I have to say that my experience with Psychiatric Hospital stays has been one of the hardest things I have had to deal with. It is not easy as a parent to have a child in the hospital for medical treatment and even harder for MI. When your child is in for a medical procedure or for medical treatment of an illness, it is acceptable and everyone know how it feels and people can comfort parents fairly easily because there are tons of parents who have had to do this. When it comes to a mental facility, people don't know how to react, feel and say because it is not the "norm" and in a lot of communities it is still a "taboo subject". The feelings don't change when it is a MI and sometimes it is even harder to deal with because you don't feel you can talk openly about it.
When I had to place our DD#1 in-patient, I felt like my world was coming down all around me. I had spent nine hours over the weekend "holding" my DD#1 to prevent her from hurting herself. That is not nine hours total over three days, that was nine hours in one day, almost non stop. When I thought she was calming down and I could give her a little "wiggle room" she would get out of my grasp and try to run, so I would tighten my hold again to keep her safe from herself. Monday when I took her in for her partial program, I met with the head staff and informed them about her weekend, not really knowing what was going to happen, all I knew is I couldn't keep doing this on my own with two other younger children at home, by this time. I was drained and tired already when they told me that they were going to place her in patient to stabilize her on some medications.
When our DD #1 was escorted by staff to the inpatient floor, she was crying and begging me not to put her in there, I too began to fight with the tears that were welting up inside me. Every time she tried to look back at me and I would catch a glimpse of her face and the tears rolling down, it was like a dagger was piercing through my heart. I felt as though I did something wrong in my parenting or dealings with my DD. I could barely see the paperwork I was signing as they escorted her to a room because she was becoming very agitated at this point. I honestly felt like grabbing her and running out of that hospital and that I had done the unspeakable thing to place her there. The staff did their best to comfort me and explaining that she would be fine when she calmed down and that they could help her.
This began our first inpatient stay that lasted six very long weeks. As I rode down the elevator I was balling my eyes out and another mother in the elevator with me had offered what she probably thought was good advice and asked "first hospital stay?" I replied with only a nod of my head, not able to speak. She then added "It gets easier with each stay". I just glared at her thinking to myself I will NEVER do this again, how could she be so calm and say such horrible things. I would never be able to "get used to" doing anything like this to my child.When I got to my car I couldn't even drive because of all the tears. I sat there for another 20 -30 minutes trying desperately to get hold of myself. Every time I looked toward the building the tears started again.
When I finally got home and had myself pretty much under control, I had another hard thing to deal with. I had two other children to explain why their sister was not going to be with us for a while. This was another hard thing to do, explain MI to a 4 and 8 year old. The never ending "why" questions and when will she be home. I had to be able to play the calm cool and collective mommy so that the other two didn't become the basket case that I was inside. I had to pretend that it was ok and that she would be home as soon as the doctors helped make her all better. I couldn't even answer some of their basic questions or any of the questions that rose up in my own mind.
When my boyfriend at the time, came home from work that night, the tears started all over again as I tried to explain to him what had happened that day. He couldn't understand what was going on either. We tried to figure out why my DD #1 was acting like this and was so out of control at times. That night I fell asleep with a wet face from all the tears not know what was going through my boyfriends mind or what he was thinking. All I know is that he had been very quiet as I told him about the day. I was afraid that he would walk away from us because these were not his children and he didn't HAVE to deal with this like I did. Little did I know what he was really thinking was not what I though. I didn't learn the answers to those questions and many more until almost two years later.
My boyfriend and I would attend meetings several times a week with my DD #1's doctor and therapist on the floor. We would try to get my DD #1 to talk about what she was thinking and dealing with inside with no luck. It was like she was mute and refused to talk about anything. After meetings/visits my boyfriend and I would wonder for days what she was thinking. I had to search my own mind as to why this was happening. I know from our life with my ex-husband, it was far from being easy. Drinking, abusive actions and verbal abuse were almost a daily occurrence for a duration of time. I was unsure if that had a hand in this or if I was way off base. My DD #1 was not the only one having issues like this. A few months before this hospitalization my DD #2 began acting out in the same ways as my DD #1. At the time my DD #2 was only 8 years old and I could still easily restrain her and deal with her "rages" but I was definitely getting both physically and mentally tired.
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