expectations of the Christian communties that they live in. Being gifted with a dad with bipolar only amplifies it all the more.
That parable of the Talents is a heavy weight to many. I have always wondered what happened to the guy who tried to use his talents and lost them. and i have always been a little bit angry with God for not putting a fourth man in that story.

Being angry at God is not always tolerated in Christian communities. Your son may have feelings that he feels aren't Christian to have and aren't allowed. He may think he has to be perfect to be an adult and its just to hard to get there with all his imperfections. You never know.

Secular psychological professions are often hostile to faith systems. But there are many types of therapists out there that may help your son. In my opinion the important things are that they respect his faith, understand existential depression and have wisdom.

One group of professionals that might fit are Pastoral Counselors. They are trained in a faith tradition and also in psychological counseling. They can be very helpful.

I am making alot of assumptions here and i appologize if i am off base. But please consider if your son might be clinincally depressed and seek guidance.......
I will pray for you.

to the board -- I also appologize for getting more specifically religious that seems to be the norm accepted here. Faith communities can really hurt the gifted but they can be sources of great strength. There is existential depression but there is also existential joy.....

I just want to say that I agree with all of Confused's points. (Since confused's screen name tends to undermine her authority, I thought I should back her up LOL ) Even if we are making inaccurate assumptions, there are a number of red flags in the history you give and I would take it very seriously. Counseling in a safe place is important.

I was thinking about what you said, "In fact, when he came to his conclusion of the "meaninglessness" of life, he began to say, "Why couldn't God just bring me home to Him now that I've accepted Him?'" It started to make me nervous--this could be interpreted as a pre-suicidal thought. I don't know him and I don't know exactly what context it was said in. But in my line of work, I have been taught that it is better to overreact that underreact.

Thanks to all of you who answered. Your insights are good and helpful, helping give expression to concerns that have been in my heart and mind for the past year or so. I will have to try to find a good counselor in the Kansas City area who can draw him out--he doesn't want to open up to our family counselor (from our church).

I appreciate you all taking our faith into account.

Grace to you all,
Kathi

Hi Kathi,

I have a good friend who was a missionary in central america for several years. She had 2 school age children. The demands of her and her husband's work took so much of their time and the needs of the communities they were serving were so great and urgent, that they put their kids emotional needs on the back burner. I think it is an easy thing to do, especially when serving in a developing country. Don't stess about what you might have done--Just take the time you have now to relax, get back in synch with your family, and see what you can do to get them back on the right track.

Wow! I missed a lot in not reading this thread for a while. Kathi, I am so very sorry to hear about your son's current issues. I experienced a similar crisis as an adolescent, and it was a very difficult to come out of it. I absolutely think professional intervention is warranted. Be aware that kid's in this position often appear to "get better" for a while, only to dip even lower into despondency. Any regular contact with an adult mentor or older brother figure would also be helpful.

my prayers are with you-

Not that it makes much difference to my original post on testing, but I forgot to point out that my child was 3.5 when that kindy test was administered. That's the beauty of being able to order ala carte! You can get whatever level you like. It would be better for my asynchronous kids if we could order each subject individually, but I guess you can't have everything!