<p>I feel for you. This must be hard. You are getting great advice here. </p>
<p>Having been someone who struggled in school, I agree with others, the biggest thing is to get him help at this point. Among other things, if he has some issue that is diagnosable, it could allow him to go on a leave of absence and potentially keep his scholarship. I suspect this is a lot more than he doesn’t like engineering, it sounds all too familiar to me I am afraid. It could be depression, it could be being overwhelmed, it also could be what I faced, that in some ways it came to easy and now that he has hit the harder classes, the breakers and the professional ones, it is not so easy (and obviously, I cannot say what is going on with the OP’s son, just throwing out things I have seen/heard of). The one flag to me is he sees getting a job for minimum wage as being some sort of safety line, I suspect that is some kind of emotional safety thing, where a minimum wage job is ‘easy’, doesn’t have stress, etc…either he has really been sheltered and doesn’t understand how much it takes to like, or this is some sort of emotional fantasy…but whatever the causes, he needs help, take it from me. What you see with him is all too sadly true of a lot of really bright people, they have some of the highest rates of crash and burn around, for a lot of reasons, who never achieve their full potential (my mom was one of them, graduated high school when she was 14, went into engineering at a time (early 1940’s) when few women did that in a wartime accelerated program, and after finishing 90 credits in engineering with a 4.0, basically self destructed and never achieved her potential). </p>
<p>There are specialists in kids having trouble like this, the university may be able to refer you to someone, or do a search locally. I realize as an adult you can’t really make decisions for him or force him to do anything, but try making an appointment for him, and see if he will go (the downside is, if he refuses to go at the last moment, you probably will owe the therapist their fee…). I suspect he is looking for help, but can’t face doing it himself at the moment. </p>
<p>Your son obviously needs help with depression and he’s smart enough to know it. He’s asked for help already. You said you “looked up the info and that you couldn’t make an appointment for him”. Did you actually speak with someone over the phone? Outside people make appointments all the time (a secretary makes a dentist appt for her boss for example.) If the school won’t let you make an appointment with their mental health facility for your son find another therapist in town that he can go see. Making that initial connection for your son can be big.</p>
<p>Like others have said–check with the school on taking medical leave. Make sure you talk to more people if you get turned down the first time. Lots of people on this forum have great advice on this subject garnered from their personal experiences so hopefully someone will be able to help you or give you an avenue.</p>
<p>If your son decides he wants to stay–get out of the co-op and find a new living arrangement. (you say a roommate was dealing drugs–I hesitate but are you sure he isn’t involved in drugs?) Sounds depressing enough no matter what.</p>
<p>Clinical depression is difficult to understand if you’ve never encountered it A depressed person’s intellect tells them that they SHOULD be doing certain tasks but the body and brain can shut down sometimes to a point of total inertia. Everything–getting out of bed to brush your teeth–can be a struggle. The energy spent on simple things doesn’t leave energy for anything else. Telling someone what to do is useless since they already know what to do–they just are not physically/emotionally able to do it. Which is why even little things like making the appointment for them is crucial–otherwise it is not happening–they may come to the appointment because it is so important to them (or most likely others whom they won’t disappoint). </p>
<p>Do NOT be surprised or upset by the anger that can be directed at you from your son–he’s very upset at the fact that things aren’t working out as planned. Same as you. I’m sure you’re angry inside. Hard not to be. Scared for your son and angry at the “why now?” aspect. Totally normal. But right now make a plan of action–call the school, find out about the scholarship details from someone who really knows, get a therapist, decide if he needs to come home, strip away his responsibilities–the co-op, change the environment etc. You are not (obviously!) the only person to have gone through this–it only feels that way. </p>
<p>“And it also seems to me that I’m getting the vibe of “Why does this kid want to quit school? No way I’m supporting that. He’s smart, he should suck it up and go back to school. And get As,” from you. Your son is in trouble. He should not be going back to school at this point. The scholarships are irrelevant. School can wait.”</p>
<p>This. It sounds like you think that he should just be able to “tough this out.” No. Mental health issues aren’t things that one can “tough out” any more than you would expect someone who had broken both legs to “tough out” walking around. </p>
<p>Sounds like drugs/alcohol could potentially be an issue, and is something to be investigated. If there is a drug/alcohol issue, all the more reason to get the kid home under your watchful eye, and under treatment. If he is using drugs or drinking too much, the substance abuse could be the underlying problem. Or it could be a symptom of depression or some other mental health problem, and if the underlying problem is addressed, the self-medication would cease. </p>
<p>As to what therapist (I’m making the assumption they are needed)–you have some options-psychologist vs psychiatrist. A psychologist is not able to prescribe medication while a psychiatrist can. Sometimes a combo of the two is very helpful. And the first doctor is not always “the one”. Don’t be afraid to dump them if your son doesn’t like them–find someone else.</p>
<p>Throwing this out there (and it may not apply to your situation)…
Acute or ( more commonly) constant stress can play havoc on brain chemicals. Constant stress, lack of sleep eventually can wear down brain chemicals (serotonin) causing severe depression. That’s a fact. Which in some cases is why “smart” people get depressed. They feel like they should conquer it all and be able to “overcome” obstacles. Many self-medicate thinking they can pull themselves out of their black hole (which leads to drug use).</p>
<p>Example:
This happens regularly with “stoic” patients (war vets, cancer patients) who are in constant pain but refuse pain meds–the brain chemicals never get a rest. Patients refuse pain meds thinking “I’m above this–I’m tough” or just “I don’t want to get addicted” and guess what? The body is in constant stress and the brain chemicals keeping them afloat on the emotional level become essentially depleted. The result is major depression and aggression (and its not pretty).</p>
<p>The same scenario to varying degrees can occur with an over-worked student or any perfectionist in a high pressure situation especially if that stress has been a constant over a period of time. The person under stress doesn’t recognize their surroundings as a bad thing. It’s too normal for them. It’ll be someone outside “the box” that says it’s time to step back.
If that is the decided diagnosis–fix it by taking medication if prescribed. Taking meds in these scenarios can be a life saver.</p>
<p>SInce its the end of the semester I am not sure you will be forced to get a medical leave. Often times you can take a leave of absence for a variety of reasons. Something to consider.</p>
<p>It will be all so school specific you’ll have to ask all these questions. It will also be very specific regarding the scholarship…again lots of questions. Make sure you understand.</p>
<p>I had one kid walk out of the middle of a semester of college after pushing her to go back…aargghh. A very expensive mistake on my part. I will admit I was angry, frustrated, afraid she wouldn’t go back to school, afraid she would get off track, afraid she would lose her scholarship and a little bit embarrassed that she wasn’t cutting it. </p>
<p>I wish I had just really listened better, took my ego and the scholarship out of it and let her not go back at the time. It ended up being a physical problem which manifested with mental health symptoms.</p>
<p>Again its not easy. I feel for you. </p>
<p>Also for therapy, a MSW can have very pragmatic suggestions, that can be more helpful than a psychologist who may be trained in a more psychoanalytic style ( where they want you to delve into your childhood for example), or a psychiatrist, who these days are more about medication management.</p>
<p>I have gone through my brilliant son (Eagle Scout, Jr. Olympic runner, biomedical engineering major) falling mentally ill. Maybe that is NOT the case with your child, but you cannot take a chance with this. Bluntly, you want to keep the ball in play. Getting him evaluated could save his life.</p>
<p>If he IS ill, contact NAMI and take the free Family to Family education class. There is a lot of help available these days. And there ARE psychiatrists who do more than just prescribe meds. My son’s doctor is even seeing him for no charge!! When he goes on vacation, he tells us to call him if we need to. With my son’a permission, th doctor communicates with me by email, quite often.</p>
<p>You have to admit mainelonghorn, that to be seen for nocharge is pretty unusual.
My daughters psychiatrist, didnt take insurance & she charged plenty!</p>
<p>I’m not a parent, but as a recent student I can guess that this child feels his parents think he is a genius and he cannot fail at this prescribed course. If he does, he will be kicked onto the street and you won’t look back, even if he is sick. So I sort of see how his minimum wage job plan works out. If he hates college, minimum wage job can’t be worse than his current situation, he will feel the master of his own destiny and people will value him for doing something other than being “a genius” (which 99% of the time is in proud mommy’s head, and even if not, you can be a genius and still work in fast food. Some people want to. What it sounds like at the moment is this young man has never had a choice in his life).</p>
<p>Also, his room mate was dealing drugs! Either your son is on drugs, or at the very least he is mixed up in all the unsavoury types who have been visiting his home to purchase their supplies. That is a HORRIBLE way to live! Horrendously stressful and very serious. People with untreated mental health problems are likely to try to self-medicate, and therefore I would be even more worried about the drug situation.</p>
<p>Ask yourself, if your child had to drop out of college for cancer treatment, would you throw them out? If not, please reconsider your treatment of your child who may be seriously mentally ill (impossible to say without assessment by a professional, but likely). He will be interpreting your actions as “My parents only value me for my grades. Other than that I am worthless to them”.</p>
<p>I am so so sorry you are going through this. It is truly heartbreaking. I don’t have personal experience to share, but I do think you are getting some excellent advice. It really does sound like a serious mental health issue. I hope you can get your son the help he needs. Sadly, dreams sometimes get derailed or must be postponed, but your son has many talents that I am sure he will be able to leverage once his health is restored. Wish you all the best and much strength. </p>
<p>Yes, ek, I know it is unusual! He could have seen my son at a clinic that accepts MaineCare, but he said he would keep seeing him at his private practice because it was closer to our home and more comfortable. </p>
<p>FYI - to respond to a few of the questions. My son is currently home for the summer. He is attempting to take 2 courses online to get credit for the ones he failed his first semester this year. He is struggling even with online courses. It takes constant nagging and reminding for him to even keep up with online work, which makes me wonder if at this point he can even manage to keep a job. Whatever is causing his current ‘funk’, I don’t think that he’s going to be any more motivated to get up and go to a job, than he is to get up and go to classes, although he doesn’t recognize that.</p>
<p>I think my statement that I won’t support him if he moves back home without any type of plan comes from how I was raised myself. My parents, who are relatively affluent, at least very upper-middle class, supported me throughout high school and let me know that they would pay for my expenses for an undergraduate degree. The day I graduated or stopped being enrolled in school, I was on my own. My parents who own 2 homes and have an ample amount of savings, watched me feed my son with food stamps for a period while I was unemployed in his younger years while making it very clear they were not willing to help financially. Although if my son is not healthy, I do want to support him in whatever way necessary until he is healthy, it’s difficult for me to not feel like I’ll be enabling him or allowing him to take advantage of the situation by supporting him. I know plenty of middle aged adutls without direction in life, if I offer to completely support son through this, how do I know that it won’t turn into him feeling that he doesn’t have to find a direction because he has me as a safety net?</p>
<p>He has a signed lease for an off-campus apartment for next school year, but that’s the smallest of my concerns. We’re already paying for it to sit vacant while he’s home for the summer, so if he doesn’t go back to school in the fall, we’ll try to sublet or keep paying for a vacant unit until the lease is up.</p>
<p>I was not aware of the drug use of his intended roommates prior to this school year, but became aware of the USE fairly early in the year. When son’s grades started to fall, drug use was the first thing I suspected. I have directly asked him about it…more than a few times, he denies any drug use at all. I’m still not sure I believe him. I just learned of his roommate dealing drugs this summer, when son was upset about his arrest. Whether he has a mental health issue or a drug use issue, I am well aware that environment is not a healthy one for him to return to.</p>
<p>I did not actually speak to anyone at his campus’s mental health office, but found information on their website. It specifically said that they do not allow 3rd parties to make appointments for students that are legal adults. I didn’t call to question that policy. Since he is at home for the summer, it would be easier for me to get him to an appointment. I have my doubts about what that would accomplish. He has made it clear that he’s not willing to share his issues with anyone including a therapist, but I keep encouraging him to talk to someone, even a friend about what he’s going through…he’s also made it clear that he’s not interested in meds and even said it would turn into a situation like ‘Silver Linings Playbook’ that we watched earlier this summer.</p>
<p>I had a relative take their own life about a decade ago. My son remembers it well. Ever since he called to tell me he thought he needed to talk to a therapist, I’ve been EXTREMELY concerned about it. I don’t think he’s to that point of depression, but maybe I’m just too close to the situation and trying to be in denial about how serious it is, so I do fairly regular ‘wellness’ checks… checking on him in the morning before I go to work, sending him texts during the day, even to ask silly questions or favors just to make sure I get a response - like “Hey could you preheat the oven for dinner before I get home from work?”. Whatever he’s going through is causing me a GREAT DEAL of emotional turmoil as well and so I have even suggested to him some type of family therapy.</p>
<p>My son has always been VERY independent and even as a child, was very reluctant to accept ANY help. I am sure that he feels that he can get through whatever he is going through on his own without any assitance, I think that will be significantly more difficult than he believes and might not even be possible. I know that the first step is getting him to get an evaluation, but forcing help on someone who isn’t ready for it really isn’t that simple, I also have several friends and relatives that battle addiction problems and trust me I’ve spent a lot of emotional energy trying to get them to admit they need help as well, but until they’re ready to get the help they need, it usually just winds up being very emotionally draining.</p>
<p>Are the therapists at your son’s school the only ones he could possibly see? He’s home now, and he’s not going back to school, so shouldn’t he be seeing someone local?</p>
<p>I find this worrisome. Your son has a family history of depression, and also of addiction issues (which often go together). He said he wanted to see a therapist. He is showing alarming signs that might be due to some mental health problem. And yet, he has (as far as I understand) not yet darkened the door of a therapist’s office, and he doesn’t even have an appointment to see anyone. </p>
<p>I don’t see this as forcing help on him. I’d suggest you do some research to find a therapist or therapists that might be reasonable for him. Then stand next to him, call one up, talk to them, and hand him the phone. There’s a continuum from you doing everything for him, to you doing nothing for him, and you may be a little too close to the nothing end.</p>
<p>“I know plenty of middle aged adutls without direction in life, if I offer to completely support son through this, how do I know that it won’t turn into him feeling that he doesn’t have to find a direction because he has me as a safety net?”</p>
<p>Then you deal with that then. Right now, he’s struggling. It seems to me that you appear to find mental health issues to be kind of a weakness or “excuse” not to be productive, as opposed to thinking of them as being real and just as debilitating as a physical illness.</p>
<p>Think of this way. If your son broke both his legs and was in a wheelchair, would you refuse to push his wheelchair because you’d be afraid that he’d never walk again as long as you were there to push the wheelchair?</p>
<p>“My parents who own 2 homes and have an ample amount of savings, watched me feed my son with food stamps for a period while I was unemployed in his younger years while making it very clear they were not willing to help financially.”</p>
<p>Did that make you feel good about your relationship with your parents, or did it make you sad / upset that they wouldn’t lend a helping hand when you were in need? Now think about how much you love your son and the relationship you’d like to have with him. Would you want him to say the same thing about you that you just said about your parents? Just because your parents did / acted in X fashion doesn’t obligate you to do the same. </p>
<p>My parents who own 2 homes and have an ample amount of savings, watched me feed my son with food stamps for a period while I was unemployed in his younger years while making it very clear they were not willing to help financially.</p>
<p>I was raised not to expect help from govt, but that families helped each other.
Do you feel that your parents refusal to help you and their grandchild helped you?</p>
<p>"…if I offer to completely support son through this, how do I know that it won’t turn into him feeling that he doesn’t have to find a direction because he has me as a safety net."</p>
<p>My friend referenced above who suffers from depression has family who feels that way. Her depression was “just a phase” or something she should “snap out of”. She should get a job, get a place of her own, find her own way. And that is how she had breakdown after breakdown until she was <em>40</em> and finally found a therapist who she could afford, who worked well with her, got her on proper meds, which in turn helped her get herself together enough to get her GED, a CC certificate and a low-level job, but one that she can manage, as she has other mental health issues too.</p>
<p>Your S is practically screaming that he needs help and is not able to move forward in life right now, for whatever reason. If your concern is that you’re coddling him and he goes without treatment, he could be my friend 20 years from now. I don’t think I would wish that on anyone.</p>
<p>One of the risks of untreated depression, and not a small risk, is suicide. I’m just sayin’.</p>
<p>Somewhere in this mess is a romantic relationship gone awry.</p>
<p>My nephew sounds almost exactly like this only he was not an engineering type and doesn’t sound quite a smart.</p>