Teens have learned what they need to say to their parents and to professionals to get a mental health diagnosis and to get the accompanying drugs. I’ve seen it evolve over the past 12 years in a very insidious way. One always needs to take a person seriously when they say they are going to kill themselves. Yes, that is true. The kids know this. They know that when they say they might kill themselves, their parents will take them to a mental health provider, psychiatrist, psychiatric nurse practitioner, or even the pediatrician who feels comfortable prescribe psychotropics, who will immediately prescribe an anti-depressant or other mood stabilizer.
A more common complaint that I am hearing is that “I’m Bipolar!” Yup. Straight out like that. Then they tell me about their mood swings. When informed that mood swings are a normal experience in adolescence, they tell me, “Oh, not like this!” I will then sit back and have them tell me about their mood swings. With this open-ended discussion, the teen ALWAYS describes what we know as common experiences of adolescents.
Generally, the parents want their child diagnosed as “SOMETHING THAT WILL MAKE IT NOT MY FAULT!” They also don’t want to dig in and do the hard work of parenting. “See, She has Bipolar. It’s not my fault.”
When I work with the parents on things like communication with their teens, ie quit screaming at them and quit begging them, the parents seem to go numb. “You mean, I actually have to learn how to parent this child?!!” Well, no. You don’t, unless, of course, you want this one to be like the other 2 you raised. The 19 year old who won’t leave the basement, or the 25 year old who has 3 children by 3 different fathers.
I will not give a diagnosis of Bipolar disorder to this teen. The family will probably not come back. They will find a psychologist who WILL give her a diagnosis and then a referral to a psychiatrist for the meds. You will give your child drugs and start her on a path of not being able to cope with life without a substance. Please don’t come back to me in 5 years to help. I already tried.
