Canyons of Life

Damn.
Damn Damn, the system for working class folks.

Never had my own offspring but raised a couple. The daughter has and had mental health issues.
Talk and understanding. She went through hell and back with the meds and treatments.
Then something clicked. 25 years later she is living a good life she built for herself with her daughter.
Makes more than her mother and I ever made as a private chef .

Hang in there JLS! Take care of yourself too.
 
JLS said:
Truer words have not been spoken. The toll is real right now.

A couple of weeks ago I was all packed to go spend a couple of days with friends who were elk hunting. When I got home I found my youngest sitting on the couch in tears talking to my wife. I quickly canceled my trip so I could be present.

She said she felt like she was slipping back to where she was last winter. School has been getting the better of her, friend drama, typical teenage stuff. Plus, she hadn’t been taking all of her meds and hadn’t seen her counselor in weeks/months.

Thankfully she was receptive to our help. Heavy dose of vitamin D, back on meds, for an appointment with our GP, going to the gym. It’s all been helpful to her and she is starting to see the value in taking care of herself. She has an appointment with her counselor next week.

Feeling a little better about things, I left Sunday after work to head to central MT for a week of elk hunting. Tuesday night found me and a good friend sitting by the stove in the wall tent, eating sockeye salmon and drinking Pendleton. Life is grand. Then the text message from my wife. Middle daughter is in a really rough spot. Said she doesn’t want to be alive anymore.

I get up Wednesday and we break camp. It’s a long drive home. My guts are churning. I’m longing for a Copenhagen.

This kid can be too much like me. She’ll lock shit up and not let anyone see it. I finally get her to tell me she has overwhelming senses of dread that bad things are going to happen. That she’ll get in a car wreck. Get kidnapped. Fall off a bridge.

I asked her how long this has been going on and she said years. She told me she is so tired of worrying about what bad thing may happen she just wants to die. She sees no future and no happiness.

She saw a psychiatric PA last summer and she made a preliminary bipolar diagnosis. This was no surprise. However, she hadn’t ever told anyone about the anxiety disorders. We did an online screening and she’s high anxiety in about every anxiety disorder there is.

We’re trying to get her the help she needs. We’ve encouraged her to take a quarter off from school so she can get a handle on things. It’s a bitch getting into a psychiatric eval. Getting mental health help when you have a middle class income and insurance is completely $*)Q!#@$ impossible.

She has an appointment with our GP in a few weeks. She too had quit seeing her counselor and hadn’t told us. Because of privacy laws they can’t tell us.

I haven’t figured out how to not live in fear. I don’t enjoy going hunting nearly as much anymore because I dread what may happen while I’m gone. I don’t want my wife to have to deal with this alone and it consumes me.

I’m tired of watching my kids battle the demons that come with mental illness. It’s simply exhausting.
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You are in my thoughts and prayers. The fact that she twice shared her feelings rather than acting on them suggests progress and good work done by her, you and your wife. It shows she has hope - hope that if she asks for help things may be better -- and it shows growing trust, trust that if she shares herself at her worst it will be met with love. So, while progress seems 2 steps forward and 1 step back it is progress nonetheless and seems to be the way these issues are worked through. Take care and feel free to PM if you want - I will pass along my cell # and can share some of the journey we fathers are traveling.
 
Tough times, man. You and your family have a permanent place on my prayer list.

Mental illness is insidious in many ways, one of which is how easily it is to convince yourself to abandon treatment. Do I really need to keep doing this? Am I really bipolar? I’m feeling better lately. Nothing seems to help…what’s the point?

The list is endless. I believe a time is coming in our society where we accept mental illness on the same level as other chronic conditions. As it stands, though, we penalize persons for lapses it treatment compliance, to the detriment of them and their families. Want to get back in counseling? Oh, there’s a 5 week wait list. See a provider to get back on meds? A 3 month wait list. It’s a crap sandwich.

I applaud you for being present and loving your kids where they are.
 
JLS said:
But, whenever I drive through downtown I have these unimaginable thoughts and questions of if my daughter will end up homeless, living a life of torment. Will she break and turn to drugs? Will she break and attempt suicide?
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When those terrifying thoughts start creeping in I encourage you to push back with truths you can stand on, such as your commitment to their health and wellness, the positive things they’ve done for themselves when they have been motivated, and ways your family has become stronger since the initial suicide scare.

Drain all the power from that worst-case vision of the future. You know on your watch you’d do everything in your ability to not to let those things come to pass. Your daughters might not express it openly, but they’re all very much aware of how you show up for them again and again through their struggles, and it means a lot.
 
I’m sorry to hear about the most recent struggles. This must be exhausting. Hang in there. Prayers for you and your family.
 
Prayers your way. Sounds like you and your wife are working tirelessly. Your kids are lucky to have parents that understand and care the way you do. Hope all improves.
 
@JLS, I am praying for you and your family this morning that you may have the strength to face this day and have the comfort and confidence that you can walk this valley with your family and come out stronger for having walked it together.
 
Man I'm so sorry you're going through all of this, but you're taking it like a champ. You have an army of us praying for you and your family.

I've seen first hand how much meds can help, I hope she realizes if they're working, and keeps taking them, and keeps fighting the good fight!
 
Thank you so much for sharing. Like others, my thoughts and prayers are with you and your family. I think it is a good sign that she is willing to share her feelings. That shows she still has hope. It is a neverending struggle, and finding the coping mechanisms that work for her will be key to whatever measure of success one can have in this battle. Good luck.
 
I know the pain of watching your kid suffer is almost unbearable, but you can never give up hope. When my third oldest daughter hit 13 it was like something in her brain just snapped. We felt helpless trying to help her and trying to get professional help was nothing but constant frustration. Nobody seemed like they really cared and they were more worried about how they would get paid. The tole it took on her siblings was almost as painful to watch as what she was going through herself. We did get her seeing a therapist, but to me it didn't seem like it was helping much. Then one day the therapist took me aside and told me to do something. Now, I am no mental health expert or anything like that and I know everyone's problem is different but what she had me do really seemed to be the turning point we needed. She told me to write a letter to my daughter being 100% honest about everything she means to me and what a terrific person she is no matter what she is going through and how much I cherished her and want nothing more than to help her. She had me do this because she said that the thoughts in her head on how I felt about her and how her problems affect me were far different and far more negative the reality and she needed to hear what the reality was. I'm not saying she was suddenly all better, but it was like a weight was lifted off her soul allowing her to heel. Like I said I am no expert, and I don't know if this is even appropriate for you situation, but it seemed to help her. That was over 20 years ago, and she has never spoken a word to me about that letter, but she is a fine upstanding woman and mother of three right now and that is all that matters to me.
 
I've been thinking about this this morning.

I personally went through a very rough year or so in my mid teens. I've have no idea what brought it on, maybe some weird teenage hormonal swing? I experienced some awful anxiety and general emotional upheaval. I can only imagine what my parents went through, but they were patient and were a tremendous help. And then it was gone. I've experienced the beginnings of those feelings at times since, but having gone through that, and leaning on my faith, as well as those around me who I love, it's never returned in a meaningful way.

I don't know if I have any wisdom, other than that my heart goes out to you. Maybe it will evaporate at some point, or maybe it will be a long term challenge. All of us are to a certain extent dysfunctional. Wishing you the best.
 
gouch said:
I know the pain of watching your kid suffer is almost unbearable, but you can never give up hope. When my third oldest daughter hit 13 it was like something in her brain just snapped. We felt helpless trying to help her and trying to get professional help was nothing but constant frustration. Nobody seemed like they really cared and they were more worried about how they would get paid. The tole it took on her siblings was almost as painful to watch as what she was going through herself. We did get her seeing a therapist, but to me it didn't seem like it was helping much. Then one day the therapist took me aside and told me to do something. Now, I am no mental health expert or anything like that and I know everyone's problem is different but what she had me do really seemed to be the turning point we needed. She told me to write a letter to my daughter being 100% honest about everything she means to me and what a terrific person she is no matter what she is going through and how much I cherished her and want nothing more than to help her. She had me do this because she said that the thoughts in her head on how I felt about her and how her problems affect me were far different and far more negative the reality and she needed to hear what the reality was. I'm not saying she was suddenly all better, but it was like a weight was lifted off her soul allowing her to heel. Like I said I am no expert, and I don't know if this is even appropriate for you situation, but it seemed to help her. That was over 20 years ago, and she has never spoken a word to me about that letter, but she is a fine upstanding woman and mother of three right now and that is all that matters to me.
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A great point. Unconstrained love and validation have amazing power.

I am no expert, but from learning along the way I believe a lot of these kids have very distorted sense of self-worth (negative) and that we must use every opportunity to validate and affirm. My wife and I are problem solvers and coaches by nature so we are free with praise, but also with, "and you can do even better if you . . . ." This helped the first two become their best selves. But with our third, she could only hear the criticism, not the praise. We worked very hard to just support, validate and affirm - even little things. We found different times and ways to offer suggestions, but now never tie them to "well done, but".

And her self narrative was so strongly negative, that for the first 6 months of intentional unqualified validation and affirmation she refused to accept any of it. But her counselor told us that despite any deflection or denial she was hearing it. After maybe 6 months she stopped deflecting praise. After a year she could sometimes admit she was proud of herself. But it only takes one dumb kid tweet/tiktok/school hallway remark to knock her back down the ladder. It is amazing how hard it is to turn a negative self-image in a person - especially a teen - especially in 2022.

The other interesting thing we have learned is that the desire to be "right" in one's self-narrative is so strong, a person even will undermine their own progress/success in order to hold true to the original self-view. There have been a few bumps along the way that were clearly self-destructive, but viewing it through this lens helped us respond in a way that was about affirming her new better self-view than about digging into the old self-view she was trying (maybe unconsciously) to validate.

We have also been much more purposeful about sharing our own teen/young adult struggles with her, as she seemed to feel like everybody but her had it figured out. Knowing about some of my most difficult struggles has allowed her and me to have a better connection - it puts us in the trenches together - not me coaching from a beach chair.
 
JLS, in my therapist role I often work with clients whose biggest problem is illness or mental illness of a loved one. My point is, you have a lot on your plate, on your mind, in your heart. It is strength, not weakness to get your own help w these intense family challenges. Problems w children are the most difficult problems to most parents, high risk problems even moreso. Sending prayers for strength and healing.
 
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