You mention weight - does she have an eating disorder driving the other behavior? My sister had a lot of success at St Francis in Tulsa after going to many other places first.

Thank you for taking time to post!

She doesn't appear to have an eating disorder. Right now it's mainly no appetite even though she is on a medication to increase her appetite and help with sleep.

She taught 3rd grade until the school increased her student load from approximately 40 to 90 students which was the trigger that started all of this in 2019. She has not been able to recover since. Covid in 2020 surely didn't help the situation.

Thanks for sharing your experience. It takes an unbelievable amount of strength to go through what you and many others are going through. I'm praying for you and your family.

Have y'all looked into CBD/Delta8/cannabis?

I could write a novel on how much it's helped me

Besides family, does she have any other support groups? She had a successful career but now what does she do? Any hobbies? What gets her out of bed in the morning?

Would she be willing to try participating in a running club? It looks like Brazos Runners Club has a good group of people - if all she does is show up and walk, talk, and socialize. Joining a running club has been the most positive influence on my mental and physical health.

jczar03 said:

---

I've been lurking the Texags boards for a long time. There are many good people on here always willing to help, share experiences and offer good advice, and it is appreciated. Our family is at a point where we just don't know what else to do. My 29-year old daughter, Class of 2015, had a successful 5-year elementary school teaching career, but has been suffering from anxiety, depression and OCD for the past 2+ years. She has one of the best possible family support systems one could hope for. She has been to multiple psychiatrists (pleased with the current one), numerous counselors, intensive counseling, been prescribed different medications, etc. The most significant issue with treatment over this period is that she struggles taking medication as she thinks it makes her feel worse and we believe that she constantly lies about taking it. She is petite, but should not be under 100 pounds petite. She struggles gaining weight and keeping it on. The whole situation is heartbreaking for us.

We are looking for effective counselors in the College Station area. We are also considering a clinic or hospital in the U.S. that could help. As noted above, any advice, thoughts, recommendations, experiences, etc. would be greatly appreciated.

---

If she has a counselor who's open to it, I'll send a macrodose and a month's supply of microdose capsule or pharma-compounding tablets with psilocybin.

Take the macrodose, have the trip alone or with an APPROPRIATE sitter, reflect write and then talk to counselor about the experience. Microdose capsules taken once every 2 days or 4 days on 3 days off.

It can absolutely reset the filters you've put around reality for your own protection that ends up as OCD/Anxiety/etc.

Love to help, lemme know

Cryptohemp at gmail

https://www.elephantos.com/en/blog/the-benefits-of-psilocybin-and-ocd.html

I should mention that Hashimoto's is commonly misdiagnosed as OCD. I read that 30-40% of Hashimoto's patients are initially diagnosed with OCD and sent to a psychiatrist instead of an endocrinologist.

Meditation. Real some philosophy

Thank you all for taking the time to respond. I can't put into words how much it's appreciated.

Not judging, but does your daughter recognize she needs help? If yes, does she *want* it?

Knowing / wanting is 2/3 the battle.

She realizes she can't get past this without something. Unfortunately, she believes the medications she has been on reluctantly and inconsistently, have caused her to have more issues and don't work. Not sure that she has really ever given the medications a chance to work appropriately.

She has been employed more than not over the past 2.5 years and is currently employed.

This is a difficult nut to crack. Once we can get her stabilized again, I've got to try to figure out the source of this instead of just accepting treatment for the symptoms with generic applicable medications. Possible sources causing this are mentioned earlier, are greatly appreciated and will be checked out. We have already completed an extensive test of hormones with an Endocrinologist so we were able to eliminate chemical imbalances. I found out about another one during a chance meeting that might help someone else reading this thread. It allowed for proper treatment of his daughter who miraculously was able to quickly improve. It's a test for a MTHFR gene mutation. This mutation appears to be the cause for several common problems seen today. I'm not planning to stop until we get to the bottom of this.

Thanks again to everyone here!

It's gotta be difficult. I've got a 6 yr old and a 2 yr old [girl/boy], and can only imagine.

Is there any trauma uncovered during the psychiatrist/counselor visits? Covid is it's own trauma, especially as a teacher with such opposing views of reality from every avenue... gotta be tough on mental health.

If she loves teaching, has she considered home schooling a small class? Sometimes a fit of depression is exactly what happens before entrepreneurship flares it's magnificent head...

You mentioned you think she's not being honest about her medication regiments, are there other substances she might be consuming under your radar? Prior injuries or pain mgmt concerns?

Sleep patterns?

Anyways, really curious about it and hope you all find resolution that's lasting and helpful.

[Edit]
And yeah social media is pretty corruptive to the soul, tinder/etc. Apps are far from helpful (although my brother met his fiance on tinder)...

wangus12 said:

---

I know this isn't probably helpful, but my wife really struggled with anxiety and depression while she was teaching for 9 years. All the hours of teaching and coaching and dealing with administration and parents in that thankless hellhole wore her down. She got out last year and I got to watch the person I married reappear. Massive weight got lifted off her shoulders.

Hope yall can get her the help she needs. Will be praying for her and your family.

---

As a guy who has been teaching for 20 years, I can tell you that these past two years have been absurd. Last year was just a new challenge but this year has been the first time I've thought about getting out of the game. It's not anything other than student behaviors and I've never struggled with student behaviors. Maybe it's this class of kids but I think we've done some damage to our kids with this whole COVID issue and it's going to take time to get them back to normal. The bizarre thing is that it's not the kids that stayed at home last year that are the issue.
I'm not much help but maybe it is time for a career change. Although I could see that possibly causing a whole other set of issues.

Just my two cents...my step daughter has several of the same issues, but mostly brought on by a psychologically abusive bio father. Maybe not quite the level of your daughter, but similar. Trauma is still trauma. The rejection she received from her father has manifested itself into several behavior issues...low self esteem, no confidence, shy, garbage boyfriends...throw in ADD that was misdiagnosed several years ago, then compound everything geometrically with social media. She has very few friends, but usually the friends are in worse shape than her. She has no one that will bring her 'up'.

She is medicated but the side effects are stomach issues and inability to sleep soundly. When she doesn't take her med, she acts like a 10 yr old that crawls into her shell, sleeps a ton, and just scrolls through social media.

When she DOES take her med, she is far better and what you may perceive as a normal 25 yr old. But she hates the side effects. It is a double edged sword.

She is in counseling regularly but I don't think it does anything as I believe she manipulates the conversation to talk about one or two current anxiety based issues, and the counselor never digs deeper to get to the CAUSE of the anxiety situation.

What helps? Same as some previous posters have already stated. Working out and staying busy. When she goes to the gym regularly, eats fairly well, her self esteem is much higher, better behavior then follows. Staying busy, while she doesn't know it yet, is mandatory. When she is on break from school, she is usually a minor to hot mess. (That could also be because she doesn't necessarily take her med when off school.) She is FAR better when her mind is occupied with something productive, striving towards a goal and having measurable accomplishments. I have tried to get her to volunteer also, but to no avail. So the only thing we can do from a distance (she is still at school) is to encourage her to spend time with better people, or doing things that she can accomplish and not overwhelm.

I didn't mean to make this post "all about MY daughter"...just trying to draw some parallels. This period we are going through will be broken down and analyzed for decades to come. The affect on our young people is way too complicated to merely medicate them into a zombie-like state. You being a great parent and just being there may be all that is possible to weather this storm?

Women definitely are better at masking adhd symptoms, and sometimes adhd symptoms are actually trauma symptoms, really messy stuff.

She stay pretty well organized?
Has she left college Station and gone out on her own?
Changes of scenery and new challenges can bring some tremendous changes in people. My brother was going through a depression spell, living with parents, got laid off, o practically forced him to come up to CO and live with us for a bit, and work at my store.

After a few months of getting sick and tired of living with me he went home, got a job, met a girl, got engaged, and is getting married in about 8 weeks.

I can't say I DID ANYTHING other than force him out of his routine of video games and free food and rent, take him out to the wilderness for hikes, a tiny bit of weed since he was looking for a job, and force him to do marketing for the store via Facebook as payment for room/board.

We can get into these really deep ruts in life, especially if we are hiding from past traumas.

G hirsitum is a good Ag and we talk regularly.


Now I'm not sure if it was answered but is she asking you guys for help or is she following your lead for help? Like another poster said, far far more effective if it's coming from internal motivation.

I recently started taking an SSRI, and I agree they do not make me feel good. They make the hard spots less difficult. One thing I wanted to suggest, you really need to be consistent with the medication. I got fed up with the side effects of one and just stopped taking it one day. I was okay for a couple of days then I crashed. I had what felt like an 8 hour panic attack - way worse than the ones that caused me to get on meds. I changed meds and have not missed a day for fear of the withdrawal.

Thanks again for the support and conversation. This is a very informative and useful thread for me.

I'm trying to answer as many of the questions as I can, so hopefully I'm getting to most of them. I would love to hear my daughter ask for help to get better, but that hasn't happened. Unfortunately, I think there was a lot of outside advice that she needed to grow up, act like an adult and figure it out herself, including from counselors. She seems to now be an adult stuck in an adolescence time period which is strange. It's difficult to talk through all of the negative responses and thoughts during conversations. For example, she picked at her food all day yesterday. I tried to find out if she had no appetite, felt full, felt nauseated, food tasted bad to her, etc. The answer was she didn't know how to eat. That's a small part of what we are dealing with.

I'm not quite sure we are ready for some of the non-medicinal recommendations, but nothing is being ruled out.

She has to decide whether she can be mature enough to do what it takes to function on a daily basis and try to get better (focus on eating, drinking, sleeping, medication, counseling, exercise, relationship with God, etc.) or go to a facility where most of these are forced.

We are in the Houston area.

I'll be in Houston on March 17th for the night before my brothers bachelor party that weekend. Lemme know if I can bring any tools or guidance for your daughter.

administrative errors said:

---

Max Power said:

---

I can definitely see some similarities in your daughter and myself. I've worked from home about 7 years now and I no longer live in Texas, I'll put it bluntly, I don't have any friends anymore, and it's messed me up. I only bring this up because people are tribal, and if you feel isolated (even if you're surrounded by family) it's really damaging to your mental health. Even though I know I've had depression for quite a long time I had friends back in Texas, people I'd see all the time, go to the bar, concerts, movies, fishing, etc. I didn't have to be medicated until I left, I felt like I had my people around me, now I don't. Every time I go back to Texas I make it a point to see them and my family, but it's not reciprocated, none of my friends has come to visit, not a single one that we had at my wedding, not a single one whose wedding I went to. It can reinforce the isolation, depression, self esteem, etc.

---

It is hard, went from huge pockets of friends all over the state to like 4 people we see regularly besides neighbors.

I dont know if the social media connections have helped or hurt, but I do make an effort to call the friends that bring me energy or incite curiousity and keep up with them or update them on my nonsensical ramblings about the world at large.

If you ever want/need to shoot the ****, I'll be your huckleberry. Love to listen.

---

Same here. Let me know if you want to chat. Happy to be a sounding board.

jczar03 said:

---

Thanks again for the support and conversation. This is a very informative and useful thread for me.

I'm trying to answer as many of the questions as I can, so hopefully I'm getting to most of them. I would love to hear my daughter ask for help to get better, but that hasn't happened. Unfortunately, I think there was a lot of outside advice that she needed to grow up, act like an adult and figure it out herself, including from counselors. She seems to now be an adult stuck in an adolescence time period which is strange. It's difficult to talk through all of the negative responses and thoughts during conversations. For example, she picked at her food all day yesterday. I tried to find out if she had no appetite, felt full, felt nauseated, food tasted bad to her, etc. The answer was she didn't know how to eat. That's a small part of what we are dealing with.

I'm not quite sure we are ready for some of the non-medicinal recommendations, but nothing is being ruled out.

She has to decide whether she can be mature enough to do what it takes to function on a daily basis and try to get better (focus on eating, drinking, sleeping, medication, counseling, exercise, relationship with God, etc.) or go to a facility where most of these are forced.

---

can you explain this further? from all your posts before this I wouldnt have expected this after your first few posts about her. I am sorry man