"Lost in the Storm": Slate article about local child with suicidal depression

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kid is smart and sensitive suffering severe distress as the identified patient in her parents dysfunction.

They should have complained with the recommendation or paid for private care.

Complied.

Also dont write a dramatic article about your child's private medical information.

yeah. if you google the author's name, there is a lot of her own (self-published) writing on the mom's own mental health challanges. Very hard situation, and the mom clearly has a significant mental health history as well. Who knows about the dad because he doesn't appear to overshare.

Everything else aside, there is a level of fatigue that sets in; one can only be in 'crisis mode' for so long.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I read the story. I've had some experience with my kid at an inpatient facility, and also lots of therapy and medication over the years.

I realize one of the challenges of an article like this is trying to condense a very long, complicated story into a single written piece. I also appreciate the need to leave out some details due to privacy issues.
That said... there was one part of the story that stuck out for me, and when I discussed the article with my DH, he related that he had the same reaction when he read it.

There is a point in the process where the care team is recommending an outpatient program. (This is after the second, more successful inpatient program.) The author says it sounds great, but then when the time of the program is changed to 4:30-7:30, the author makes a flat statement that is is "impossible with two other kids at home." The recommendation for this program even comes up again in the article, and author states they instead went with a virtual option. One they were doubtful would be helpful, and sure enough wasn't.

I fully appreciate that for a person with this severe level of mental health needs there will never be "one thing" can magically fixes everything. I also understand (as I said above) that I don't have all of the details.
However, while my reaction throughout reading this article had been nothing but sympathy, this part brought me up short. I just couldn't understand why this particular treatment was deemed impossible. At this point, the kid hasn't been in school, the author is taking family leave and ultimately quitting her job. There is already tremendous upheaval in their family life. I can only imagine the amount of upheaval that the siblings of this child are already experiencing. Needing to get a sitter, or arrange transport, or... something? That feels do-able based on all of the other things this family has done, and the crisis level of the suffering child. It left me scratching my head. Did anyone else have the same reaction? Am I missing something obvious?

I had the same reaction. If my child was suicidal, I’d do a program from midnight to 3 am if that’s what I can get.

The problem is there's no guarantee that the program will really help. 3 hours a day isn't really going to make that much difference, and then when it ends they're stuck with the same problem. I know because I've done an IOP after getting out of the mental hospital and it wasn't particularly helpful except for helping me get used to being in the outside world again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They have the resources to pay for private school and should have done so. Fusion, etc.

Not all docs and attys make big bucks.

Neurologists do.

Depends entirely on the practice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"The practice head, who has never once met Ash and has not had a single helpful thing to say to us since Ash started group DBT therapy in September, tells us that based on the therapist’s assessment, Ash is not safe at home and we must take her to the emergency room immediately, or else they will sign an emergency petition to have her removed by the police from our care."

This section really stood out for me. It's so wretched for a provider to do this. When we were researching providers a mom told me this nightmare story about how this type of thing happened to her. The head of the practice apparently has done this to several patients accusing the parents of abuse. The provider is crazy as they parents cleared but caused huge trauma for kids who were already in a mental health crisis. We left the practice very quickly after hearing that.

That’s not fair to the practice. The therapists are often in their 20s. They all have regular check ins with the practice head especially on difficult cases and when something this serious is going on, it would be weird not to have the more senior practitioner involved to deliver the bad news. If a DBT provider is telling you that you need to go to the ER, it’s bad. And unfortunately, the whole system is set up to create a fear of liability. They have a legal obligation to report siotuations of imminent harm. So if the kid is articulating a concrete plan for serious self harm and is not participating in therapy (which it sounds like she was not, as the author said she hated it), the practice has to report it.

There aren’t easy answers here. If the author was told something like — look, there is a 20% chance she kills herself in the next week. You can eliminate that by putting her in patient but it’s unclear whether that placement will make her somewhat better or somewhat worse. What is the right choice? I don’t know but that is essentially the choice facing these parents. In some ways, her story is less about the lack of resources (as she was offered a ton of resources) but more about how we don’t have great treatments for some types of mental illness. It’s like having a treatment resistant cancer but then getting mad at the doctors because the existing treatment methods are ineffective or have side effects.

I do think the author’s child case is complicated by the fact that she is so verbal and high IQ—she is running circles around these providers (to her own detriment) and is able to express/articulate things in a way that most kids that age can’t. My number one advice for the author would be that she has to find something else that this kid can spend her mental energy on rather than turning it all inwards. At this point she sounds like a caged tiger who is turning all her energy inward.

I've heard way too many times about a certain provider in our area creating more problems for parents of kids with serious mental health issues by getting CPS involved. They are more trying to protect themselves than doing what's right for the child and the family. In the cases I know about there wasn't suicidal ideation involved. It really sounds like the same provider except the head is female but I suspect the author changed the gender.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kid is smart and sensitive suffering severe distress as the identified patient in her parents dysfunction.

They should have complained with the recommendation or paid for private care.

Complied.

Also dont write a dramatic article about your child's private medical information.

yeah. if you google the author's name, there is a lot of her own (self-published) writing on the mom's own mental health challanges. Very hard situation, and the mom clearly has a significant mental health history as well. Who knows about the dad because he doesn't appear to overshare.

Everything else aside, there is a level of fatigue that sets in; one can only be in 'crisis mode' for so long.

Wow. A quick search brings up the author’s newsletter and the over sharing of personal details is concerning. Her kids deserve privacy as do others involved in her life. Writing about your kids’ mental health challenges and your ex-boyfriends is not fair to them.

[Anonymous]

I think all the PP with their scathing judgment on this author/mother clearly illustrates why mental illness is so stigmatized in this country, and why people are so hush hush about it.

Let's stipulate that this mom has issues, that doesn't make what her kid is going through any less real. In a well-run system, so much wouldn't be left up to her. That's the whole point.

And the judgement is why I would never write about my own kids mental health struggles, nor do I even discuss it outside of very, very close friends.

Even family can be brutal in their judgment.

[Anonymous]

So I guess everyone is done talking about it this.

[Anonymous]

When I read this article - I was thinking "yes! someone is shedding some light on how ridiculously difficult it is to access mental health resources for kids!"

When my child was struggling, the pediatrician was useless, the hospital was useless, the IOP was not nearly enough, and the therapist I could find was inexperienced. The psychiatrist was super expensive and seemed to add no value other than sticking with what was prescribed by the IOP in a hurry. No one seemed to know how to help us. It was terrifying.

Instead of nitpicking every word this author writes and judging her financial situation, her divorce, the choices she must have been making under duress, and the fact that she shared her story at all - why can't we have a discussion about how the system can change so other parents don't have to suffer through the hell of trying to get treatment for their kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I read the story. I've had some experience with my kid at an inpatient facility, and also lots of therapy and medication over the years.

I realize one of the challenges of an article like this is trying to condense a very long, complicated story into a single written piece. I also appreciate the need to leave out some details due to privacy issues.
That said... there was one part of the story that stuck out for me, and when I discussed the article with my DH, he related that he had the same reaction when he read it.

There is a point in the process where the care team is recommending an outpatient program. (This is after the second, more successful inpatient program.) The author says it sounds great, but then when the time of the program is changed to 4:30-7:30, the author makes a flat statement that is is "impossible with two other kids at home." The recommendation for this program even comes up again in the article, and author states they instead went with a virtual option. One they were doubtful would be helpful, and sure enough wasn't.

I fully appreciate that for a person with this severe level of mental health needs there will never be "one thing" can magically fixes everything. I also understand (as I said above) that I don't have all of the details.
However, while my reaction throughout reading this article had been nothing but sympathy, this part brought me up short. I just couldn't understand why this particular treatment was deemed impossible. At this point, the kid hasn't been in school, the author is taking family leave and ultimately quitting her job. There is already tremendous upheaval in their family life. I can only imagine the amount of upheaval that the siblings of this child are already experiencing. Needing to get a sitter, or arrange transport, or... something? That feels do-able based on all of the other things this family has done, and the crisis level of the suffering child. It left me scratching my head. Did anyone else have the same reaction? Am I missing something obvious?

I had the same reaction. If my child was suicidal, I’d do a program from midnight to 3 am if that’s what I can get.

The problem is there's no guarantee that the program will really help. 3 hours a day isn't really going to make that much difference, and then when it ends they're stuck with the same problem. I know because I've done an IOP after getting out of the mental hospital and it wasn't particularly helpful except for helping me get used to being in the outside world again.

But it was the only thing she had at the time that might have helped. She had nothing else. You don’t skip the only option

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP, I had the same reaction, but if the program was an hour away, she would be gone from 3:30 to 8:30. That’s a really difficult time to find child care for other children as a single parent household. If they are younger, that might be most of their waking, non-school hours. I could see decisions about trade offs going either way.

Is the dad of the ill child also the dad of the younger kids?