Read A Parent's Guide for Suicidal and Depressed Teens Online

Authors: Kate Williams

Tags: #Family & Relationships, #Life Stages, #Teenagers, #Self-Help, #Depression, #test

A Parent's Guide for Suicidal and Depressed Teens (26 page)

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Page 149

20
Just to See You Smile: Caretaking

I spent my childhood walking on eggshells, trying to keep the peace in the house. I would do anything to keep my dad from getting mad. It took all my energy.
MICHAEL L.

Caretaking
is a term that means spending more energy on other people than you spend on yourself. My working definition today is that one would sooner take care of someone else's need than his or her own.

Children as Caretakers

Caretaking is encouraged by our culture. Caretakers want everyone to be okay, and they'll do almost anything to see that that happens. Caretakers have somehow decided that the way

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to be valued in this world is to do good things for others. Now it may be a good idea to do good things for others at times; the idea becomes a problem when caretakers neglect doing good things for themselves. People who spend their lives focused on others end up being resentful, angry, exhausted, out of control, and depressed.

Many suicidal kids have been busy looking out for their parents' welfare. Their own feelings get out of control because they're putting all their energy into making life okay for everyone around them.

One boy in treatment told of becoming enraged when he was biking with his mom and she didn't look both ways at an intersection. He screamed at her, cursed her, cried, and could not continue on their bike trip. He was so heavily involved with her well-being that he couldn't enjoy their time together. The parents had recently divorced, and the boy was reacting to the loss and change by taking too much emotional responsibility on himself. In treatment he learned he didn't have to protect his mother; it wasn't his job to make everyone else in the world happy.

I would bet that every depressed adolescent has been heavily into caretaking due to some imbalance in the family system. When a child is caretaking, there's an element of over-responsibility for a parent. The result of this caretaking for the child is a depletion of energy, the suppression of

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natural joyful feelings, and then depression. Caretaking becomes a bad habit. Caretaking robs us of vital energyit robs us of our life force. In fact, we can see our work through and out of depression as a journey to discover the real person who is hiding there, lying on the couch watching reruns. Working through anger, loss, shame, and fear releases a person to discover the real self, the real strength and character.

Rachel as Caretaker

It saddened me to discover that Rachel thought she had to protect me from her father. She was caretaking both of us. She put out lots of energy trying to make peace between us. She covered up for him so I wouldn't get upset. I couldn't always see what was hurtful to her. Some things she didn't want to tell me out of loyalty to me. She had information she thought would hurt me if I knew it. It did hurt me when I heard about it in the therapy session, but I was willing to hear it. For example, her father had often talked about me in a disparaging way when she was at his house. He said things like, "There's no problem in this world that takes four years of therapy. Look at your mom, she's still got problems after all this therapy." This put Rachel in turmoil because she wanted him to be nice to me. She was suffering the loss of her parents as

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cooperating partners and exerting too much energy trying to make us get along with each other. Not only did it take her energy and put her in turmoil, it made her scared to go to therapy herself for fear he would ridicule her.

Once Barbara discovered the extent of Rachel's covering up, she helped Rachel let go of it. "Your mom can take care of herself," she said. I learned how to let Rachel know she didn't have to protect me.

Give Up the Habit of Caretaking

No matter what age they are, in order to work through caretaking, kids need to start looking at who they really arewhat they feel, what they think, what they want, what they like, what they need, and what they're good at doing. They need to figure out how to believe that it's okay for them to give some of their energy to themselves. They need to believe that they, as much as anyone, deserve to have a good life. They don't have to help other people to feel good about themselves. They don't have to protect everyone else in the world.

There are many ways to let go of caretaking. There are books that can help you and your adolescent in this process.
Codependent No More
by Melody Beattie is a good place to start. If your child is not a good reader, you can get this book on tape.

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You and your child could go to Al-Anon and Alateen. Or take a class in assertiveness training, for the flip side of caretaking is assertiveness and self-worth.

As we go through the process of giving up caretaking, we place more value on our own lives. The result is enhanced self-esteem.

Making Progress

Now that the words
codependency
and
caretaking
are in our vocabulary, Rachel and I can talk about our behavior in these terms. When she says, "Will you wake me from my nap?" I can say, "No, I think that would be codependent for me to do that today." When she becomes sad and angry and upset because of something that happened to somebody else, we can talk about the pain and then say it's time to move on. For example, she was upset because she saw a teenage boy intentionally run down a cat and kill it with his car. After an hour of tears, I said, ''Let's not dwell on it." That was my mother's phrase, but she'd say it
before
I had cried. For years, I didn't set a limit on the expression of painnow it's time to limit the energy we give to the pain in the world. It's there but it doesn't have to run or ruin our lives. ''Let's experience it, but let's not dwell on it."

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One last comment about caretaking: Caretaking as a way of life is extremely stressful to our emotional and physical health. People who are caretaking too much put themselves at risk for addiction and other compulsive behaviors, as well as for such stress-related physical ailments as headaches, digestive tract problems, backaches, and even heart trouble. If your child seems to be a caretaker, you need to know that he or she is susceptible to eating disorders, workaholism, and chemical dependency, in addition to suicidal depression. One of the patterns of caretakers who come from alcoholic families is to develop an eating disorder, either anorexia or compulsive overeating. This is something for you to be aware of.

The good news about clusters of negative behaviors is this: When we work on letting go of caretaking, we release the fuel for many destructive patterns and make progress in many areas at once. Caring about our own well-being brings health to our daily lives and to our relationships.

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21
Fast Cars and Designer Jeans: Gender Pressures

I have to have those shoes and designer jeans or nobody will go out with me.
TROY B.

As our children work out their adolescent crises surrounding sexuality, mortality, and spirituality, sexuality and gender roles may be the most problematic. The adult culture at large doesn't provide many positive images of happy sexuality. Often sexuality is presented as a privilege enjoyed only by people who fit the extreme roles of the masculine and feminine. The media displays exaggerated roles for men and women: skinny blond women and big-muscled men. The media images of a real man and a real woman are virtually impossible to achieve. The great majority of us simply don't fit that ideal male and female in our genetic and physical predispositions. These standards put our

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kids in a pressure cooker. Sometimes when they try out adult behaviors, they suffer disastrous consequences for their experimentation.

It seems adults are in adamant denial about the true condition of our children. Suicide is only one manifestation of adolescents in pain, adolescents who have not found support, guidance, or a path through the maze of the craziness of contemporary life.

What can we do? Both mothers and fathers need to affirm their children's blossoming individuality. Think about gender roles and support your children if their interests and likes don't fit into socially approved roles. In the book
Growing Up Free: Raising Your Child in the 80's,
Letty Cottin Pogrebin offers many suggestions for ways to support your children to be individuals, rather than people stuffed into a gender role. Her book goes far beyond the general ideas that it's okay for boys to cry and girls to play softball. She has many practical suggestions for raising kids to be free to reach their full potential as people.

As parents, we also need to affirm a healthy sexuality. As our children become mature, we need to affirm their attractive qualities. Take the time to support them in their attempts to look grown-up. Talk about the need to be an individual and the need to fit in with the crowd. Do not ridicule their attempts to look grown-up. Do not ridicule their

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desire to date and fit in. Help them learn how to be safe and yet have fun. Talk about safe sex, safety on the streets, safety in relationships.

Young women and young men experience different kinds of consequences from these exaggerated gender roles, but both experience difficulty fitting narrowly defined roles.

Being a Young Woman

In spite of the successes of the women's movement, young women have a difficult time finding their identity in today's culture. Women have gained more rights, yet there are still disturbing things going on: more violence against women, increasing images of women being abused and murdered in movies and on television, more emphasis on looking seductive. We mothers gave up our girdles and bras only to find our daughters dieting to fit into men's jeans.

A recent study in Minnesota found that 18 percent of adolescent females contemplate suicide.
¹Related problems they are experiencing include poor body image, eating disorders, depression, and low self-esteem. I told Rachel about the study and the figure of 18 percent didn't surprise her at all. She said, "They needed a study to figure that out?"

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The desire to fit in often puts pressures on girls to be sexually active. In the following memoir selection by writer Mary B. Kahle, the adult woman describes the experience of the girl she was at age fourteen.


I.


Glen and David show up at my house one evening. These guys are cool, the most popular freaks in the ninth grade. I am surprised, no, shocked to find them at my door. I act casual. They want me, it seems, to go with them to the carnival. "Ever ride a Ferris wheel on acid?" they grin. "It'll be fun."

Hours and too-bright lights later, dazed and empty-headed, I find myself in David's basement, drinking beer with his older brother. He is big, surly, wearing a black leather jacket. I have heard enough about him to be afraid, but I still act casual, trying to stop the sound of blood that pounds in my ears. Then his hands grip my shoulders, and suddenly, fear is an electric eel that I hold in my mouth. At fourteen, I don't even know enough to call it rape.


I walk home in the darkest of darks. What I want... what I long for, is a mother's soft lap, hands stroking my hair, comfort whispered there. A rocking-chair mother, big enough to take me in.