Quick show of hands. Who here has ever Googled a symptom at 11pm and, within four clicks, been fully convinced you had a rare tropical disease? 🙋♀️
When I was 18, I was on a medication that made me so tired I could’ve napped standing up in line at Starbucks. Did I tell my parents? Absolutely not. Did I tell my psychiatrist? Eventually, like two months later. What I actually did was sit in bed at 2am reading every forum thread on the internet about that medication, deciding which strangers’ horror stories applied to me, and quietly skipping doses on days I “needed to be awake.” (Spoiler: this did not make me more awake. It made me a mess.)
The reason I didn’t tell my parents wasn’t that I didn’t trust them. It was that I knew how much they worried about it. I could bet you $100 that at some point in the day, my mom would ask me:
“Did you take your meds today?”
Now picture that same 2am spiral, except instead of forums, it’s a friendly chatbot that talks back, never sighs, never looks worried, and agrees with you a lot.
Meet Jordan
Jordan is 20, living at home, and has been on an antidepressant for about eight months. It’s helping, sort of. The really dark stretch is over. But Jordan feels flat. Food tastes like cardboard, the jokes in the group chat don’t land, and they’ve gained weight they’re really self-conscious about.
Jordan’s next psychiatrist appointment isn’t for seven weeks. Jordan’s mom is the one who picks up the refills, and every few days she asks “are you taking your meds?” in a tone that basically means “please don’t fall apart again.”
So at 1:30am, Jordan opens a chatbot and types out everything. The chatbot is warm and validating. It says these side effects are common and that Jordan deserves to feel like themselves. Jordan asks if it’s okay to just stop. The chatbot says to talk to a doctor. Jordan pushes. Eventually, the conversation drifts toward how some people taper on their own.
Jordan stops taking it a week later. Doesn’t tell anyone. Three weeks after that, Jordan’s mom notices they haven’t left their room in four days.
This is happening more than you’d think
Nearly 1 in 5 teens and young adults have used AI chatbots for mental health advice, and most of the ones who do haven’t told anyone. When a researcher recently tested 17 popular chatbots, some told teens that side effects were a reason to stop their medication. And when a teen kept pushing after being told no, the chatbots got more likely to give in.
So basically, if you argue with it long enough, it starts agreeing with you. (Which, tbh, is also how I won most arguments with my family members growing up.)
If you worry about their meds, you’re not alone
Almost every parent we work with carries some version of the same worries.
Are they actually taking it? Is it the right medication? The right dose? Is it helping, or are they just quieter? And underneath all of it, the big one: if they stop, will we end up back where we were?
Those worries make total sense. A lot of you have watched your young adult at their lowest, and the medication feels like part of what pulled them out. Of course you want to protect it.
But here’s what that worry can look like from the other side of the dinner table. Every “did you take your meds?” can land as “I don’t trust you” or “I’m waiting for you to break.”
And when a young adult wants to change something about their medication, saying it out loud can feel like announcing “I’m about to become your problem again.”
So they don’t say it. They take it to a chatbot at 1:30am instead.
Why the chatbot wins
Put yourself in Jordan’s sneakers for a sec.
It’s 1:30am, and the chatbot is awake. You are (hopefully) asleep. The chatbot doesn’t have a face. It can’t look worried, or hurt, or like it’s doing mental math about whether you’re spiraling again.
Some side effects are also genuinely embarrassing to say out loud to your mom. Weight gain, sexual side effects, feeling emotionally numb. Typing it to a robot is way easier.
And here’s the part parents sometimes miss: Jordan’s complaint was legit. Side effects are real, and wanting to feel like yourself again is a completely reasonable thing to want.
The important part is that Jordan feels safe eventually turning to a real person, preferably a professional.
What you can actually do (without becoming the medication police)
Real talk first. If you’re the one paying for the prescription, handling insurance, and noticing when something’s off, you can’t just “step back.” I’m not going to pretend you can. But some of what you’re carrying can move to other people, and some of it can shift in how you do it.
💙 Make “I want to stop” a safe sentence. Say out loud, ahead of time: “If you ever want to change or come off your meds, I won’t freak out. I’ll help you talk to your doctor about it.” Then, when the moment comes, hold yourself to it. (Deep breaths. Maybe a glass of wine afterward. We get it.)
💙 Give them a direct line to their prescriber. Make sure they know how to message their doctor through the patient portal or call between appointments, so seven weeks doesn’t feel like forever. Once they’re over 18, their doctor often can’t share much with you without their permission anyway, so helping them own that relationship takes something off your plate.
💙 Agree on one rule together. Not ten. Just one. For example: changes to medication are fine, but have to go through the prescriber first. Stopping some medications suddenly can cause withdrawal symptoms or bring back the symptoms they were taking it for, which is a big reason it should be a planned conversation and not a secret 1am decision.
💙 Get curious about the chatbot instead of banning it. If you find out they’ve been asking AI about their meds, try “Can you explain to me what it said?” instead of “You can’t trust that thing!!” You’ll learn what’s actually bothering them, and you might catch something worth bringing to the doctor together.
The good news hiding in all of this
I know a lot of this sounds scary. Young people making medication decisions off a chatbot at 1:30am is not exactly the newsletter story any parent wants.
But zoom out for a second, because there’s something really hopeful underneath it.
A young adult who’s typing out their side effects at 1:30am is a young adult who cares how they feel. They’re paying attention to their body and their mood. They want to get better, and they’re actively looking for answers.
A few years ago, a lot of the young adults we work with couldn’t have told you what they were feeling, let alone researched it. That’s real progress, even when the place they took the question wasn’t ideal.
Chatbots aren’t going anywhere, and honestly, they don’t need to. You don’t have to win a competition against an app that never sleeps. You just need to be one of the places the question can land, or make sure your young adult has easy access to someone who can answer it, like their prescriber.
The goal is for whatever they’re wondering at 1:30am to make its way to a real person by lunchtime, whether that’s you, their doctor, or someone else in their corner.
Most young adults don’t need a perfect parent or a perfect system. They need one person who reacts to “I don’t like how this med makes me feel” with curiosity instead of alarm. Once they’ve had that experience even once, the 1:30am questions start finding their way to people who can actually help.
💙Announcements💙
OPLM GROUP
There’s a free weekly support group for parents that we built with Other Parents Like Me.
It’s called Launching Young Adults, and it meets every Monday at 6pm PT / 9pm ET on Zoom.
OPLM is an online community where parents of teens and young adults support each other through the hardest stretches of raising them.
Their Peer Parents facilitate the group and our coaches won’t be in the room, so you’ll spend the hour with other parents who are going through the same thing, talking honestly about how it’s actually going at home.
Any parent can join and it’s free.
Registration takes about two minutes, so sign up now to save your spot.
Not Therapy also has a Parent Facebook Group.
Join using this link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/4401990613346122/
madinamerica.com is a resource worth checking into