It's summer vacation so I don't have school, and I have a nosy stay-at-home mom and only a learner's permit, so I can't really just go anywhere on my own. It's been obvious for a while that I've had a problem, and originally my plan was to wait until I move out, but I don't turn 18 for a few years and things are getting worse. So, any advice would be much appreciated.

http://www.teenhealthandwellness.com/static/hotlines

I would check out a hotline first, since those will be guaranteed anonymous and will be able to advise you better. However, I am pretty sure mental health counseling is confidential even for teens, not certain though. You likely wouldn't be able to use insurance or anything unless you have your own. I would check into it, get a recommendation, and then ask what they can do to help you get the help you need without involving parents.

I wish your parents were the kind that I could say go to them for help anyway, but it doesn't sound like they are, and I know how bad that sucks. Good luck, you we going to need it. That 18th birthday will seem epically far away, but it will be here and gone before you know it, and then you can be on your own building your own boundaries.

In the schools where I've worked, the school counselor will generally grant one visit without your parents knowing about it. After that a parent will need to sign off on counseling sessions, although whatever you say to the counselor will be held in confidence (the one exception may be if you are being physically abused.) Counselors can often be very persuasive in terms of getting reluctant parents to agree to counseling. If your counselor feels that meds may be indicated, she will work in concert with your family physician or a psychiatrist.

During the summer you might try doing a web search for the name of your town plus "community mental health agency" which may bring up local resources that can help you.

I applaud you for seeking help on your own.....that takes courage and maturity beyond your years. Stick to your guns, and I second the advice you have been given in finding help.

You do not say that you or your family are LDS, but I am making the assumption you most likely are because of your posting on this site. My not so humble opinion is to tell you to avoid at all costs LDS counseling. It is very biased.

BEST OF LUCK to you, and do keep in touch.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/27/2014 01:50AM by presleynfactsrock.

My whole family including me is exmo, and I'm probably one of the most ex and least mo of all of them... Yeah and thanks for the advice peoples

I understand about needing a therapist as a teen. I have severe OCD, and it got reallly bad by the time I reached my senior year in high school. The pressures of the LDS church about things like morality, purity, etc. drove me to a state of mind that made me delusional.

I still go to therapy, and I'm middle-aged, but it does help and
my therapist is a wonderful former Mormon who understands what the church is like and can give good advice and support according to your specific issues. I don't know how payment arrangements can be made, but she works with a lot of young people and kids, and maybe she can give you some options.

Call Healing House counseling at 801-996-3547, and ask for Sandy Brooke.

Good luck, my friend.

Help is out there!

If you are up for it, you might consider taking college summer class(es). They are pretty open in summer, even for HS students. Most colleges offer free or cheap counseling and you'd have a reason to be away from home. Look online to see the situation at campuses near you. If your HS has summer school, you might see if there is a psychologist working summer, and if there is, sign up if you can. You could also just ask a achool counselor/psychologist from your school.

If you pay for your own college classes, not only can you get free counseling at a college or university of your choice in many cases, but both your grades and your counseling is strictly off limits to your parents if they try to ask, meddle or demand to see your transcripts from your classes or those from your therapy sessions.

Unless they pay for your classes and your therapy AND they also claim you as their dependent on their taxes (which they'd have to show the authorities at your school as proof of your dependency to be able to do so), this is generally so at any state/land grant institution in the US. Might even be for other types of school sets ups, I don't know.

Found this out working fulltime in the transcripts office at OSU, in the mid to late 90s.

Enroll and pay on your own, use the clinic/on-site services and just don't tell your folks you're seeing the school therapist or counselors.

If they try to get the info without your consent, then fight it. It will take time to get what they want out of people who believe very strongly in FERPA and HIPAA, and by then you won't care. Heck, the law school there might have a legal aid clinic that might even represent you for free!

IMO the best course of action is to bring this up with your parents. You don't have to tell them the details of exactly why you want to see a therapist to convince them. I'm sure they want the best for you, even if they aren't accepting of therapy for themselves. Your mother may already be trying to pry out of you why you are so unhappy.

The thing is, as a minor, you can't sign documents as an adult and I doubt if a therapist would see you whether you paid out of pocket (not by insurance) or using your parents insurance, which would be much less. Clients are asked to sign documents before therapy begins--agreements to pay, acknowledgement of confidentiality, etc. Your parents would have to sign these for you.

As a minor child you do not have privacy rights from your parents. When you turn 18, you then have all the privacy that any other legal adult has. Find a therapist who will ask your parents to give you privacy in counseling (subject to the same limitations that any client is subject to). Parents seem actually pretty willing to do this. They can relate; they wouldn't want their therapist to call their mother and give a rundown of the session to their mom. Your parents would get it--that therapy doesn't work very well if the therapist is a pipeline to mom. This discussion about privacy for teens is held in the first session with you and your mom together, so that you both understand the ground rules: if mom wants to know how therapy is going, she can ask you, and you decide whether to tell or to keep it to yourself.

You may meet with the therapist alone simply by requesting it. At some point you may want to include your mom, because maybe some of your issues involve how the two of you interact and she can learn a few things too.

The first step is talking with your mom. Again.

Actually the privacy rights of a minor regarding medical treatment vary by state. Here in California, there has been an attempt to protect teens from having potentially abusive parents find out they are seeking treatment for sex or pregnancy. Once my daughter turned 12, she could no longer have an online medical record.

I am not sure exactly what the rules on mental health treatment might be, but I'm guessing there would be similar protection for teens who wanted/needed to talk about issues like rape/abortion and didn't want their parents to find out.