Katie, it may have partly been shame, but it was also for Henry and the rest of your family, particulary your children’s sake that you kept Henry’s drug involvement under wraps. I don’t think it was out of pride that you did not want tarnished. It was because of hope that this phase would wear itself out and to have published it might have caused fallout and consequences that would have hindered Henry’s recovery. I don’t blame you a bit, nor do I blame any parent with a young adult or teen child having these issues or any issues and keeping it a family matter.

And had things worked out differently it may have been the best thing to have done. Kids do sometimes work these difficulties out. Most of the time they do and to have had a mom blogger announce all of the place what his problems were may well have been an issue to over come.

You have two more who are coming to that age where you have to make decisions as to what to share int erms of their lives and what to keep private. And they may well make their mistakes. At what point do you let others in on their business?

Katie, as the parent of a teen-aged son with a panoply of mental health issues – including depression and anxiety, a touch of OCD, and bipolar disorder – thank you VERY much for your post, and for bringing your readers’ attention to a very neglected and stigmatized area of healthcare. Because our kids look “normal” and manage to function fairly well out in the world most of the time, it’s very difficult for the outside world to understand the challenges that our kids and our families face on a regular basis. My son has had three separate inpatient stays at behavioral health faciliites over the past five or so years. We’ve had to call 9-1-1 several times when things at home got too out of control. Life is virtually never a smooth ride, and my son – as much as I love him to the stars and back – will never be low maintenance. We’ve had to make some on-the-fly decisions about his care that I wouldn’t want to place on any parent. As his parents, we have been accused of being too lax, or too strict, or just plain ineffectual and lazy. I cannot think of another medical condition – and these *are* neuro-medical conditions – for which parents are the de facto objects of blame and condemnation so much of the time.

If a child has asthma or diabetes, parents think nothing of providing the indicated medications to help their child live the healthiest life possible. And, it might take a little bit of trial and error, but usually they are able to fairly quickly determine an effective medical gameplan for their children. For children with mental health issues, parents are forced to make excruciating choices about medicating their children, determining the “most acceptable” side effects they are willing to allow their child to tolerate. Even just finding the right combo “cocktail” of medications that are effective has a huge component of trial and error; and even if that cocktail is effective now, children grow and change so quickly that it’s conceivable that you’ll find yourself back in trial and error mode in a few short months.

The paucity of truly good mental health care – particularly for kids and adolescents – is appalling; even more appalling is the fact that the best psychologists and psychiatrists do not tend to participate in health insurance plans. We have been paying thousands and thousands of dollars out of pocket every year for our son’s mental health care for many years now – and that’s with “good” health insurance. I have a “second career” keeping abreast of the medical and therapeutic tools of the trade, so that my husband and I can effectively and intelligently advocate for the best care possible for our son. I know that our lives are no walk on the beach, so I can only imagine the difficult road walked by those who don’t have the “hard” and “soft” resources that we are blessed to have.

And, yes – the issue of drug and alcohol use, and drug and alcohol abuse, is a particularly terrifying prospect for us. The several therapists and psychiatristrs we have seen over the years have ALL emphasized that kids with ADD (yes, my son has that, as well) and mood disorders are much, *much* more likely than other kids to get involved with these substances. Tragically, there is no legal medical /pharmacologic intervention that can compete with the effectiveness of marijuana in making a chilld feel calm and centered and happy and even – with the built-in social network – socially-adept. For a kid who may typically feel anxious or ill-at-ease in his body, or socially on the fringes, the appeal is almost irresistable. And with the cocktail of other meds that our kids already take, throwing marijuana or stronger drugs, or alcohol, into the mix can quickly turn tragic.

Unfortunately, a visual processing disorder has been making the demands of school increasingly-difficult for my son, and he is floundering in a setting that was always a place where he used to excel. We are in the process of taking our school district through due process (with the associated crazy-expensive attorney’s fees), because they just don’t know what to do with a kid who is “dual exceptional” (extremely bright, but with mood issues and a learning disability, to boot); with all of the medical expenses we foot, we can’t afford to send him to a more appropriate, smaller private school environment any other way. He is so unhappy, and wants nothing more than to be “normal” – as much as we try to help him feel good about himself and emphasize the considerable talents that he does have, he sees things very differently much of the time. As a parent, my heart breaks for my son – being an adolescent is tough enough without adding the “wildcard” of several mental health diagnoses that he has a difficult time controlling, the commitment to sit through endless rounds of therapy sessions, and the need to take medications that often include unpleasant side effects.

My son, like Henry, is SO much more than the sum of his mental health issues. He is extremely bright, and funny, and sensitive, and a talented guitar player. He’s an exceptionally loyal friend, and he is a world-class debater (which makes us insane sometimes!) He loves to read, and he has always loved to learn. Even if he were not my child and I had no “ties” to him, I would like him very much. He’s truly a cool kiddo.

Those of us whose kids have mental health issues want what all parents want for their kids: Health, happiness, love, spiritual/mental/emotional/professional fulfillment. While no one has a guaranteed ticket to these things, we feel as though we constantly walk a tightrope, and that every decision we make about our son’s mental health care is of critical importance to his future. I hope that the scientific community will place more of an emphasis on developing safer, more effective modes of therapy and – even more critically – determining the causes of these conditions and that will, in all likelihood, touch most families in some way.

I rarely talk about my son’s issues with most people; there are people i’ve known for many, many years who don’t know anywhere near the full extent of the situations we have encountered and the challenges he faces. The stigma of mental health issues is still very much apparent, and I don’t ever, EVER want people to judge my son or treat him differently based upon his mental health diagnoses. We’re also a bit careful about what info we “put out there” because we know that we also need to be mindful of his need to qualify for his own health insurance someday, in case he is not in a situation where an employee health insurance plan is obligated to cover him. (Yes, he’s not yet 15 years-old, and that’s already something we need to think about.)

But, for what it’s worth, I’m here tonight, on this blog, “coming clean”. Baby steps. I hope that the future brings with it a time that it’s no more of a big deal for my son to mention his bipolar disorder than it would be for him to talk about having seasonal allergies. (Sorry for the tome-of-a-post, Katie … obviously, this is an issue near and dear to my heart.)

Today I saw in the local paper that the adult daughter (mid-30s) of an acquaintance was arrested yet again for disorderly conduct. About eight years ago this mom told me very matter of factly, “My daughter’s a drug addict and mentally ill. We’ve done everything we can and then some, but who she is and how she wants to live are out of our hands now.” I also recently heard a similar statement from a high school friend (via FB) about her oldest son, who’s in his late 20s.

We all hope that Henry would have made a recovery from addiction, but whether he did or didn’t, you would certainly have made strides in your acceptance and understanding of his problems.

Somebody said, “Little kids, little problems. Big kids, big problems.”

Katie:

Thank you for posting this. I have an 8 year old son who has Bipolar Disorder and an anxiety disorder. That is not surprising as I have Bipolar Disorder as well. The stigma hurts and makes it difficult for those that are afflicted.

My heart goes out to you. I know that drug addiction is also a mental illness and needs to be treated as such.

Shari

I’ve been following your blogs for sometime.
While I do feel very bad for your loss, and understand your need to get justice, I also am amazed at how little you discuss your own failings.
I have a family member who is an addict. My parents recently started admitting their own failings as they saw them, and also started discussing these at parenting conventions etc. It take huge heart and strength for them to do this, but as they say “the dealer sold the drugs, I made the addict. ” end of the day, the responsibility lies with you. You might be a great parent, but you did make mistakes, teach others!
Shame is no excuse, its like an ostrich burrying his head in the sand, you are shifting the discussion to other people.

sorry, delay in posting,. I retract comment #2 :)

I just don’t believe you have the right to freely discuss your children’s mental health. It’s not brave to expose another person’s problems and you certainly shouldn’t write about them where anyone who does a Google search can read about their bipolar disorder. Get them help, yes…but there are some things that should just be kept private. And as for saying people’s opinions played a part in keeping you from getting help, well that’s a personal failing you need to work on. If your fear of people’s opinions is keeping you from getting help for your child, that’s a very serious problem.

Julia and Babette,

I think you are missing the point. Shame does not keep people from seeking and getting help for their children. Shame keeps people in the dark, so they do not know where to turn for that help. Shame keeps peopel isolated, because if there is something that wrong with their child than it MUST be their fault. When my daughter needed help, I knew NO ONE else that had similar problems in their family. I truly felt alone facing this giant that was prepared to crush my daughter like a bug. Was that fair? So I sought out the answers, found help, and rejoiced in the knowledge I now had. Then I made the decision to share that knowledge with others so they wouldn’t feel alone. I don’t walk up to people and launch into the history of my daughter’s illnesses, but I am open about it. Specifics aren’t shared, but knowledge is. There is a difference. I am sure that I am surrounded by other parents facing mental illness or addiction in their life, but because they feel alone in the battle the isolation keeps them at a distance. I don’t need to know the specifics of their battle, but wouldn’t it be nice to be able to approach them and let them know I’m an experienced sounding-board if needed?
Plus, people judge my daughter and me by her actions. I’m the bad parent who doesn’t “control” her child. The bad mom who let’s her child run wild, scream, talk too loud, ask inappropriate questions, etc, etc, etc. I can certainly ignore the comments and looks passed our way, but my daughter doesn’t have that skill yet. She may never learn to ignore others that way, as her brain doesn’t operate that way. So, in order to preserve HER self-esteem and self-image, we often let those around us know about her triggers and reactions. Many times this has helped other adults keep her calm and focused. How is that a bad thing?
And if you think her peers don’t recognize that she is different than they are you are fooling yourself. My daughter would rather take the time and explain her illnesses with those peers she trusts and likes so they accept her oddities. Most of her peers are very accepting, and once that they understand her behaviors they no longer fear the differences.
Knowledge is power. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. Sharing gives others a place to turn to when their world falls out from underneath them. And when your child suffers from a mental illness or addiction (or both), it’s nothing but a free-fall for the rest of your life.

It isn’t just shame that keeps family from talking about mental health problems. It ‘s the fear of ostracism and harm to the family. If others hear that you have a drug addict, drug dealer, prostitute, thief, mentally ill young adult in the family who is around the house and other family members, it certainly can affect your other children’s social lives. Most parents would not want their kids visiting such households. Also if the the member with problems does make strides in getting back on track, opportunities may be closed to him/her due to the knowledge of his previous issues.

btw Cath: You would let your other kids social lives or the possibility of the lack thereof, determine wether or not you would get help for your drug addict child? I’m sorry but that is a crazy statement. Nothing, Nothing should stop you from getting help for your child. But then again, here in the EU its less of a stigma, and seen as more of a problem that needs help.