I picked her up from the airport at midnight and offered to take her home for a good night’s sleep. Instead, she quietly asked to go straight to the hospital emergency room.
She wanted to be admitted for her recurring suicidal thoughts. So I pointed my car towards that exit and sat quietly with my thoughts for the 30 minute drive.
My daughter’s horrific anger outbursts began in January 2012. It was her Junior year. She was 16, smart, and beautiful. She had a supporting role in the school musical and seemed to thrive in that setting. Her straight A grades never plummeted. At home, she was a different creature. She could be verbally cruel and physically threatening to her 14 year old sister. Other times, she was thoughtful, sweet and caring. We thought she was just a very moody teenage girl. My heart ached when she handed me a letter one night begging “I need help. I’m sorry. I hate myself. Please help me.” We took her to the doctor to discuss possible anxiety disorder. He prescribed Zoloft and urged her to start therapy. She started it within eight weeks. Eight months later, I found the awful scars on her upper thighs. She had worn shorts that evening and they glared at me from under her hemline. She was cutting. I freaked and lost my breath.
I bundled her into the car and we called our county’s crisis number. I could only fathom that she was suicidal. If she was a danger to herself, then I needed to know and take her to the ER. My lesson in teen cutting started on that summer evening. According to the crisis specialist, self-mutilation does not necessarily mean a person is suicidal. It’s a means to dealing with stress and emotional pain. It’s a habit that can become an overwhelming addiction. That October, I caught sight of her inner arm at a bridal shower. The word WHORE was carved on her young flesh. When asked, she denied feeling like a whore exactly, just feeling nothing.
This beautiful child that I brought into our world and raised in a loving environment was angrily pushing away from me. Did I mess up with parenting? Did we provide too much and spoil her in our determination to be “better” than our parents? Or did she inherit my mental illness genes?
During her senior year, she maintained grades above a 4.0. When life got hard though, she just lost control and threw massive fits at home. It was a daily struggle. She spent more than the normal teen time in bed, and this was a red flag. We got her in with an adolescent psychiatrist who changed her diagnosis to depression and oppositional defiant disorder.
After 18 months of meeting with our daughter, the therapist suggested her illness might include bipolar and urged us to keep charts on her moods and behaviors. We collected data, marked charts, took notes and used an app to keep track of her moods. If she was manic, it wasn’t a regular cycle. The psychiatrist stuck to the original diagnosis. In August of 2013, hoping we had equipped her for managing her mental health, we moved her to college.
She confessed later that she started smoking pot almost immediately and daily. We found out the last week of that first semester. This is significant to her current diagnosis. She won’t call it self-medicating, but that’s the truth of it. Her GPA for her first semester was a .8. She failed three of her five classes.
We yearned to yank her out and bring her home. We could see her self-destruction. She fought and insisted no: She was determined to show that she could do it. The psychiatrist proposed a plan: Our daughter would return to college and submit to random drug tests and earn at least a 3.0 the second semester. We barely agreed, but drove her back after winter break.
My daughter cut less during her first semester. Then she burnt a few “smiley” scars into her arm with a lighter during the second. Her pot-smoking cut down from every day to only three-four times the second semester.
I’d like to say she achieved the necessary grades, but that didn’t happen. She held her shit together and had straight A’s through mid-terms. Then, it all went south again. She now refuses to go to ANY college in the fall. She feels unsure, not confused, about her future. She doesn’t see a future for herself.
She sent me a text this Monday from my sister’s house out-of-state, “I need to come home. I’m sicker mentally than I thought I was. I’ve been semi-suicidal for months now with only the thought of family grieving to keep me from doing it.”
When we got to the hospital, she wasn’t completely honest during the intake interview that night. She left out the risky and self-destructing behaviors that indicated bipolar. She was admitted at 4:00am. Eight hours later she called home demanding to be let out; that I didn’t know what it’s like there. I did. I’d been hospitalized off and on for 12 years for my depression and bipolar II. She told the psychiatrist that morning NOTHING about her scary behaviors, insisted she wasn’t suicidal. She refused to take the increased meds or attend the group therapy sessions. She wanted discharged NOW and threw a tantrum during a conference call that included the social worker.
She came home this afternoon and I’m scared to go back to my own house now that she is there. It’s likely that she has Borderline Personality Disorder, whose only treatment is therapy, no medication. She could also have bipolar disorder. I’m scared that I don’t have the coping skills to keep me healthy and help her. I’m afraid of the negative dynamic she creates in our home. It’s all an unknown, intangible mess.
This wannabe author has chosen to publish anonymously, we at Blunt Moms wish her the best with her daughter. If you are having suicidal thoughts or just need someone to talk to, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline can be reached 24/7.