I never thought that I would be able to relate to a mom articulating such words; words that we would never naturally put together 'child' and 'suicidal'. For us, it started off with us being scared because of the severity of Evod's seizures, especially the nocturnal episodes, as nocturnal seizures are the most fatal. We put a camera in his room to watch him as carefully as we could. We were desperate to protect our boy. My eyes rarely left that screen. Even if I heard a yawn or saw his arms stretch, I would bolt down the hallway to his room. I would lay beside him, stare at him, pray for him, hope for him, cry for him. I would wish that I could take the seizures, head on, face to face, and fight for my son; his beautiful little life. Alas, that's not the nature of this fight.
Before we could wrap our brains and hearts around how physically ill our son suddenly became, we started seeing serious signs of mental illness, due to trauma to his brain as a result of having 30-50 seizures a day). Our son, at age five wanted to die, wanted to never be seen again, wanted to disappear. One day, his eyes seemed so distant and he was pretending to write in a notebook. I sat beside him on his bed, knowing something was wrong and asked him what he was writing. At first, he said, "I'm writing good things." I just sat and looked at him, then he said, "I want to disappear. Go away, and never come back." He continued to candidly share some very dark thoughts that were racing through his mind, thoughts that were terrorizing him. Honestly, in that moment (and since) they were terrorizing me too, but I had to be aware of my reaction. I had to be strong, he had to know that I could handle what he was courageously sharing with me. He, like the bright boy that he is, was trying to cope and express himself in a little notebook. He couldn't even write yet, they were mere scribbles, and yet his scribbles wrote such agony on my heart; quite legibly.
We were thrust in this new, chaotic, terribly painful world of mental illness. The week of his sixth birthday he ultimately had to be committed into a pediatric mental institution, for his own protection. When those doctors and nurses looked at me, I am certain they saw a gutted heart bleeding on the floor. Well, that's how I felt anyway.
How could I protect my son now? I couldn't watch him on the camera. I couldn't sleep next to him. I couldn't run down the hallway just to make sure he was still breathing. I couldn't hold him and at least pretend that I could protect him. We were only able to visit once a day, two times on the weekend. When we would visit him, we would have to be searched and wanded by security and sign in a log book. Evod was the youngest child there, but he wasn't the only one. And, yet, there was never a line of parents, or loved ones, waiting to go visit their children. In fact, there had been days and days between visits for many of them. I'm not claiming to know the reasons for the lack of visits for these children, but I am claiming that it saddened me. I wished that I could transform into someone special coming to visit each of them. Of course, once we were there, we could hardly even look in their direction as to not cause a stir. Ugh... I just wanted to hug and hold each of them. I wanted to rescue each of the children in that psych unit... including my son. I couldn't.
I am not a rescuer. I am a mom with a broken heart and with the ache that lingers in me a fire is stirring! I want to bring awareness to Juvenile Mental Illness. These children face extreme anxiety, paranoia, psychosis (audible and visual hallucinations), they have tormenting suicidal and homicidal thoughts.... they also have hearts. Just like a child who suffers from Cancer, that child doesn't want to be sick, and face the horrible symptoms of the illness, or be in a fight for his/her life. Children with mental illness - didn't choose to be sick. They didn't choose to have the symptoms, of mental illness, that haunt them and often isolate them.
I may not be able to protect and rescue as I wish I could, but I have a purpose in this. It is not by accident or mistake that we are where we are. It's not a mistake that I have walked, bright eyed and heavy hearted, into a pediatric psych unit or that my ears have heard the horrors, first hand, of mental illness. I think a part of my purpose, is my weakness in a world of such mystery and often invisible pain. I cannot walk into a room full of parents who have children with mental illness, strong and confident in myself or my parenting skills, but I can share the strength and hope that has been given to me, in these... the weakest, most broken days of my life. I am continually reminded that I am unable to be all that my child needs, and that's okay. Even in this, I wasn't created to be anyone's all in all, not even my mentally ill son's. I am not a rescuer. That's simply not under the duties, gifts, and responsibilities of "mama"... and I can't force it to be. I am mama, I am not God.
I know I've said it before; our six year old son look totally and completely "normal". When people look at him at church/ playgrounds/ stores no one would ever guess that he suffers the way(s) that he does. The fact that my son doesn't often look "ill" has humbled me... all of this has humbled me to the ground. Look, regardless of what we think we know about parenting, rearing children, being a Christian, being a human - we just never know what's going on under the skin that someone is walking in. From this mama's heart, who has limited control in this chaotic world of mine, I ask... may we purpose to err on the side of grace, compassion, and love?
After I watched the mom's CNN interview, on YouTube, I read the comments below it. One of them read, "shudve aborted the lil tard ". We cannot be surprised that there are people out there that view ill children this way, but we can purpose to love more loudly to make up for the abundance of hate and void of love that exists in such hurtful voices.
I am not a rescuer, but I am a mama... and I pray that I love well, and loudly.
Please join me in praying for the mom, and family, in the CNN interview, all the children currently committed to a pediatric mental institution, and the families living their lives around us that are, maybe even secretly, affected my mental illness.
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