The Mountain

This has been one of those days.

My daughter was taken to an emergency psych unit after cutting her wrists, leaving a suicide note and jumping off a bridge. We found out when I called to talk to her about plans for that evening and she wasn’t there – apparently letting a child’s parents know that emergency services had taken her to hospital wasn’t something they thought of.  At least she was safe and after hashing out the communication issues with the group home it was agreed that we would know about any updates as soon as they did, because the hospital wouldn’t talk to us.

They kept her over night, but as soon as she was seen by a Psychiatrist she was released. Apparently her thought processes, actions and behaviours were normal enough for the “Doctor” to let her walk out the door.  Did I mention that this was the same Doctor from my post “Stigmatized” for whom I have no patience, have no respect for and who’s name needs only to be mentioned to send a wave of rage crashing over me?  Of course we also weren’t told of her release and whereabouts until we called the group home for an update, after all we are only the parents…why would we need to know what was happening?

This series of events came on the heels of a successful overnight at home, some good conversations and a sense that we were starting to make some real progress.

Every time I think I’m over it
I wake up in the bottom of it all again
I’m still survivin’, keep climbin’
Keep climbin’ the mountain

Three Days Grace

The problem with this particular mountain is that every time we thing we are close to a new plateau, we get hit by an avalanche and have to start over. Every time we think that we have a climbing team that we can work with someone decides to cut our safety line and send us crashing down to the bottom again.  I’m not even sure what’s at the summit of this mountain, but it can’t be worse than the hell hole we’ve been climbing out of.

Family Connections taught me about emotional dysregulation, how to radically accept, how to be more empathetic and helped me find a new level of self-awareness and serenity. My wife and my friends and these skills are the only solid footing I’ve been able to find on this climb.  Our publically funded healthcare system is an avalanche trying to bury us, the “experts” have been tampering with our climbing gear and our daughter is a gale force wind that constantly changes direction and is determined to blow us off the cliff face, but tomorrow is a new day and a new climb.