My 15 year old AS daughter is severlely depressed

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My daugher has been severely depressed for the last few weeks and I am having such trouble getting her help. She cut herself pretty badly about 6 weeks ago and her twin sister woke me up and we were able to hold her down and keep her safe and an hour later, the feelings had passed like a thunderstorm. It had been so long since she had had any kind of meltdown, that we shook it off and thought it was a one time thing. Then a week later, she cut herself again and her sister helped clean her up and got her back in bed and I didn't find out about it until the next day when the school called to say she had cuts that were bleeding everywhere and they thought she did it at school. So this time I took her to the hospital to get checked out and we spoke to a really nice crisis worker and 5 hours later, we were sent home. We saw her family doctor a few days later and he doubled her dose of Zoloft. She had been doing really well on it for almost a year and everyone figured she needed a higher dosage because she is now 5 foot 11.

Then last Sunday, I woke up to her whole arm cut up with a steak knife (about 50 cuts). I could not calm her down and she was running around the 3 floors of the house in a rage, hating her sister and I for wanting her to live. How she had given up and it didn't matter what I did, she was going to kill herself.

She won't stop racing around the house and I had to call the police and paramedics for help. It took them half an hour to convince her to go to the hospital and I had to hide in the front of the ambulance, so she wouldn't jump out the back. (I was really a trigger for her that day)

We get to the hospital and she is pissed off to be there and keeps trying to run away, but there are two police officers who are watching her and keep bringing her back. She starts throwing chairs around, so the hospital security took them away. They bandaged her cuts and she ripped off the bandages. They put a hospital bracelet and she rips it off. She is like this for hours, so they finally decide around 3:00 in the morning that she can spend the night and we slept on stretchers, happy that we were finally going to get help the next morning. (She had calmed down a bit by then, so she was happy that I was with her at that point) But nope, another crisis worker, another safety plan and then she sends us back to our family doctor.

The next day I try to book an emergency appointment with my family doctor and he is away and I have to use the after hours doctor's service. I wait all day to call them at 4:00 pm and then the doctor calls me back to say that she is not in a position to see my daughter and how she has to wait to see her own family doctor. So we get an appointment for last Thursday and she is not doing well in his office - lying in the fetal position on the examination table and not talking at all to the doctor and he decides we have to go back to the hospital to be assessed because he wants her admitted and doesn't like their safety plan. But my daughter is begging me not to go back and how she feels good now and so she gets me to bring her back to school and I head back to work. I get to work and my boss says I have to go back and take her to the hospital because that is what the doctor wanted. So I warn the school about the situation and hope they can help me to convince her to go.

I get there and she has just met with her new social worker who feels that they won't admit her because she looks like she is doing okay now. She has connections to the hospital and she will call to see if they can admit her and if not, she will get us an urgent care appointment to meet with a psychiatrist (we had been on the waiting list already for 14 months) So she gets us the appointment and I feel like we have won the lottery and it is the long weekend, so I am hoping we can relax after the hellish week.

But no, there is not relaxation because depression is taking my daughter's pleasure in life away - she can barely eat, she has not been sleeping for at least a week, she doesn't enjoy her video blogs or her video games or anything. The only good thing is we managed not to have her harm herself because we have locked all the sharps, meds and cleaners and I begged her to wake me up if she felt awful.

So she does wake me up and her sister and I sit with her and I rub her back while she is crying unconsolably because she feels so awful and I hope the next day will be better, but it isn't. I just want to cry with her and I feel so hopeless and helpless to help her feel better or even to sleep.

So we have this psych appointment on Friday, but my daughter isn't happy about it because she is worried he will change her meds and she will feel worse and she is concerned that they will discover that she not only has high functioning asd, but that she is bipolar or has another personality disorder.

I would rather I be having the depression for her because I know it will pass eventually and I can make myself eat, walk, talk, do yoga and all the other stuff you need to get out of the pit of despair. But of course my daughter doesn't believe any of it and I just want some ideas on how to help her through this.

I used to come on here a lot because my daughter was really violent towards me and her sister, but the rages/meltdowns would pass after an hour and we would get her back, but now she is just suffering so bad and I am at a loss in what to do for her.

Are there any great books that I can read?

Thanks so much for listening to me.

Hi, TripleMoon, i remembered when you posted here. Glad you are back. Sad to see why.

15 is a terrible age b/c the social pressures and realities are very bad and you don't yet have the wisdom or perspective to get through it well.

Aside from what is already being done, the main thing I would try to use is reason. Intellectually, she knows she needs to eat, so if you can gently ask her, "You know you need to eat, honey, right?" Maybe she will agree. If she is too depressed, of course, it will not work, but it is worth a try.

I am sorry.

Can she communicate why she's depressed? Or can you glean it from her description of her day?

I just wanted to say that I'm so sorry that she and your family are going through all of this. It sounds so very hard. It's so, so hard to watch your kids struggle and it must feel awful to her, too.
Both of my girls deal with pretty bad anxiety and some depression that comes along with it. We have not been in your same situation, but have struggled this year, too.

I don't have any great advice...but to listen to her and just let her talk if she will...let her know you're on her side...It sounds like you're doing all that of course. I've tried to "cheer" mine up or offer strategies such as deep breathing or yoga, like you said...but when they are in such a struggling state, mine can't deal with that as I guess the anxiety/depression gets in the way. I do remind mine that things will get better and that they are really great girls and that I am trying my best to help to figure things out with them.
Neither of mine could tolerate Zoloft and they had to switch to something else. When they increased the dosage with my youngest to see if it wouldn't work a little better for her, she became very restless, couldn't sleep, moving around a lot....just out of sorts and we had to get her off of it. My oldest became much more nervous. Did you notice she got worse at all when the dose was increased?? Just a thought. I'm sure your doctor will be able to sort that out.
Sometimes a med change is a good thing and needed.

I know one of mine doesn't "know" why she feels the way she does...she says she doesn't worry....Truthfully, I think she's excluded socially at school and this is causing it. My daughter doesn't outright say that, of course, but listening to what she says at times, I get that idea. We are considering letting her finish school through on- line classes if things don't improve.
The only other thoughts I have is in the next few days...just take it one day, one hour at a time until you get to that appt. If she'll let you spoil her a little with any favorite food or drinks if she would let you at all...or movies, or binge-watch any shows she likes with her...just a thought. I know it's not easy if she's resistant to all of this.
And I would call the doctor again to see if they can't get you in any sooner. If they say no, ask them to call you if there is any cancellation and they can get you in. I would be really upset that we'd have to wait with all she has going on. I sure hope things improve for her very, very soon!

Hi ASD mommy, thanks for the welcome back - always glad to see your posts as you are always so supportive. I am able to get her to eat, but I have to run a long list of choices and then I have to make it for her and bring it to her. Luckily, she will eat if I do that.

PDDtwinmom - She says she has no reason to be depresed, that she loves where we live, has a lot of friends, has a good family life, etc. It seems to be the same chemical imbalance I have - I suffer from anxiety and depression too.

Yellowfinch - how old are your girls? And the Zoloft was a problem last year in the first few weeks she was put on it and then we had about a year of smooth sailing - I actually could forget she has autism because she was so happy. We moved into a great house in a safe neighbourhood last summer and she loves it and we got the internet back so she had lots to do online. I am afraid to stop the Zoloft because she was really violent for a couple years before that - she would hit me and her sister, tackle her sister and refuse to get off of her, fly into rages and would throw anything she could get her hands on. The Zoloft stopped working by winter and the doubling of her dose is really not helping at all because she is so tired and agitated and sad.

Last night I had to get up at 1:00 am because she found something to cut with again, not sure what, we never did find it. She had her arm cut up to past her elbow and she started to cut the palms of her hands. She was calmer than last time, so I called the Youth Services Bureau that has been so recommended by every crisis and social worker we have met. They were useless, the woman spoke in a monotone and seemed to be reading from a script - she even put me on hold for a few minutes to consult with someone- "Do you think she needs medical attention?" No the cuts are superficial. "Will she commit to a safety plan?" - "will she clean her wounds? - she needs to do her self care" It was so ridiculous I hung up after about 10 minutes - no help from them. We manged to get her calm after about half an hour, but I still could not get back to sleep until 3:00 am. This morning she was all raring to go to school; she woke herself up at 6:45 and usually she is horrid to get up.
I am not sure if it is the Zoloft or the darn March Break and long weekend that have her riled up without the routine. I am glad she is at school where she is safe with lots of teachers and EAs.

I can't believe she tricked me! My daughter got me to buy her colouring books, pencil crayons and sharpeners and I was ready to do anything that might be relaxing. She took the metal from the pencil sharpener to cut herself! I just can't get over this - how awful!

So sorry to hear what you've been through! It must be so difficult! I can see why she and you would want or hope to stay on the Zoloft if it had helped her so much!
Hope the doctor can get the medication back on track for her. Sounds like things were really good for awhile.
Really glad she was able to go to school at least today!!
My girls are 17 and 19. One with Asperger's, the other not diagnosed. This last year they have both dealt with increased stresses at school. I have had a hard time figuring out what is "hormones" and teenage girl stuff and what is related to anxiety or Asperger's.
Sure hope your daughter and family get some peace of mind soon!

Yellowfinch - yes I have the same trouble with my girls - they are 15 and one has aspergers and the other is neurotypical, but sometimes I find her NT sister harder to deal with with the dramas of high school.

When we would have long breaks like Spring Break or Winter break, I used to perseverate constantly about having to go back and then, of course it would get worse as it got closer. I hated the social issues surrounding school and just the general stress of having to be the school version of me. There definitely was a really bad way of feeling that I would have right before and during it, and I think you are on to something about that exacerbating her issues.

At this point, I am not sure what I can give other than moral support because she needs immediate help and she needs to be in a more stable place, mentally before anything else is going to help. Depression is a terrible thing and with her in a depressive brain fog, it is going to be hard to reach her. Once there, you can see what she needs---maybe online classes as was mentioned before or something.

She may need something different from the Zoloft, since that no longer works for her. I hope maybe there is a silver-lining to this, and that her recent continuing issues can get help for her expedited.

Yes I hope all of this gets sorted out and this psychiatric assessment we have on Friday helps us get better meds - maybe just some sleeping pills so she can finally get the much needed rest she needs.

That's exactly what my daughter does, really panics about the thought of going back to school - I am not sure why because she loves seeing her friends in and our of the ASD program and she loves her EAs and her teachers and everyone loves her too. I guess she tends to focus on the actual school work and the sitting in class and whatever else she hates about school.

I wish I had a better way to explain it. It is kind of like a panic attack, but less acute; and it can last for days for whatever amounts of times your brain latches onto the feeling.

I don't think my parents would have guessed it, either; and to be honest I don't think at the time I would have been able to articulate it. There is no telling what she could be fixating her dread on. It could be anything from academic stressors to interaction with one unpleasant person or just the lack of feeling ownership of her day's schedule.

I hope it gets sorted out soon.

I don't have a child with depression but I did have depression.

This sounds horrible for all of you.

For me, I got on well with therapy. One of the most important things about therapy was that my psychologist was not pushy, was accepting and let mr go at my own (snail-like) pace.

I'd been to other therapists before and HATED it. I've even had therapists since who I couldn't get on with.

One thing that was very important to me was that my psychologist didn't get stressed when I self harmed. I've had other psychologists who did and all that happened was that I disliked them.

When you're hurting so much that you self harm, someone saying not to do it is akin to telling someone with a broken leg to take the cast off it and walk on it.

This, of course, is very difficult for family members and some therapists - the therapist has to trust the patient and be able to judge the point where the patient should be admitted.


The therapist I liked firmly believed that I would stop self-harming when I had the tools to cope otherwise. She didn't push it. Self harming is a product of depression, you cannot simply remove self-harm without treating the other problems or providing alternatives.

She told me about safer ways to cut (parts of the body less likely to cause serious damage) and alternatives to cutting.

These included things like punching a pillow (I didn't find this one useful but an actual punch bad may have helped).

The thing that really helped was ice. If you get a handful of ice for one or both hands and then grip has hard as you can/want to for as long as you want it will hurt. So it can fulfill the need for pain without running the risk of infection or nerve damage.

If you google alternatives to self-harm you will find a variety. Or maybe your daughter could do this herself.

Hope you had luck with her appointment and things will start looking up for her!!

And thanks, ASDmommy talking about your dread/perseveration about going back school. My oldest has AlWAYS been this way since she was little and we had no idea she was on the spectrum. It helps me be able to understand her as sometimes I'm not sure she is able to verbalize exactly what she's feeling in the moment.

And Conceptually, thanks for the input about the psychologist taking things slow and being patient. It makes me think there may be someone out there that's helpful for my kids, and to keep looking.

Well our appointment was pushed to yesterday - I thought it would never get here! My daughter's last cutting episode was a week ago, so she wasn't doing so great. Well the two psychiatrists that saw her thought she had no symptoms of depression and seemed to think this was something she was suffering with last fall, not in the last 6 weeks with the cutting and the crying and the not sleeping. They knew she was brought to the emergency room on two occassions and that once we stayed overnight, but somehow since she presented so well yesterday, they think it is over.

My daughter's goals were to quit cutting and to quit medication, so they have cut her meds back to 25 mg of Zoloft and then in three weeks, they will likely wean her completely. And they want her to get cognitive behaviour therapy and we have forms to test for ADHD.

We go through 6 weeks of hell for them to say she is depression free now. I am really worred that my daughter just presented in a great mood because she wants to get off of meds.

Well we do have a follow up appointment in 3 weeks, so either she really is getting better and will continue or not.

^My prayers are with you and your family. I have suffered from depression cycles for many years now, yet I am likely one of the most cheerful people on this forum. I guess my depression mainly comes from unresolved trauma and emotional episodes, and also from school trauma and just too much overwhelming stuff at school. Hugs:
Here, have a Skitty [from Pokemon] for good measure: