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Teen psychosis, avolition and school refusal – parent perspectives

PangyNew Contributor07 Oct 2025, 12:16 pm AEDT

Teen psychosis, avolition and school refusal – parent perspectives

I have a 17-year-old son who experienced his first episode of psychosis at the start of the year, and it has completely upended our world. His anxiety began around age 16, along with social withdrawal. We’ve been managing his mental health for about 18 months now, with lack of motivation, social anxiety, and school refusal being our biggest daily challenges.

He’s fine with personal hygiene, but where he used to be tidy, he’s now pretty sloppy, and he has almost no ability to plan his day with any foresight. His treating team is not diagnosing early-onset schizophrenia at this stage, as he also has autism (Level 1) and inattentive ADHD, which complicates the picture.

He’s currently on antipsychotics [edited by moderator] and an SSRI, and his mood is fairly stable. Our son is doing Year 11 (VCE) here in Melbourne, but his academic performance has been severely affected by his lack of motivation and school refusal. The psychosis seems to have amplified all of his executive functioning challenges, and at times it feels like we’re parenting a toddler again.

I’m here online looking to connect with other parents who have been through, or are going through, the impact of psychosis on their teenagers. Some days feel hopeful, while others are filled with grief, frustration and exhaustion.

Our son is a sweet, gentle boy, and we’re doing our best to help him get through the school year so he still has options. He says he wants to complete school, but physically just can’t seem to get there. I know it’s important to take things day by day and to remember that recovery isn’t linear, but he’s a very different boy from the one we were parenting 18 months ago. I’d love to hear from parents who’ve been in a similar place - especially if you can share any signs of improvement or strategies for managing school refusal that might give us some hope.
Thank you!

3 replies

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In response to: Teen psychosis, avolition and school refusal – parent perspectives

Ru-beeModerator07 Oct 2025, 12:27 pm AEDT

Re: Teen psychosis, avolition and school refusal – parent perspectives

Hi @Pangy

I just wanted to quickly stop by and welcome you to the space.

It sounds as though this has been an incredibly difficult time for your family, and I'm glad that you've found this space where you can hopefully connect with parents who can relate and empathise.

I did also just want to let you know that we've had to make a slight edit to your post to remove the medication name due to our community guidelines. These can be really easy to miss when you first sign up so we hope that this isn't discouraging at all.

Take care

Ru-bee

In response to: Teen psychosis, avolition and school refusal – parent perspectives

Breakfast68Senior Contributor07 Oct 2025, 11:24 pm AEDT

Re: Teen psychosis, avolition and school refusal – parent perspectives

@Pangy I have a 15 year old daughter who is in the same space, and has been for about a whole year. It has come with many challenges and her social withdrawal means she is a constant shadow of both me and her mum. School refusal was just the first small

steps, which then became longer and longer, as well as phone calls from the school about her spiralling. As well as multiple texts saying she wanted to be picked up and go home. There is no such thing about her doing something by herself.
Room is in constant disarray and we undertake weekly cleans.
It has come to the point where we have decided on home schooling and started her in a program to do work experience (much earlier than what I wanted or expected). Online learning 3 days and work experience the other days.
But hoping the exposure at a work experience placement may help in her getting independence and addressing the social anxiety and other conditions.
I can only suggest to keep at it and look at different avenues. We just found one which she has immediately taken to with the work experience environment

In response to: Re: Teen psychosis, avolition and school refusal – parent perspectives

PangyNew Contributor08 Oct 2025, 9:26 am AEDT

Re: Teen psychosis, avolition and school refusal – parent perspectives

Thanks for sharing your experience @Breakfast68 - it sounds very familiar. We get the constant texts and calls to leave school and my husband and I have our son as our shadow 24/7. He follows us around the house because he's 'bored' and cannot self initiate anything except eating and gaming. Work experience sounds like a great option. I am 100% open to other pathways as we're definitely grid-locked in the school refusal cycle. Well done on finding other options for your daughter - I hope things continue to improve for her.

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