Stop judging my daughter

Seriously, just stop.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and more specifically, this is Children’s Mental Health Awareness Week. Ironic that yesterday I checked my daughter into the Mental Health and Wellness Unit for her third stay in just over three years. So many people have turned their back on her because they don’t understand that she has a mental illness. They think she is just trying to get attention or that I let her get away with too much or she is just overreacting. “She seems so normal.” And to you I say - Shut. Your. Face!

Please spend a moment in her shoes. You know something isn’t “right” but can’t seem to correct it. You know you have no reason for the mood swings, but can’t stop them. You get upset and can’t calm yourself down. Nothing seems to help you. You can’t control your thoughts or behaviors. You know you are being irrational, but can’t control it. You can’t identify your “triggers” because there doesn’t seem to be any. You lose even your closest friends because they can’t handle your neediness or emotional outbursts. To them you are selfish. You think the world revolves around you. You read way too far into everything everyone says and snap on the turn of dime. You can’t escape it. You can’t breathe. You are constantly feeling guilty over how you react, and apologize profusely after the fact, but no one listens to your apologies anymore. They don’t believe you because the same thing keeps happening over and over. They know you are going to do it again. You know you are going to do it again. You don’t want to. You don’t know when it is going to happen until it is too late. You can’t stop it. And no one gets it. You are on top of the world one minute – the person everyone loves to be around – and then you fall off that cliff - so far down no one is there. Everyone walks away and then they wonder why you have abandonment issues. The fear, anxiety, depression, mistrust, and misunderstanding are too much and you want to end it. You plan to end it. When you get the chance, you will end it.

I am not asking anyone to excuse “bad” or hurtful behavior. I am asking for you to understand that it is an illness and be patient with her. This isn’t her choice. She didn’t choose this illness and she doesn’t want to be where she is now. She doesn’t choose to hurt the people closest to her, but it happens all the time. She doesn’t choose not to have friends, but the illness drives them away. It is for this reason and so many more that this is so often a fatal illness. How about we all commit to being part of the solution, to help and support treatment, to hug a little longer and love a little more? How about we help her and everyone struggling just like her to get the support and treatment they need to keep going? To want to keep living. To plan to keep living. Because they get the change to just keep living.