My son is struggling with depression and anxiety. He has always been an anxious child, but over the past few months things have been getting much more difficult for him. Most noticeably he started having panic attacks at gymnastics - an activity for which he has had a passionate love for years. Things in the past few weeks have gotten to the point that we took him out of gymnastics because he is just not able to cope with it. School is still going well for now. Last year the anxiety was centered around school - he had stomach aches every morning and resisted going but once there seemed to have a fine day.
We have started working with a psychologist - he has been once and DH and I went yesterday. The psychologist feels essentially that he is being pushed too hard at gymnastics (by his own expectations/ the # of hours/ etc - DH and I are not hard core gym parents telling him he has to be perfect but he tells himself that). I am still not fully understanding her position and I'm not saying it's wrong. We talked about using medication but she felt there is a problem with medicating a child who is having the issues because of the position we've put him in. That makes sense to me - if we can change his activities to improve a better balance then that's fine. But I have read, and the psychologist also said, that we shouldn't allow avoidance of something that's causing anxiety and so we need to get him back to gymnastics as soon as possible. So we are planning to take him back today. When we told him this plan it threw him into a major meltdown - he says he can't do it, he won't do it. He wants to get back to gymnastics but he really doesn't feel like he can. We're going to have to carry him to the car kicking and screaming (he's 9 - not an easy task). He spent last night telling me how awful and unloved he feels, right up until he fell asleep. Today is going to be a major trauma for us all. I understand the point - he can't get over his anxiety by avoiding it. We don't want to let him quit something he used to love because he's too scared - it's a failure we don't want him to hold onto for the rest of his life.
But I feel like this plan is ignoring the depression side (which I myself didn't recognize the extent of until yesterday). I personally am not so sure the gymnastics caused the mental health issues. As I mentioned, last year the issue was school. I think withdrawal from gymnastics is a symptom rather than the cause. Maybe its both. But he has been managing his life pretty well up until the past few months and especially weeks. I don't know how we're going to get him back to gym if that's the problem without meds, and I also agree that medicating him because we're forcing him to do something and that is causing more symptoms is counter-intuitive.
I realize I should discuss this with the psychologist but as of now we don't have another appointment to see her for 3 weeks (I'm trying to get more scheduled) and we are trying to make decisions minute by minute here and we're very new to seeing my son's issues as a true mental health problem so we don't have a lot of info gathered yet. I'm not sure we're looking at this the right way and could use the opinion of someone on the outside to weigh in. The idea of waiting 3 more weeks and watching him sink further into this depression before the next opportunity for help is terrifying to me. Forcing him to do something that he is this terrified of is also terrifying to me. What if it backfires? What if he ends up curled up on the floor of the gym totally not coping? What if this pushes him even further into despair? Are we getting him the right help, enough help?
Looking for guidance from those who have been dealing with mental health issues for longer than us.
We have started working with a psychologist - he has been once and DH and I went yesterday. The psychologist feels essentially that he is being pushed too hard at gymnastics (by his own expectations/ the # of hours/ etc - DH and I are not hard core gym parents telling him he has to be perfect but he tells himself that). I am still not fully understanding her position and I'm not saying it's wrong. We talked about using medication but she felt there is a problem with medicating a child who is having the issues because of the position we've put him in. That makes sense to me - if we can change his activities to improve a better balance then that's fine. But I have read, and the psychologist also said, that we shouldn't allow avoidance of something that's causing anxiety and so we need to get him back to gymnastics as soon as possible. So we are planning to take him back today. When we told him this plan it threw him into a major meltdown - he says he can't do it, he won't do it. He wants to get back to gymnastics but he really doesn't feel like he can. We're going to have to carry him to the car kicking and screaming (he's 9 - not an easy task). He spent last night telling me how awful and unloved he feels, right up until he fell asleep. Today is going to be a major trauma for us all. I understand the point - he can't get over his anxiety by avoiding it. We don't want to let him quit something he used to love because he's too scared - it's a failure we don't want him to hold onto for the rest of his life.
But I feel like this plan is ignoring the depression side (which I myself didn't recognize the extent of until yesterday). I personally am not so sure the gymnastics caused the mental health issues. As I mentioned, last year the issue was school. I think withdrawal from gymnastics is a symptom rather than the cause. Maybe its both. But he has been managing his life pretty well up until the past few months and especially weeks. I don't know how we're going to get him back to gym if that's the problem without meds, and I also agree that medicating him because we're forcing him to do something and that is causing more symptoms is counter-intuitive.
I realize I should discuss this with the psychologist but as of now we don't have another appointment to see her for 3 weeks (I'm trying to get more scheduled) and we are trying to make decisions minute by minute here and we're very new to seeing my son's issues as a true mental health problem so we don't have a lot of info gathered yet. I'm not sure we're looking at this the right way and could use the opinion of someone on the outside to weigh in. The idea of waiting 3 more weeks and watching him sink further into this depression before the next opportunity for help is terrifying to me. Forcing him to do something that he is this terrified of is also terrifying to me. What if it backfires? What if he ends up curled up on the floor of the gym totally not coping? What if this pushes him even further into despair? Are we getting him the right help, enough help?
Looking for guidance from those who have been dealing with mental health issues for longer than us.