<p>My daughter (3rd year in college) has been dating her BF since almost their first days at college. His has become depressed (triggered by a failure with something at school - don’t want to get into details here). She is very stressed by this and is trying to help him. From what she says he is depressed (feels like a failure, has no motivation, lacks self-worth, etc.) I am confident he is not suicidal or looking to hurt anybody or taking any drugs or drinking due to this depression.</p>
<p>Her current plan is to drag him to the health center and make him talk to a counselor,today. They did go to the support services office at the school (a couple of weeks ago) and they said he should go to the counseling office. I think he is in denial that he needs help - or else feels he does not need help and wants to continue to wallow in his depression. One thing for certain, he does not want his parents to know anything about this. I am pretty sure that counseling provided by the school is free and confidential.</p>
<p>Looking for any advice in helping her to get him help and any experience people may have with something like this. </p>
<p>I would suggest your D start seeing a counselor as well.
It is an enormous stress helping someone who is mentally ill & they can help her not only process it, but help her decide if she needs to contact his parents against his wishes.
He may have a very valid reason why he doesn’t want to tell them, then again depressed folks aren’t thinking clearly.</p>
<p>If he is chemically depressed, then all she can do is get him to the place where the professionals can help him. There is nothing else she can do, and she should make sure she takes care of herself and does not fall into that black hole with him. I’m not saying she shouldn’t care, because of course she cares, but there’s not much people can do for a depressed person except love them, accept them, and make sure to stay emotionally healthy themselves.</p>
<p>Good luck to your daughter. The best thing you can do to support your daughter is to support your daughter and to make sure she really gets that she can’t save him. </p>
<p>If D can figure out what will motivate BF to go to counseling, that could push him to get started. Bribes and/or threats, or just D laying out a boundary of what she is and is not willing to put up with. D can’t MAKE BF do anything, but she can decide whether she wants to be a part of the audience that watches him melt down.</p>
<p>If BF really values your D and their relationship, then he might be willing to start counseling for the sake of the relationship, even if personally he doesn’t want to.</p>
<p>Any decision to threaten loss of relationship, threaten to tell his parents, etc. would be risky, and might backfire, but depending on the extremeness of the depression might be considered.</p>
<p>A session for D with a counselor on productive ways to deal with BF’s refusal to get counseling might help D decide how to proceed.</p>
<p>Hugs to Mom who has to sit idly by and watch how D is hurting because of BF’s situation. Parenting is hard stuff!</p>
<p>It sounds like she’s doing a good job so far, since “Her current plan is to drag him to the health center and make him talk to a counselor,today.” If this doesn’t work out, she needs to read him the riot act about it affecting their relationship. </p>
<p>When someone is depressed, every problem seem insurmountable and he/she has a hard time moving forward. The only way out of it is to seek professional help, and sometimes it requires some medication. Your daughter can’t make him do it, all she can only encourage him to seek help. A lot of people, especially men, do not believe in seeing therapist because they don’t believe mental illness is real. Your daughter may want to re-assure him there is nothing wrong in seeking help and it WILL make him feel better. It is hard to watch loved one suffer.</p>
<p>Kiddie, my D was in almost the exact situation as your D - she had a long-term boyfriend who was depressed and who was in denial about his depression. She dragged him to counseling once (he did not go back) and told him (repeatedly) that he needed to get help for himself and for their relationship. He still refused to get help or to take his depression seriously, even when my D begged him to do so. </p>
<p>She tried everything that has been suggested here: “bribes,” “threats,” “encouragement,” and “reading him the riot act.” None of it worked because he didn’t really take the threats/bribes (or the relationship) seriously. She finally broke up with him.</p>
<p>Hugs to your daughter - it’s a difficult situation to deal with. (I also think it’s hard on the girlfriend’s mom! I know it was hard on me at times, especially when my D was sad or upset.) I think poetgrl’s advice is spot-on:</p>
<p>Well, this is not going to be easy for my daughter - her first ever boyfriend and she is a very loyal person. I am sure she will want to help see him through this. I feel like her going with him to the counseling center today is the right first step.</p>
<p>How about contacting the boy’s parents? A year ago, my son’s girlfriend unexpectedly stopped by to see us. She had some concerns about our son. He ended up transferring schools a couple months later, which seemed to take care of the problem. I appreciated her letting us know he was struggling. Apparently he didn’t have the nerve to tell us. </p>
<p>Oh, now I see that he didn’t want her to contact his parents. If he won’t seek help, I think she should go ahead and contact them.</p>
<p>My HS BF was depressed and I couldn’t get him to get any help. I left town to transfer to a U 2500 miles away and he married another woman that I had heard he was seeing and they had a baby. Don’t know if he ever went to counseling but had tried unsuccessfully to get him to. </p>
<p>In college I casually dated another guy who I’m guessing may have been clinically depressed but we never spent much time together once I realized he also was unwilling to get help. I didn’t want to deal with it and don’t think it would have been good for either of us. </p>
<p>Kiddie, I have a question for you. If the roles were reversed and your child was depressed and her S/O’s parents knew, what would you want them to do? </p>
<p>I would want to know. I would hope he cared enough about her to tell me.</p>
<p>Also this may be a growth opportunity for your daughter. Truly caring about another person, especially their well being, transcends maintaining a relationship and sometimes even keeping confidences. Hopefully he will come to see her actions as the acts of caring that they are. God forbid anything serious happens and she hadn’t involved or informed his parents. The potential for regret, guilt, or being overwhelmed with responsibility is high.</p>
<p>When to break confidentiality is something to consider. Young adults want their privacy, and the chance to handle things themselves, but if they are in danger, sometimes breaking a confidence is the right thing to do.</p>
<p>Since we don’t know the whole story, the OP and her daughter will need to decide when that is. If the young man is willing to seek help- then it will be the counselors job to determine how severe the situation is and lead him to counseling/treatment. If he refuses help, then he could be endangering himself and someone would need to be notified.</p>
<p>Ideally a student would feel they could tell their parents, but maybe this is part of the issue too- something that could be addressed by counseling. </p>
<p>I agree that it is better to break a confidence in the case of any danger to himself.</p>
<p>Kiddie - to be honest, the break-up just occurred a month ago, and both D and her ex-boyfriend are still in that post-break-up limbo where neither is doing much of anything. Right now, the ex can’t seem to accept that D was really “serious” about this depression thing.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, though, the signs are not good that the BF will get help. Right now he says that he doesn’t need counseling, that D is wrong about the extent of his problem (even though he’s been “sad” or “down” for over a year now), and that the break-up must be due to something else (he’s suspicious that she is dating someone else. She isn’t, but it’s easier to blame a non-existent new boyfriend than it is to look more deeply at himself.)</p>
<p>IMHO, having had depression as a teen due to a situation although perhaps I had a tendency anyway, I did a lot better without therapy and drugs, and feel that suicidal tendencies would have been a bigger problem with depression counseling and prescription medications added to the mix. In my case, my parents were in denial about the situation that was causing my depression, verbal and physical abuse almost daily, so there could not have been buy-in from them.</p>
<p>If something bad happened in school, and he can’t change it, it is a grieving process for whatever was “lost”. He has a right to be sad, even depressed, if he feels there was a great loss. The thing is, he needs to convince himself that though something was lost, he still has a lot left, and new options have opened for him.</p>
<p>If every time he has a setback, he can’t get over it, yes I would suggest counseling for depression and possible drug therapy. But if one thing is what is hanging him up, therapy addressing getting over that one thing in terms of a grieving process might be a lot better than therapy for depression. </p>
<p>Of course the break-up is yet another situation that can trigger symptoms of depression. I’d say, if I were her, I’d just let him know that she is there for him as a friend, if he wants to talk. But if he thinks she cheated on him, would it be better for both that they don’t talk?</p>
<p>(Did she really only break up with him because he wouldn’t get help for depression symptoms? If yes, would she consider going to therapy with him, at least as a friend?)</p>
<p>I could not imagine my daughter breaking up with him over this at this time - she would never kick a horse when they are down. I would also imagine my daughter would feel the need to help even a friend who was having this issue (not just a boyfriend). The parents are not very supportive and from what I am told are a part of the problem. She was not able to get him to go yesterday, but at least they discussed what is available to him (and that it would be free and confidential) - hopefully that will eliminate his fear of going. I think that it is a bump in the road and that a shot of success and new options opening up would be very helpful to turning the situation around.</p>