Step 133: Mental Health Matters

We have been blessed to adopt our crew from the foster care system.  Our children were born affected by drugs, alcohol, neglect, and born to parents unable to care for children. 

The drug of choice that dominates the foster system is meth.  It is heartless.  It is brutal to those wee ones that are being exposed during their gestation periods.  Two of our boys have been the most affected and both suffer from a myriad of mental illness issues. 

I just thought that IF issues arose then the medical field would help us navigate it.  Ummmmm, no.  Mental illness issues have been a battle to deal with.  Our doctors are tied by rules/red tape that keep them from being able to fully assist us with dealing with these issues.  The mental health field is ill equipped to handle the VOLUME of children and issues that the wee meth babies are now presenting.  One of our sons presented EARLY.  The mental health field has an ideal age they want to begin their processes, five years old.  The medical field won't touch young children to manage meds for them due to how quickly they grow / that changes the meds significantly.  So I have sat on the web endlessly searching for resources, making hundreds of phone calls to providers/insurance companies/pharmacists... just to end my day with feeling like I didn't even make a half step toward a solution. 

Ultimately our wee man turned five years old and was placed in a partial hospital intake.  He was checked in at 8am Monday - Friday and checked out at 3pm.  He stayed home at night and weekends.  His schedule was a lot of therapy, med management, and only a couple hours of official "schooling".  This hospital was about an hour from our home and during rush hours, both ways.  Family therapy happened four times... another trip up the freeway.  Ugh.  What came out of it?  Well we got a huge list of his diagnoses and felt validated that we knew something was off and not just getting too old to deal with toddlers.  Although, I am getting too old to raise toddlers...

The doctors were surprised how long we have dealt with him on our own.  What were we supposed to do?  This area is flawed.  There are few resources available that assist early aged children.  He is our son.  There is no "return policy".  We adopted our children and they are ours as if we birthed them. 

Mental illness is an ugly beast.  Along with MrJ, we have a fourteen year old son that is also ODD, Bi-polar, and has manic depression.  We've dealt with his stuff since he turned nine.  MrJ kicked in a lot sooner.  MrJ is ODD, ADHD combined impulsivity-inattention-hyperactivity-destructive, TSRD, manic depressive, FASD... he also shows the markers that will prove that he will have the Bi-polar diagnoses as well.  (probably by age 9-10)

ODD: Oppositional Defiant Disorder;
ADHD:  Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder;
TSRD:  Trauma and Stressor-Related Disorder;
FASD:  Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder

So that means that I will be dealing with bi-polar children for over NINETEEN years straight!  That is daunting.  I'm in the middle of the storm and it is overwhelming.  I can't even begin to comprehend how the next thirteen years are going to pan out. One day at a time, I guess.

We used to keep this stuff all hush hush.  I didn't want people labeling my crew or writing them off without letting them have a chance.  So much stigma is attached to mental health matters.  If my child had cancer I wouldn't put up a shield of secrecy but I did with this.  Well, I am silent no more.  I want you to realize what you are dealing with for a scout campout, classes at school or church, sports practices, and our life. 

MrJ requires a strict schedule.  Order of events and times are vital.  No we can't just keep our crew up one time and let them participate in your event... it will disrupt the schedule and I will pay for it for the next week.  This has been learned by trial and ERROR.  I'm anal to many but his sanity and our sanity depend on me staying "anal". 

I'm worn out, all the time.  Sleep is a distant memory.  MrJ's ADHD doesn't turn off at night, so sleep is little chunks of time and due to his destructiveness we have been forced to install locks on our pantry, hide knives/pizza cutters/sharp stuff, and if he gets up... he has to be watched and returned to bed a dozen times a night.  It is worse than a newborn.  A newborn will eventually sleep... MrJ never sleeps.

There is no respite.  There is no having guests over... anything off schedule throws everything out of balance.  So I feel like a recluse in a prison camp. 

Once I started talking about our lives with mental illness a whole new world opened up.  I never realized how many people are dealing with similar issues we have in our home. 
I'm not alone after all.

The only way we are going to influence the system is to not hide.
Mental health matters.  Mental illness is not a dirty word.