Blog Series Guest Post: Parenting a Child With a Mental Illness

Author: Cate Luther

Bio: I'm Cate, a former classroom teacher who taught for over 20 years. Now I'm a stay-at-home-mom, blogger and educational advocate. Check out my blog at : Raising a Drama Queen. I also have a Facebook page called: Raising a Drama Queen: Adventures with Autism and Bipolar Disorder.

As I previously wrote about on this blog, I grew up with two parents who had mental illnesses. My father’s affected him most of my life. My mom’s lie dormant until I was an adult and on my own.

Before my husband and I considered having a child of our own, we wanted to educate ourselves about the possibility of having a child with a mental illness. I attended a NAMI Family-to-Family 12 week class to learn how best to support my severely mentally ill mother and to learn what the percentages were of me passing this on to any future children I might have. I was encouraged to learn that it wasn’t that great. (Keep in mind this was over ten years ago. Recent statistics place this at close to 10%.)

Armed with this knowledge, my husband and I decided to spin the roulette wheel. We desired a child who was not only physically healthy, but also mentally healthy.  Once I became pregnant with our daughter, we saw a genetic counselor. He took copious notes while we told him about all of the various health challenges that run in our families: cancer, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, strokes and heart attacks. The odds were not stacked in our child’s favor. Knowing this, we  continued to move forward. The ultrasound I was given to detect if there were any birth defects, showed there were none. Since I was almost 40, my doctor also recommended that I have an amniocentesis performed to see if my baby had Downs Syndrome. After reading up on this and learning that sometimes it can result in a miscarriage, I opted out of this test.

When our daughter was born a few months later, we were happy that she appeared normal and healthy. This was especially significant since my husband had had two bouts with cancer before she was conceived. He was concerned that radiation that he had received six months prior may have affected her. I remember him holding her up and saying, “Ten little fingers and ten little toes, she’s perfect.”

The first few years after our little cherub was born, were hectic, but we thought we were just like everyone else. We just had a child who was a little more spirited and defiant. During her Kindergarten year, she was given the diagnosis of ADHD after a few less than pleasant incidents at school. That same summer we had a clinical psychologist perform a complete mental health evaluation on her. One sentence in the summary of his report still echoes in my mind. It read, “…but the possibility of bipolar disorder cannot be ruled out.”

I was in shock when I read those words. As a classroom teacher, I  could handle a child with ADHD. I could even handle one with Oppositional Defiant Disorder. The bipolar diagnosis, on the other hand, had me searching for answers. One of the first things I did was go to the bookstore to learn more. I picked up “ Bipolar Disorder for Dummies” by Fink and Kraynak. I found one chapter about bipolar disorder in children.  In this book I found another sentence that would change my life, “For more information go to Child and Adolescent Bipolar Foundation. At …” (It is now The Balanced Mind Parent Network, http://community.dbsalliance.org/welcome.htm)

On this site I found parents like me trying to make sense of our child’s intense mood swings as well as parents who had been in the trenches for a while.  They were my lifeline for many years. I am now one of the ones giving back to this wonderful organization.

Additionally, my husband and I sought out professionals who would help us with our precious child. We found a gifted and compassionate marriage and family therapist who was a bevy of resources.  She had a wealth of knowledge about how to parent a challenging child. My daughter liked her and saw her on her own for several years until she moved her practice out of the area. Within six months of our daughter’s initial diagnosis, we were also blessed to find a wonderful psychiatrist after two others didn’t work out. The further along my daughter went in her educational career, the more we realized that she would need more help than the average child. Our therapist recommended an educational advocate to us. Over the years we have had three fabulous advocates who helped us navigate 504 and IEP meetings. I am convinced that my daughter would not be at the fantastic therapeutic day school she has been at since fourth grade, were it not for the guidance that my husband and I received from these talented advocates.

My daughter finally received the official bipolar diagnosis at age seven. She was hospitalized five times before the age of ten. My husband and I have survived it all. We learned that one of us needed to be available and to provide structure for her. A little of four years ago I ended up resigning from over 20 years of teaching so I could provide that support. We learned not to fill our child’s schedule so that she has very little down time.  Yes, it’s hard, however, it is not impossible.

It took me a few years to stop saying, “Why me? I already had my turn with living with individuals with a mental illness.” A friend taught me, the teacher, that I was the perfect mom for my precious daughter. Since I’d had experience with mental health, I know what to look for to get my daughter the help that she needs. I’m blessed to have been chosen to raise this child.

The road we are traveling on has many bumps and turns. It is often like riding a roller coaster.  Even so, I’m confident that my husband and I will figure out the next part in our journey as parents to a child with mental health challenges. We have a whole team of professionals cheering us on.

Blog Series Guest Post: Things Will Get Better

Author: Kay E.

Yeah, yeah, I know it sounds like a cliché, but hear me out:

If you’ve lived with any mental illness for any amount of time, you know how rough it can be. There are so many times where you feel lost and hopeless, like there’s nothing to look forward to. But if you’ve stuck it out, you know that you will return to normalcy. When you’ve emerged from a several month long battle with your illness, and can finally walk out in the sunlight, you find a new appreciation for the little things. Laughing never felt so good before, your best friend’s smile never seemed brighter, and music never made you want to dance more. The love that your friends and family have for you has never seemed stronger. Not only will things look up for you, but they will seem even better than before. My challenge for you, the next time you feel like things are coming to an end, remember they’re not. Remember that life is brighter on the side. Remember that it will get better. You will get better. 

Blog Series Guest Post: "Hope?"

Author: Leslie Kassal

Bio: ...I remember being about 4 or 5 and feeling as if something was different, wrong, "too private"....as if I was not healthy, but growing inward, and disturbed.  In retrospect, I was carrying more sadness than any child should have borne.

Now, I am 65, and more whole than I have ever been.  I am grateful for expert psychiatrists, medicine, hospitalizations, and friends like Megan Roach, that I have met along the way.......

"Hope?"

"The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what to hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope." Barbara Kingsolver

When my Facebook friend, Megan, asked if I would be willing to share some words about mental illness, I decided that would be fine.

I thought that the subject of Hope and its role in recovery would be a rather easy thing for me to describe and share.  But it has not been as easy as I had wished.

For, while I know that Hope is essential to all of life, and that recovery would be very challenged without having Hope, when I looked more closely at my life, I needed to be far more honest.

Hope does not come easily for me.  I often feel as if I am on a jungle gym, and hanging on for dear life, just to get to the next bar of metal.

Will I fall, will I hurt myself?  Will I be able to enter the 'playground' at all?

What I know about myself is that I often feel as if I literally cannot go on one minute more.  My Inner Hopelessness is real, and pervasive, and I try to hide how unnerving it feels.

Somehow, some way, I have entered a rhythm in my life which works.  I know that I can call my psychiatrist, leave a message; I can use prn meds; I can write (which brings me great succor and relief); I can go to sleep; I can use food to anesthetize me.

What I cannot do is give up.....................

So there you have it: my imperfect, idiosyncratic take on Hope.  I am still alive, which is something I never take for granted.

Blog Series: Love & Marriage

Author: Me

Marriage is hard.  Throw a couple of mental illnesses into the mix, and it gets ten times harder.  It is possible, though.  I have three mental illnesses and have been married to the love of my life for over six years.  But, she and I will both tell you that it's a lot harder when one of the partners has a mental illness.

When Stace and I first started dating, I was having a terrible time coming to terms with the fact that I was gay.  I had known since I was 19, but hadn't really come out of the closet until I met her at age 27.  That's a long time to have anxiety about being gay.  And, not only was I having anxiety about it, but I was engaging in Borderline behaviors, and having massive mood swings as well.  

Somehow, Stace stayed with me and helped me through all of that, and we are doing better every single day.  But, it wasn't easy at all.

She proposed to me after only eight and a half months of dating because we knew, from basically Day One that we were going to spend the rest of our lives together.  We fell in love within a month, moved in together after four months, got engaged after eight and a half months, and got married on our two-year anniversary of our first date.  It was a whirlwind of excitement and anxiety all at once, at least for me.  

I was so happy to be marrying the love of my life, but I had a couple of mental illnesses to contend with.  I lump our dating and marriage relationship into one because it was a struggle from the very start, for both of us.  We fought pretty much all the time, mostly because I just didn't know how to be with someone.  That might sound weird, but it's true.  I just didn't know how to handle being around and living with a person that I loved with all my heart, but still did things that I didn't like. 

I remember that during the early days until just a couple of years ago, when I got mad, I would often slam doors, or if I didn't even want to look at her, I would get in my car and drive around.  And, please know that I used to have major anger problems, and my wife is about as happy-go-lucky and loving of life as anyone I've ever met.  So, it was mainly me that was having the issues.  

But, like Stace always says when I ask her why she stayed with me, that she always "saw the good in me" and when she saw a certain smile on my face, she knew that we'd be okay eventually. She loved me enough to stay while I changed into a better person, and I loved her enough to do the changing.  And, I know that everyone says that "don't expect him/ her to change once you get married.  That won't happen."  But, for us, I WANTED to change. I WANTED to get rid of my anger and do better with my illnesses, and I knew that if I worked hard at those two things, I would be a better person and we would be together forever like we both wanted.  

I had been in therapy with a wonderful therapist since August of 2007, and then Stace and I met in December of 2007.  So, I was actively working on myself, and Stace knew that.  When we would have a major blow-up, she would go to therapy with me the next week and we would work it out.  Being unhappy with my psychiatrist of a few years, in July of 2010, I decided to switch to the doctor I am currently seeing, and Stace was fully supportive of that.  I finally got on a good cocktail of meds, and have been stable on them for about 5 years now.  

A major point of contention between us was that I literally could not work.  I had been working part-time and going to school when we met, and then when I finished school, I worked full-time for a few months.  I had to quit that job because it was too overwhelming, and was hospitalized about a month after that.  That was when we decided that I would just do house-wifey things like take care of the boys, clean, do laundry, take care of the house, dishes, etc.  I'm so glad that I do that now!  It is a lot less stressful than working and thankfully my honey can provide for us all. (I do get Disability every month).

So, now that we've been through so much in our early years together, we figure anything is better than that.  We have a very strong love for each other, and our pups, and we are committed to making this marriage work.  We don't fight hardly ever now. It is much more peaceful in our home, and we tell each other that we love each other all the time.  We know each other's quirks (and, yes, Stace has some, too).  

We are honest with each other and we each know everything about the other.  We are stable now and have been for a few years now.  We are mindful of my limitations and we work within them.  We make everything work, and isn't that what marriage is all about?

Blog Series Guest Post: Depression and The Single Guy

Author: Philip Kaplan

Bio:  I am a 37 year old resident of Towson, Maryland, although I originally hail from Jersey. I spent over seven years as a lawyer for parents in custody cases initiated by Child Protective Services. I struggle with severe depression and am in treatment for it. In the past, I have served as a judge and scorer in regional high school mock trial competitions, as well as an appellate moot court judge in law school practice exercises. I am a huge fan of random acts of kindness/generosity and was fortunate enough to have gotten the chance to be one of the Kmart "layaway angels" making the rounds in recent years. More currently, I am a proud member of and volunteer for NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness). In my spare time, I enjoy power walks, pop music, twisted humor, and deep conversations.
 
It is shortly after 12am on a weekend night in early 2015, and one of the main local bars, a favorite among the nearby college crowd, is packed. People are drinking, dancing, talking, or some combination of the three. The energy level is palpable as Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off" plays loudly in the background. The bartender rushes to serve the customers who are either ordering drinks, waiting for their drinks, or trying to get his attention. Groups of girls begin entering the room for the first time, crossing the dance floor area and heading to the bar while talking to each other or texting on their phones.

One such group of three girls is on the outskirts of the bar area, waiting to order.

A good-looking, 30 something guy wearing a gold leather jacket strolls confidently up to the three girls, taps one on the shoulder, and says, "This looks like a group that's doing shots!" He flashes them a broad smile.

They smile back.

Within minutes, he is handing each of them a cinnamon flavored "fireball" shot and doing one himself. They all raise a toast to the night and cheer. A short time later, he is making small talk with one of them, easily balancing out her wide-eyed responsiveness with seemingly effortless displays of wit and charm. She's a junior at the university. He asks her what her major is. Communications. She asks about him. He tells her he's a lawyer.

"A lawyer?" She replies, visibly impressed.

They continue to talk for a few more minutes. He gets her number, promising to call. At some point, he makes his departure, flashing her one more warm smile upon leaving.

A few days later, the man in the gold leather jacket parks his car in the lot behind the office building. A few minutes later, a door opens in a waiting room, and he is greeted by a man in his early 50s. He enters the man's nicely decorated office, and they sit across from each other.

"How did it go?" His therapist asks him.

"I went out Saturday night. I guess I had a decent enough time, chatting up some girls, buying them a few shots. I did get one girl's number, and I texted her the next day about getting together, but I still haven't heard back. Whatever. I guess I'm proud of myself for having made the effort, right?"

His therapist reaffirms that he should be proud of himself, particularly for venturing outside of his comfort zone.

However, the man in the gold leather jacket does not appear happy.

"Look, it's not like I'm not proud of myself. I know I'm trying. Fine. But that's not good enough. I'm so lonely. I'll never understand why this has to be so difficult. Sometimes I really just want to die. I don't want it to end like that. But I don't know. Sometimes suicide seems to make perfect sense. My life feels like a nightmare from which I can't wake up."

 I know the man in the gold leather jacket. I see him every time I look in the mirror.

For three years now, I have battled severe depression, a recurrence of an illness that affected me throughout my adolescence. As a teenager, I was psychiatrically hospitalized three times and came close to killing myself on several occasions. My teenage depression ended at age 19, and with a newfound confidence and optimism, I became very focused on outward achievement, putting all my energies into academic/career goals. I graduated from college with honors, went to law school, and ultimately became a well-respected trial attorney.

Yet my dating/relationship life remained troubled. I was a late bloomer and did not begin dating until my early 20s. I've only had one girlfriend-- from age 25 to 32-- and looking back, I question whether we were ever right for each other. I am now 37 and have been single for over five years. I have struggled just to get dates, and I average maybe 3 to 5 actual, in person dates a year.

The college bar scene was one experiment among many. I've obviously tried online dating. I've tried asking women out in other contexts.

How do I explain that I am depressed, in large part, because I am single and lonely? That my dating frustrations frequently make me want to die? Men know how it is. If we dare to open up about our dating problems, we get told that we must be doing something wrong. Then we drive ourselves crazy looking inward, trying to identify some hidden flaw that we imagine might be the cause.

How does a guy begin to say what he really feels, which is that the 21st century dating culture is a bewildering, incomprehensible maze of catch-22s, double binds, and no-win situations? That so many men are completely baffled as to how, when, and where to approach women for dates? That more men than you'd ever imagine-- otherwise successful, socially functional, good-looking men-- are nonetheless having trouble simply getting dates, and that many of us have been painfully alone for years?

When will people realize there are no easy answers to any of this?

Song lyrics begin playing in my head.

"I'm dancing on my own.... I make the moves up as I go... and that's what they don't know..."

Tomorrow I will have another therapy session.