Safe haven law not for you? Try walking in someone else’s shoes.

What would you do if your daughter threw a chair at her teacher and you had to take off work for an entire day and help the school and local police search all over town for her?  Ground her?  Take her to the doctor?  Call the police?  Tie her up?

What would you do if the only doctor that accepts your insurance has a 45-day waiting list, if you come in that day and fill out the paperwork.  Put her in a hospital?  Use a self-pay doctor.  Take her to the emergency room?

What if she has to be care flighted to a hospital after taking an overdose and then the emergency room releases her and tells you that she is not suicidal and they can’t admit her, the mental hospital has to have a referral too and since she isn’t suicidal, only angry,  you have to wait 45 days until you can get in to a doctor.

What do you do the next week when she bites you on the shoulder while you are trying to take her to school?  When she throws a rock at your head?   Kicks her grandfather in the stomach?  Screams that she is going to kill herself and runs out onto the roof of your house?  Call the cops?  Watch them while they take her in handcuffs to a detention center and then call and bring her back home because it is too full and there is no space for another kid.  And, did i mention, the psyche eval says she isn’t really suicidal, just angry (the third evaluation in 2 weeks.)

What do you do when you have tried 5 different medicines and she is still kicking and screaming every day on some meds, but sleeping all day on others.  When she can literally cry for 5 hours straight and then skip around hugging people three hours later?  When she is so up and down and crazy that you can see the crash that is coming and know that one wrong word will set her off and that everyone in the house has to walk a fine line to keep it from setting her off—and everyone you live with believes that mental illness is just another word for spoiled daughter and lazy mother.

What do you do when you have no ideas left, when you are mentally and emotionally exhausted, when the police and probation officers have no place to put her when she breaks probation, when your seven year old has bad dreams about being thrown off the balcony?

Do you drive your kid the 1000 miles to Nebraska and let someone else take over for awhile?  Do you let others convince you that it is all your fault and you should let someone else try?  Do you send her to her dads and let him leave her in his house alone all day and let her do anything she wants?

You just get up another day and do it.  You try to get her out of bed without a fight, you ignore the cussing, you learn when and when not to push it, you keep your other child away when it isn’t safe and teach her to learn to read her moods.  You don’t take a happy moment for granted.  You watch her swallow her meds everyday and listen to the school complain about sleeping in class, while you remember the alternatives.  Then, you pray for another good day–until there is a set back.  Then, when there is a set back, enough of a set back that the probation officer steps in to do something…you sigh a sigh of relief for a few days because for just a little while you get to live a slightly normal life.

Savannah says i want her to go away, that i enjoy it, is she right?  No,  i don’t want that! i don’t!  i want a daughter who isn’t on probation, who didn’t hold her sister up over the balcony, who doesn’t steal cigarettes and get caught with them at school.  I want a daughter who is happy, who has friends, who can stay out past 8 pm, who brushes her teeth and has a boyfriend and isn’t so sad all the time and doesn’t have scars all over her arms. I don’t have that daughter, but I love the daughter i do have very much.

This safe-haven law in Nebraska is a wake up call to America.  Something has to be done to help these kids.  Maybe a lot of it is the parents fault that these kids are not disciplined enough or aren’t getting the help they need, i know I am guilty of that for sure.  But, a lot of this is society, the mental health and health care industries, the juvenile justice system and children’s services systems.  I can see how difficult it is for them.

It takes a village to raise a child.  As a nation it is our responsibility to figure out a way to help these parents who can’t do it alone.  You may be awesome at raising your perfect child, but don’t judge others until you walk a mile in someone else’s shoes.

So, tell me, what would you do? I’m open to more ideas.

Summary:  Some days i wish my parents would drop me off at a hospital in Nebraska

I’m pissed because:  I’m too sad to be mad.

http://www.theinformationparadox.com/

http://anyonecare.wordpress.com/2008/09/27/abortion-of-older-children-teens-too/