Today is her last day as a patient in a hospital program. Today she will be discharged from NCH. Today she is done with group therapy and the in-person intensive daily sessions with individual counselors and psychiatrists and therapists. These are the people who have been dogging her for exactly two months since she tried to commit suicide, the people who have been trying to save her from herself.
For eight weeks, mental health professionals work diligently with her, teaching her new coping skills and strategies for when she is anxious or depressed, recognizing the triggers that set her off, diving into her self-esteem and self-worth to allow her the ability to put her life higher up on her own priority list. She makes progress, but she has setbacks. It’s like perpetually being in the waiting room, never leaving, and never truly moving on.
Her last week was the most challenging of all. After the death of her beloved Dipper, it was time to confront the whole of her situation, the swirl of decisions and events which landed her in the ER at the end of July. The stress of school, the isolation of a pandemic, the whispers of anxiety, the twisted lies of depression, and the rejection of a first crush at the center of it all; these are the problems she faced down last spring and her attempts to deal with them on her own and without help ended with nearly disastrous results.
Part of her still feels like the adults don’t hear her, like she’s not entitled to her feelings. She still considers the boy a friend, even though he hasn’t contacted her in nearly a month. His silence weighs on her heart. Part of her still dreams of a reconciliation, even as the possibility becomes more remote with each passing day.
She has nothing else to compare this experience to, for this is the first time she put herself out there, the first time she initiated contact, the first time she went for the friendship. And until she initiates another friendship to use as a comparison, until she reaches outside of her box and finds she isn’t rejected and a friendship that she begins doesn’t end in disaster, we are destined to remain in the waiting room, hiding the knives and monitoring her DMs.
Even though she is going home today, she is not yet at the end of her journey. She will continue weekly therapist and psychiatrist checkups, a new resource through the high school for counseling will be made available as well. The sharps and chemicals and medications are still locked up and there is no timeline for when they will return to their places. We will continue to watch her, check in with her, monitor her, question her, knowing that she is skilled at hiding what she does not want us to know. The trust develops and evaporates, but the fear, for me at least, will always be there, riding just below the surface.
And in that fear lies my greatest conflict. How much do I let go? How much to I trust? Part of me cheers I no longer have to chauffeur two hours of my day, yet part of me will miss the bond, the connection as we groove to her playlist and spot “slugbugs” and talk about school or friends. And while I am ready to sleep past 6 am (and I’m sure she is too since remote learning doesn’t begin until 8:30 for her), I have to wonder if we are dropping back too much. Are we taking too large of a step down in her support?
To understand why my thoughts are so jumbled, it is best to know the destination. What is our ultimate goal for her? As parents, we choose to treat her mental health crisis, not solely with antidepressants, which have helped, but we want to make sure we are getting to the reasons inside this girl which are leading to the behaviors like cutting, thinking about suicide, and actually attempting it. Her medication calms the whispers and open the curtains on the dark room which depression creates. But the house guests will always remain. Anxiety and depression will always live there, in her mind. The medication will manage them, but never cure them. So she must learn, through new behaviors, how to live with them.
Marsha Linehan, the creator of Dialectical Behavior Therapy, gives four options for any problem that you face: Solve the problem, change your perception of the problem, radically accept the situation, or stay miserable. Last week, her therapists focused on radical acceptance, which simply means accepting the fact that there are some problems in life which one cannot solve, and therefore you must accept the situation for what it is. (Psychology Today)
Refusing to accept that you didn’t get the lead in the musical you auditioned for, or that you asked a boy to turnabout and he said no, doesn’t change the fact that you are not going to be the start of the show or that you don’t have a date to the dance. Radical acceptance is painful. It means coming to terms with the fact that sometimes life sucks. Good people get cancer and die and worse yet, sometimes they are family or close friends. Humans outlive dogs and cats so at some point you will have to say good-bye to your fur baby.
The ability to accept death, to accept that a pandemic has taken away your senior prom or college graduation, to accept that being rejected by a boy doesn’t mean you are worthless or that you will never formulate another meaningful friendship, all these take practice. It is a skill that requires a new mindset, a different way of looking at problems. This concept is problematic for my daughter to grab hold of, as if accepting reality would mean agreeing with the outcome. Accepting doesn’t mean you agree with the outcome, it simply means “it is what it is.” It will take more than just a few days or weeks with a therapist to realize this concept. It may well take a lifetime.
And so, like any parent, I suppose I should lead by example. When confronted with a problem, I have four options. First, I can try to solve the problem, however, when the problem is your 15 year old daughter’s mental health, there is only so much that I can do. I can provide the transportation and financial resources to seek out and get the help she needs, initiate contact and coordinate with therapists and her school and teachers to make accommodations which will provide for her mental health, and work with her to help her in any way that I can, do anything that I can, to help her and support her through this crisis. This doesn’t fully solve the problem, but it addresses the portion that I can do with regard to the problem.
When it comes to changing my perception of the problem, that becomes a little tougher. It’s hard to see the silver lining in this situation. If anything, this experience has allowed me to explore my feeling through writing, set up a blog, and share that writing in a way I never have before. I take pride in knowing it has reached and resonated with so many. Talking about mental health, discussing your child’s fight against anxiety, depression, cutting, and suicidal thoughts isn’t something you see people posting about on most social media platforms. Letting others wander into our open door and see our problems spread out among the cat toys and unfolded laundry isn’t a big deal to me. From my vantage point, and from our family, we have nothing to hide and no reason for shame.
All this leads us to radical acceptance, and right now the ball is mainly in her court. She is the one who needs to accept life for what it is. I have already come to terms with the parts of my life which I cannot change. Don’t get me wrong, I have some issues I’m running from (figuratively...we all know that if any form of actual running is required in a life or death situation, I’m at the end being sacrificed...don’t feel guilty, I have radically accepted this fact). But there are many truths which this situation has laid bare, and they must be accepted for the reality that they are.
You’ll notice I don't mention the fourth option to solving a problem, because staying miserable isn’t an option, it’s admitting defeat. Staying miserable is the place you temporarily go while you sit with your bottle of wine and hold your table of one pity party until you can muster the strength to attempt the other three options. We all go there from time to time, but true friends don’t let us stay.
Her mental health will always afflict my daughter, and it will be something that will require monitoring throughout her life. There will be times of stability, joy, and happiness, but never a cure. She will go on to lead a brilliant, beautiful life full of promise. She is loved unconditionally by her family, closest friends, and “bonus” moms, but still she will deem herself unworthy of that love because she is still focused on the short term disaster that is her one failed friendship/crush. Moving beyond the short term requires the time, maturity, and patience to practice the skills she has learned to put this experience in her past.
When we look at ourselves, we will forever recognize the scars, scrapes, and flaws which mar the portrait reflected back. But the damage does not destroy the beauty of the painting, it adds depth and truth. The battles we fight, the challenges we face, the obstacles we overcome all leave behind their mark. These experiences define us, shape us, and make us who we are. My one true belief, my greatest hope, is for this journey to lead my daughter somewhere she never dreamed she would be, and that one day she will look back on this time in her life, and on these words her mother wrote, and know how much I truly love her.
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