Pat Wright (Parent): I have two children. I have a daughter, Leah, that is 22, and my son is 20.
Alyne Ellis (Interviewer): And his name is?
Pat: Gabe. They both struggle with mental health issues. My daughter got, um, depression anxiety when she was a junior in high school. She was court-ordered to do nine months of day treatment and she’s been on medication and has been doing very well since then.She’s in college and she’s working. My son is dual diagnosis and as of about six weeks ago he was diagnosed as psychotic so we’re learning about that.
Alyne: Now, are you a single parent, or are you married, or…?
Pat: Single parent.
Alyne: And you also have, um, an illness yourself, don’t you?
Pat: Yes I do, I have Crohn’s, I have depression and I have chronic fatigue syndrome. There’s always a lot going on in my house.My daughter’s doing better. I had to learn to be there for her, to hold her accountable and at the same time to back off and give her space. And I’m quite resourceful, I have been going to…we have Children’s Mental Health Association in Minnesota and they do annual conferences, they do trainings and so I think I’ve done that pretty well, I think I’ve allowed her to be her own person. She went through five high schools in four years, which was really exhausting, um, but that’s what she needed to do and now she’s been at the same college for about three years and she’s a trooper and so now I’m talking to her about voc ed money to go on, she’s thinking about becoming an occupational therapist and so I can see that she appreciates my help, um, but at times the depression still tells her that she doesn’t have a problem and so at times I still struggle with that.
Alyne: Wow, so she’s aware that that youthful connection made a big difference.
Pat: And flexibility of having someone that would come to the house and not just… Neither of my children are very, um, talkative so for them to go sit in an office with somebody for an hour, um, it would, it’s just real different than someone being in their life with them.
Alyne: So it sounds like you have some real hopes, even though depression is a life-long illness, right?
Pat: Oh, absolutely, yeah, she’s on track, she’s on track and it’s going to be slower track. She has friends that are graduating from four year colleges now and she’s still at junior college, and yet, um, she’s, she’s happy doing what she’s doing, she works also, she has a boyfriend, she’s had for several years, and she’s, she’s learning a lot.
Alyne: What do you think the biggest accomplishment is? I mean, I would assume, when you’re depressed, asking for help is a really big deal. Has she got to that point, or?
Pat: Well, she’s in the launching years, early 20s, and I think that’s something that she is still struggling with, um, her boyfriend also has been going through some difficult times with, ah, addiction, and so I take it as my highest compliment that she will bring him over to talk to me and so I know I’ve done something right cause I used to be the worst person in the world in her eyes and I will reflect back, “Well what do you two need to do?”
And, they don’t have insurance for counseling and we do have a walk-in counseling crisis place and it’s actually just six blocks from their house they realized, and what I can do to mirror back to them, that there are other resources out there and people that will be helpful even if they don’t have a lot of money, is what I feel like is my job at this point cause I don’t know what’s best for them and I’m not gonna pretend to say, and even if I dared go down that path, which I think I’m smart enough not to, and they followed my directions then it would be, be that they could blame or it just wouldn’t be a good situation for anybody.
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Alyne: Now you said that she was court-ordered to get help, do you mind my asking why?
Pat: When she was in ninth grade her dad and I were separating and she was having a hard time getting up and going to school so I worked with the school social workers who were quite organised and let me know about what insurance was available, what places I could call to see what would be a good fit for her and then they took it from there and she saw the judge and, um, the judge told her she needed to be somewhere and follow their recommendations.
So she went to a program that also had a school component. She learned a lot of skills and she came out, um, knowing a lot more about herself than before she went in I think. She also had a, um, counselor from an agency that, she, the counselor was just finishing her Masters so she was quite young which really helped I think because my daughter was about 15 at the time to have someone that was in her early mid-twenties, and this counselor could meet her at school, they could go to lunch, they could go shopping, she was very flexible, she could come to the house and although at the beginning my daughter wanted nothing to do with this woman um, a few years later she was telling me that our son needed someone just like her.
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Pat: She knows I’m an advocate, she knows that I have these issues and I really stress with both of my kids the importance of being in my own recovery, taking care of myself, and asking for help has been a huge part of that because I’m on a waiver and I have several people coming to my home helping me with housekeeping, helping me with preparing meals, helping me in the yard, with gardening, and they have seen the benefit of that, and they didn’t used to like having people they didn’t know come to the house but now they, they’re very friendly and they talk with them and they ask how they’re doing, and, and the people that come to help me, are concerned about my kids as well so I have, they have seen me grow another community.
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Pat: I think to just really know that, while there’s a time and a place for professionals, that’s very important, and medication, that we’re the ones, as parents, that are there with and for our kids for their lives, hopefully, and I don’t mean 24/7 because that’s not even realistic and yet professionals know one side and have certain skills and areas of expertise, while important, we are the ones that are going to be able to help our kids talk about what are the side-effects that you’re having with the medicine and being able to make sure that they talk to the doctor about that and, um, I found out about a holistic place in Boulder, Colorado, called The Wind Horse Project and they excel in difficult-to-treat people with psychosis and they help people set up healing home environments, which is a rarity, for especially people with mental illness, and I’m looking forward to finding out more about it, it’s, ah, the marriage of Buddhism and psychotherapy so it’s very much being, learning how, teaching people to be with people where they are in their homes and not feel like a professional has the agenda and the schedule and the goals that a person with a mental illness has to fit into, right, I think that’s very important at this time where, ah, what we’re learning about mental illness and that there’s so much lacking in the field of mental illness in terms of shortages of professionals and psychiatrists and, ah, I think it’s really important to know that there’s other alternatives out there for everybody.
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