and we just got off the phone with him. He said the most important thing we can do right now is to let her know that we are there to support her and to talk with her without judging her. She's been hyper-judging herself and can't deal with it in her own mind. He gave her (and us) a list of psychologists that we can try to set up an appointment with. He'd like to see her get an appointment somewhere, creating a relationship with a longer term psychologist before the winter session starts. He said their student counseling service is only for short term (12 sessions) or evaluations to recommend to other services, so he would like his time with her helping her deal with school stress/anxiety and have the other psychologist handle the depression issue.
He did say that she told him she has had thoughts of killing herself, but he said after talking with her, that those thoughts are pretty normal for people who are suffering depression. I know that I had them myself when I was pregnant as a teen, so I am familiar with the feeling. According to him, there are 3 stages, and she is at stage 1 (where I guess I would have been staged as well) - where she was thinking about it because she wanted to stop hurting and wanted to get out of the situation she created herself, but hadn't thought about how to do it or made plans, etc. That seems like such a small step one way or the other - backing away from those thoughts, or tipping to the planning stage. I just want to pull her as far away from that ledge as I can.
Needless to say, I'm scared to death. I would trade places with her in a flash if I could just to take away her pain. He said that she may find that meds will help with the depression but in his opinion we're not there yet. He preferred to get her support system built first and get her talking/opening up before making that decision since psych drugs can have bad side effects. He said that we're a close family and want to be supportive - two things that some people don't have, so we're moving in the right direction.
I guess I'm a bit (miniscule) more calm after talking with him, not really, but I can breath now. It helped me that my husband heard him say that she shared with him that she had contemplated suicide as a way to solve everything. He thought my worry was unfounded. I told the Dr. that K and I had talked together last night and I told her that I loved her more than anything, we can figure this out together, etc. He said all we could do is keep that up, to let her know we're there. He also told us to ask her what she needs from us, gave us a website to read through, and another few names of counselors if we can't get an appt at the 4 he gave her.
I told him my most immediate goal right now was to see that we get through the holidays, certainly with her feeling no more stressed or depressed than she currently is. Hopefully being home, doing some fun things, resting, etc. will keep the status quo or better.
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