The journey to where we are today doesn’t start just 6 months ago when our entire world imploded. No, it started decades ago. Long before our children were born. It goes back to our roots filled with mental illness and addiction. Both sides of our family have ties to mental illness and addiction. Some more severe than others. Some that have overcome the demons that plagued them. Some that did not. In fact, even as a teenager myself, I struggled with my own mental health. I suffered from depression, suicidal ideation, and self harm. But after almost a decade in therapy, through my teen years and into early adulthood, I have a pretty solid arsenal of tools that keep me pretty grounded.

Yet, here we are. Working our way down the muddy and dark path of mental illness. Trying to find a plan that works in helping our daughter learn the tools to cope with all of the things that bring her to dark and scary places. To support her in battling suicidal thoughts and plans. To help her battle an eating disorder. And learning that in all of this we have to accept that there are going to be steps forward and backward. But every day is a new day and a chance to start again.

The Spring of 2021 wasn’t the first time our 2nd oldest daughter spoke to us about suicide. In fact, she was in the 8th grade the first time she shared with us that she had experienced suicidal thoughts. Like most parents, the first thing I did after stunned silence was comfort my daughter, ask her if she felt that way right then, and made a call to get her into see a therapist right away. And that’s what we did. Immediate therapy and groups. Little did we know that a bad match with a therapist would lead us right to where we are today.

Looking back now (what did I say about hindsight) – we should have requested another therapist after the first couple of meetings. But our daughter was seemingly doing better. She was able to speak up more when things were bothering her. And the therapist assured us that she wasn’t at risk for suicide, but rather had trouble processing her emotions productively and that’s what we needed to focus on. Man, was she wrong. The problem with having a super smart kid is that they start to tell you what you want to hear. They know just how to act to pull the wool over your eyes as to not disappoint you. And that’s exactly what our daughter did. And she was so good at it, that even the therapist sent us on our way after a few months with best wishes and to keep up the good work.

And that’s what we did. At least that’s what we thought. Little did we know is that those thoughts our daughter told us about never really went away. They just stayed tucked in her mind. Getting louder and louder, until that’s all she heard. Some people that have heard our story have wondered how for almost FOUR years we had no idea our daughter was struggling so much. Well, that’s the kind of tricky beast mental illness is. And when you have a child who strives for perfection, they get really good at hiding it. Even looking back now, there were no big red flags. There was no dropping in grades. There was no skipping school. She went out with friends. When she wanted to be alone, she told us it was because our house was a circus and she wanted some quiet. All logical and normal things. Then COVID hit.

The pandemic was pretty intense, for many reasons. But I will also say that the pandemic probably saved our daughters life. You see, when you only have to hide your depression from your parents a few hours a day because you are at school all day, it’s pretty easy. But when you are home 24/7 because of a pandemic and schools are shut down for 18 months – hiding what is really going on is a level of exhausting that you can’t imagine. And that’s what happened for us. We started to notice that things were “off” with her about late January/early February of 2021. There was slow changes in food consumption; going vegetarian to vegan. Not eating as much as she normally was. So our radar was up. Then as more time went by she became more and more shut down – and was not willing to talk to us about what she was struggling with. So in March I called to get her into talk to a therapist. Our insurance had a bit of a waitlist – so it took a couple weeks between intake and getting to speak to someone. But you know how some people say that people are placed in your life at just the right time. Well, that is what happened. D connected immediately with her and didn’t hold back. She told her she was thinking about suicide most of her waking hours. That she had a plan. The only reason she hadn’t followed through on a plan was because of her younger sisters, and even that was getting harder to fight. What a way to start off with a new therapist. But right away she dove into action. She got us connected with a crisis center and that is when we experienced our first 5150 evaluation.

The crisis center was a godsend. They immediately took action – talking to us separately, together, working out if our daughter could be safe at home. And that time she was able to come home with us, but it was short lived. Just 3 days later we were back at the crisis center for another 5150 evaluation and that time we knew our daughter wouldn’t be coming home with us that night. That 5150 hold turned into almost 2 weeks at a mental facility for stabilization, and it wouldn’t be our last experience with leaving our daughter somewhere she could get the mental health services she so desperately needed.