She’s made all the mistakes, so you don’t have to… Ask Erin is a weekly advice column, in which Erin answers your burning questions about anything at all.
Q.
My sister (who is 16) was diagnosed with depression a year ago, amid Covid19. I do not live with my family as I am away in Europe for college, and my father does not live with my family either as my parents are divorced. He lives outside of the US. Recently, my brother started university, which left my mom and my sister alone.
I can't visit my family due to the travel restrictions, so the only thing I can think of now is to ask for advice on how I can help from far away.
My mom tried to make my sister feel better. After my sister was first admitted into the crisis center, my mom cleaned her room, bought new bedsheets, and made a schedule for her. But things have gone downhill.
My sister does not only threaten to kill herself, but she is also mean.
She has told both my parents things a parent would never want to hear from their own child. For example, she tells my mom she hates her and that she is the worst mom in the world, and the only reason she would care about her is that they live under the same roof.
She won't pick up my dad's phone calls nor mine. When my mom has had enough and wants to ground her, she threatens to kill herself or call child services. Thus, my mom could not do anything about the situation. Not only that, now she has decided she can't wait to be 18 and leave the house for good and never to see her family ever again.
As you might imagine, my mom is exhausted and is constantly crying; the situation is wearing on her. My little sister doesn't want to do anything with my mom, and even going out for breakfast turns into a bad episode of my sister not wanting to talk or insulting my mom.
I think my question is... How can I help if I am so far away from home?
I try to reassure my mom, but at this point, I think she has lost all hope of my sister getting better. My sister won't talk to anyone in her nuclear family. She has some friends online we don't know, and I don't know if they are giving her strange ideas or are there for her as support. As she doesn't have in-person classes, she stays in her room all day.
I am waiting for your response and advice.
A.
I’m so sorry your sister is going through this, and I know how challenging and frustrating it must be for your family. Unfortunately, your sister is not alone. This is far more common than you think, even in the best of times, let alone during the state of the world in the past 18 months.
I know of so many teenagers who struggled with depression and other mental health issues during this pandemic. It’s been so hard on adults. I can imagine how fucking hard it is to be a teenager right now. As the mother of an 18-year-old, my imagination doesn’t have to work too hard. You add in a propensity toward depression or any other mental health issue, and it is not at all surprising that so many kids are struggling.
The first thing I want you to consider is that the way your sister lashes out at your mother is a typical symptom of depression in teenagers. Teens do not display depression in the same ways as adults do.
Where depression in an adult may look like sadness, it often looks like anger and irritability in a teenager.
As someone who was a depressed teenager and as someone who has parented a depressed teenager, everything you mention in your email is familiar—the anger, the lashing out, the “not wanting to have anything to do with” your mom, the withdrawal in communication from you and your dad, expressing the desire to get away from the family and out of the house, etc. These are ALL things I did and have experienced as a parent.
I know it may be difficult for you to understand how your sister could possibly say those things to your mom. That’s because you weren’t a 16-year-old with mental health issues living at home without her dad and siblings during a pandemic, therefore isolated from the social structure of school. Nevertheless, I tell you all this because I really want you to understand that how she is acting makes sense in light of recognizing these factors.
Your sister lashes out at your mom because your mother is the safest place for her to go with all of these overwhelming feelings she has.
Yes, we want her to learn better coping mechanisms. Yes, it’s exhausting for your mom. It’s horrible as a parent to hear “I hate you.” Over the years, I heard it from my son many times. What your sister hates is her situation. She hates being “trapped” at home, feeling alone and in pain. And she is likely convinced that none of you can understand this, which may or may not be accurate. She has no control over her situation. That lashing out is an expression of extreme frustration that has nowhere to go but out.
Additionally, when adolescents feel out of control and miserable, they often don’t know what to do with those emotions other than transferring them to the people closest to them. As a result, they can unconsciously want the person or people closest to them to feel as bad as they do.
So what should be done?
First and foremost, your sister’s feelings, even those you find shocking, need to be validated.
When my mom and I finally went to therapy together, I was encouraged to express what I was feeling, what was at the root of some of my anger. Your sister likely has unresolved feelings about the divorce. The greatest gift my mom gave me? She allowed me to unload those feelings without trying to diminish them or invalidate them. She let me say what I needed to say, and her response was, “I am so sorry. It must feel awful to feel that way.” Sometimes it is as simple as letting a teenager know that what they are feeling is not “crazy” or invalid.
Your sister needs more than what she got at the crisis center. She needs ongoing support from a therapist and possibly a psychiatrist. While your mom was well-intentioned with trying to clean up her room and make her feel better, that will not solve the problem. In addition, your mom would benefit from counseling herself. I KNOW how hard it is to parent, and I know how hard it is to parent a kid with depression. She needs support and guidance from a professional, too.
A quick note on her online friends—they are all she has in terms of peer support. It is doubtful that they are giving her strange ideas. So, let her have the little social life she has. As you said, she doesn’t have in-person classes, and she is basically in her room all day.
Now, as for your role as her sister who lives far away, don’t stop checking in on her, but don’t smother her or expect her to tell you everything. If she is threatening suicide, get medical help immediately. Even if you suspect the threats are being used to manipulate, you cannot ignore them; they are still cries for help. Reach out to your sister in lighter ways too. Send her funny memes or links to videos, video chat if she is open to it. Send her a package or letter because those little gestures DO mean something.
I’ve found that the best way to get someone to open up is by sharing your experiences rather than asking them to share theirs.
Kids and teenagers, and adults, may be reluctant to open up about what they’re going through. That’s okay. More often than not, people open up to me, including my kid, when I’ve opened up about something I struggled with. Sure, you may not understand precisely what she is going through, but as a human being, you have felt sadness or pain or grief. So share that with her, without any expectations or demands that she will do the same. But my hunch is that with time, she will.
As her older sister, you have the opportunity to be the person she turns to when she feels like she can’t go to your parents. You can be an ally, a safe space.
When we open up to people, it gives them the permission and safety to do so with us.
This is absolutely why people feel comfortable coming to me with advice because I have shared so much about my own life, because they know I am not here to judge, because they know that I will always come from a place of compassion and empathy.
Be patient. Be open. Be compassionate. Model behavior of healthy emotional regulation and boundaries. And please, above all else, encourage your mom to get her more counseling, individual and family. If you need any help with where to find that, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
The information within Ask Erin should in no way be interpreted as medical advice because I’m not a medical professional. But I am here to help — to share the wisdom I’ve gained after years of making mistakes. If you have a question for me about relationships, addiction, dating, friendships, depression, parenting, sex, consent, what I’m watching, what I’m reading, what I’m listening to, Gaspeite, or anything at all, use the contact form HERE or email me: askerin@erinkhar.com. As always, your anonymity is golden.
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*Artwork: Tess Emily Rodriguez