A Parent's Guide for Suicidal and Depressed Teens (24 page)

Read A Parent's Guide for Suicidal and Depressed Teens Online

Authors: Kate Williams

Tags: #Family & Relationships, #Life Stages, #Teenagers, #Self-Help, #Depression, #test

 
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she was putting herself in jeopardy by her crazy sleeping habits and her reliance on sugar to get through the day. I didn't know at the time that she was drinking three huge bottles of soda a day with a high sugar content. After this assessment she made some changes in her eating habits, especially her sugar intake. She became more consciously responsible for her diet, health, and exercise. Exercise is essential for the release of anger, guilt, shame, depression, fear, and stress. How wonderful that she figured out what to do.
Be Patient with the Mystery of the Process
One day Rachel received a letter from one of her friends from treatment. She said she had gone back into the hospital. Her letter said that the day before she went in, she didn't have that much to eat, and she and her friends sat around all day smoking, drinking coffee, and talking about suicide. Her physical stress level contributed to her uneasy emotional state. It's surprising how such prevalent and simple substances such as sugar, nicotine, and caffeine can speed our bodies up to the point that we're feeling stressed and anxious.
Adolescents must learn to monitor the behaviors that contribute to their stress level. This is one area where parents really need to let go; it really is out of our control. If our children are stressed, we
 
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can provide some guidance if they can't figure out where the stress is coming from, and then be open to talking about choices for the situation.
It's important for you and your child to talk openly about stress. It's important for your child to have a commitment to certain activities that reduce stress and to be accountable for maintaining these activities. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle is especially important for suicidal kidsthey react quickly and desperately when their stress level is over the edge.
 
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18
Fiery Zits and Sudden Outbursts: Anger
Anger is a great energizer if you don't get stuck in it.
LAVONNE STEWART
Adolescents often have a lot of anger and don't know where to put it or how to express it. Like all of us, they need to learn to express anger directly in a nondestructive fashion. Many adolescents who have been raised in a family with problems are quite understandably afraid of angerafraid both to feel it and express it. Others are acting out angrily because they have experienced so much anger around them. Anger is the jack-of-all-trades for many adults, the expression for all buried feelings of hurt, shame, and fear.
It's not always easy to tell how your child is feeling. Rachel always looked happy-go-lucky until she crashed. Then she expressed negative feelings toward herself. Part of her early work was to learn how to move from self-destructiveness to anger.
 
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Rachel's therapist, Barbara, had her make an anger jar. She told Rachel to take an empty peanut butter jar and fill it up with slips of paper, each one with the name of a person she was mad at. These people could be from any time in her life, and they could represent little and enormous angers. It takes lots of little pieces of paper to fill a peanut butter jar, but Rachel kept at it and pretty soon it was full. In fact, it was so full the pieces of paper stuck out the top and flopped over like a house plant. At the next therapy session, Barbara asked Rachel to pull out some of the slips at random and talk about her anger. This exercise gave Rachel permission to see her anger in a tangible way. It was okay to be mad.
Other suggestions for dealing with anger:
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Closing the door to your room and yelling.
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Beating a pillow with a tennis racket.
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Running hard for a long time.
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Calling a friend.
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Speaking with "I" statements, "I'm really mad."
The therapy process helps people take the next step, which is to deal directly and assertively with the situations making you mad. Barbara taught Rachel how to do this.

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