My daughter is 15.
She has been through a lot of things over the last seven years - emigration, starting new schools, her parents separating, and a type 1 diabetes diagnosis among them.
Upon her diagnosis at age 11 she was referred to a youth psychologist to go over her feelings. She saw this person for a year or so, and every time she came out she was in floods of tears and was morose for weeks. I began to doubt that these meetings were positive and the last straw for me was when she was asked if she would rather live full time with her mother or me. I stopped the sessions. Over the past three years she has had her ups and downs, but there have been a lot more ups.
She is my second girl to go through adolescence and I'm seeing all those classic behaviours - the joys of teenagers! However, her school counsellor, unknown to me, spoke to her and referred her to the family doctor who has now referred her to a youth mental health service.
I'm pretty unhappy about this - she hasn't had her first period yet and I've been told that her hormones are everywhere and that's normal. I now feel that she has been "othered", made to feel different - her biggest issue has been the diabetes, but any counsellor worth their salt would have realised it's because she feels different to her friends. I feel that further mental health treatment is unnecessary and will make her feel even more different.
I see her "treatment" so far as pseudoscientific - I get reports of "sadness", "irritabilty" etc but they're not objectively measurable and I'm suspicious. I feel that there's this overwhelming pressure to see mental health treatment as always a good thing but I feel that sometimes just accepting things and getting on with life can teach lessons, build mental strength and lead to happiness. At an extreme end, I also fear she might harm herself if I am wrong about this, but she may also if I am right.
Any thoughts on this would be gratefully received.