Wipeout

Years back, my youngest had his tonsils and adenoids removed. Since I had no personal experience with this procedure, I sought advice from parents who had, in hopes of learning from them. Just about every person I asked, had the same story and advice. Sure enough, what they said would happen, did. The simple concept of knowing that what we were experiencing with his recovery, was the same for the majority, somehow made it easier and less scary to deal with.

I like to think most people are willing to give advice where they can like those parents were with me.  I write my personal experiences because I know I appreciate hearing from “real people” who may have gone through something that is new to me. So, while I wish I had insight on any other topic, I am a mom parenting a child with mental health issues and self-harm behaviors. I want to help you, my reader, find a sense of relief knowing that what you’re going through at home is possibly something others have gone through too. You’re not alone.

Pop culture reference coming at you: the once popular television game show, Wipeout. Have you heard of it?  A summertime guilty pleasure for my family and I, Wipeout, is a television show where contestants are placed in various, almost impossible to finish, obstacle courses with the goal of being the person to complete all courses in the least amount of time, to be declared the winner. Contestants are put in situations where they may be running smoothly through one portion of the obstacle course, only to be unexpectedly clobbered by a giant airbag-like object that sprung out from a giant wall, sending the contestant soaring into the air and into a cold pit of water. Each contestant seemingly gets back up smiling, hiding their pain, and simply starts the obstacle course over again.

That’s kind of what life is like raising a teenager who struggles with mental health and self-harm behavior, Wipeout. I’ve been a contestant in this obstacle for three years now. I can tell you that while there are stretches of feeling like you are coasting through the obstacle with ease, you will get knocked off the platform and thrown into a harsh cold pit of water and mud. You will feel as if your feet are unexpectedly knocked out from underneath you, it will hurt, and you will be forced to start all over again. Despite all that, you’ll never give up. Afterall, the prize is worth it.

I remember those first few weeks after discovering my child was struggling with depression, anxiety, and self-harm, I didn’t want to leave her side. An air mattress was blown up and placed on mine and my husband’s bedroom floor for my daughter to sleep on “just in case”. When I finally let her back into her own bed, she wasn’t allowed to be in her room for anything other than sleep and to change her clothes. Changing was the only time we let her close the door and even then, I made sure there wasn’t too much time being spent on that task and had her open the door as soon as she was dressed. I even performed random “body checks” every few days to make sure there weren’t any fresh cuts. While I didn’t want to have to do any of these things, the task I wanted to avoid the most, was combing through her room to remove anything she used or could use to inflict self-harm.

I waited for a day when I could be home alone to get the task done. My husband knew the best way to help me would be for him to occupy the kids, so he planned a day of doing what they love to do most: Hiking. They packed up and headed out for the day leaving me no excuses. I knew there was nothing to do but dive right in. It didn’t take me long, nor did I have to look hard to find the first item she made as her “go to” instrument of destruction. The razor from a pencil sharpener. She would take apart plastic pencil sharpeners used for school or sharpeners she found that came with my makeup pencils. The fact that she took the time to unscrew the tiny razor from the plastic piece to carry the act out, left me mind boggled. My heart broke into a million pieces again as I uncovered razor after razor in her room. Under her bed, in her desk, her dressers, pencil cases, little containers she had for her nail polish or hair accessories…they were everywhere. How did I miss this? I sobbed loudly and tears flooded from my eyes as I sat in my baby’s purple painted room, surrounded by stuffed animals and colorful paintings, throwing away razors she used to cut herself. My heart ached like it did the day we found out she had been doing this. I wanted to stop. I didn’t want to discover anything else. Ignorance was bliss, but dangerous and unattainable now. I needed to get back up and keep my eyes on the finish line. I was hopeful that getting rid of everything that she could harm herself with would be the last of it. Cutting was in the past and it was time to focus on healing her mental health. Right?

Wrong. So wrong. Our pediatrician said it best, “You can go home and take everything out of her room, take everything sharp out of the house, put pads on her walls and never let her out of your sight. The reality is you can’t do that forever. If she wants to cut, she will find a way. Some way, somehow, she will do it again.” And he was right. He compared her act of cutting, to an adult having an alcoholic drink after a bad day. It was her way of coping. It didn’t seem reasonable to us, but to her, it was a way to make the pain she felt inside go away, by distracting her mind with physical pain instead. I knew that realistically, my job now was to help her find other tools to deal with those emotions, to make sure she knew she could come to me when she felt the urge to cut, and to feel safe coming to me if she already did it.

Like me, you’ll make it your sole priority in life to keep your baby happy and safe after discovering their struggle. I hope wherever you are, you have access to counseling. If you do, you’ll drive your child back and forth as much as they need. You’ll research and do the homework until you implement your “new” parenting method on her and anyone else in the house. You’ll have lots of long talks about emotions and feelings; something that may feel foreign to you if you grew up in a stereotypical “millennial” fashion the way I did. It won’t be easy, but you’ll do it because it’s what your child needs. You’ll embrace the “good days” when you finally get them because they’re far and few between then one day, the “old them” will come to light and naturally, you’ll be hopeful that this is the end of that obstacle.

Unfortunately, like Wipeout, you will get knocked down. It will come unexpectedly without warning, and it will hurt. You may get knocked down by something like stumbling across harmful tools again or by your eye catching a glimpse of new cuts on your baby’s skin. You’ll try to tell yourself that it can’t be what you think it is. You’ll try to come up with another explanation of what it is you’re seeing, because after all, “everything is going so well”. Then, when you get the courage to confront your child, their eyes will answer before their mouth can confirm with words. You’ll desperately ask them why.  You’ll ask if something happened to trigger them and you need to be prepared for the answer to be, “No”. While you don’t want your child to go through bad experiences, a bad day would make more sense to you than there being no trigger at all. There may be no rhyme or reason for them to “fall off the wagon”. They just, relapsed, because they’re human. You’ll cry, they’ll cry, but just like those contestants on the tv show, you’ll get up a little hurt and dazed and cautiously go back to the starting line. Sometimes that starting line will look like combing through their room again, scheduling an “emergency” counseling session, talking it out, or just holding them in silence. Whatever it is, it was nothing you did or didn’t do and its okay to have to go back to the beginning.

It's likely you’ll have to go through this obstacle course more times than you would care to do and yes, you will be shocked and hurt each time you get knocked down. Don’t give up. There are other contestants who have gone through the same obstacle and got knocked down at the same spot, in the same way, the same number of times, if not more. Like them, one day you will reach the end. You’ll stand in victory, a little wobbly, but stronger, and with the grand prize you fought so hard for: your healthy child.  You might be tempted to look back at the course in attempt to pinpoint where you could have made different choices that may have gotten you to the finish line faster. Or try to critique where you could have done better to dodge a knock down. Don’t. Learn from it, share your experience with contestants who come to the obstacle after you, and most importantly, embrace your win!