After literally a year of hell with Brooke, tapping into every professional service to ensure I had in fact exhausted all professional services for her, about six weeks ago I walked into her physicians office and said, "My daughter is worse than she has ever been, obviously the med's are not helping, so I want her off them!"
The psychiatrist suggested we try just one more different kind of medication. A medication from a completely different family, different from everything we have tried in the past.
One more time and that's it.
When I no longer believed life could get back to normal, it has.
Brooke hasn't self-harmed, I haven't called the police, she has not visited a hospital or a crisis center since her meds change. What had become a weekly pattern, I now count the weeks as a substance abuse person would count their weeks of sobriety.
That's the tip of the iceberg stuff.
Brooke is happy again. For no reason other than she is no longer dwelling in the land of depression with suicidal tendencies which I ABSOLUTELY blame the mind-altering side effects of the wrong med's that were in her system.
Pleasant and friendly, she is participating in family activities and leaving our home again. The extreme rudeness has dissipated and when I get on her for basic teenage stuff, she handles it well. There are no more scenes with gasoline being dumped on an already raging bonfire.
Only one day in our six weeks did we forget her new pill only one night and we did indeed have a five-minute ghetto fighting moment. It was truly deja vu and I realized how powerful one pill makes as well as the importance of not missing a single night.
Brain-controlling medications are to be taken very seriously. They are not the baby stuff that Advil is to a headache.
I reflect back through the year and the psychiatrists that her path crossed in hospitals, treatment centers, and her personal counseling office that increased her med's when the drama became out of control. That was always the first step in the quick "fix" to increase her med's. Not one of them truly tracked or paid attention to the pattern of her behavior on med's.
Had I not advocated for my daughter, I was certain she would have eventually killed herself, even if by accident.
I think of the countless people out there struggling with mental illness who do not have advocates to fight for them. Families who have given up on them simply because they are exhausted from extreme drama.
Brooke is bi-polar. The wrong med's in her system made her a nightmare and highly suicidal. Mind-altering meds have serious side effect that can do that.
One of my closest friends has started her daughter on Zoloft about a month ago. She is in the hospital at this very moment from an overdose. I told her get her OFF Zoloft.
If you have a family member or friend with a mental illness diagnosis and life is out of control, advocate. It is the difference between living in hell and normalcy for them and everyone around them.
It was an ugly journey, but how would you feel if you were unable to help yourself, you didn't know how to help yourself, didn't have the right mind to know the difference, and couldn't climb out of the pit.
Advocate for them.
