Well, apparently I screwed up. Again. It’s not the first time and I’m pretty sure it won’t be the last. It is, however, surprising that at 45 years old I can make decisions in consultation with medical professionals, my husband, my daughter whose views and opinions I value most when it comes to sharing myself and my writing because this story is hers, not mine, and still I find rebuke not from my friends, not from my community, not from my neighbors, high school classmates, or former colleagues, some of whom I haven’t spoken to in nearly 20 years but have offered up their backyard patios and condos belonging to in-laws and Wi-Fi passwords, so I can have a quiet place to work while away from home, but from family.
Yesterday, I made a decision to post a link to this blog on my Facebook page, in consultation with my husband and daughter, because we are not hiding our journey. Though I do not name her in my writing, it won’t take you more than a minute to find details about me, my husband, our kids, and the cats here on this website or through the links to my Facebook, Instagram or Twitter pages. We are comfortable with what is posted. My children are good students, they have solid friend circles, and are active in fine arts programs at their schools while I am a volunteer and teacher in my community. We have planted deep roots here, and our branches spread far and wide, gently touching others, providing support, offering shelter or simply a place to sit and reflect. We are the helpers, and now it is our turn to be helped, through openness, virtual hugs, and prayer.
Within hours, I am “gently” reminded by some that Facebook may not be the best place to discuss mental illness, especially regarding a minor. I am harshly chastised; my blog may reflect negatively on my daughter when future colleges and employers search her social media. It is worth noting the girl in question posted to her own Instagram the second day she was home with photos and text referencing her inpatient care, expressing her thankfulness for the help she received, and telling her friends she was doing better, but still had more work to do. Those are her own words, her choice to share a snippet of her story in a format of her choosing. She’s received many private messages and responded to each with humor, grace, and honesty.
Yet somehow I am wrong. My choice, our choice, to be raw and real with my pain as a parent, to discuss suicide and depression and mental health in genuine, concrete terms as it relates to my teenage daughter out in the open where others will hear me has them questioning my motives and capability as a parent. Apparently these topics are to be exiled to some corner, spoken of in whispers and side glances. I have now left my daughter vulnerable to bullying, gossip, college denials, and future unemployment.
As the storms pass and night falls, our family sits down for more conversation. We discuss the day’s events and our thoughts on these accusations and come to the same conclusion. The one thing we will not allow is for our daughter to feel shame or embarrassment. We will not allow others to make her feel guilty for what has happened to her, and we make this clear. She may have tried to drink something thinking it would make her problems go away, but she is not at fault. She was not herself during that time.
Anxiety is the uninvited guest who shows up one day and refuses to move out. Therefore, we seek help from professional designers who teach her to build special rooms, each with its own theme, paint color, decor, and aroma. When anxiety refuses to shut the hell up, she will cope by shutting herself in one of them, content with the tools inside and the secret passageways leading to the other rooms if that one doesn’t fit her needs. One day she might even learn to wander around in the same space as anxiety, knowing it’s trailing behind her, lurking over her shoulder, but she will be so content with the tools the professionals gave her, she will barely notice its presence, treating it more like an annoying fly to be swatted away.
Depression moves in right around the time that society bursts into flames and people fight each other for toilet paper as if it's a Cabbage Patch Doll from the 80s. Of course, depression shows up famished and underdressed. Everyone is working from home, all the meetings are on Zoom, and depression is lounging around, eating Doritos in nothing more than a pair of boxer briefs. It’s time to bring in some help, find the correct dosage of medication to get depression dressed and presentable and back into a daily routine.
But these coping skills for anxiety and the medication for depression won’t solve the ultimate problem. There is still so much more to learn about self-esteem and maturity, about repairing the portrait and preserving it for the future. She must learn how to grieve the changes in the dynamics of an important friendship as one person moves on to a new phase in life while the other gets left behind, how to sit with uncomfortable feelings and allow them to exist, how to recognize and acknowledge when anxiety is present and gain access to those rooms with the coping skills, how to manage depression and keep it in check.
None of that will happen without communication. Open, honest, face-to-face, telling someone how you are feeling communication. We need her to trust that she can come to us with anything, even if darkness descends and twists her mind and fills it with fear of horrid consequences, we need her to be open with us. We need her to realize that we will listen, that we will work with her, that we will try to understand what she is saying, that even though we may not agree or consent to her wants or demands, we will do what we can to help her find a solution or to find other resources who can.
We choose to show her openness and trust by modeling it in the way we present ourselves publicly, with her brother, with ourselves, our friends, our community. We have witnessed the alternative, the false relationship you think you have with your teenager, the one where you think they only have one Instagram page. The one where you think they've never searched for anything using the "incognito" mode, you assume your relationship is an open door, but when you reach for the handle, it reveals itself to be a brick wall.