u/Snaxx9716

My 13yo has very little resilience and poor coping skills… it’s something we’ve been dealing with for years and she has been in counseling but never with a truly good counselor (you all know the drill… the effective ones can be almost impossible to find). So while she’s definitely made some progress, she has a long way to go. I got her into horseback riding which helped more than anything… nothing forces you to cope the way interacting with a 1200 pound animal with opinions does.

She got a concussion last month (difference of opinions with a big horse) and a couple weeks ago she spiraled worse than I’ve ever seen her. She was upset to begin with and then her dad was tired and basically turned his back on her while she was crying instead of being empathetic and trying to help her. That’s her biggest trigger: feeling like someone doesn’t care about her. She was self-harming and threatening worse. I suspect this has a LOT to do with the concussion.

She had a psychiatric eval last week and it was awful. 20min of asking inventory questions, diagnosed with MDD and GAD, offered a choice of two SSRIs. The provider acted annoyed when I asked questions and downplayed side effects. When I asked if there were any alternatives she bluntly said “talk therapy.” Needless to say, we’re getting a second opinion tomorrow.

However, I know the behavioral health system VERY well through my education and work experience. I have little hope that the next provider will do much more than what the other one did.

I was able to create a safety plan with her and she has worked it quite well. She’s trying and I’m supporting her no matter what. And honestly, most days she’s good. She never has issues getting out of bed, appetite is normal, she gets excited about plenty of things, still loves riding horses, and her grades are good. It’s just that once something upsets her, she goes into a downward spiral of negativity and sometimes that spiral goes too deep. I don’t say any of that to minimize what she’s experiencing, rather to just give some context of her day-to-day functioning.

So I’m hoping to hear some perspective and experiences. I don’t want my child to suffer, and I also don’t want to throw her on a medication at such a young age. I’ve tried antidepressants several times and had many bad experiences… I know the side effects aren’t just “a tummy ache that will go away” like the first provider claimed.

Has anyone successfully managed this type of behavior with safety planning and therapy alone? I’m really just looking for anything someone can share that might help me figure out the best path forward, one way or another. I’m hesitant to put her on an SSRI off the bat but not completely unwilling to proceed with medication if it’s necessary to keep her safe.

I posted a while back because I started HRT in December and within a few weeks my hair started falling out in clumps. I wanted to update in case anyone else ends up in the same situation because I really couldn’t find anything on this topic…

Some background: This all started in 2020. Too many things happened all at once (early COVID, stopping traditional hormonal birth control, and starting progestin for endometriosis) to know exactly what caused my shedding but it took years to get it under control. I’ve maintained on topical minox and spiro (I have lean PCOS). I always had dense, fine-textured hair and I had lost so much of it. I finally felt like I had a decent ponytail and then BAM it was all falling out again.

My derm wasn’t sure if the HRT would have caused it that quickly so I followed up with the doctor that prescribed it. She said it was possible but there wasn’t enough literature yet to know what the long-term outcome might be and whether it would stop falling out. I decided to stay the course and see what happened and then realized that I already had baby hairs coming in, although I was still shedding a lot. My shedding stopped about 3 months after it started.

My derm now thinks my body reacted to the sudden fluctuation in my hormones and pushed out all the hair that had grown back in after my chronic TE and is replacing it with new, albeit grey, strands. She was giddy while showing me all the new growth! I’m relieved that I didn’t give up on my HRT and hopeful that in another year I will be back to where I was pre-December.

For what it’s worth, this has been my treatment:

5% topical minoxidil almost daily (sometimes I forget)
100mg spironolactone
Women’s multivitamin
50mcg vitamin D3 (my blood work was on the low end of normal)