About 10 months ago, we made the decision to start my son on medication to help manage his anxiety, panic attacks, and depression. Since then the type of medication has changed, an additional medication has been added, and the dosage on both has been increased several times. It’s been a process.
At the beginning of that process, the psychiatrist told us that one day we would suddenly realize that things were better. 10 months ago he promised us a date somewhere in the future when we would suddenly look at each other and just know that we’d made the right decision when we chose to medicate. He promised us an “aha” moment.
Days, weeks, months passed. It wasn’t an instant fix, and we knew it wouldn’t be. Truth be told, the worst days in our son’s slide into the black hole that was anxiety/panic/depression came after he started the medication. There were days and weeks where we feared for his safety, and there were days and weeks where we feared for our own safety. But we kept on.
Medication levels were adjusted. He continued his weekly therapy with a psychologist, and also began spending time each week with the counseling intern at the school. There were several points along the way where I wondered if we’d ever see that day the psychiatrist had promised us, but there were also several points along the way where I saw glimmers of calm and joy in my son that fueled me with hope.
And then it happened.
That “aha” moment we’d been promised came earlier this month, in both an unlikely and wonderful place.
February 21, 2016. (About 2 months before we began medication) That was the day last year our son’s Cub Scout pack celebrated their annual Blue & Gold banquet, and that is where our son had his first panic attack. Although at the time we didn’t know what to call what was happening – he would later describe it as feeling too hot, and dizzy and not knowing what was happening right around him – looking back now we know that was the first (and far from the worst) of a long series of panic attacks. All we knew at the time was that he was in distress, that we had to get him out of that room, and that the trouble we had seen brewing for over a year had reached a new low point.
Fast forward. February 12, 2017; this year’s edition of the Blue & Gold banquet but this time with no panic attack. In fact, it was actually the most enjoyable large group activity we have experienced as a family in more than a year.
That was our promised and long-awaited “aha”moment. I lost track of the number of events or places we either avoided or left abruptly in the past year, because the place or the people triggered either panic or explosive behavior. He missed out on a lot. We missed out on a lot. But we just kept trying, and working, and praying, and loving and searching for that “aha” moment. And when it came, it was shiny and beautiful and dripping in hope.
I am coasting on the beauty of that victory for as long as I possibly can. As much as I celebrated the arrival of that long-awaited moment, I also know there will be a time in the future when we are waiting for the next “aha” moment to arrive. On the same day the psychiatrist told us we would get that aha moment, he also told us that our son is most likely dealing with a lifetime of fragile mental health. While the medication levels and therapy have helped him find some equilibrium, that equilibrium can be blown in an instant and we could find ourselves back at the beginning once again. That’s not a pretty thought, but it’s a realistic one.
So we’re learning together how to extend the good moments into good hours and days and weeks and months. And we’re celebrating the small victories and figuring out how we can trade those up for larger victories. And most of all, we are making sure he knows how much he is loved and that he will always have a safety net in our arms in the spaces between the aha moments.
We're All A Little Broken 