I have to do something other than what I am, because what I'm doing is not working. I should exercise, eat better. I should get myself to a therapist and talk about all the trauma that I'm rocking right now, how it's not letting me sleep, how my heart races, how I'm on the edge of a panic attack all the time. Will I have a stroke? Will my heart literally break and I'll die right now while driving down the road?
I'm doing the, don't want to talk about it, but people ask and I want to tell them. Why can't I just download it from my brain to yours? I don't want to describe what's going on because it's harder than I can ever paint with words. I can't make you feel it and that's what I want. If I can make you feel it, maybe I can feel a little less of it. Like splitting items out of your backpack on a hike, right? That's how it should work, but it doesn't. I'm the only vessel of my experience and shit keeps getting piled in, but nothing comes out. My seams are starting to spread.
I think there are few times in my life that have caused me to be so fully present that I almost can not pull back out with objectivity, see the big picture, and choose what I want to do. That's the process I'm used to and have heavily cultivated through my life. I'm becoming a person who lashes out with a razor-tongue and doesn't feel a fuck-whit bad about it. If I'm slicing, it's because you deserved it. I do remember feeling like this before, now that I write (this is why I write), it was after the cancer and my mom died and I became this cutting, biting, angry woman for a while. She's motherfucking back.
So, timeline of events:
March 2014 - car accident. We're starting to think that this event was the catalyst for what's going on, but we acknowledge we could be totally wrong about that. It helps to be able to think back to an event as the start, and we all agree that N was different before the car accident, and slowly changed over time after it.
March 2014 - January 2015 - N becomes progressively more withdrawn, emotional, moody, crabby. He starts writing on himself, on his walls in his room, on his clothes. He starts cutting toward the end of this time period. He asks us several times to let him go to a mental hospital but we are convinced he's looking for the wrong kind of attention. We can't understand why he's reading psychiatry books and self-diagnosing, and then telling people he has bipolar, multiple personalities and OCD. We think this is all attention-seeking and have about 5000 conversations where we try not to minimize what he says he's experiencing but clueless as to what's real.
When he requests to see a counselor, we arrange that. He sees W two times which involves her coming to the waiting room, calling him back (without me), and him returning 50 minutes later. Before he goes back, we're joking, laughing, and everything seems fine. When he comes out, he's moody, guarded, and not revelatory. After the second appointment he hands me an after-visit summary that has a diagnosis on it - Major Depressive Disorder.
I'm really angry, who is this therapist that hands out diagnoses to kids without ever once talking to their parents?! N asks us if we'd consider putting him on medication. I say, "Absolutely not- and not because we're anti-medication, we're not. But because your therapist hasn't said a word to me to help me understand why you need it. "I tell N that I need to have access with her to meet with her and ask my questions so we can decide together, and he agrees.
In the meantime, N goes to school the very next day, informs all of his teachers that he has "MDD". We find this bizarre and do not understand it, but figure that again, he's seeking attention. We're feeling extremely frustrated by his behavior, which is not defiant or disrespectful, but just, far away, his choices are strange to us, he's mean to his sister, isolates, etc. We can't understand it.
Third appointment in January and I'm invited to participate after he has a brief chat with her. I explain how we feel left in the dark, how I don't understand why we aren't being included even though I do understand it, at the same time. I explain that I'm not buying a prescription for a drug when I haven't been informed as to why it's needed. She talks about his scores (a sheet of paper every patient completes before they see their therapist, gives a snapshot for any sort of emergencies like self-harm, suicide, etc.) and how they indicate this diagnosis is correct. She also explains that she has to 'put something into the computer' to facilitate ongoing visits and that this makes sense given what he's shared with her. I ask her how we are supposed to know how to care for him, what triggers to watch out for, etc. if she doesn't keep us informed- she agrees and we agree that we (parents) will be much more involved in the care from here on out. We set another appointment for February.
January 2015 - Sometime during this month, I don't recall the date, we get a call from N's school that he's cut himself deeply and might need stitches, and that I need to come pick him up. The school counselor explains that he did it on purpose, and that he can't come back to school until the administration has a chance to think about what's in his best interest, given that he brought a 'weapon' to school, AND self-harmed at school, both of which are against the rules. I see the fat bulging out of the cuts on his arm and I am just devastated. Are we missing how bad this really is for him? Are we making this worse? We call his therapist who talks with him over the phone, and we all agree that he's not to self-harm between now and when he meets her at his next appointment, two weeks hence.
Unfortunately, that appointment is canceled because she has the flu.
The next appointment is canceled when we arrive, because she'd just left, again, still sick with the flu.
Emergency availability with other therapists do not work out because of the little advance notice we're given. We schedule an appointment for March 20.
March 2015 On March 14th, this happens. The hospitalization was ultimately good but riddled with procedural roadblocks that made it all that much harder. The staff was incredibly warm and kind, informative, but knowing how to reach someone was a challenge; getting updates without having to call ourselves was a challenge; etc. N stayed a full 10 days (that's the upper limit, generally) and was well liked by the staff and other kids. N was started on Prozac while he was hospitalized and it made a marked difference - HUGE difference. He's now calmer, he's engaged. He's funny, affectionate, includes himself in our activities. For the first week, things were going smoothly. He was supposed to see a therapist within one week of coming out of the hospital, and we couldn't gt him in to see his own, so he saw another guy who doesn't generally work with kids. N says the appointment was a little awkward, but went okay. We kept checking in with him daily, "How was your day? How are you feeling?" We are trying hard to keep it general and light because we don't want him to feel like he's under a microscope, and at the same time, what R and I are experiencing is pure terror every day. It's incredibly exhausting and takes up all of our brain-space, trying to helplessly analyze everything he says, what he's wearing, how his grades are, whether he slept, who he hangs out with, etc.
No comments:
Post a Comment