My 15 yr old daughter was severly bullied for close to 2 years. During this time she developed a number of anxiety disorders and also depression. I pulled her out of high school and she studied online schooling for 12mths before moving back to face to face teaching. The new school is specialised for kids with anxiety.
Although she has taken huge steps forward she still has sever social anxiety. My daughter has no friends besides some online friends. She is so very lonely. We encourage her to make friendships at school but she just gets too stressed out. We are trying to get her into something where she can meet people her own age and form friendships in person. She is not a physical person and doesn't like sports, she enjoys art but hasn't done it since the anxiety started. She feels like she's going to be judged with her art work. She has a school counsellor, a school clinical psychologist and a private psychologist aswell as a gp and extremelysupportive parents. Our daughter has an army of people to help her recover but we are out of ideas on how to get her to socialise and form friendships, it's so heart breaking having your kid cry about not having friends and being lonely all the time.
Does anyone have a teen like this? Could anyone suggest a place for her to form friendships?
2 Replies
You need to stop pushing her to make friends. A little understanding that putting herself out there is excruciating, and if it does go well, the whole thing is exhausting for her. It causes overthinking, misunderstanding, fear, worry, stress. It’s not the fun thing you’re thinking of.
She’s going to school, that’s great. Find activities that she enjoys, but no sign up. So she can go for drop in days when she wants to. Art classes and workshops are great. My daughter has friends at school but never, ever invites them to things out of school.. she enjoys her own time.
If she wants friendships and can’t make them, then it sounds like she needs social skills lessons, the psychologist would have picked up on that.
Stop trying to make her meet people. I was a huge introvert. I bullied most of my school career. I hated sports and social things. The more my parents insisted I make friends, the more I turned to my online friends for support. Some of those online friends turned out to be adults grooming me for inappropriate interactions which further confused me and complicated my mental health.
The more you push her to do something she doesn't want to do before she's ready, the more likely she will rebel. She's back at school which is fantastic and I think you might find she has some friends there even though they don't spend time outside of school together.
You can suggest she invite a few school friends out to a neutral place to the movie or another fun activity she likes.
It's great she has the support she does. My dad was away a lot of the time and I was put into a school for kids with learning issues and behavioral problems. My mom thought that was enough and the rest wasn't her problem.
Pick your battles. She may not be as lonely as you think.