Confusion and Frustration

 

As many of you know I, along with my co-parent, are raising a teenager with a significant mental illness who also has intellectual delays. This child, actually young adult, is now 17 and as we watch her move closer and closer to so called “adulthood” a lot of fear and uncertainty rings in our hearts and minds. 

The last few days and even weeks we have watched her sink into another one of her downward spirals with her illness. I frequently search the internet for articles and resources for parents of kiddos such as our daughter. Sadly, the resources are limited and even more so for those of us who live in smaller communities. One of the articles I found listed a common list of feelings and experiences that parents encounter as they raise their young adult impacted by mental illness. Over the next few days, I will be sharing that list with my family and friends and anyone who is interested. It is my desire to raise awareness of what we experience daily with our daughter. The need for more effective and widely available services for children and teens with mental illness is overwhelming and sadly ignored by the medical and psychological communities.

The first feeling/experience the article noted was that of

“Confusion and frustration from watching your teen struggle.”

It is no secret that raising a teenager is challenging in today’s world. The fears of drugs, alcohol, bullying, peer pressure, future planning, grades and so many other factors are overwhelming in and of themselves. Yet when you add mental illness to those issues it becomes almost crippling and paralyzing for a parent. One of the conflicts we consistently manage is whether or not we are dealing with a mental illness issue or a typical teenage issue. Let us be real, teenagers are not known for acting sane at times. Some of the behaviors we see are hormones raging and affect behaviors. Yet there are times when we must believe that the extreme behaviors originate from her mental illness. These fine lines are confusing as a parent to navigate and process. Depending on which of these realms a specific behavior originates determines how we respond. If the wrong response is given to her we will know. Thus, comes the confusion!

The most consistent issue we have been dealing with recently is that of paranoia. Whether or not someone is watching or following her. Then there are the times when she is convinced someone has installed a secret camera in her life somehow that follows her wherever she goes. The other day she emphatically knew someone hacked into the school computer system and changed her grades. One of the most predominant paranoid issues we hear almost daily is that the government is lying to her and lying to us about her origins and where she comes from. In her thinking she is convinced that she must be an alien as there is something wrong with her and no one really knows what. So there for her logical conclusion is that of alien origins. As a parent somedays it is easy for me to chuckle and walk away. Other days it becomes maddening as she is so fervent in her belief that she becomes belligerent which can trigger my own frustrations. I admit there have been days where I have had to stop and wonder what she is saying may be true or not. When I sit and listen to her begging me to believe her and agree with her outlandish claims it is almost believable. I am being honest with you in saying that her situation does indeed create confusion for us as her parents.

How do we cope with the confusion and frustration of being her parents? It is not easy! We hope and pray and we share our feelings back to her in hopes a part of her can understand that we want to believe her, but most of her beliefs are not founded in truth. We keep pointing her back to truth and what is real. Yet once she gets fixated on a specific paranoid thought and behavior it is difficult to get her to let it go. She may let it go or stop talking about it, but an hour or two or even a day or two later she picks it back up and comes to us with that paranoid belief once again. It is on those days when she comes back time and time again that our own frustrations rise. We find ourselves repeating ourselves and then she feels like we are not hearing her. Which increases her frustration and emotions. It is truly a difficult cycle to live in and causes stress for all who live in the home with her.

There are no good answers to our stress and frustration other than having our own outlets for dealing with those things. It also helps of we have time between paranoid episodes to decompress, yet there are days where she bounces from one paranoid thought to another and we do not have enough time to decompress. If this thought feels unfinished, well it is unfinished as the frustration and confusion never truly goes away.