Chased By Darkness

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.