Ok, so I promised by Monday I would submit this post. I'm a little late, shoot me. I originally wrote this for an essay contest The Today Show was having called Tell Us Your Story. But when I hit submit I kept getting an error message - so I chickened out and never discovered why it wouldn't allow me to send it. Well, the contest deadline has passed but I know I won't truly be able to be effective until I publish this. Let me know what you think. I hope it can be as healing for some as it was for me to write it and as freeing as it is for me to finally publish it.
I have struggled with what I am about to say. To finally put the words down in print in such a major way might seem strange. But it’s important that I do it. My daughter has a mental health disorder. I know this doesn’t make me “special”, many families are in my shoes, but it has changed my life in ways I never imagined.
In the Black community, dealing with emotional health isn’t something people talk about. People encourage African Americans to take care of their bodies, but not often do they speak of mental health. The nucleus for many in the Black community is the church - if you’ve got God, you don’t need therapy - pray and God will help you through your difficulties. And for so long, many of us (myself included) felt seeking therapy was something for White people.
But then, my husband and I decided to adopt through Florida’s child welfare system. We first adopted a son. And then, a year later, we became foster and ultimately adoptive parents to a two-year-old girl. Early on there seemed to me to be problems. She wouldn’t look at you when you spoke to her, or you would ask her a question and she would look right through you. She wasn’t nearly as good at going to the potty as they claimed and she also seemed frightened of her surroundings. At first people told me, it’s because she’s new to your home, give her time. But as she began to prepare for kindergarten, things were getting worse. The mood swings made going in public difficult, she was still nowhere near potty-trained and she could almost never sit still. She slept with her head completely tucked under the cover, so much so I worried she couldn’t get air. If she said something to you and you asked her to repeat it, she would immediately shut down. And still, she would not acknowledge people when they spoke to her.
So, we began a battery of tests and reluctantly I agreed to medication (she is now on 5-6 meds a day). My life has become constant research on her various diagnoses (SAD,OCD,ADHD, SPD, FASD, clinical depression), fighting with the State to meet their obligation and provide the assistance she is entitled to, keeping up with doctor’s visits, fighting over insurance benefits and most importantly, helping her to feel good about who she is no matter what. And that is the reason that I wanted to tell my story. It is still hard for me and my family to say the term mental illness. I know my mother would rather I not talk openly, for my daughter’s sake. I worry about that too. I don’t want people to treat her differently. But I believe if more African Americans aren’t open about mental illness the stigma I see in my community will never go away and much needed help won’t be sought. I also tell this story to remove the stigma that I still feel about the term mental illness.
My daughter’s current medicine regimen seems to be working well and while short of a healing touch from God, there may always be medicines, doctor’s visits, and yes, mental illness – today at 7, she is smart, she is beautiful and she is thriving. This journey has left me in tears many a night, but for my daughter, I am willing to do anything - even confront my private thoughts about what mental illness really means.
