Tell Me You Are Here For Me
Don't worry, it's not all serious. But it is raw life. Vegan writing.
I’ve wanted to write this story for a long time. But I didn’t know how. I still don’t know how. How do you talk about a child, your child, who suffers from a serious mental illness? Isn’t this taboo? Isn’t this the ultimate stigma subject?
The number one reason I have not told this story of my firstborn child is that she is still in the throws of her mental illness and it is not my place to tell her secrets. I am her mom. I never want to hurt her more than she is already hurt. I never want to add to her trauma. It is not my place to share her secrets and struggles.
I’ve been writing this story for a long time, but no one has gotten to read it out of respect for my daughter. She turned 18 last year and I don’t know what we did to celebrate this big milestone. I can’t remember. Mostly, we are in survival mode from day to day, trying to say the right thing. What I do remember is years of struggling with how to parent her. Years of feeling alone. Years of feeling like a failure of a mother. Years of feeling depressed. It wasn’t all bad. I learned a lot. My husband learned a lot. My other children learned a lot and then taught us how to be more empathic and compassionate.
One of the lessons learned is when you have a good day, clutch onto it like debris in a shipwreck. When you have a bad day, pick up the mental trash, examine it, learn from it, and then throw it in the garbage. Don’t hold on to the garbage, grimacing at it, wishing it were not garbage, and wishing you weren’t in possession of it. You’ve used it. You don’t need it anymore. Throw it away.
I don’t want anyone to feel alone as I did these past 18 years. If you have an emotionally dysregulated child, you are one of the millions who do. But nobody wants to talk about it. It isn’t very popular playground fodder. Perhaps only those in your close circle know what your family is going through.
Maybe you will come here and listen to some of the stories I have to share about caring for a neurodivergent child. Hopefully, it will make you feel less alone. Less lonely. Perhaps you will want to share some of your own stories, and this will be a safe place for you to do that.
Let’s learn together. Tell me you are here for me, as I am here for you.