Yes - it hurt. Thank you for your kind, understanding words. He was really super close to her father and to me. I know from the grapevine that he misses us. But after he texted her we never saw him again. I wish they could have just stayed friends - I told her in the beginning it was not a great idea to have that kind of relationship. Sigh.

Well, there were physical boundaries in place, thankfully. His father is a former pastor - he lost his ability in his denomination to be a full-time pastor when his wife (this boy's mother) had an affair a few decades ago. But we had an understanding about boundaries with the father and we always supervised. She was alone with him for a small amount of time during the cutting incident though. But the father liked my daughter because she was a Christian and thought her a "good influence". His former wife had married twice more after and the undesirable situation with the abrasive stepfathers really messed up the kid. The kid would come to church with us and started pretending to be interested in faith, but now since he rejected her he's also not pretending any longer. He would have been happier with a girlfriend without any caution for sexual involvement, and it was contentious for him. So we are thankful for the boundaries we did set up. I guess he just learned manipulating skills early on - he honestly was heartbroken over his mother's rejection of him, and his stepmom is kind of a cold fish emotionally (she also never had kids), and also cautious about getting too involved (and rightly so). I am a mothering type and he weaseled his way into letting me take care of him. LoL. I just hated it that his real mother had done all those things and that he didn't have a mother in his life. So I attempted to be kind.

I just want to thank you all for your helpful comments. Just a follow up: the week after I posted this he went off the SSRIs. He felt a lot better and definitely less detached from his mind. He did a little Cognitive Behavior Therapy which perhaps helped. He was very happy to feel better after he stopped taking them. Then, he landed a lead in a local play, met new fangirls that week, and broke my daughter's heart via text message the following week while she was away visiting her grandparents. He refused to talk to her in person or even on the phone about breaking up after a close relationship of nine months - he'd even given her a promise ring LoL. She felt like garbage for being thrown away in that way. She was always so supportive and kind, too. His father called one of the boy's teachers at school (whom the boy was close to) and begged him to intervene in the relationship (the parents really loved my daughter). But - all's well that ends well. My daughter is making plans for pre-med in college, has starred herself in a lead role and won speech awards, is valedictorian in her private school (we homeschooled for eight years), and has much more time to work on schoolwork. From what I can tell from social media, he now stays up every night until 3 or 4 in the morning, playing video games and interacting with raunchy meme sites. He's taking no outside classes for senior year. He wakes up every day at noon. (He just started homeschooling senior year after failing out of private school with refusing to do his work and having panic attacks). I'm honestly not sure what to think of this lifestyle or why his father is enabling it. The "friends" he thought were more special than my daughter (that he met that week and dumped her for) went on their merry ways - off to college and school. I really do think some of you were so helpfully intuitive in figuring out that he manipulates people to get his own way. Thank you. I confess to feeling sad and a little worried about him from time to time. But I am sure that someday we can all really move on.

I joined 9 years ago, but I could no longer log on. Never mind - when I get to my computer I’ll delete the post.

Yes - they tried doubling the dose, which increased the attacks.This particular one has this caveat: “Generalized anxiety disorder is recognized as a chronic condition. The efficacy of Lexapro in the treatment of GAD beyond 8 weeks has not been systematically studied. The physician who elects to use Lexapro for extended periods should periodically re-evaluate the long-term usefulness of the drug for the individual patient.” The physician isn’t doing this. My GP prescribed me an SSRI and *never* followed up or suggested counseling. And I didn’t need it - I probably just deal with fatigue from a low thyroid issue. Why do I think I “know better than a doctor?” Because his suggestion was ridiculous and I never should have been on them. Unhealthy relationship? I should tell my daughter to drop a good friend because he has a medical condition? He’s not abusive. He’s kind and caring.

**Zombie Thread Updated 1/5/2019** Please help - I am in a moral/legal dilemma. I like my DD's boyfriend and care for him as I would any of my children's friends. I'm not thrilled about the difficulties of young people dating in high school, but we have befriended his parents and they are now visiting our church with their son. We are both agree that they are supervised. They are both just turning 17 in the next month. They are very serious - have practically promised to marry, etc. They both wear promise rings around their necks on a chain. I know it sounds silly, and perhaps it is, but I think they really do have a very special relationship. He has major anxiety issues. They are both talented, they both sing, they are both in the same drama group and are performing in a play as lead characters. So they are both lively and smart, but his issues keep him from performing all that well in high school. He spent his childhood shut up in his room while his mom married twice. My daughter is stronger than he is. He never learned to ride a bike. He is somewhat addicted to gaming as a coping skill. But otherwise, he is funny, chatty, talented, and has made a great many friends here. His father and stepmother are currently battling to keep custody of him. His mother found out he was now homeschooling, and wants to use that through the legal system against him to make him move back to her state. He has about 8th-grade math skills, and he's 17. He chose to leave when he was 14, because his stepfather really is a mentally abusive man. His two ex-wives testified about his abuse in court, etc. He is very sensitive and wants to please everyone. A few months ago, his panic attacks started to increase. Let me describe the last one, which lasted at least 25 minutes: he lays on the floor with uncontrolled limb movement, he struggles and gasps for breath, his chest hurts, he can feel no touches or sensation, or sense the reality around him, he sees darkness and disorientation, and he cries out at times and asks "why." My daughter holds his head and soothes him until it's over. She's been doing this for a while. When they're over, he's exhausted but fine and his old self again. They happen seemingly randomly. When he has them at home, he hides them from his parents, because when he last had one, his father yelled at him and called him a problem. At my house, he tries to apologize to me for having them, but I always assure him that he is NOT a problem. Last week he started cutting his arms again. He's worn short-sleeved shirts around, and his parents are too self-absorbed to notice. His parents are taking him to a counselor, but he has to be careful what he says to the counselor, because when he brought up some of his parents' behavior to the last one, and she tried to confront them, they screamed at her and fired her on the spot. They are unwilling to change any of their behavior. And perhaps they are obsessed with winning his custody - and I don't blame them for that. Where he is now is better than his old home with his mom. I just found out that a few months ago his parents made him take an SSRI for depression, although his main issue is anxiety. They have not stopped the panic attacks, which are getting worse. I was on an SSRI, and my sister was too, and we both got off of them as soon as we could - they made us feel numb and terrible. He feels tired, lethargic, uncaring, and hates being on them. He asked permission of his parents to please stop taking them, and they won't let him. This is the kicker - his stepmother asked me to tell my daughter not to try to influence him to stop taking them. My daughter has NOT done this. Neither of them know what SSRIs do - he didn't even know the drug he was on or its side effects. After the last panic attack two days ago, I felt obligated to tell his parents. The father ignored me and went on and on about how terrible his mother was, and went on for thirty minutes about how he was going to beat her in court and make her pay. So ... I texted the stepmother about the episode in detail. She wrote back and said merely "thank you for your concern," and then to caution *my daughter* not to try to influence his drug taking. He had obviously tried the tactic of using her name in his plea to stop, and it backfired. He is terribly afraid of their disapproval if he stops taking them. My daughter has absolutely not done this. I know this for an absolute fact. But they tend to fear interference ... so perhaps she clung to it as an excuse? My question is - am I obligated any longer to tell them about these episodes? I feel like it just backfired. I was trying to do the right thing, and I feel stung by the backlash. In the meantime, my daughter is bearing the brunt of holding him through all of them, as well as begging to have him give him his knife so he doesn't cut himself - which worked, actually. She has physically wrestled him so he doesn't hurt himself at times. She is his rock. He trusts her. And he should - she really is his helper right now. She also tries to encourage him to trust God - to know that people love him and that God loves him. I've been told over and over by my close friends not to get "involved." Fine - I'm not. But I am. And I am helpless. The stepmother wants to get him into Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which is great, but why hasn't it happened yet? And I don't know what I can *not* do. Can I just not tell the parents about future panic attacks? I am so afraid for how they treat him. And I am angry with them for making it about me. So is it the right thing to do from now on? Does anyone have any experience with panic attacks? How is it logical for an SSRI to really help? That's not what they do, and they're not helping.