Friday, November 22, 2013
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As Good As It Gets (Password Protected)
This article about Senator Deeds' family tragedy hit home for me, as I'm sure it did for many people. Every time I think about it, I feel physically ill.
Judging from this article, this man did all the right things for his wonderful, creative mentally ill son, Austin. He made sure he received treatment, and when Austin's illness became dangerous, he sought help from Rockbridge Community Services Board, where I worked on a contract basis for a few years. He tried to have his son hospitalized. Austin received a psychiatric evaluation, and apparently the clinician agreed that he needed immediate inpatient treatment. However, he was not admitted to a hospital, because no bed was available. A day later, Austin stabbed his father and shot himself.
Few of us need to be reminded how broken the mental health system is. It's definitely no secret among those of us with mental illness in the family.
My older daughter was hospitalized in 2010. She was fifteen. She had suffered from severe obsessive compulsive disorder, along with anxiety and depression, since she was five, and it had been a particularly brutal year. After a therapy session, she broke down and told me how desperately she wanted to die. Every moment living in her own skin was misery. "I feel like pulling my teeth out."
Needless to say, it was one of the most devastating conversations of my life. Knowing of my history of miscarriages, she told me I'd been cheated when I lost my other babies and got stuck with her. She wanted me to let her take her own life. "It will be a miscarriage that happened 15 years late."
Our family was among the lucky ones. We had excellent health insurance. We had the support of a caring psychiatrist and licensed counselor, who had worked with my daughter for about eight years. And there was a bed available ... in the best psychiatric hospital for teens in the state. While their so-called "family therapy" was underwhelming to say the least, and the staff struck me as impossibly young, untrained, and undoubtedly underpaid, to the hospital's credit, they kept her alive for several days and drastically changed her medications.
Here's the rub ... a few days after she was admitted, the staff assured us she was ready to go home. During her brief stay, she'd thrown a chair against a wall, threatened to jump out a window, and refused to see her family, but we were assured that her needs had been met. After a so-called clinical meeting, which consisted of a social worker reading his notes aloud to us in a slightly bored tone of voice, she was discharged with no aftercare plan. We were skeptical, but we were happy. We'd been told she was no longer a danger to herself, and we believed the worst of the crisis was behind us. Only later did I find out that she'd told a staff member, that very morning, that she still planned to kill herself after leaving the hospital.
This sounds like a story that was destined to end tragically, but we were extraordinarily blessed. The medication changes made by the hospital psychiatrist kicked in, and she soon got better. But our experience with the hospital? Yes, we were lucky -- there was a bed available, and it was the best adolescent psychiatric hospital in the state. We had financial means and plenty of support. Most people aren't so fortunate. The bottom line? The fact that our experience was -- for all intents and purposes -- as good as it gets ... that makes me inexpressibly sad.
We've been on this journey for over 14 years now. There have been multiple therapists, a good psychiatrist, mentors, and so many medications -- both pharmaceutical and naturopathic -- that I've lost count. I took her to a homeopathic doctor. I researched the therapeutic benefits of diet changes. We've had endless talks. Truthfully, nothing seems to help -- at least not for long. Lately she's been stringing together lots of pretty good days -- despite persistent horrific nightmares, cripplingly low self-esteem, and an occasional scary meltdown. The other night, after a minor argument with me, she put her fist through a glass door.
Maybe this is as good as it gets? God, I hope not. I want so much more for her. I want to move past being grateful for her survival. I long to see her stop loathing herself and become reasonably comfortable in her own skin. Express excitement about the limitless possibilities of the future. Share love with people outside the family. Experience moments of pure, reckless joy. Right now these hopes seem ambitious. When a person is -- to paraphrase Sylvia Plath -- held together with glue, one's hopes are modest.
Often the hardest part for me is the guilt. I think of the times when she was little and her father lost his temper and yelled -- or was overly harsh -- and it scared her. Of my pushing her to succeed in Kindergarten when she wasn't emotionally ready. According to one school of thought, who knows what might be the tipping point in a biogenetically vulnerable child?
Is it irrational to believe we caused her mental illness through bad parenting? Probably. But the idea that we're to blame for her lifetime of suffering ... well it's not quite outside the realm of possibility. Because nobody really knows exactly what causes this shit. That sliver of doubt -- this might be our fault -- is like a rusted metal hook in my gut. I've learned to live with it -- most of the time -- but it's not coming out. It's intermittently agonizing, and it's exhausting. Of course I also think about the litany of failed attempts to help her, based on what I knew -- or thought I knew -- at the time. All the mistakes and missed opportunities. So much regret.
All parents realize they are flawed. All parents have floundered, made mistakes, and -- upon occasion -- spectacularly fucked up. The difference is that we don't have the luxury of saying, "Well, whatever mistakes we've made, she's happy and healthy. Things turned out O.K." That's part of what makes this so unbearably hard. Even harder, of course, is seeing her suffer. And always wondering -- from one day to the next -- if something is going to break.
I think the most heartbreaking thing of all is this: I wasn't able to give her a happy childhood. The desire to give that gift to our children is so basic and primal, many people take it for granted. That their children are relatively carefree. That they feel safe. That they aren't crippled with fear and -- in this case -- terrifying, guilt-provoking obsessions. We've been through a phalanx of professionals and enough money has been spent on medications to finance a small "third world" country. But nobody has been able to give her that.
Judging from this article, this man did all the right things for his wonderful, creative mentally ill son, Austin. He made sure he received treatment, and when Austin's illness became dangerous, he sought help from Rockbridge Community Services Board, where I worked on a contract basis for a few years. He tried to have his son hospitalized. Austin received a psychiatric evaluation, and apparently the clinician agreed that he needed immediate inpatient treatment. However, he was not admitted to a hospital, because no bed was available. A day later, Austin stabbed his father and shot himself.
Few of us need to be reminded how broken the mental health system is. It's definitely no secret among those of us with mental illness in the family.
My older daughter was hospitalized in 2010. She was fifteen. She had suffered from severe obsessive compulsive disorder, along with anxiety and depression, since she was five, and it had been a particularly brutal year. After a therapy session, she broke down and told me how desperately she wanted to die. Every moment living in her own skin was misery. "I feel like pulling my teeth out."
Needless to say, it was one of the most devastating conversations of my life. Knowing of my history of miscarriages, she told me I'd been cheated when I lost my other babies and got stuck with her. She wanted me to let her take her own life. "It will be a miscarriage that happened 15 years late."
Our family was among the lucky ones. We had excellent health insurance. We had the support of a caring psychiatrist and licensed counselor, who had worked with my daughter for about eight years. And there was a bed available ... in the best psychiatric hospital for teens in the state. While their so-called "family therapy" was underwhelming to say the least, and the staff struck me as impossibly young, untrained, and undoubtedly underpaid, to the hospital's credit, they kept her alive for several days and drastically changed her medications.
Here's the rub ... a few days after she was admitted, the staff assured us she was ready to go home. During her brief stay, she'd thrown a chair against a wall, threatened to jump out a window, and refused to see her family, but we were assured that her needs had been met. After a so-called clinical meeting, which consisted of a social worker reading his notes aloud to us in a slightly bored tone of voice, she was discharged with no aftercare plan. We were skeptical, but we were happy. We'd been told she was no longer a danger to herself, and we believed the worst of the crisis was behind us. Only later did I find out that she'd told a staff member, that very morning, that she still planned to kill herself after leaving the hospital.
This sounds like a story that was destined to end tragically, but we were extraordinarily blessed. The medication changes made by the hospital psychiatrist kicked in, and she soon got better. But our experience with the hospital? Yes, we were lucky -- there was a bed available, and it was the best adolescent psychiatric hospital in the state. We had financial means and plenty of support. Most people aren't so fortunate. The bottom line? The fact that our experience was -- for all intents and purposes -- as good as it gets ... that makes me inexpressibly sad.
We've been on this journey for over 14 years now. There have been multiple therapists, a good psychiatrist, mentors, and so many medications -- both pharmaceutical and naturopathic -- that I've lost count. I took her to a homeopathic doctor. I researched the therapeutic benefits of diet changes. We've had endless talks. Truthfully, nothing seems to help -- at least not for long. Lately she's been stringing together lots of pretty good days -- despite persistent horrific nightmares, cripplingly low self-esteem, and an occasional scary meltdown. The other night, after a minor argument with me, she put her fist through a glass door.
Maybe this is as good as it gets? God, I hope not. I want so much more for her. I want to move past being grateful for her survival. I long to see her stop loathing herself and become reasonably comfortable in her own skin. Express excitement about the limitless possibilities of the future. Share love with people outside the family. Experience moments of pure, reckless joy. Right now these hopes seem ambitious. When a person is -- to paraphrase Sylvia Plath -- held together with glue, one's hopes are modest.
Often the hardest part for me is the guilt. I think of the times when she was little and her father lost his temper and yelled -- or was overly harsh -- and it scared her. Of my pushing her to succeed in Kindergarten when she wasn't emotionally ready. According to one school of thought, who knows what might be the tipping point in a biogenetically vulnerable child?
Is it irrational to believe we caused her mental illness through bad parenting? Probably. But the idea that we're to blame for her lifetime of suffering ... well it's not quite outside the realm of possibility. Because nobody really knows exactly what causes this shit. That sliver of doubt -- this might be our fault -- is like a rusted metal hook in my gut. I've learned to live with it -- most of the time -- but it's not coming out. It's intermittently agonizing, and it's exhausting. Of course I also think about the litany of failed attempts to help her, based on what I knew -- or thought I knew -- at the time. All the mistakes and missed opportunities. So much regret.
All parents realize they are flawed. All parents have floundered, made mistakes, and -- upon occasion -- spectacularly fucked up. The difference is that we don't have the luxury of saying, "Well, whatever mistakes we've made, she's happy and healthy. Things turned out O.K." That's part of what makes this so unbearably hard. Even harder, of course, is seeing her suffer. And always wondering -- from one day to the next -- if something is going to break.
I think the most heartbreaking thing of all is this: I wasn't able to give her a happy childhood. The desire to give that gift to our children is so basic and primal, many people take it for granted. That their children are relatively carefree. That they feel safe. That they aren't crippled with fear and -- in this case -- terrifying, guilt-provoking obsessions. We've been through a phalanx of professionals and enough money has been spent on medications to finance a small "third world" country. But nobody has been able to give her that.
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