What It Feels Like When Your Child Has Depression

My husband took his own life in 2007 when my youngest daughter was six and the oldest was 16. The youngest is autistic and was struggling in the aftermath. She's been in therapy for many years and has spent most of the last three years in an adolescent psychiatric unit. My older daughter was 13 or 14 when it happened and and is also autistic. She was severely depressed and really wasn't coping with life at all, she could barely get out of bed and her life was horrible. So the psychiatrist and I agreed to try fluoxetine and see if it would help her mood. She's been on antidepressants ever since; she's now on citalopram, which I think works better. My younger daughter is now on antipsychotics as well. She was originally admitted to hospital for anorexia but we now know she's also got borderline personality disorder, which we didn't know at the time. My older daughter has anxiety, depression, emotional dysregulation and a lot of other things. The medication keeps them stable and I can tell when they haven't taken their tablets.

The suicide was very traumatic and dramatic. But before then my husband was also mentally ill and very erratic, and his behaviour could cause the children to feel very scared. Both of the girls were very traumatised by his behaviour, and then the suicide was a last straw. Having said that, I'm not sure with or without those factors, whether they would have been on medication anyway. They were struggling before he died. Putting them on antidepressants was a decision made between myself and the psychiatrist. We had to do something at the time and that was the only thing we could do because neither of them were able to access talking therapy and what they were accessing wasn't helping them.

Antidepressants aren't the answer for some kids but in my daughters' cases they've been effective. I can see a change in them and while the drugs don't solve everything, they help them to remain stable and keep going, and sometimes that's what you need. A lot of people say antidepressants have a numbing effect but I disagree. I'm on 40mg of citalopram and have been for years. I don't feel it numbs my emotions, it just keeps me okay enough to do what I have to do. You need to get the medication and dosage right, which can be difficult as they don't start working straightaway. You have to wait six weeks to see if they really are making any difference. That can be quite difficult to gauge for some parents.

It doesn't worry me that they might be on them forever. Personally I'd be happy being on citalopram for the rest of my life because when I had a heart attack last year they took me off it and I became very ill. We'll try to decrease their dosage at some point and see if that works but if they need them for the rest of their lives, I can't see the harm. It's a little white pill every morning and it keeps you going, it keeps you stable.

It wasn't the greatest thing when my daughters first went on them. You don't want your child to take medication but being logical about it, I knew we had to try it. I was open-minded because I wanted them to be able to lead the best life they could. But some parents refuse to go down that road, so it's an incredibly individual thing. If you've got a young child who can't make that decision for themselves then you have to be the one that makes that call. You want to do what's best and you don't want to put drugs into your child, but if it's the right thing to do then it's the right thing to do.

Some parents feel they've failed their child if they have to take medication. I do a lot of campaigning on mental health, autism and suicide, and I think the stigma around mental health and taking tablets has to be tackled at every level. If we stop stigmatising adults who take antidepressants then the stigma of children taking them will be lowered. We have to be more open about mental health and what people struggle with. When I had my heart attack recently I had to take numerous drugs for my health and I wouldn't dream of not taking them, so I don't see the difference between taking drugs to help my heart and taking a drug to help my brain. If you can look at it that way and get other people to look at it that way, then that stigma is going to be lowered significantly. You might be seen as weak if you take antidepressants, but if you need something to balance the chemicals in your brain then you need something to balance the chemicals in your brain.

I'm not surprised about the rise in the number of children taking antidepressants. They're under pressure from school to get certain grades. They're under pressure from social media to look a certain way. In my time we didn't have things like that and the pressure wasn't there. Social media is a very powerful tool and it's great, but at the same time the peer pressure is insidious. It's going into young people's brains and they're constantly being made to think about what they should have and what they should look like. Children aren't children anymore, they're expected to perform a certain way and be a certain way. They're under far too much pressure.

To any parent feeling like a failure because their child is on antidepressants, I'd say: don't feel ashamed. Be open-minded and if the drugs are helping your child then go with it for as long as you need to. Keep reviewing it, keep an open mind constantly. I always have, as to whether we should try something different or try a lower dose, but I don't feel ashamed because it has nothing to do with anything anyone's done. It's just a fact of life and society shouldn't make you feel guilty. Society should be supportive of different people and the ways they're different and they need different therapies. If it's working for your child then fantastic, you've found something that works. It's a positive thing if it's helping and it shouldn't be stigmatised.