Hello All, new member here.

Hi All,

I'm here for my daughter who is 15 today. She is struggling with adolecence and our family is struggling along with her. She has a twin brother who seems to be a little more centered in himself although he also is stuggling acedemically in school. So the reason I am here is that Tegan, my daughter, my girl, is: using alcholo and pot, past the experimenting stage but does not seem to be too far gone; trying cigaretts; has lost her verginity; hates going to school; skips class; doesn't pay attention in school; feels hopeless; threatened suicide. Her mom and I are married and together, fairly happy, both working decent jobs, bills are paid. Tegan has a counselor who she has been seeing for a little over a year. We saw her last week. She has set us up with a PMHNP (phycological mental health nurse practictioner) for two weeks from this coming wed. When she seriously threatened suicide we call the crisis line and followed their recommendation to take her to the ER where they admitted her, we spent several hours with the social worker and took her home at 3 am. So we have resources and are using them as best as we know how and I hope and pray that we will find a path to keep her safe. I guess I want to find all the resources I can to help. I don't mind asking for help, I admit I don't know anything about raising teenagers, its much different from when they were younger and the pain I am feeling is sometimes almost unbearable but then I get through it and I'm still alive and things might get better for a little bit like this evening when Tegan and I were driving home from the bowling alley where they had a little gathering and we drove through downtown and listened to music loud on the radio and she shared some dreams about what she wants for her 16 birthday party so it is not hopelss even though it seem like it sometimes. I know I am blessed and I am very greatful for many things in my life when I googled for this site, I saw support groups for parents of teens with cancer and only God knows how anyone can cope with that, here I am with my daughter whining about going to school and I feel like I can barely cope. Like I said, the pain when I hear her pain and knowing that I can't really help her directly except to try to show her the way. Anyway, thanks for letting me share and reading all the way to here. I welcome any comments or feedback. Thank you. Daniel

Welcome to pc.
You are not alone in this. My daughter has went off into the deep end. Do you know who she is running with at school? School friends can really have an impact on how your daughter is acting. My daughter tried suscide. It was over a boy. She was living her life for this boy. If you can try to figure out who she is running with. You can't always believe what she tells you.

Thanks for this Jerry MIchele, I know she is very good at lying to us and we try to hold her accountable when we catch her. Not sure who she is skipping class with we will try to find out. I hope your daughter stays safe and that you can find peace for yourself.

As someone who started to experience deep depression at the same age as your daughter, I know the relationship between a depressed adolescent and a parent can be difficult. You have come to the right place to find answers and hope. You are also doing the right things by providing her with counselors and a support team to look after her. Keep these things up. The recovery from depression will be long and hard, with good days and bad, but I'm sure you will find the strength somehow to stick with it. Remember to take care of your thoughts and feelings about all this too. My parents also attended counseling when I did.

My daughter has ran away twice. The last time she ran, the ex and me just let her go. I know it sounds bad, but she just wouldn't listen to anyone. We have both tried therapy with her. Nothing helped her until we acted like we didn't care when she ran off. She will be 18 on Dec 1st. This year (2009) has been hell with her. Finally she is pulling her life a little better. She's working. She still could graduate, but she just runs from it. She wants the both of us to help her, which I don't mind, but I'm not going to do it, if she is not in school. This is not the life I want for my daughter. Since she has been 17 she thinks she can do whatever she wants. I just tell her you need to be in school. She has also done what your daughter is doing, and my daughter still could be smoking the weed, drinking, and whatever else she does with her friends. I haven't gave up on her, but it has just came down to her dad, and I just to let her learn the hard way. Sometimes that's all you can do. When she ran this last time, her dad and I didn't talk to her for a while, and that is what brought her back around. She missed us. In my daughter's case alot of it has to do with the friends she has been hanging with. I hope that everything works out with your daughter. I also know that it's hard.

Hello dgwaring,

So glad you found PsychCentral. I'm not sure I can offer much to you because I have a son who will turn 16 in December and honestly, he is a mother's dream. However, I was parented myself by some truly awful parents and was an undiagnosed bipolar II (we have depression primarily) and was a very difficult teen. I supposed because my parents were so bad at it (they were alcoholic and were simply not good at parenting) it gave me strong incentive the be the best parent I could be. I can tell you what worked for me and also, an impression I got while reading your post.

I agree with JerryMichele and others when they say that at her age, the people your daughter hangs around with are going to have a tremendous influence upon her activities. If her crowd smokes and drinks and has sex, then she will. How you will go about encouraging her to change this, I don't have any suggestions on it. Perhaps a therapist could help.

The one main thing I always did with my son from the age of 2-3, was to give him choices and consequences. For example, when he was 3, he got to choose what to wear between two different outfits. Then he got to choose what to eat, between two different vegetables, etc. This proceeded gradually his entire life and as he aged, every time he made a choice, he had to live with the consequences of that choice. With a teen your daughter's age, you can talk to her about the choices she's making. The choice to smoke, the choice to do dope, the choice to skip school, the choice to have sex, the choice to attempt suicide. Empower her. I don't mean to put her in danger. I mean to make her aware that these are things that she is choosing to do and there are always other choices, better choices and make sure that she always understands that the alternate choices might actually be more desireable based upon what she wants in her future.

The key is, get her thinking about her future. So many times, depressives don't think they have any future. With therapy and proper medication (if necessary) she will start to think about the future and she will start to realize that there can be a good future for her.

Having said all of this, there are also rules, house rules. They must exist for safety and consideration of other family members. And for the benefit of your daughter. My son has a set bedtime. He never, ever complained about it. That's because he learned in school that kids need a certain amount of sleep to be alert and perform well in class. That's all it took for him.

Like I said, maybe this is a PollyAnna view of your situation and I apologize if nothing here has helped. I do so understand how hopeless and scared and frustrated you must feel right now. I remember how it was when I was a teen. I was pretty bad.

I wish you the best in handling this difficult situation.