MOTFL 023 JAM 017: It Doesn’t Have to be This Way

In this episode, we listen to Melissa, a mother from rural Iowa, share her story about raising a son with severe depression. Please be advised that this interview discusses suicide and may be triggering for some of our audience. (See below for transcription.) Suicide Resources: The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255 The Lifeline provides 24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress, prevention and crisis resources for you or your loved ones, and best practices for professionals. Trans Lifeline – Trans Lifeline is a national trans-led organization dedicated to improving the quality of trans lives by responding to the critical needs of our community with direct service, material support, advocacy, and education. Our vision is to fight the epidemic of trans suicide and improve overall life-outcomes of trans people by facilitating justice-oriented, collective community aid. The Trevor Project – The leading national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer & questioning (LGBTQ) young people under 25. You Matter -This is a safe space for youth to discuss and share stories about mental health and wellness, created and administered by the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. You Matter blog posts are written by a rotating Blogger Council of individuals between the ages of 13-24 that are passionate about suicide prevention and mental health.   Transcription of Just Ask Mom, episode 17 (0:00) (music fades in) Woman Speaker: Welcome to the Just Ask Mom podcast where mother share their experiences of raising children with mental illness. Just Ask Mom is a Mothers on the Frontline production. Today, we will listen to Melissa. A mother from rural Iowa, share her story about raising a son with severe depression. Please be advised that this interview discusses suicide and maybe triggering to some of our audience. (music fades out) Tammy: Hello. Can you tell us a little about yourself before or outside of parenting, what do you love? Who are you? Melissa: My name is Melissa and I’m a mom here in rural Iowa. I farm with my husband in a small community. I love the environment. I love watching our children grow. Just being outdoors, reading, that kind of thing. Tammy: You like watching lots of things grow, it sounds like. Melissa: Yeah. Tammy: That’s awesome. I want you to pretend that you’re talking to peers of kids that are going through mental health difficulties and their parents. What would you like them to know about your family’s experiences? Melissa: I would say that our experience as parents with a child with debilitating mental illness – would be to just maybe ask, be inquisitive. Try and find out, not in a nosy type of a way but just– so maybe you can learn a little bit more about the situation and not just shut the doors essentially because it’s very challenging on a daily basis. When you’re feeling the doors slammed by parents or peers that don’t necessarily know the story, it just makes life that much harder.  (2:00) My child has a lot to give to this world. He’s beautiful and he’s kind but he just struggles with certain things. But I think his life as a youth could have been much easier if some closed doors would have remained open. Tammy: You bring up a really good point because a lot of times, if our children are sick, let’s say if they have a physical illness or the measles or what have you, people would naturally say, “Oh, how is your son doing?” Right? Melissa: Right. Tammy: They would naturally ask. Maybe people are afraid to ask us or talk to us. They shut down or shut us out sometimes. Is that right? Melissa: Yeah. I would say that. I know it is not the exact same thing but I spend a lot of time thinking about it. I kind of wonder if on some level, it’s how people who are diagnosed with AIDS in the 80’s feel. Tammy: Yeah. Melissa: So instead of feeling that love and that warmth when they were diagnosed with something. They were judged and I feel that very much in the mental health space here. In a lot of ways, it’s how the kids and the patients are treated. How many cardiac patients or cancer patients do you know that need to go from one doctor to another? And they’re transported in the back of a sheriff’s car in handcuffs. Tammy: Exactly. Melissa: That’s how they’re transported. Tammy: When they’re most vulnerable and in the most pain. Melissa: Right. Tammy: Right. Melissa: They’re actually taking– yeah. They’re handcuffed. I know my son had a really hard time one time because he didn’t even have a seat belt on so that gave him anxiety. The person was driving and on his phone. I think you just feel very out of (4:00) control, anyway; when you have something like this. Tammy: That’s a really good point. Even when you think about all the years, all the trying to help your child, what has been a barrier to getting the help your child needed? Something that– it’s a barrier or just didn’t work. Melissa: His situation is very severe. I think some of the barriers that exist are constant therapists that are a good quality. When you’re living in a small space, people come and go. There’s a high burnout rate. Tammy: So consistency– Melissa : Consistency Tammy : — really no consistency. Melissa: There’s a very little consistency but I would say the same thing even with psychiatrists and getting meds. Because currently, the situation is now he’s an adult, and in the acute care setting you go into the hospital and– he has severe depression. We’ve been in and out of the hospital in an acute care setting maybe thirteen times in the last eight years and in the last six months probably five or six times. Tammy: Wow. Melissa: The problem is that continuity of care because you go into an acute care setting and his is suicide; just not wanting to live. You’ll see a whole new team of medical professionals and they’ll have an idea of what’s happening. He’ll go into another space and then they have their own idea and their own med recommendations. Unfortunately, for the patient you’re really not getting the (6:00) highest quality of care. I will say that our experience in the last six months has been even more challenging because he went to a hospital in Central Iowa. When I got there, they had actually prescribed him a medication that he had overdosed with. Tammy: Already before they prescribed it? Melissa: Right. Tammy: Oh. Melissa: But now that he’s an adult, I’m not given all of the information and so he was discharged with 90 pills that he had already OD’ed on as a youth. Two weeks later, he OD’ed on them and ended up in that same ICU. When I talked to the behavioral health staff, I said, “Did you look at his history?” She said, “We’re not required to do that. That’s not something that we automatically do.” Tammy: That’s shocking when you think about. Melissa: Well , And my reply to this person was, “Well, okay. So, if I came in here with a cardiac problem–” Tammy: Yes. Melissa: “–or you know some other chronic issue, would you not look at maybe some of my past history; even meds, anything? Just to make a better and more informed choice.” She said, “Well, on this floor, we just don’t do that. It’s not our policy.” Tammy : Oh– Melissa : In Iowa, we’re facing a really challenging time getting access to care maybe more so that other states. But — I just looked at the woman and I just said– no things have changed and we are seeing less and less help. I can see the acute care institutions are overwhelmed. Tammy: Absolutely. Melissa:  They are completely overwhelmed – but I looked at her and I just said– I think what I’m hearing is now these people don’t have access to chronic care –  which they don’t as an adult. (8:00) Currently the situation is that these people who are the most vulnerable are now going to you for an acute care setting, which is also very limited. We’re not even giving them that quality of care. Tammy: But then even afterwards there’s no sub-acute to keep them well. They just send them up right back into acute again. Melissa: Right. Right. Or discharge them and refer them again to outpatient services. Tammy: You mentioned something that’s really important and you’re at that key point, you could speak to it. You dealt with it when your child was a minor and now he’s no longer a minor and your role shift whether you want it to or not, right? Melissa: Right. Tammy: Can you speak a little bit to that? When your child, well this differs too because sometimes it’s even 12 when they say now the kid gets to have more input but — Melissa : Yeah. Yeah. Tammy : – at least when you’re the mother of a minor child, you can tell the doctor, “Make sure to remember this. Remember this.” But you don’t get to do that anymore, do you? How does that work? Melissa: You don’t get to do that. In fact, at this facility that I was just talking about, once this discharge happened. I wanted to talk to the psychiatrist. I said, “Okay. This is the second admittance. This is what’s happened and it doesn’t sound like you have all of the information.” And I’m like, “I would love to– just like a five-minute conversation to make sure that you have the entire picture to give you history.” He wouldn’t even talk to me. When you’re dealing with a young adult, I personally didn’t want to take away all of his choices and make all of those c...