"Lost in the Storm": Slate article about local child with suicidal depression
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Anonymous
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"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. |
Anonymous
I agree with you 100%. The headline here is not "mom didn't choose IOP". The big issue (which we all know about) is the shameful lack of access to affordable, effective mental healthcare for our kids. The doors sometimes open wide if you can private pay, but even then, it can be tough to find someone willing to take on your child. It is a complete failure of our medical system and is just going to get worse as more and more kids are struggling now. I am happy she shared her story because perhaps people who haven't experienced this will get how big a problem it is. Maybe eventually something will give. |
Anonymous
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It's really hard to make these choices. When you have a child with severe mental health needs and several without you are constantly finding yourself feeling like you are neglecting the others and you probably are. I would like to think I would have done the IOP but I could see how when faced with the exhaustion of years of trying to help one child and not seeing my other children I could do what she did. It would also mean the child in therapy would not see her siblings three times a week which might make her mental health worse.
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Anonymous
I don’t think it’s just one thing that makes the author unsympathetic. I found her rejection of specialized school placement and complaining about the lack of financial resources a doctor-lawyer parenting team have to be offputting as well. Many of us have had RICA envy and the reasons for rejection are so shallow. I don’t think she is a bad parent, but I don’t think she recognizes her privilege and that is the problem. She has resources yet finds excuses. |
Anonymous
So if you don't take your child to the ER what is CPS really going to do? They aren't going to take custody of your child. If you say financially we can't afford it and it doesn't help since there aren't beds anyway, what options does CPS have if you prove you are trying and taking your child to appointments. It isn't like CPS are going to start arresting parents or charging parents whose kids are in a mental health crisis for neglect. I would assume if they call the police the police wouldn't just come take a child away and transport the child somewhere without discussing it with a crisis team. I would think the dad that is a neurologist would trump a psychologist. |
Anonymous
CPS can move the kid to a foster home while sorting things out. |
Anonymous
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It's a story about lack of support.
From her perspective, there aren't enough therapists, schools who will work with higher needs. But the lack of support begins at home. She could get more help if she hadn't divorced..if she would just give up more of her career.. No one has much sympathy, even here, because she- the mother- not the parent- the Mother, hasn't given up enough of herself. Sickening. |
Anonymous
Tell us about your child's mental illness and the ease in which you found "lots of resources available". |
Anonymous
Here’s what happened to us. The police showed up and took our child to the closest ER (not the best for this). At the ER, I was told that if we did not consent to having her placed, they were going to call CPS and have CPS sign off on it. I was able to get her treating doctor on the phone who was able to convince the social workers that it was better for me to take her home and he would see her first thing in the morning for a more thorough assessment. But he’s great and answers his pager. |
Anonymous
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. |
Anonymous
| Left out of this is how many ERs don’t code an emergency psych visit correctly and insurance companies won’t cover it. So you get a bill for thousands of dollars later for an emergency ER visit. |
Anonymous
Mom is a layer, dad is a neurologist. They can afford to litigate. They can also go after a psychologist who never personally saw a patient for signing anything related to care that requires an actual evaluation. CPS is not going to go after a family with resources who choose to use those resources to fight back. It's not worth the trouble. |
Anonymous
| They have the resources to pay for private school and should have done so. Fusion, etc. |
Anonymous
Fusion is $50K per year! I find it odd that everyone thinks they understand this family's finances. She's not a highly-paid corporate lawyer. It also looks like she eventually had to quit her job. Her husband could very well have medical school loans that diminish his take-home pay. Maybe they have other family expenses and pressures we don't know about. I find it sad that many of the posters are nitpicking this family's decisions rather than focusing on the much bigger issue raised about the lack of options overall. I'm also not sure that the private placement they were offered was actually RICA. Doesn't RICA offer accelerated classes? I'm wondering if it was actually Sheppard Pratt in Rockville. My nephew received a placement there. While we are eternally grateful for the mental health care he received through their program, it is woefully inadequate when it comes to academics. If I had a 2E kid, I would have concerns, too. |
Anonymous
Not all docs and attys make big bucks. |