Here I am … banging my head
against the same wall … again … and again … AND AGAIN. I know that I am not the first one, and I
will surely not be the last one, but loving a child who has mental health
issues and dealing with the horrendous tornado of emotions that occur because
of those issues feels like the most alone place I have ever occupied. I am usually able to remain optimistic and to
see solutions. But I am just so very
exhausted this time that I do not know what to do. Just trying to think about it makes my head
want to explode. I feel like giving
up. But I can’t. My child needs me.
People say that we, as a nation,
have made great strides in de-stigmatizing mental illness. I guess the fact that we don’t lock people
away in horrid institutions to be ignored and mistreated for the rest of their
lives is progress. But speaking as one
who lives continually in its midst, I would have to say that the stigma remains
and that the misunderstanding of mental illness and its sufferers is as prevalent
as it ever was.
Most people do not understand
that a mentally ill individual can appear, for the most part, to be a “normal” human
being. They carry on intelligent, polite
conversations, make good decisions, support themselves financially and maintain
relationships with others. My child is
able to do all of these things, but as it is with many people struggling with
mental health issues, it is an act that he has learned to perform to get by in
a world which makes little sense to him.
He has learned enough people skills to appear “normal” because that is
what the world expects of him. But being
what the world considers “normal” is so completely nonsensical to the way his
brain is wired, the act he is forced to put on absolutely exhausts him. Exhaustion leads to stress … stress leads to
meltdowns … meltdowns lead to guilt and embarrassment … embarrassment leads to
depression … depression leads to despair … despair leads to that dark place
that I don’t like to consider. Knowing
that my child doesn’t remember a time in his life when he was truly happy and
that he believes there is no point in continuing to exist in the physical world,
has broken my spirit in to pieces so tiny that it is impossible to gather them
all up without losing some along the way.
Many people think that mental
illness comes in “episodes” and that if you can just get them through another
episode, things will look up again.
While my child’s illness is cyclical in nature, it is not something that
ever completely leaves him. The happy episodes
he appears to experience are covering a darkness that he can never quite
escape. I try and try to shine light
into that darkness, and sometimes a bright spot will stay for a while. But mostly, he lives in the dark all of the time
and I am always standing at the edge, trying to drag him back into the light,
never letting him go, even on the days that the darkness is where he wants to
be.
There is also the belief that if
we can just get him on the right medication, he will be okay. Medication can surely help, but they usually
(at least in this case) come with side effects that are as frightening as the
illness itself. Meds intended to combat
depression and anxiety often cause a zombie-like sedation that counteracts the
ability to be productive. Or worse yet,
sometimes the meds actually bring the darkness closer. The types of medications prescribed for
mental illnesses are not supposed to be stopped suddenly, so he’s faced with
having to continue a medication that is making him worse, causing horrible
anxiety because he is scared to death of the side effects, until he can wean
himself off of it. And if he happens to
do well on a prescribed medication, the strong possibility always exists that
he will eventually believe that he is well enough that he doesn’t need it
anymore, so he will stop taking it.
‘Round and ‘round it goes … and goes … and goes some more.
Finding him the appropriate help
in a world that pushes “tough love” and expects him to “suck it up and deal
with it” is especially frustrating. The
stress of working with the public absolutely un-nerves him, but he is expected
by society have a job and support himself.
He wants to support himself, and he can push back the anxiety he feels
from time to time to work a minimum-wage, dead-end job. But after a while, the anxiety builds to a
level that he has a major meltdown and is unable to function in the
workplace. When that occurs, his feeling
that he is a failure is, in his mind, validated as the absolute truth and the
despair worsens. And since he doesn’t
qualify for a healthcare subsidy or Medicaid, he is only able to get bare-bones
mental health services at clinics that are basically just for med checks and
putting out fires if a client has a meltdown.
There is no affordable, consistent, personal and on-going treatment for
him.
Faith used to help him, but
lately, the darkness has become so overwhelming that it tells him there is no
God, or if there is one, He surely must not love my child or He wouldn’t allow
him to struggle so. My child’s
disability has dulled his emotions and his illness has stolen the emotions that
he did have. He believes that a
relationship with God requires an emotional connection and since he doesn’t
feel emotions, God must not want a relationship with him.
So the darkness deepens. It has a grasp on him that I am no longer
able to break. I am still holding on, as
tightly as I can, trying to pull him into the light. But the darkness is strong, and I am so
exhausted that I fear I may lose my grip.
And the darkness is so seductive.
It calls to me too, encouraging me to turn loose of my child’s hand and
to follow him in. It leaves me teetering
on the edge, still holding tightly to this child who has been my heart since
before he was born. My heart is heavy
and my spirit bowed down at his suffering and the fact that, try as I might, I
can’t seem to relieve it. The darkness taunts me – “Nothing you do makes a
difference”, it whispers, “just let him go.”
And in the moments when I feel
like I could, I feel a strong grip on my other hand. It is so tight and so complete that I know
without a doubt that it is my Heavenly Father, holding onto my hand as I hold
onto my child’s hand, pulling us both back from the darkness. He won’t ever let us go … He will never give
up on us. He can’t. His children need Him.
