Take Care of Your Child’s Mental Health – Why Our Summer Plans Suddenly Changed
I share this personal story of what recently occurred in my family not for pity and not for accolades about being a great parent. I share it because I want to make mental illness more visible and remove some of the stigma.
Trauma is a very serious thing. In children, it can literally change how their brains work. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, childhood trauma is defined as: “The experience of an event by a child that is emotionally painful or distressful, which often results in lasting mental and physical effects.”
My two youngest daughters were adopted at a young age, and have had to deal with several traumatic events during their little lives. In the past year, one of my daughters experienced an event that was incredibly traumatic for her. After that day, her behavior was a clear indication that it was extremely difficult for her to make sense of what she learned. This event occured in February, and in telling this story I now refer to things as “Before February,” and “After February.”
Before February
We were in a good place! That’s not to say that life was perfect because no matter how much a person wants to portray the perfect life, there are always issues and problems both big and small. But considering the trauma of the past four years, we were Ok!
In the past four years, and especially within a 26 month period of time, our lives changed in drastic ways. A beloved biological great-grandfather died from cancer, and then much of my time was taken from my family when I was a caregiver for my mother who suffered from Alzheimer’s Disease until she died. Then their grandfather died. After this loss, there were still more funerals until finally their own father was diagnosed with cancer and unexpectedly died only five months later. Yeah… that’s a lot of trauma packed into a short period of time for anyone, especially a child. Add the issues related to adoption only added to their personal trauma resume.
Despite all of this, we were doing Ok. I planned a massive summer trip to get us away from home, out in nature, and experiencing life. During this trip we were forced to learn how to function as a new and tiny family of three. The school year started and things began to settle into a routine that we could manage.
And then February came. In February, one of my younger daughters learned something about her birth family that made her feel that I had been lying to her for years. She felt betrayed, she felt traumatized and all of the old traumas resurfaced, and quite honestly, life became a mess. For all of us.
After February
My daughter showed a lot of the classic behavioral and emotional signs of trauma. Her behavior changed. She became aggressive, both verbally and physically. She started to have problems at school. She started to harm herself. We had been attending weekly therapy sessions for quite some time, and within those sessions the changes were obvious.
Weekly Therapy
In our weekly sessions “Before February,” my daughter would typically chat and chat and chat about typical events in the life of a young girl. We discussed how to handle different types of outbursts and worked on building techniques to help in difficult moments. Therapy sessions had been going well.
After February, things changed very quickly. She became verbally abusive during therapy sessions. She either refused to speak or spoke in very argumentative and inappropriate ways. She did not respond to redirection. She was not affected by natural consequences. Therapy wasn’t working at this point and something more was needed.
Medication
I made an appointment for her to see her primary care pediatrician. She started a medication that would hopefully help her feel more calm and be able to discuss and manage her emotions better. Within days of starting that medication, her behaviors became even worse.
Crisis
She needed help, and fast! We all needed help! Each day her behaviors at home and at school became more and more unpredictable. When I spoke with the doctor about it, he added another medication and we waited for the psychiatric evaluation that would help answer some questions and point us in the right direction. That appointment was still over a month away.
In the meantime, I realized that we may need to spend our summer finding more intensive therapy options. My plans to go out West and visit friends had to be cancelled. I began searching the internet and found that most places which would meet her needs were residential, required a stay of 9 months to a year, and wouldn’t work with a family unless the child was at least 13 and in 8th grade. We weren’t even close to that and we couldn’t wait. I continued searching, and then I found Roger’s Behavioral Health.
Roger’s Behavioral Health in Milwaukee
I called Roger’s in May hoping for some kind of program that would have availability in June. I was worried. There were two major factors working against me. Would my insurance cover this? And would they have a waiting list that would mean we would have to wait for months? I live about 4 hours from Roger’s Behavioral Health, and I only had the summer available from work to do this.
The first time I called them for information, they did an insurance check. I held my breath for a day, and then they called me to tell me that my insurance would cover the cost once the deductible had been met! This was great news! Next, I had to complete a phone screening which lasted an hour. The purpose of the screening was for them to gather information which they would then present to their intake team to see if my daughter would qualify for services. Another day of holding my breath, and….. She qualified!
I firmly believe that my late husband was helping out with this. Shortly after he was diagnosed (that cancer diagnosis proved to be wrong) he sobbed in the car as we waited for a prescription to be filled. We held each other as I felt his body roll from the deep pain of the news we had just been given. After several minutes he quieted and his body rested. He sat quiet, staring out the window for a few more minutes. Then, he turned to me with tears silently streaming down his face as he managed to say a few words. “I don’t want to d!ie I can’t leave you with the littles!” The littles are our two youngest daughters who were only 8 and 10 at that time. As a school counselor, John knew the mental health system and how it worked. I firmly believe that he made the impossible possible for us regarding this program. He would do anything to help all of his girls.
Both of my youngest daughters qualified for a day program of intensive therapy that would last up to seven weeks depending upon how the team felt things were going. Because of my school schedule (I’m a teacher),the first day that I could get them into the program would be June 24. After checking over their waiting list, while I once again held my breath, the receptionist once again came on the phone to tell me that their first available opening would be the same day for both girls and it would begin on …. You guessed it… June 24th!
Before the therapy started, one of my daughters found herself in severe crisis and she required immediate help. She started her program earlier than had been planned, but by June 24th we were all in Milwaukee and the girls were getting daily therapy. We stayed from Sunday to Friday and pn the weekends I drove us back home.
We stayed at Jellystone RV Park in Caledonia, WI. It was the only RV park within driving distance for them to be able to get transportation services. Typically, we don’t like RV Parks because the sites are always so much closer together than we like, and I don’t like the high fees that come with this type of camping. Jellystone treated us very well! They were so helpful with my situation, helping me on Fridays by giving me a weekend parking spot for my car and finding an empty site for me to park in until the girls returned from therapy. While we were there we found that there were a ton of fun activities to participate in! We didn’t do everything they had to offer and we didn’t participate every day, but I think that it was the perfect place for us to make the most of a very stressful situation.
A New Start
The girls went through the program with success. Our stay was shorter than the seven weeks I had set aside, and I’m grateful that we could have a few weeks to spend as a family before returning to school. On discharge day, I decided that instead of taking the same route home, we would go around Lake Michigan and take a few days to live the RVing lifestyle that we seem to enjoy. For five days we would stop in different places, meet up with some friends, and have a small piece of normal. After spending six weeks in the same campground, this was sorely needed.
Mental health issues carry such a stigma in our culture. Children and adults who struggle with very real physical illnesses are pitied, supported, and shown great compassion. Children and adults who struggle with very real mental health illnesses are often socially shunned. People try to find “reasons” for the illness such as poor parenting, or blame the person for having the illness.
I’m hopeful that by acting as quickly as was possible, my girls will have a brighter future. Are they cured? Is this the only mental health crisis that they will ever face? I doubt it. But I do know that I don’t have to be afraid to advocate for what they need and I have learned how to get them into the services that will help them. We are truly in a better place now than we have been in the past six months. I’m crossing my fingers that we will continue in this direction.
For more information regarding the signs and symptoms of mental health issues in children, click HERE
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Our ClassCee Life provides general educational information from someone who has experienced great loss. You should not substitute information on the Our ClassCee Life website for professional advice.
