my daughter has been recently diagnosed (16 years old) ?

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I posted a while back her story which was before we actually got a diagnosis. She is now in counseling every two weeks. She is not on any meds yet at this time, but she is so uncontrollably moody, sad, mad most of the time, and says she just always has negative thoughts and she trys to be positive but it just doesnt work. Her biggest issue is on the weekends, she does OK during the school week, but by the weekend, she starts getting more and more mad because she isnt out socializing like her friends from school are. SHe WANTS to be able to, but says she just can't ask them to join them. She had a meltdown at a birthday party 2 days ago because she was already in a mood as it was saturday and she sees her friends posting online about what all they are going to do. My family tried to ask her what was wrong, ect. ect, and it just made her really angry and she blew up and started yelling at everyone. I just dont understand. If any of you have ever had any of these outbursts please let me know what you can about it. I really think she needs an antidepressant or something. We have already been to the hospital for suicide comments in the past month. I work fulltime as a nurse and this is just miserable. She is a straight A honor student. Plays basketball , but cannot deal with it if she messes up in the game. Had another meltdown a couple of weeks ago because her friends left her sitting alone in the bleachers?? Is there ANYTHING I can do to try and maker her happy?? She says all the time, thats all she wants is to just be happy. She was diagnosed with Aspergers. Any insite or help would be much appreciated!

You'd probably get more help if you posted in the parent subforum.

[Moved from General Autism Discussion to Parents' Discussion]

Imagine if your friends were constantly getting together without inviting you, then letting you know what a great time they had. Imagine you went to see a game with them, and they all got up and left you by yourself. Would you get some different friends? What if no matter who you befriended, they did the same thing to you? And what if hardly anyone wanted to be your friend in the first place, no matter how hard you tried?

That's how people with Asperger's get treated. Being upset about it doesn't mean your daughter needs some medication, it means she's reacting the same way you (or anyone else) would react if it happened to them.

She's not depressed because she has Asperger's.
She's depressed because people treat her badly, which is because she has poor social skills, which is because she has Asperger's.

^ Social skills can be learned, the extent of which they are depends on the person.

To the OP, I agree with the poster above, it doesn't sound like something meds will help, unless she's depressed. If she is depressed then antidepressants can help many people. As for the meltdowns, I have them. They aren't what they seem to be, for me. They look like an extreme overreaction to something. What they actually are is overload. With me, when things start building up and I'm dealing with stress and more stress and more stress, I'm handeling it but it gets more and more difficult. Finally one more thing happens, and whether it's little or big, that usually doesn't matter because it's the straw that broke the camels back and I have a meltdown. When I was younger, I had them more frequently because I hadn't learned to handle more stress. As I got older my ability to handle stress increased, so my meltdowns became less frequent.

I'm not saying this is the case with everyone, this is my own personal experience. I have AS

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I'm giving it another shot. We will see.
My forum is still there and everyone is welcome to come join as well. There is a private women only subforum there if anyone is interested. Also, there is no CAPTCHA.

The link to the forum is http://www.rightplanet.proboards.com

Well it sounds like aspergers and depression, and I would be very careful using anti-deppresants on anyone under 18 or even over 18, they aren't a cure all and can even make things worse for some people. I mean if she is willing to try one talk to a doctor about it just be very careful because anti-depressants are known to have more adverse effects on kids than adults so watch for suicidal thoughts.

That said, most people would at least be sad in such a situation........I was depressed at that age and still am depressed. And I know being aware everyone else was hanging out with friends and living life while I went home to my room to hang out alone only made the feelings worse.......not really sure what to do about it, because she cannot very well force people to hang out with her anymore than I could have.