Survival

 It was scary. When your child has any type of medical episode, fear is the predominant feeling. The same is true when your child has a mental health episode. Most of the people in our lives know that we live with a child that has some significant mental health issues. Schizoaffective disorder is part of that diagnosis. At 3:30 a.m. we were awakened with an episode. 

We lead with our hearts. It's easiest that way. Our heart is where all of our compassion and thoughtfulness lie. We lead with calmness on the outside, inside you can be freaking out and feeling a lot of other things but nobody ever got through a mental health emergency peacefully and practically without love and compassion. 

What they were saying didn't make sense in our minds. It only mattered that it made sense in their mind. An "irrational" fear that the dog was somehow unsafe and that the dog had to go in the middle of the night. It made sense to them that the security cameras could track their movements and report to "them" the things that were going on in their mind and that "they" would then come and take them away. It made sense to them that the dog was a part of that. 

These are the times that I realize how much of what happens in the mind of my child is outside my ability to control. These are the times that I'm truly thankful to have a team of experts on stand-by to help us get through these moments, whether they occur in the middle of the night or in the middle of the day. 

Today, I'm in survival mode. My body can survive, occasionally, on a few hours of restless sleep. My mind will heal and my heart will heal. I've contacted the doctors to make sure we're on the right track. We made sure they have their medicine to help control those types of thoughts, even if they didn't seem to work last night. We will make sure they eat and rest today because even if their mind isn't completely aware of what happened last night, their body is. Today I will do more research on these types of episodes and triggers. Mental health is a continuous journey and the only way to combat it is to keep learning more about it. 

So today, we survive and heal. We remind ourselves of our blessings. We practice grace with each other. We lean on our support systems a little bit more. We heal. We survive so that tomorrow we may thrive.