Wellness & Fitness

Don’t let depression steal your precious daughter

girl

The young woman may be living in a dark hole that will require cognitive behaviour therapy and medication. PHOTO | FILE

My daughter is irresponsible. At 23, she is jobless despite having a diploma. She can barely write a cover letter let alone edit her CV. I basically do everything for her, from searching for a job, typing the cover letter, to sending it. I feel as if I’m babying her but I want her to get a job so that I can wash my hands off, knowing that I have done all I could for her.

You do not tell us when your 23-year-old daughter became irresponsible. The basic point here is that there are those whose problem started in childhood and there are those for whom the problem is “new” in the sense that they were previously high or average achievers, but whose performance has gone down in the last few months or years.

Let me explain. In the general distribution of biological characteristics, there are those who are high achievers and some who are not. Both are normal people and do not normally generate much concern from family.

The classical bell curve phenomenon is the best way of explaining this point. There are many men who are very tall, and an equal number who are very short.

Both are normal people, in spite of the fact that the majority of people are neither too tall nor too short. Most are of average height and are also normal.

The same example applies to other physical characteristics. Some people are by nature thin, while others are normal but well endowed. The majority are somewhere in the middle. Skin colour is another example. In any village, some people will be dark-skinned while others will be light skinned. All are normal.

This normal distribution of biological and other characteristics falls in a bell like curve, if plotted in a graph. To the left of the centre are normal short people, to the right of the same curve, some tall but normal people.

Human intelligence also follows this classical bell curve. To the left are normal but low intelligence people, to the right the highly gifted. If your daughter has always been to the left of this bell curve, then she will in all likelihood remain there. She might need more support and encouragement than her siblings, but then that is the way she is and you must accept her much as you would have done if she were very bright but short! This might be biology at play and you will not change it.

If on the other hand, your daughter was an average or above average performer all her life, and changed at the age of 17 to become lazy and irresponsible, then this is a new ball game and you must seek help to find out what went wrong.

People do not change from good achievers to poor lazy ones for no reason. The fact that you do not know the reason is reason for you to work even harder! A few examples will make the point.

A 23-year-old girl was brought to us a few years ago, with a history very similar to your daughter’s; Jobless, lazy and spending all day watching movies. Her room told the story; untidy, dark and full of dirty clothes, surrounded by rotting food. She had no friends, she complained that her parents did not love her and loved her brother more.

She gave several examples of why she knew they did not care. She often heard them talk about her. The way they walked around the house was all the evidence she needed. She was clearly paranoid.

Over a number of months, she created a great barrier between herself and the family. When we saw her, she was restless, suspicious, and was clearly suffering from a mental disorder (Schizophrenia). This type of disease sometimes creeps in very slowly, seeming to eat away at the person’s previous personality.

Many families say that their son/daughter has become a total stranger to them. At first it seems as though the patients are pretending but in time all are clear that something has gone wrong.

If indeed that is what has happened to your daughter, then you must get her to the doctor for further and full evaluation.

In yet another case, the diagnosis was that of depression in adolescence. The other girl had become depressed at form Three and nobody recognised it for what it was. She constantly felt tired and slept badly. Her concentration was poor and her moods were swinging wildly.

Parents, teachers and classmates said it was hormonal and followed her periods. They were wrong. This was a major depressive illness that lingered for months. Her grades and self esteem went down. She became even more depressed.

When she failed her Form Four exams, she did a diploma course in office management. Though the depression lifted in time, school failure, low self-esteem and self doubt kept her in a deep, dark hole from where she was unable to lift herself.

A bright girl in primary school had failed to live up to her promise in high school. Depression had stolen her away.

It took many months of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) and medication to get her out of the hole. Is that where your daughter now lives?

It took many months of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) and medication to get her out of the hole. Is that where your daughter now lives.