Posted by rainy on November 16, 2004, at 9:39:18
In reply to Re: Topamax and depression » headachequeen, posted by stresser on November 16, 2004, at 8:55:27
You're posting to Kat so I'm butting in here. L, I don't believe we parents are the major part of our kids' depression, eating disorders, schizophrenia and the host of maladies we humans are subject to. It's nobodies' "fault". We can only be supportive and steer them as best we can toward the best help, as we understand it it, that we can. You're doing that.
You also can't help feeling guilty--I've shed hot tears over our kids. I believe our son shares the bipolar II gene--he walked, no ran out of the psychologist's office when he was 16, and is now at 35 having a very hard time. Talk about creative people--he is surely one. He can't hold a job. Now, when he e-mails and I see the "love" before his sign off I am so grateful...Our daughter, 37, is still on prozac which she began in college. Her MFA was in creative writing and Ph.D in English Lit--she's a poet working as a paralegal in a medical malpractice firm. She saw a psychiatrist for over a year. (Meds and therapy.)
Both of them have been on long hard journeys which aren't half over. We were affectionate from the beginning. We got help for them as soon as we sensed things were going wrong. We should have had family therapy but we were too proud/blind for that, even though we both had taken courses in it--we didn't need it, oh no!
Jeeze. We made a lot of mistakes.
My mother told me how guilty she felt about stuff she'd done. Looking back I thought no, you and Dad did your best. Even though I didn't like her and was mad at some of the things she said and did--it was mostly her attitude bothered me and which I'm afraid is much like mine.We are who we are and we do what we have to do. This isn't to say we can't learn a thing or two which is where I wish we had gone into family therapy--my husband and I might have learned some helpful things as well as felt better about ourselves as parents.
It doesn't seem fair that parenting is so hard and that our kids go in ways that we don't want them to despite all our love and and care. But a child's depression isn't her/his fault nor the parents'. Unless there are extenuating circumstances, of course, like abuse, major stress that could have been prevented, that kind of thing.
My warmest thoughts to you on this 15th day of Novemebr
rainy
poster:rainy
thread:5053
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20041113/msgs/416636.html