How Do I Get my Parents to Believe I’m Depressed?




> From a young teen in the U.S.: I think i may be depressed or have some sort of [depressive](https://psychcentral.com/disorders/depression/) disorder. No one believes me when i try to explain it to them. Around march 14th or 15th of this year i was hospitalized because i was exhausted for no reason, i was drinking water but wasn’t staying hydrated. I was also not eating, i was always feeling down and sad, and i couldn’t [sleep](https://psychcentral.com/disorders/sleep/) at night. I was diagnosed with insomnia and my parents just used that to make jokes out of.
> 
> It’s like my life is just a way to get a few laughs out. No one takes me seriously when i say that there’s something wrong with me. I don’t have any major history of lying, but yet no one trusts me. Sometimes i would tell my mom i was sick because i was just so tired and all i wanted to do was sleep. And not like a fun day in bed surrounded by snack and on my phone, i mean just either sleeping or laying there feeling exhausted from the moment i got up. I really need someone to give me some advice..any will be accepted at this point.
> 
> How Do I Get my Parents to Believe I’m Depressed?
A.Insomnia is no joke. Not getting sufficient [sleep](https://psychcentral.com/disorders/sleep/) at any age, but especially as a teen, is serious business. Sleep disorders can cause [depression](https://psychcentral.com/disorders/depression/), [anxiety](https://psychcentral.com/disorders/anxiety/), diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. According to a poll done in 2005 by Sleep in America, people who were diagnosed with depression or anxiety were more likely to sleep less than six hours at night. A study done in 2007 showed that people with insomnia are 5 times as likely to be depressed as those who got sufficient sleep. At your age “sufficient” means 8 – 9 hours a night.

I urge you to go back to your medical doctor for more tests. I’m alarmed that you were drinking enough but not staying hydrated. There’s more to that than sleep deprivation. I’m also alarmed that apparently you were given a “diagnosis” but not then given a treatment plan to regulate your sleep.

If your primary care physician isn’t able to help you, get a referral to a sleep medicine clinic for a sleep study. Such clinics do a thorough evaluation of how much sleep a person gets and how often and for how long the person is awake. You may be sent home with a monitor to wear. More likely, you will be asked to spend the night at the clinic where they will monitor you throughout the night. You will sleep in a comfortable room in a comfortable bed. You can usually even bring your own pajamas.

Don’t be scared. A sleep study isn’t painful. Doctors or technicians will monitor you while you sleep. Little disks called electrodes will be temporarily glued to your head and attached to an EEG (*electroencephalogram*) machine. This will monitor the electrical impulses in your brain while you sleep and will show the technician how you are moving through the stages of sleep. It will measure possible interruptions in the pattern of your sleep. The technicians will also measure things such as eye movements, oxygen levels in your blood, heart and breathing rates, who much you snore, and how your body moves as you sleep.

The data from your sleep study will be evaluated by your doctor. You will then have a follow up appointment with your doctor to discuss the results and what may need to be done to help you have more regular and restorative sleep.

Please share this response with your parents. I don’t think you are lying or faking. I think you have an untreated medical condition that left untreated will only make things worse.

I wish you well.

Dr. Marie

 

How Do I Get my Parents to Believe I’m Depressed?
don’t feel guilty. i think a lot of people feel this way at some point after having kids, but no one wants to be honest or talk about it. is it not having time that is making you depressed? or is it the loss of freedom? i am a stay at home mom to a 2 1/2 year old and went through a lot of the same things you’re describing. i can tell you that it gets easier to find time as baby’s sleep gets more predictable. past that, we wound up “splitting” most weekends. i sleep in on saturday morning, and my husband sleeps in on sunday. after i wake up on saturday, he usually goes to play golf, and i go to the movies or brunch or something on sunday. i wish i could give you a magic answer, but you just have to play around with your time and see what works best for you. the worst thing you can do is let yourself get into a rut. try to talk to your wife openly and honestly about what you’re feeling. I think many of us have to depend more on observation and self-study than on diagnoses, given the expense of testing and the ugly fact that nothing short of an autopsy can give certainty. Here’s how we are coping with that uncertainty. Before my Mom came to live with us, she had fallen at night going toward the bathroom in her apartment. It was 3 days before anyone found her, and there was severe dehydration and some brain damage due to oxygen starvation. She recovered some functioning in rehab, but we had also noticed before the fall that there were more and more signs of cognitive decline. We were warned by a friend who is a geriatric psychologist to not accept the overall “Alzheimer’s” diagnosis which was bound to occur, but to be aware that there were dozens of dementias, some of which needed very different approaches from what is advised for Alzheimer’s. After she got out of rehab she went through a very bad AL situation and into a very good one. She had a GP who made housecalls but was not that knowledgeable about dementia. She had begun describing what could only be hallucinations and agitation, so her doctor put her on an anti-psychotic, an anti-anxiety and a depression medication. Wow! What a mess! Mom had rarely even taken an aspirin before that so maybe her body was super-responsive to the invaders. Anyway, it did more damage than good, and once we eliminated the meds, she slept all the time. We decided to move her in with us and her new doctor prescribed Namenda. We started with 10 mg, which was too much and increased her agitation. We cut back to 5 mg. once a day at nighttime and it was like a miracle occurred! Now don’t get me wrong, there’s still dementia and it’s still advancing. But my point is that sometimes when you don’t have a diagnosis, it’s useful to read up on the various kinds of dementias, do a checklist of the symptoms to determine which is the best match to the behaviors you are seeing, then become knowledgeable about the various RX’s physicians are likely to try, and get very good at monitoring the response to each and asking about/suggesting others you’ve read about. (I know, you thought that was what doctors did — me, too! Wrong!). I found that as long as I behaved as a fairly well-informed and non-judgmental problem-solving partner (and not as an over-protective, aggressive, critical, and sometimes hysterical relative), I got the same treatment back from the doctors. (Of course, if I did not get that, I did not hesitate to find a doctor with an attitude that worked better for us.). Over time, the troubles with balance, the hallucinations that occur immediately if she misses a dose of Namenda, the depth perception, the amount of activity and conversation that goes on while she’s “sleeping”, the extreme variability from “almost normal” to “almost unable to function”, etc. convinced me it is LBD. It’s not a formal diagnosis because we can’t afford all that testing either. But it’s enough for me to protect her from getting inappropriate medications. While there may come a time to move her to a memory care unit, I will also be able to be proactive with staff about what works with her LBD that is probably vastly different from what works with some of their ALZ patients. Summary: observe, study, and use your best and most loving judgment, with or without a diagnosis. Respect but don’t worship the doctors who are trying to help. And trust your gut. You spend more time with your LO than anyone else and your observations are valuable. some of mine do and some don't. i quit trying to explain to ppl who have no idea what it's all about. some will never truly understand this illness anyhow. hugs. take care 🌺 in many cases it can be treated or managed. first step - a medical consultation to rule out medical conditions, medication, etc. a psychological or psychiatric eval can determine if the insomnia is really part of a treatable psychiatric condition, and practicing good sleep hygiene / working with a psychologist can help. http://cpancf.com/articles\_files/sleephygienehandout.asp. see more... @a myfibroteam member 

how nice of you to say that. i, like many others, have asked god why? why am i the one who has this painful, incurable illness? why am i the one with major depressive disorder? why am i the one that was sexually assaulted so many times? why am i the one who has had to take care of my sister’s children, help them pay for their educations, and support them as they navigate the waters of this crazy world we live in? why me? i made a conscious decision a few years ago, when my lifelong emotional scares got out of control, that i would make one of the answers to those questions be “to help others navigate through this thing called life”. if i can help just one person feel less alone, or like someone cares, or like there is hope after all i will have succeed at life. if i can help just one person fight back instead of giving in my life has a purpose. as a result, this normally very private person has gradually learned to be very open. i am not ashamed of the things that happened...disappointed or angry yes but not ashamed. i talk openly about how major depressive disorder has affected my life and how i’ve been able to come to terms with it. i talk openly about close brushes with suicide and what worked to get me back to a better place mentally. i talk a little less openly about the impact sexual assault had on every aspect of my life (that one is harder because i’m still working on some of the emotions and reactions around it). i talk openly about the changes i’m having to make as fibromyalgia makes itself more and more obvious in me. i’m not perfect. i still get angry and upset. i still get frustrated. i still feel hopeless sometimes. i feel all the negative emotions everyone else does but if i can help just one person, i will have a reason for all i’ve gone through. perhaps people on this site are that reason. it is my deepest hope that others don’t have to suffer as i have but, if they have, i want to use my god-given caregiver heart to help them through. 

may god bless and keep you. 

shirley do you have dry eyes and a really calm disposition?i too fall asleep really easily. i have to drink coffee all the time. i think i should drink more water but i can't seem to do it.breathing problems like what? low breathing?like really calm? thats the only thing i can think of because thats my problem. hi lg, <br>it&#39;ll be interesting to see ( after the weekend, when most readers will be back ) what other people think of the situation you describe. it sounds as if your parents probably are a bit too strict, but with all they hear and see of the dangers of the world today, one can understand their fears  and its even worse when parents don&#39;t care at all. sometimes they may seem to be hypocritical, when they&#39;re actually trying to get you to avoid mistakes they made. your sister sounds immature and spiteful. what would they think if you said you wanted to see a shrink or counsellor to work on the problems they have identified in your behaviour ? ( that way, it makes it harder for them to object  and indeed these diferent perceptions of what is a "problem") ought to be part of what you&#39;d discuss with a counsellor. be cautious about your overdose idea  apart from the obvious dangers to yourself, it&#39;d surely also give them much sronger grounds for being even stricter, which is the exact opposite of what you want to achieve. there are a number of possible reasons, but narcolepsy may well be what you have. you need to get a set of sleep tests (it takes about 24 hours in a sleep laboratory). then a proper diagnosis can be made, and all of the conditions can be treated.<br><br>you really need help asap. part of becoming an adult and having a family of your own is learning how to manage relationships with other people... like your own parents. it can be devastating to have a parent with mental illness, i do understand, my dad lost his battle with mental illness several years ago. however, when you are responsible for a child of your own, you've got to be able to function no matter what else is happening around you. part of that is giving yourself time and space to grieve and to feel what you are feeling rather than trying to stuff it down. find someone to talk to that you can let those tears go with, a counselor... or friend... your husband... even calling a warmline if necessary. the baby will be fine. "normal" for a mentally healthy person, no. "normal" for someone with depression, absolutely. i have been in your boyfriends shoes. i have sabotaged countless relationships because of my depression and anxieties. it's like when i need people the most i push them away because i know i'm going to let them down. when i slip back into my depression i am no use to other people. i can't be there for them, i can't go out, i can barely even hold a conversation. it sound to me like he is trying to protect you. he probably doesn't realize he may actually be hurting you and himself with what he is doing.