The New Normal

Somewhere in the past two months rubble of writing I have a piece about all the things we don’t write on Facebook (in response to the awesomely funny top 7 ways to be insufferable on Facebook) and why it’s not because people are necessarily insufferable. They might just want to see the positive while not inappropriately over sharing their personal negatives.

Acceptable for Facebook is proudly posting links to honor roll lists or posts about how great your kids have done at something (I’ve got three kids, of course I do it). Posts about personal, child, or family medical struggles are also acceptable, and valued, as it is brave and wonderful for people to share. It is also helpful to know what people that you care about are dealing with. 

Quieter and seen in the days of no posts or perhaps links to humorous videos are those of us navigating the world of mental health struggles because our society really doesn’t accept that this is also a medical struggle.

Just as a parent is proud of a child who is recovering from a knee injury for slowly working their way back into sports, I am proud of my oldest daughter as she goes to her classes, talks to her teachers after she has fallen behind, and studies for mid-terms in the midst of one of her darkest depressions. But that’s not a post I would make on Facebook.

No one doubts that a child is in pain when they can pull up an MRI and show a ligament tear. But there is some notion that mental anguish is chosen, despite multiple doctor diagnoses. (It’s in moments like this that I am glad that Tom Cruise is not one of my Facebook friends. Although, I recently had the same thought when I watched Jack Reacher.)

My daughter has had a long hard road to even getting the correct diagnosis. She has likened it to sitting in an Emergency waiting room with a broken arm for three years while everyone tries to figure out what is wrong. The challenges of an adolescent with mental issues are multiple. There are only a few psychiatrists in our state that take adolescents and insurance (and most of them have a waiting list a mile long, many are completely closed to new patients). Most mental disorders are “emerging” when they are in teens. Many of the symptoms also are like exaggerated mimes of normal teen behavior. It’s like trying to diagnose a moving shape shifting target. After over three years, my daughter finally has what seems to be a good doctor and the correct current diagnosis.

But like all medicine, it is not an exact science. The right dosage of the right medicine one week may not be the same the next. We can’t prick our mentally ill children’s finger to get a number to see if they are coming close to a crash. We can only watch for signs of acceleration and deviation and sometimes we only know when we see the debris.

One of the hardest and most necessary things for parents to do for any child is to change your dreams for them based on reality. By the age of one, I could fill journal pages with the words my daughter could say. By thirteen, she was co-valedictorian and had worn a path in her school “auditorium” walking up to receive awards.

This year, she said to me that she feels like I am waiting, waiting for that good girl at the top of the honor roll to return. Maybe I was. Or maybe I just hadn’t yet untangled the version of my dreams and her life.

When my daughter was crashing last (Freshman) year in high school, misdiagnosed and on medication that was unknowingly triggering that emerging shadow into a frightening new reality, she couldn’t get up; she couldn’t make herself go to school. I was leaving work, paying for tutors, paying out of pocket for new doctors, watching as a shadow was stepping into her and making her the shape shifter. I was afraid, every day, that the shadow would win before I got the new help we needed to name it, to help her. This was not only on her shoulders, but mine. I had to advocate, to fight, to research, to search, to query, to add our names to waiting lists--again and again (with my husband’s help).

Meanwhile, seeing everyone’s FB posts of honor rolls and pictures of their jubilant seemingly perfect unmarred shining teens who appeared to succeed at every endeavor was a bit painful. Although these are the same kind of posts I had made and kept on making. Still, at the time, I felt it was necessary to block some of these, just as I am sure my daughter distanced herself from some of these same seemingly gleaming friends.

Recently, when I saw my daughter during these (Sophomore) end of quarter and mid-term weeks struggling with what was, by that point, weeks of anguish, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know because she asked for nothing. Because she poured herself over her books and said there was nothing to be done. And I was home alone with all three kids that week and had little time to really explore the veracity of her answers. I could only believe her. We had seen her doctor the week before for the increase that had yet to take effect, we had her follow up scheduled for the week after. Yet, she kept on, she went to school, she made appointments with teachers, she came home and sat a desk with pencils and books and computers. She sat hunched over them and I could feel the pain and suffering radiating off of her, it was palpable and heart-breaking. I felt a shift in seriousness that frightened me.

The difference is that before I was shouldering some of the brunt for her. She sloughed some off onto me and allowed me to champion her. Now she is shouldering it alone, as much as she can. As she will have to for the rest of her life. I think this is the shift. But to see your child in this kind of pain, be it mental or physical, that you cannot alleviate...it’s like someone reaching into you and squeezing off bits of your heart.

As much as I felt helpless that I could not take some of the pain for her, I also felt great pride in her. I don’t think I’m waiting for that “good” girl to come back. This girl is amazing. During pain and depression that would have left most people (including the girl she used to be) curled into a hopeless fetal position, she got up and moved and studied for some of the most challenging honors courses and...tried! This is what makes me proud of her. My husband sent me her grades the week after midterms, I didn’t open them. Because I would have been proud even if they weren’t honors courses, even if she hadn’t passed. But I heard it through the grapevine that she did. This didn’t make me any prouder, but it did make me happier for her.

In all of our parental futures is a time when we won’t have any more honor rolls, grades, colleges, and sports awards to mark our pride. We’ll have to find real world pride in our children, just as the luckiest of us have parents that feel that pride for us in our "old" age. What will make us proud is that our children are living or working toward a life that fulfills them.

I’m proud of my daughter for trying, I’m proud of her for surviving. I’m proud of her for growing up to be someone who cares. I’m proud when she makes it to some swim meets, despite the challenges for her; I don’t look at the times anymore. I’m proud that she is learning to play guitar and that she is starting to sing in front of people with her amazingly cool voice. I’m proud when she can admit she is intimidated but excited to read The Odyssey. I’m proud when I get a small glimpse of the unbelievably prolific and powerful writer/photographer/artist that she is. I’m proud that she’s just growing up. But I’m proud, most of all, to be able to honestly say she is someone that I really like.

I don’t have any more blocks on Facebok. Please keep on posting those links and pictures and braggings of your amazing kids. I don’t think you are insufferable at all. I think you are proud. And I want to be proud with you. And I hope that you’re proud with me.


Writer’s Note:
This isn’t about me any more. it’s not really even mine to write about, but with my daughter’s permission/blessing, I am...I’m place holding until someday when maybe she can write about it and help someone else.
 
Photo Credits:
Yanmei