By Mary McAleer
I used to think I could just love them out of it.
Depression. Anxiety. Whatever.
Upset baby: Nurse, rock, coo. Toddler: Kisses for boo boos, Band-Aids, popsicles. Five and eight and ten: Hugs, after school snacks, homework help, singing to the car radio. All of it mother love.
When they are twelve or so and the tardies begin, love also means signing them into school late, making excuses. At fifteen or sixteen, tardiness gives way to truancy and quitting once-beloved activities. Their friend group changes and sometimes they don’t come home at night. Love includes going to therapy, seeing a psychiatrist, keeping track of their meds. It’s still hugs and snuggling when they let me.
Love them enough and they’ll be healthy again. Therapy and a low-dose antidepressant will turn things around, fix them. Fix us. Nothing makes sense. How does a gifted student, an elite athlete, a talented musician go off the rails in an upscale suburban high school? A few tardies in middle school is one thing. It’s quite another when the assistant principal threatens to call the truant officer.
Seventeen. Love ping-pongs between deep, pleading empathy and furious frustration. Love is tears and insomnia and bloodshot eyes either way. Grief is ferocious when dreams and expectations are hunted like prey by insidious defiance, stubborn indifference, and a child who will not crawl out from under the covers. The prospect of not graduating is absurd until it becomes absolute, taking second place to the unspeakable terror of (insert euphemism for suicide here).
“If only” is my mantra. If only they will go to school. If only they still played on the team. If only they will talk to me. To their therapist. To someone. To anyone.
I was a big fan of talk therapy. Still am. It helps me, maybe even saves my life. But it’s a commitment. You have to show up, then agree to both rigorous honesty and a willingness to consider new ways of looking at things. If you skip appointments and don’t tell the truth therapy doesn’t help. It’s not actually therapeutic. It doesn’t work by osmosis simply because you have a time and date on your calendar.
As much as I still champion therapy, I am cynical about diagnoses and medication. Is medication supposed to be a remedy or is it designed to get someone into the frame of mind to actually do the work? To want to do the work? Both, maybe? I suppose it depends. On the diagnosis. On the person. On the availability of appropriate, individualized help.
Personally, I find psych meds to be unreliable. At the same time, I know and am grateful that for many they are a lifeline. I honor that.
As for pronouncements of various disorders, what good is a label slapped on a child? Or an adult, for that matter? I once thought an accurate diagnosis was a window to understanding. Maybe it is if your child, an adult now, is willing to share it.
No, I’m not trying to pry into your business. I’m trying to understand you and what life feels like for you, so that maybe I can even help you in some way. Because I love you.
Interest in a child’s wellbeing is part of loving them, whether they like or not.
I suppose the insurance companies require the name of something specific. After all, we want them to pay out, so medication and treatment don’t plunge one into bankruptcy. God forbid you require hospitalization. But a fancy name for a mental illness still doesn’t change anything unless a person has the wherewithal, the willingness, or even the capacity to heal.
Of course, some people really can’t help it, but is it possible some can but refuse to get better?
Out of knowing nothing different, or maybe even out of hard-headedness. Do they want to get better but can’t find their way through the maze?
Love asks these questions. The answers are hostile and dodgy. I don’t have enough information.
When they’re young, the doctors tell you: It might be this, or that, here’s a prescription. But, when they’re full grown, you have no rights. Of course, it always was a guessing game anyway. Trial and error. Mostly error.
I learned I can’t love them out of it. It feels like they wouldn’t let me anyway. But I still try. I will love them for as long as it takes, even if it takes forever.