As I said in my intro, my 14 year old daughter, who I'm calling M, has depression. This isn't something that just popped up all of a sudden, we knew she was different from a very young age. I can't say that she was experiencing depression already, but it was obvious that she didn't deal with her emotions like other kids. Honestly, when she was younger, I thought we would end up with a diagnosis of Oppositional Defiant Disorder, because oppositional and defiant were two of the words I would have used to describe her. At the time, I didn't realize that being defiant, angry, and stubborn were ways that childhood depression often rears its ugly head.
It started when she was 3. I know what you're going to say, all 3 year olds get defiant. And you're right, but I spent several years before she was born teaching 3-4 year olds in a daycare center, plus I have a degree in Elementary Education with an emphasis in early childhood, plus 5 little brothers and sisters that I gained a lot of experience from. I knew that her defiance was different. It was simply more than I'd ever seen before...more often, more intense, and lasted longer. Timeouts didn't work with her, as long as she was still in the room with someone else, she saw herself as the star of her own show. Calming down was impossible. Sending her to her room didn't work, she would just keep coming out to argue. Holding the door shut didn't work, she would keep pulling on the knob, kicking the door, and screaming far longer than you'd expect from such a little kid. Once she fell asleep on the floor in the middle of a fit, with her feet propped up on the door mid-kick. We tried putting one of those plastic lock things over her doorknob when she needed a timeout, but that little stinker took a pencil and pried the thing off! We tried plenty of positive reinforcement, too. I could go on and on about the methods we tried, but suffice it to say, nothing worked.
Then 5 came along. Ah, the magical age of 5! I could compose sonnets to that age. She miraculously mellowed, and it lasted for about 4 or 5 years. That isn't to say that things were perfect, I still vividly remember her Kindergarten teacher coming to me in tears because M had said she wished she was dead. And her 3rd grade teacher telling me that M was so smart and charming that she loved to see her first thing in the morning, but within 15 minutes she was exhausted by how much M would challenge her. That's M in a nutshell.
Things changed again when she was in 4th grade, so about 9 or 10 years old. She got so defiant and angry around the house. She also started getting in trouble at school, and would argue for hours if we dared to suggest that maybe she wasn't the innocent victim. She usually pushed away any attempts at physical comfort. I didn't make matters any better, because I was convinced that she needed more discipline. Tougher consequences were the answer. But every time we pushed with tougher consequences, she pushed back with more screaming, crying, and refusing to back down from the fight. Again, I wasn't blameless. I was the mom, dammit, and I was simply unwilling to let her walk all over us, so I would get sucked into screaming matches with her. I can't tell you how many times I had to physically carry her to her bedroom because she refused to walk away once she started to argue. Usually she would then collapse on her floor in a screaming fit. I can't tell you how many weeks and months she spent grounded from one thing or another, or from everything, and none of it ever worked.
That's not to say that we didn't try positive reinforcement systems. We tried all kinds of programs where the kids would earn points and privileges, and they would work great while she was in one of her good spells that would last for a few weeks or even months. But as soon as she got into one of her funks, all bets were off. We also tried therapy, but the therapist never saw M in the middle of one of her rages. When M was in a good mood, it's as if the rage never existed, so talking to a therapist didn't help. We needed help while we were in the trenches, not after the battle was over.
She also had more traditional signs of depression, but that's a long story and will need a separate post.
We finally found our answer in the winter of 6th grade. We got her to a psychiatrist, who put her on Wellbutrin. It was like a switch had been flipped. Her therapist said that Wellbutrin worked like a "speed bump", so that when she was faced with situations that used to set her off, the med would give her that extra little time to figure out how to deal with it appropriately. It worked. Things have been better for the past 2 years. We still see glimmers of the old M, but thankfully they are few and far between.
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