The Diagnosis

When I first heard Amy’s diagnosis, I felt as if my heart had been ripped from my chest.  She looked so terrified.  Her life was out of control and worse she couldn’t trust her own perceptions of life.

Amy had come to us a couple of days previously to tell us she had just tried to hang herself.  We went into full blown protection mode – we removed not only all of her belts but everyone else’s too.  All knives and sharp objects got padlocked in a tackle box.  She was never left alone.

I slept on the floor next to her bed to keep her safe at night.  Actually, I don’t think I slept as I couldn’t escape the grief.  What did I do wrong?  Did I not hug her enough as a baby?  Did we not give her enough praise?  Did I not (insert any parenting behavior) enough?

The words used by mental health professionals: depression, schizophrenia, suicidal, anxiety, paranoia, bi-polar, etc, take on a meaning of something more dire.  You feel like you failed your child in a very serious way.  Things weren’t supposed to happen this way.  None of our parenting mistakes were supposed to create such severe consequences.

After a few weeks, we were able to believe that we were not to blame.  Until I achieved that, though, it was so hard to try to find a way to help Amy.  I kept trying to change my behavior to fix her.  I had to learn that I needed to help her find the fix.  Fixing me was not the problem…

Tags: anxiety, bi-polar, children, depression, mental illness, pediatric, schizophrenia, suicide

This entry was posted on November 8, 2009 at November 8, 2009 and is filed under parenting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.