I have started this piece more times than I can track. Every time, it has started with a different incident. Officially, my daughter has an anxiety diagnosis. But lots of things go with that, including depression and somatization. Just for kicks and giggles, we will add in emotional delays. Oh, and she is just entering puberty.
What does this mean? It means that every day is a minefield between fears and pain that is real, though it has no physical cause. She hates herself, and sometimes considers self-harm and suicide, at age 12. On a bad day, there will be temper tantrums that rival that of your toddler, complete with lying on the living room floor yelling incoherently because we wanted her to come to Costco with us. And is she moody today because of the anxiety? Depression? Or hormones? Is the pain she is experiencing part of her anxiety, or is she getting cramps?
We have been to the urgent care more times in the three years she has been with us than anywhere else, well, except her therapist’s office. On some level, she equates being taken to the doctor with being loved, so there are times, like 10pm the night before her first Thanksgiving with us, that nothing will calm her down except agreeing to take her to urgent care, even if we know there is not anything they can actually do for her. (And no, telling her you will take her to urgent care to get her to calm down and then not taking her is NOT a recipe for success.)
She does not have a defiant disorder, so I am pretty sure that her attitude regarding doing chores is just normal kid stuff, but her inability to pay attention – that could be ADD, or part of her anxiety, or those emotional delays I mentioned. Emotional delays that mean while her body and mind are 12, her emotions are closer to 8, so her ability to focus and follow directions or sit still more closely resemble that of an 2nd grader than the 6th grader she is.
The thing is, we are better equipped to handle the mental health issues than a lot of people. We adopted from foster care. We came into this knowing we would likely be battling depression, and her anxiety was already documented (though not officially diagnosed) when she came to us. In addition, my husband’s (let’s call him “C”) family has a history with mental illness. His mother’s depression was so bad that if she did not take her pills, she was non-functional. She would literally spend the day in front of the TV crying, though she could not tell you why. C himself has suffered from depression (and probably bi-polar disorder, but his mother had a major fear of mental health professionals, so he was never diagnosed or treated), including harming himself when we were younger. I very much remember the scars on his arms when we started dating, scars that came from burning himself, simply so that he could feel “something”.
So yeah, we have a pretty good idea of what we are dealing with. We have an idea of coping mechanisms, though convincing a 12 year old in the middle of a toddler-esque temper tantrum to breathe deeply is not exactly the easiest task.
And yet, we do not know exactly what we can do. If she decided to hurt herself, we do not know how to proactively stop it. She is already in therapy and has been for two and half years. She is good at talking to us and her therapist. We also see a psychiatrist, who works closely with her therapist. But none of this prevents her from thinking about self-harm, from having suicidal ideation. None of it. So will any of it stop her from harming herself if it gets that far?
For now, we thank the heavens every day for her VERY low pain threshold. Some days that is all I have to hang on to, the knowledge that the child has no tolerance for pain. And other days, I am afraid that will not be enough. For now, we are choosing not to medicate. The bad periods do not last that long. And on good days she is a ray of sunshine.
Puberty is hard enough without adding in powerful psychotropic drugs, but we are not against them in the future. If the bad days start coming more often than the good days. If we cannot get past the feelings of worthlessness, medication will become the answer.
For now, we tell her we love her. We never shut down talk about how she is feeling. We try to maintain a routine and consistent rules, and keep her world as stable as we can. It is all we can do. That and love her.
About the author: Erin Shanendoah is an author, editor, and blogger who… Oh, let’s face it, Erin is “the man”. She works in management. She has been known to use the phrase “my staff”. But as happy as she is being the sole earner for her family, she can’t not write. She has experimented throughout the years writing multiple blogs and submitting her fiction for publication. She now has her “one true blog” at Dear Alien Anthropologists http://erinshanendoah.com/alienanthros/, where she writes about parenting, pets, personal finance, and even posts some original fiction.
1 Comment
I am thankful that there are people like you in the world.