by Band Back Together | Nov 27, 2018 | Uncategorized |
It’s Giving Tuesday! This day kicks off the charitable giving season to follow-up Black Friday and Cyber Monday with recognition for non-profits who’s budgets are often stretched thin by the end of the year.
The Band strives to provide you a safe, secure place to air your feelings about anything that affects you, from mental illness, to addiction, to loss, to family stress or even happy things going on in your life. To do this we are hosted by AISO.net which is a 100% solar run facility, that in the event of a power malfunction (shit happens) they are able to run completely off-grid for 3 days, which ensures that your stories and profiles don’t go anywhere. In addition, they provide state of the art security services to protect your personal information. Along with this, we have a number of legal fees associated with keeping our non-profit status. This allows us to accept your donations tax free (every cent you give is used to keep The Band running) and gives you a tax deduction each time you donate to us! We have operations costs to ensure that your stories get edited and published in a timely manner. I have to tell you, there’s a few of us on the team that live in very rural areas and keeping our connection to you is very important to us. We consider it a priority to keep The Band staffed as much as possible regardless of internet availability and equipment malfunctions. There are, of course, costs associated with this.
We have 4 volunteers that run this site full-time, along with several others that give their time when they are able. We’ve poured thousands of hours of love into this site to make you feel less alone. We’re humbly asking you to give back to The Band today for #GivingTuesday. If you are able to donate (even a little goes a LONG way) you can do so here. Facebook and Paypal are teaming up today to match $7 million in donations to eligible 501(c)(3)charities! If you’re not able to donate (we totally understand) could you click that link, give it a share and invite your friends and family to donate? If you don’t feel comfortable with that please consider giving us some of your time. We’re always looking for more people for editing, fundraising, social media posting/sharing, and authors!
We love you so much, we literally could not do any of this great work without you all. Thank you so much for being a part of The Band in whatever capacity you are able. Yes, even YOU, THANK YOU!
by Band Back Together | Nov 27, 2018 | Anxiety Disorders, Bipolar Disorder, Coping With Anxiety Disorders, Coping With Depression, Depressive Disorder, Loving Someone With Bipolar Disorder, Mental Health, Parenting, Parenting Teens, Pediatric Bipolar Disorder, Pediatric Depression, Teen Bipolar Disorder |
How’s Gabriel?
I hear that all the time. There is no simple answer. But answering it is the focus of my daily life. Every day. The real answer is Gabriel’s not OK. Gabriel is Bipolar. His moods shift. Daily. Weekly. Yearly. He is never OK. I spend my days like a detective trying to sniff out any small clue of a mood change, charting, taking notes, observing him. Worrying about him.
He spent 10 months of the last 12 (literally, not figuratively) suicidal, dangerous, aggressive, and explosive. His meds are controlling that a little, but he is manic right now. Which is dangerous in other ways. And his meds aren’t holding that in. They aren’t ‘stabilizing’ him like they are supposed to. And without going into a tirade about doctors, I don’t have a ‘handle’ on this the way I PROMISED myself I would last October. And last May. And last July. You get the point.
The fact that mania seeps out now means that Gabriel is hyper (he isn’t normally at all), he is giddy, inappropriate (laughing, jokes, rude comments, butt jokes, pulling his pants down in front of a friend during a play date, etc), and more likely to jump off the roof (or trick his brothers into doing it) than anything else. Which is, in some ways, better than the dangerous depressive side. However, as October comes to a close, so will the mania, and the bipolar depression will replace my giddy-inappropriate child with one who hates the world. Who hates me. Who hates his brothers. One who is so negative and dangerous that he threatens to take knives to school and kill people. That kid is hard to live with. That kid is hard to keep safe. That kid threatens my sanity and the safety of my other two children.
We have to put him on another medication. A stronger medication. And although our ‘nurse practitioner’ is willing to give him a new medicine now, (they want to put him on Lamictal), my next appointment with his actual doctor, a real psychiatrist, isn’t until November 24.
Yes, the day before Thanksgiving.
Why wait? Because Lamictal has a 1 in 1000 chance of a deadly side effect. A deadly rash that may just start itself in the depth of my son’s mouth where I am less likely to see it. Less likely to be able to get him the immediate medical attention required. That scares me.
And scares my husband. So much so, that he refuses to give our son this drug until we see our psychiatrist. Who we can see the day before Thanksgiving.
So, I will bake pies early this year. And spend the that glorious Wednesday afternoon admiring the artwork on the walls of Children’s Hospital, nervously wondering if I will be rushing Gabriel to the ER with a rash on Thanksgiving day, and trying to hold down all those bites of pie I shoved in my throat in the anticipation of this moment where we are forced to make, yet another, hard decision about our son’s care.
But I have no choice. So we wait.
But the cycling won’t wait.
Depression is nipping at his heels and I am not sure we can out run it.
by Band Back Together | Nov 22, 2018 | Family, Happiness, Hope |
I took The Boy on a date today.
The Husband and I decided we wanted to interject more whimsy into our family routine. Our calendar has many blocked and iterative events dictated by outside organizations like school hours, assigned homework, sports practices, lessons, games and tournaments, music lessons and performances, as well as church and community events. Though we are in almost constant motion, we realized there’s sometimes more march than joy in our steps.
Our parental plan was a simple one. When they were least expectant, we would bombard them with the unexpected.
As such, this morning, I enjoyed an iBed breakfast while The Husband took a sleepy-eyed crew to Spudnuts. For the uninitiated, Spudnut donuts are made with potato flour. A moist, sweet delight, they blissfully surrender a happy, glazed melt down the eager throat of each blitzed-out consumer. Spudnut donuts are more than donuts, they are holy confections with a sense of history in our small town. The Husband took happy kids to school who were thrilled to further anticipate an early dismissal at noon.
Unbeknownst to The Boy, I had made arrangements for all the other children to be playdate engaged so that I could surprise him with a lunch invitation. To his credit, he was more than amiable, even before he learned Five Guys and a trip to Barnes & Noble were on the itinerary.
Lunch was pleasant. Nothing lubricates adolescent conversation like hot grease and ketchup. Conversation was easy and blessedly without an agenda. The Boy shocks me these days as he has so experienced such dramatic physical changes in the past couple of months. Even his face has taken on the angles of a man’s chisel, complete with <gasp> a discernable mustache. However, as he greedily slurped his root beer, I could almost see the little boy I remembered hiding just behind his red straw. It was fun.
Tight tummied, we made the short drive to Barnes & Noble. In a gesture I mistook for chivalry, The Boy preceded me to the door excitedly telling me, “Look!” as he opened the door for us. He opened the door and stepped in so quickly that the door literally closed in my face. What I mistook as excitement over a book display or café novely was actually his joy to find one of his best buds in the store. As it happened, his buddy was there alone waiting for his mother, and really appreciated the company.
Again, to The Boy’s credit, he apologized to me before he ditched me cold for his friend. He said, “I know we are on a date, and I didn’t think it would end this way, but, well, we can finish our date later and…. I gotta go!”
I assured The Boy that I understood and went to the café to sketch a couple of ideas I had from the night before. When it was time for me to go, The Boy’s friend was still solo, so I allowed my son to stay so that his friend would have a buddy. The Boy used his Barnes & Noble gift card to buy his friend a drink (that he had promised to treat me with) at the café. I don’t know he could have looked more pleased with himself if he had used a Visa to buy concert tickets.
When I returned for him, his friend’s mom was there to pick up her son.
A spontaneous overnight invitation was extended to The Boy, “We’d love to have him,” the mom agreed, grateful that her son had company while he waited for her return.
Once again, The Boy pulled me aside to apologize our date had been interrupted, but he really, really wanted to go.
Sometimes math is really simple. I had one really thrilled boy who was happy with the outcome of a date with his mamma. He enjoyed the food, the perks and an unexpected surprise ending. His joy was sincere and contagious and equaled a successful maternal mission.
I got stood up in the middle, but it was one of the best dates of my entire life.
by Band Back Together | Nov 21, 2018 | Addiction, Addiction Recovery, Adult Children of Addicts, Alcohol Addiction |
She knew I was home by the trail of vomit that started at the front door and lead to the bedroom where I had passed out. My mother, her fiance, and my brother had been out all day. They did some family bonding outing that I had no interest in. Think vampires in sunlight enthusiasm, I did not want to go. I had better plans, with an empty apartment for several hours, I could party.
Now the term “party” was pretty inconsistent. I didn’t have much money, a place to go, or any kind of real plan but that did not deter me. I found some other bored teens to hang out with and we decided to find some trouble. So in our quest to “party” with no plan and no funds, we decided to hitchhike. Sad part is this wasn’t the first time we used this as a means to get high or drunk, it was “party roulette.” We never knew who would pick us up and what adventure awaited us. I cringe at the old memory, the sheer stupidity of it, and the absolute lack of self-preservation. Pure insanity.
The details are a blur. They were a blur 35 years ago and they haven’t sharpened with the passing of time. I know I got drunk with strangers. I was in and out of a black out. I remember asking the driver to pull over so I could vomit. Somehow I stumbled up the steep wooden steps to our shabby apartment above the local hardware store. I don’t know how much time passed before my mother found me and insisted I was drunk.
I was a good liar then. I could think up shit on the spot like my life depended on it. I feigned the flu, a stomach bug, so many classmates had it. I convinced my mother’s fiance and my brother that was the case. Mom wasn’t having it. She took me to the Emergency Room to confirm her suspicions, I was busted.
My mother knew a thing or two about drunks, she was in the infancy stage of getting sober and it wasn’t her first attempt. I like to joke that my gene pool is polluted and it is, mostly with alcoholism and heart disease. At 15, I was pretty safe from heart disease but alcoholism doesn’t have a minimum age, that bastard.
Fast forward a few days and I was greeted with “you’re going to rehab” when I got home from school. I had 12 hours to say my good-byes and then I was off. I had no idea what to expect but I figured I could get some street cred from the experience. To say I was flippant is an understatement. I had no intention of getting sober. I was just doing time, garnering pages for my future memoir.
My mother drove me to the place which was a little more than an hour from where we lived. It was in Long Branch, New Jersey and was billed as an adolescent rehab, it formerly served as school for troubled boys. Part of it looked like an old house and part of it looked like a dorm. Guys and girls were separated by common rooms. There was a cafeteria in the basement with intake, detox, and a nurses station on the second floor.
I remember getting asked a series of personal questions in the intake office. Based on some of the questions, I didn’t think I belonged. I mean I never lost a job or drove drunk (psst…still 15). I was focused on finding the “not me” which I later learned would be “not yet” if I continued on the path I was on. The place was only open about a month when I arrived, the smell of fresh paint still lingered in parts of the sprawling building.
I remember the first time I walked into the Day Room, “White Lines” by Grandmaster Flash was playing. There were maybe a dozen residents there all between the ages 14 and 17. They came from a range of backgrounds and they all had way more experience than me. Most of them had been arrested for a variety of similar reasons and almost all came from broken families. It was misfit island for teens with a fairly structured daily schedule. We had job assignments, group therapy and some type of meeting, AA or NA. On Sundays a couple came in to bring us their version of Christianity.
The place was so new it was still working out the kinks. Kids were pairing up and couples could be seen holding hands in the Day Room. Most of the staff there were sober an average of 2.5 years and were deep into the zealot phase of recovery (that usually winds down sometime after the 5th year). I don’t know what qualifications they had beyond early sobriety. The counselors were more skilled and had some credentials.
I learned a lot in that place and much of it has followed me all these years. I remember reading the Twelve Steps of AA on a poster. Foolish girl, I thought I could get through a chunk of them just by reading them and giving them a moment’s thought. These steps provided a road map for living and I still abide by them.
THE TWELVE STEPS OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS
We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
*Copyright 1952, 1953, 1981 by Alcoholics Anonymous Publishing (now known as Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.)
All rights reserved.
I know there’s a lot of God stuff in those steps. Relax, it’s a God of your understanding, a Higher Power (HP). I have heard some interesting spins on HP over the years….some people have used their home AA/NA group as their Higher Power. I once heard someone speak that stated Jack Daniels was their Higher Power because it was stronger than them. Another friend chose Good-Orderly-Direction as their G-O-D. I stopped judging this stuff decades ago and life got a whole bunch simpler.
About three days into my stay something remarkable happened. I was in the bedroom that I shared with a roommate but I was alone. I can still see myself sitting there with my white jeans and favorite scarf, a beam of light shone in through the window closest to my bed, near where I was sitting. People call it a spiritual awakening, for me it was an awareness that changed my life forever. In that moment, I got a clear picture of the destructive path my life was on. I also got an intense soul deep understanding that it did not have to stay that way. In that powerful moment I felt the presence of something greater than me and I made a decision to get sober. I have been faithful to that decision for nearly 35 years now.
This longevity of sobriety is somewhat rare. What’s really exotic is getting and staying sober at such a young age. I can only take partial credit for that. That loving, crazy and ever vigilant HP that watches over me has done most of the heavy lifting. I have also met a thousand sober angels along the way. People that guided me through different phases of my life. The ones that told me the harsh truths but always with a solution or helpful suggestion. I’ve also met people that determined I could not possibly be an alcoholic because I got sober so young. I don’t try to win them over with stories of the stupid shit I did for my brief time using. I do remind myself of something I learned long ago in that rehab….”it isn’t how much or how long you drank that matters, it’s what happens when”. When I drank I always put myself in harm’s way, always.
If I can pinpoint one thing that has kept me sober it’s probably the realization that being sober is actually the easier, softer way. That probably sounds nuts to people who aren’t familiar with alcoholism but it’s the truth. If staying sober was harder than being drunk, I would have gotten drunk long ago. Down to my toes I believe that this is the best path for me and that’s why I’ve stayed on it so long.
by Band Back Together | Nov 20, 2018 | Anger, Anxiety, Anxiety Disorders, Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, Child Protective Services, Emotional Boundaries, Family, Fear, Help with Parenting, Loving Someone With Bipolar Disorder, Mental Health, Mental Illness Stigma, Teen Bipolar Disorder |
I don’t remember when reporting of suspected abuse and threat assessments (e.g., suicide risk identifications) became mandatory for educators and counselors. It was before I became a parent, I know that much, and it dawned on me a long time ago that there were probably plenty of reports that resulted from misunderstandings.
About a month ago, while we were in the middle of Princess’ most troubling days, while we struggled to identify and treat her emerging bipolar tendencies, our son, Hoss, ran away from his school and was brought back by the county police. It’s been a long time since he ran away like that, but it brought back memories of the tough times before he was diagnosed with his mood disorder.
One of these elopement incidents was the final thing that sent him to the psychiatric hospital back in the day, and that he’d gone all of last school year without ever feeling the need to escape like that made me feel like we’d made serious progress. Last month’s bolting was not as serious as what we used to see, but he did leave the property.
When the police officer brought him back to the school, they said he’d expressed that he’d wanted to die. As a result, despite the assurances of the school staff with whom Hoss has a history (principal, counselor, psychologist) that he was not actually a danger to himself or others, the police informed us that they would be taking him to the ER for a psychiatric consult. I was told that I would not be allowed to go along until I had spoken with the Mobile Crisis Team.
I spent time with the MCT explaining all of the steps I go through to care for my children and myself (outpatient therapies for the children, family therapy with a social worker with whom all of the family members are comfortable, open lines of communication with the schools, medication monitoring all around) with a response that roughly translated to:
“Okay. That’s exactly what we were going to recommend, so keep on keeping on.”
My husband went to the ER to stay with Hoss, and the evaluation indicated that Hoss’ “I wish someone would just kill me,” was not actually a cry for help, but rather a misstated outburst that is not all that unusual for a nine-year-old boy with ADHD. During the next therapy session, Hoss got an opportunity to talk about how upset he was that he’d been forced to go to the ER when he’d wanted to stay with his sister and I.
While Princess was in the day hospital program a few weeks ago in preparation for the transition back to school (now that we’ve gotten her medication properly titrated), she spoke of her brother’s boundary issues, and how he’s gotten in trouble the weekend before for not keeping his hands to himself.
Part of that boundary crossing included trying to tickle her all over, and missing her stomach by hitting a bit further south. Because we are working with Hoss on respecting personal space as well as just plain leaving his sister alone sometimes, he had to process what he’d done and he had consequences for not acting as he was supposed to.
Princess accepted his apology, since he’d properly identified what he’d done wrong and what he should have done instead. I didn’t hear about the incident until days later, since it happened while I was out of the house and it was no longer on everyone’s mind by the time I got home that evening.
However, the hospital reported the incident to the county, who interviewed all three of my children.
The end result of the interviews (from the point of view of the police and social worker) was that there was no criminal activity or additional cause for concern.
The end result from the point of view of my children was slightly different- Princess feels bad that she got her brother in trouble, Hoss is irritated and slightly grossed out that he “…had to look at pictures of private parts! Even girl ones!” and Little Joe doesn’t understand why he had to answer a whole bunch of questions about body parts and our family and stuff.
I know that mandatory reporting has resulted in abuse being caught before more damage can be done. I know that conducting threat assessments in elementary school may mean that we have fewer young children reacting to their stress by harming or killing themselves.
I understand this, and of course I want those bad things prevented.
I’m just struggling with how this has put me under a microscope when, according to the mental health and educational professionals who know me and my family, I’m one of the good guys
