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Decision making
Making decisions is always on the mind of a parent with a child who has mental illness. What school will they go to? Will it meet their needs? What medications can we try? Which ones will work? Which ones don't? What does the therapist, teacher, psychiatrist, pediatrician say? Everyday, we as parents (in general) make decisions in the best interest of our children. But, when does that transition from us to our children? When do they start making decisions about their own lives?
Therapist and blogger Emily Roberts explains mistakes people make when trying to be confident and simple solutions to fix them.
Bipolar places limitations on our lives. It might be the fact that we can’t go out and enjoy a cocktail after work or it might be the fact that we can’t stay out all night. Or it might be the fact that we can’t work full time or that we have to live with medication side effects that make us sick. Limitations are there, no matter how you look at it.
But what happens when you don’t respect those limits? What happens when you choose to ignore them?
I can tell you. You feel like a dog’s breakfast. Just ask me. I did it on Monday.
Kids and Their Psychiatric "Disorders"
This morning, I read a disturbing headline: 1 in 5 Kids May Have Psych Disorder.
Say what? It makes me wonder: What are we doing to our children?
As someone who has been in the field for 20 years, I have seen diagnosing children with a psych disorder do more harm than good. Children fulfill the prophesies of these mental health diagnostic labels and it is very hard to recover from these identities supported by years of mental health practitioners, with albiet good intentions, telling them what is wrong with them and that they have to "cope" with it.
If you've ever been depressed, anxious or angry you know how emotions can impact your appetite. Any one of those experiences can make you eat more or less depending on the day and the intensity of what you're feeling. And then what happens? If you skip some meals or binge on junk food, do you feel better or worse?
If it had been just me, I probably could have ignored it. But it wasn't just me. During one of my many psychiatric hospitalizations, I observed what I believed was a systematic pattern of abuse of restraints. Patients were often restrained without the least restrictive means being tried and without a doctor's order or evaluation. They were often restrained for up to an hour, even if they were out of danger. I knew this was illegal. But how was I supposed to fight back?
Did you know that Socrates suffered from agoraphobia? Did you know that Kim Kardashian is credited with inventing narcissism? Did you know that Nostradamus committed suicide on Easter just so he could get credit for predicting the day of his own death?
If you said, “Yes” to any or all of these statements you might want to consider your sources because they are absolutely not true. (Paris Hilton invented narcissism.)
The world of mental illness is a quagmire of myths, misperceptions, and odd facts. So, instead of our regular cerebral deconstruction of themes relevant to the mental health community, let’s have a little fun and examine some of them.
Last year, NAMI interviewed me for a story about my family's experience with mental illness. In it, Jessica Edwards asked me about emotional survival, along with other lessons in our story so far. This is an excerpt from the interview, reprinted here because people have told me they found comfort in its advice.
A Family's Journey with Schizophrenia
NAMI: You discuss some really painful and difficult times in your story. What was the key thing that got you through those struggles?
Kaye: These two mantras helped me a tremendous amount. They remind me to stay grateful in the moment, and stay in a place of acceptance and hope:
It is what it is, now what? - and
Whatever happens, we’ll handle it somehow.
It's all fine and good to sit here and preach about the evils of mental health stigma. I'm proud of the work I have done and plan to continue to do. But let me be honest for a second here; even I stigmatize against people with a mental illness. I don't mean to of course, and always try to correct my thinking, but it happens.
How does a person know which type of bipolar disorder therapy will work best for him or her? As a psychology student, I learned about the different types of therapy available to patients with various mental illnesses. I learned about their history, how they were developed and their classifications. As a patient with bipolar II and obsessive-compulsive disorder though, my therapists never explained what specific type of therapy they practiced and why one type of therapy might work better than another for me (Types of Bipolar Therapy and How Bipolar Therapy Helps).
Thank you for your comment. I'm sorry you're in that situation. I know how hard it is for parents to watch a child with mental illness struggle. Know this: you are not alone. Many parents are in this untenable situation.
Your options are very limited for the reasons you have listed. Your son is an adult and get to make his own decisions -- even when those decisions are heavily influenced by an illness. And while some might disagree, the US tends to fall on the side of personal rights, regardless of illness.
If your son is a risk to himself or others, you can see about getting him treated without his consent. (In some States, this is also possible when a person is at a grave threat of decompensation [getting sicker].) I know this is a hard thing to do, but sometimes the only thing that will help someone is the treatment they refuse.
I recommend you check out the Treatment Advocacy Center. They have a hotline and a lot of information online about serious mental illness and treatment of those illnesses: https://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/
I also wrote this piece about the situation when help is refused (not associated with HealthyPlace) and it lists some additional resources: https://natashatracy.com/bipolar-blog/person-mental-illness-accept-illness/?swcfpc=1
Finally, I recommend you reach out to other parents in the same situation. You may be able to find these people through groups like NAMI (just Google them). Knowing others facing the same issues can help.
I hope your son is able to get help.
-- Natasha Tracy