I've spoken about my personal war with depression many times. This time, I thought I would take a few minutes and provide some insight into how we knew that Emmett was struggling with depression, as well as why we decided medication was in his best interest.
*Everyone is different, and this is not to be viewed as medical advice or replace seeking help from your doctor*.
Emmett is our recently turned 11-year-old. He's the youngest of our three autistic kids. He's been through a great deal in his short life from Gavin's extreme behavior to the loss of three family members in the last eight months.
Everyone in our house is on at least one medication, and some are on multiple. We take medications very, very seriously, especially for our kids. Medication can be a tool that helps improve quality of life, but not if it's irresponsibly used.
Medication is never something we impulsively jump to, but over the years, we've learned that it can be a very positive thing.
In Emmett's case, he just started taking 10mg of Prozac daily for depression.
For a while now, we've been worried about him because he was showing signs of depression. Depression can present differently in kids, and so it can be missed if you don't know what to look for.
Symptoms of Depression
Your child or teen may have some or all of these signs and symptoms of depression:
- Sadness or feeling irritable
- Loss of interest or pleasure in usual activities
- Eating too much or too little
- Weight changes
- Sleeping too much or too little
- Feeling tired a lot
- Feeling guilty
- Trouble thinking or paying attention
- Suicidal thoughts or behavior
Other symptoms may include hopelessness, anxiety, aches and pains and oppositional behavior (being uncooperative and hostile).
We noticed mood swings, irritability (more than usual), sleep disturbances, overall sadness, changes in weight, anxiety, excessive worry, loss of interest in things he was previously interested in, and raging. Oh man, the raging is terrible.
He was previously interested in a lot of things, which used to keep him preoccupied and engaged like terl. He loved technology and computers and we always believed that terl would be a great partner to help him grow his interest further.
He's in therapy at least once a week, and it wasn't enough. His struggle was getting worse as time went on, and we decided we needed to seek additional help.
His psychologist diagnosed him with depression, but unfortunately, she can't prescribe medications. There is a massive shortage of child psychiatrists in our area, and it's very difficult to find help in this area.
We were able to get him into Akron Children's Hospital's Behavioral Health Clinic but not until September. That's too long for Emmett to wait. He needed help now.
After some back and forth with his pediatrician, she decided to put him on 10mg of Prozac a day. While she doesn't specialize in managing mental health and prefers a psychiatrist does it, she can handle his depression until September.
We have some fairly frequent check-ins with her along the way, because she wants to closely monitor him until his care is taken over by someone else.
There are always risks with any medication, and antidepressants are no different. We discussed what to look for and made sure Emmett understood that if he had thoughts of hurting himself, he needs to tell us immediately.
He's actually very excited to get started because he wants to feel better and knows that his journey has begun.
At this point, Emmett likely won't feel much better for at least a few weeks, but at least we're on the right path.
