Blogs
You've struggled through Parts 1 and 2 of the Homework Drama. Now you're wondering--is this just an ongoing saga? Will I be fighting this battle for the rest of my child's educational life? Does it ever end?
Good news--it just might.
You make a mistake, say sorry, then move on, right? Wrong. Sometimes ‘I’m sorry’ is not enough. Forgiveness is most difficult when damage is done and it’s even more difficult when the apology is insincere or half-hearted. Sorry, not sorry is very easy to hear when someone says he's sorry and doesn't mean it.
Those of you who follow me may have gleaned that I've been having trouble getting a psychiatrist. Basically, I was finally allowed to see one and she threw up her hands, told me to give up and that I was never going to get any better. This is one of the worst things I have ever been told, and personally, I think is unacceptable on pretty much every level.
However, yesterday I managed to see someone new, and this poses its own challenges.
You can learn to deal with phobias and fears. For example, I'm getting on a whole bunch of trains this week. That's something I couldn't do a couple of years ago. Public transport just wasn't my thing, and over time I developed a full-blown phobia of trains and other public transport.
Years ago I worked for a pharmacist who had obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). I only spent about 20 hours a month with him and didn't immediately notice the struggle he lived with every day. But by the time he was snatching prescriptions bottles out of my hand as I was ringing up customers, dumping the contents out, and counting the pills "just one more time," even I was having trouble coping with his obsessive-compulsive symptoms. After closing up the pharmacy one night, we said goodnight and he left. I took my time gathering my things from the back room and was headed for the door when I heard loud banging. Alarmed, I followed the sound and found him throwing his body repeatedly against the locked counter door, unable to trust that it was securely fastened. Watching him that night, I clearly saw the distress OCD can cause.
As I began discussing in last week's post, the challenges of parenting a child with a psychiatric illness aren't limited to just managing the illness. Like any other medical condition, psychiatric illness--even when under control--brings other issues to the party. Among them is homework. In this post, the "three-part-drama" of Homework continues.
Part II - The Battle Begins
A few weeks ago I wrote an article on the worst things to say to a person with a mental illness. This ended up becoming a very popular article. I think that’s because most of us have heard some or all of these dismissive things from people in our lives.
But a commenter posed an excellent question: What are the best things to say to someone with a mental illness?
People with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder(BPD) often can not integrate more than one side of a situation. One week’s perfect therapy may be next week’s torture, rather than therapy being a helpful yet difficult process.
"Take a look inside my Bipolar Brain and you'll see crazy," proclaims Breaking Bipolar blog author, Natasha Tracy. Natasha is diagnosed with bipolar II, ultra-rapid cycling and has been in treatment for over a decade. Unfortunately, even after trying numerous bipolar treatments, Natasha has received little relief.
I was sitting in a group therapy session once when the leader succinctly described the perception those of us with multiple personalities have of ourselves as groups of entirely separate people by writing the following on the white board: Me/Not Me. This is me. That is not me. For instance, I am a writer. But if another member of my system were assigned the task of writing this blog post, we would see how the Multiple Personality Disorder label came about. Some might have done a passable job. Others would have struggled mightily only to ultimately produce a choppy, thoroughly unimpressive piece of work. I am me. They are not me.
Where do we go from here? Most of the family thinks just to let her hit bottom and then if she reaches out to help any we can. Some want to just keep paying her bills and just let her sit in the house with no responsibilities. Never been on medication and impossible to get to her when she refuses to talk to ANYONE.
Help.
On the day we agreed to videochat to make things less awkward IRL she woke up with a migraine so we rescheduled to the day after, I made sure to assure her that it was okay and to take her time. Later that day, in the late evening we had a nice chat but suddenly she stopped replying, even though nothing had happened. The day after I texted her good morning and said I hope she was feeling a little better. she wouldn't open my texts.
A couple days after I sent her a longer text saying that even though I had only known her for a short time I care a lot for her and would like to know how she are doing, telling her I'm there for her, assuring her I'm not going anywhere even though things might not be very easy. She wouldn't open it.
A week later I sent a text saying not to feel bad about not answering and that I will be there when she is able to answer again. It's been two weeks since this and she still hasn't opened my texts. She hasn't been active at all.
I don't know what else I can do. I assumed she might have fallen into a depression. I have tried to just not think about it anymore, and I haven't that much but when I do it sort of kills me inside...