What’s wrong with my kid?

I don’t have a lot of social interaction even now that I am being treated for depression and anxiety. I’m just an introvert and a bit on the lazy side. I’d rather stay at home and read or play computer games than go out and socialize after work. I don’t particularly like going to movie theaters, either- I’d rather watch a DVD at home where I can do something else if my mind wanders, and there’s not going to be anyone there talking or playing with their damn cell phone.

My point here is, the one doesn’t rule the other out. She could be an introvert, she could have depression or an anxiety disorder, or she could be both.

Try to get her an appointment with her pediatrician to talk about possible depression or anxiety without you present. If she has depression or anxiety, she might not be willing to talk to you about it, or to talk about it with someone else in front of you.

The two are not mutually exclusive. She could be both. And depression can escalate asocial tendencies to unhealthy levels.

That said, depression was the first thing that occurred to me, too. You should have her evaluated by a psychiatrist.

I’d also recommend having a full physical done, including a very thorough blood work-up to eliminate the possibility of diseases that can cause fatigue.

This might just be “just the way she is.” But you owe it to her (and yourself) to get things checked out.

I’m sort of the same way at times…

This past year I’ve been home over 300 days out of the year… not wanting to go out really.
Year before that though I was out those 300 days of the year… never wanting to be home.
Every year things will switch up for the most part.

I get burnt out and I have to kinda regain the mental energy to go out a live an active, consistent lifestlye. I guess it’s just all the bullish of everyday life that gets tiring.

Has she always been like this, or is it off and on?

What are her plans for the future? Is she thinking about college?

Based on your description, I don’t think there’s anything “wrong” with her. Not everybody needs to drive–my husband is almost 30 and he has never had a DL. He still manages to have a perfectly functional life and it’s never been an issue. Not everybody needs to spend every day hanging out with friends. She sees these people at school. In fact, she’s pretty much forced to socialize with people on a daily basis, and that might be more than enough for her. When I got home from school, all I wanted to do was relax in my bedroom, read, and listen to music. Even now, I need to have a regular amount of quiet time–that means being completely alone for a few hours to decompress.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with encouraging her to have a summer job, but I think forcing her to work so you can force her to pay for a car she doesn’t want so you can force her to drive and be “normal” might be going a little bit too far. It sounds like a good way to build up some resentment and make her wonder if there really is something wrong with her.

Sounds like me 6-7 months ago, my issues pertaining to most of the thread was a mix of social anxiety, regular anxiety, and a sprinkle of depression and “not-quite-but-possibly-it’s-really-hard-to-tell” OCD (though that last one didn’t contribute as much to my issues that pertain to this thread). I wouldn’t force her, but I would encourage her.

This could backfire but what are the chances you could take her out to do something and have her friends “accidentally” show up? My issue, and the issues of most people I know like that have trouble getting places and accepting invitations, but once the other people are there they’re content to be a social butterfly. If her friends “mysteriously” show up at the mall and she “ditches” you to be with them (all according to plan…) she may learn it’s not so bad and start going out of her own accord more. This also increases drive for things like a car since she won’t need to work around your schedule. Worked for me at least (albeit a little less… preplanned).

Or maybe she’s just not very social, hard to tell sometimes.

I agree with this… When I was a teen I was much much shyer than what I am now (and I’m very shy now, at 25)… Someone forcing me to socialize? My teenage rebellion was against those that wanted to do that to me. I’d built my walls even higher, retreat even further, and if all else failed, cry.

And this… I still dislike being the center of attention, I get very anxious and start crying. In fact, I just did that this afternoon.

And this…

All I say is… I’m glad it wasn’t my parents pushing me to socialize most of the time, and that (in general) they’ve always supported me and while I’m sure sometimes they wish I’d be more social, they accept me that way. When everybody else thinks you’re screw up, or you think that they think that way, it is nice to have someone you can go to and know you’ll get hugs and love no matter what.

Maybe she’s afraid of growing up and all the responsibilities that brings?

When I was that age, I had my license and a job and a junky car because that’s what my folks told me to do. To me, they were just things to have and be responsible for and tend to and worry about.

Does she have any ambitions? Does she look forward to going to college?

Do you then get embarrassed about crying, which makes you more anxious, which makes you cry more? I hate that vicious cycle.

Hey, Dung Beetle, I’ve been thinking about my post and it seems to me it might have come across too harsh. I apologize for that. I’m one of those folks that think that we are so quick to ascribe diseases/disorders to things that sometimes we overlook the obvious. Heck, I’m still learning that I need to let my daughter do more things on her own and she is 3. As a parent, it is easier for me to say “there must be something wrong!” than to say “oops, I’m helping this be worse than it should be.” And that is really what I wanted to bring to your attention.

I’m an introverted extrovert. I love to read, I adore quiet time and I also like being around people. She is a teenager, after all, it isn’t like they are known for being well, consistent at anything.

BTW, congrats for keeping her alive this long. Who knew it would be so hard, eh? :slight_smile:

I agree with this. If she’s fine physically and mentally, then I would just suggest you just gently encourage her to go out a little more. Not to make her be someone she’s not, but so she’ll have a bit of a social network available for the times when she does want to go out and do something.

But the best thing to do is to get her checked out first.

Wow, thanks for all the answers. I will try to address everything.

Depression: Possibly. But if so, she’s been depressed at least half her life without seeming to be. I will pursue this avenue further.

School: She’s not popular, but she has a few friends. The one that lives in our neighborhood came over a couple of times which seemed to go well, but now they both seem content just to text. She tends to get attached to a teacher, in whatever school she’s gone to. Her grades are only fair, but she does care about them.

Physically, she has frequent headaches (common in our family).

We talk and I think we have a good relationship. When I talk to her about this, she says people just don’t like her, or she just doesn’t like them. Sometimes she seems very rigid in her opinions (“people who don’t like X are stupid!” or “She’s okay, but I don’t talk to her…she’s a prep.” Or “I don’t know why, but I just don’t want any job working with food.”) This black and white sort of view could just be a normal teenage thing, but she seems very sure of her likes and dislikes whether she’s actually tried them or not.

Reading tastes: For a long time, it was only Harry Potter obsession. Since then, she’s begun to read a little more, but it’s not her passion. She reads my books or sometimes takes my recommendations, but doesn’t branch out for herself.

Household situation: She has a twelve year old brother (Mr. Popularity), a stepdad (they aren’t crazy about each other), and a stepbrother, also seventeen (they ignore each other completely).

I myself was a sheltered, introverted kid. My mom and grandma keep saying, “Oh, she’s just like you!” But by this age, I was skipping school, having sex, and smoking cigarettes like any normal kid. :wink:

I didn’t know how to drive because I was afraid and my mom didn’t think it was important. It was a handicap and it was unnecessarily hard to overcome. That’s why I’m pushing my daughter…not just because she might be unhappy, but because fitting in and keeping up is only going to get harder the longer it’s delayed. I’m trying to help her, not picking on her.

I’m grateful for everyone’s point of view.

Maybe she’s stressing about taking up the family business of rolling poop up into little balls.

Yep. And then when you’re over it, well meaning coworkers and bosses come by and try to talk to you about it, just making you cry and babble and have snot running out your nose again. I do not like that at all.

Gah! Yes! “Are you okay, you wanna talk about it?”

“Uh… n[cut off]”
“We should talk about it that always makes me feel better.”
[Internally: "Just leave me fucking alone I was GETTING better until you all came up and started fucking aggravating it again justgivemesomespacewhydontya!?]
“I guess I’m just stressed, I’ll be fine, thanks.”
[Summary: They will then press on the issue for half an hour until you either snap in a depressing or angry fashion.]

I was like your daughter when I was a teenager. But then my mom forced me to go to a nature study camp. Well, forced… she enlisted me and I doggedly went where she told me to go.

I loved it. Among the nature geeks, I had found “my crowd”. It was wonderful to be with other kids who genuinely cared so much about catching, studying and releasing beetles, studying vegetation, and going out at night with bat detectors, that they didn’t have any energy or interest left for playing popularity games, and “looking cool” in the way this week demands (which is, of course, totally different then last week’s demands for looking cool).
This essay might be of interest: “Why Nerds are unpopular

So, Dung Beetle, if you suspect that there is a geek side to your daughter, let her find a crowd to enjoy that geeky side with. Your daugher obviously doesn’t enjoy playing the unrelenting popularity game that is high school; yet hiding in her room isn’t a good solution in the long term, either.

You are forcing her to have a car? And then forcing her to pay for it? I would be more than resentful.

I don’t know much about teenaged girls but that certainly describes a few teenaged boys I’ve known, myself included. Maybe she doesn’t go to partys and hang out with friends because nobody asks? That is sort of depressing but normal enough for teens I think. It’s esprecially difficult if you have social, popular siblings. Probably more so if they are step-siblings.

My advice, for what it is worth, would be to NOT force her to own a car and spend all of her money on it. If you want to force her to do something, make it some sort of activity like a club or a sport. I forced (complete with yelling and threats) my son to play lacrosse (I picked because he wouldn’t). A year later he thanked me and asked why I didn’t make him do more stuff. Grrrrr, teens are designed to make you go crazy.

Auntbeast, no hard feelings at all. :slight_smile:

A couple things I left out: Her plan for the future is that she wants to be a teacher. I have some reservations about that idea because she doesn’t like kids much, but I want her to have a goal, so I keep my mouth shut.

I said in the OP she’d never really had a boyfriend. In fact, she went to the movies once in middle school with a boy who liked her and his parents. That has been the whole extent of her experience. I know I’m her mom, but trust me, the chick’s not ugly. General social awkwardness is all I can figure.

Maastricht, interesting article. My daughter is definitely a misfit, and claims to be glad. But I think she’s set herself aside far enough now.

Cisco, she doesn’t have to make balls! I’ve told her she can make anything, anything she wants.

Thanks for the info. Since I know so little about your family, I’ll say a tad more about mine. More in the form of disjointed thoughts than anything really insightful

-Believe me, it can be at least as frustrating to have a kid who wants to be popular, but doesn’t know how.

-I realized my kids don’t have to be popular, or even really like a lot of other people. But they DO need to like SOMETHING to have anything resembling a happy life. And sitting in her room most likely ain’t the way to find out what she likes. We always pretty much insisted that our kids do at least one thing - in high school it tended to be band, chorus, or theater. When they were younger we had them take all kinds of classes, just to try to find what interests them.

-And even tho your kid doesn’t need to like other people, she does need to learn how to deal with them. Again, by getting out of her room, she gains social experience now, at an age where everyone else is trying to figure out the same things, and mistakes are less likely to have as significant repercussions.

-We are fortunate that we live where our kids could walk to their jobs. I feel a part-time job is often very important for kids to learn many useful life skills. And if you live where she would need to drive to work, then I’d require that she get her license.

Hell, if you bug her enough with your concern, she may get out of the house and start doing things just to get away from you! :stuck_out_tongue:

I was pretty much exactly like your daughter from age 12 to 17, except I read a lot more (20-30 books a week).

I think now that I had some depression at age 12-14 or so, though it was never diagnosed. That wore off in time as the hormones calmed down. But basically I was an introvert by nature (still am), and also had very little in common with the kids around me. Wasn’t interested in boys either, until about age 18 (first year in college). I was a late developer I guess.

In College, I was a bit more social, found some kids similar to me and got interested in them, met a couple neat guys - eventually married the best one :slight_smile:

I’m still not a social butterfly. Have 2 or 3 good friends and my husband, that’s all I need.

Edit: Oh, and I still don’t drive. Learned how, got my license, never used it, let it expire.