Frozen-Castles of Glass

Last night ,I had fallen asleep on the couch again and that was probably a good thing. The walls are still open in my bedroom exposing insulative materials that don't get a long with my throat. They have started tearing out the tiles in the bathroom and the whole house is still kind of in a state of disarray.  I can live anywhere as long as my throat stays open. The damage from our bathroom flood continues and I was just putting up with it until my body started to react strangely to the materials in the walls. My husband thought I might have "strep throat", but I told him that strep throat does not show preference to bedroom settings, that I knew of.  We giggled and called the insurance company and asked them to speed things a long so I could stand to hang out in my bedroom again.

Sometime in the middle of the night, the movie "Frozen" mysteriously started playing and I suspected a Frozen fan was somewhere in the living room. Sure enough, I spotted a tiny head poking out of a pile of sleeping bags.  I woke up right at the part when Elsa has decided that she had a major problem that could not be contained anymore.  She, like many of us do, thinks she is a lone in her problem, must conquer her problem a lone and most damaging, must leave her family and friends to work on her problem.  Elsa builds a huge ice fortress guarded by really "COOL" icy monsters that resemble the iron giant.  Well, Elsa tries to stay in her fortress and decides maybe this is her fate, but her sister remembers their earliest days and will not give up on her.   She goes to many extremes to help Elsa and almost loses her life in the process.

In many areas, we as a society think it is "silly" when people wall themselves up in ice fortresses and want to be a lone.  I am reading, "The Fault of Our Stars", however and the thing that some people may not realize is that solitude is not always a bad thing.  Sometimes the soul needs those times to meditate, plan and evaluate life's roads.  Sometimes solitude is simply the absence of mindless human chatter, but in it's place are beautiful birds singing, flowers blossoming and the miraculous sun that reminds us always that a new day is on the horizon.

I have felt torn over the topic of whether a person who is ill should be surrounded by people or allowed to work things out for themselves.  In the case of an adult,  there certainly has to be a right mix of visitors and medicine and even "soul-healing" down-time.  Having been a nurse for 24 years, I have come to realize that each soul must find their own road when it comes to illness and especially grief. What most people need more than anything is, a listening ear. As they talk, their brain formulates and processes information in a special way that helps them plan.  Sometimes I feel that interjecting my personal opinions or advice, especially when someone seems to have had a break through while they are speaking, is very detrimental and takes the poor person from the new line of thinking their brain has created.

With children it is different.  Scientifically, even in a regular human brain, the frontal lobe that has the ability to reason things out in proper dimensions, is not fully developed until age 21! Other mammals probably look at us and think, "Oh, my heavens, their kids are certainly spoiled! My lamb was born and stood on  all four legs within minutes! Before I knew it, my wooly one was weaned and out seeking greener pastures. I have no idea what those silly, silly humans think they are doing keeping their youngsters around until they are 18! Spoiled, I say! spoiled. BAAAAAAHHH RAM YOUOOOO"(My favorite line from BABE the movie.  Well, with increased intellect comes a longer maturing factor. SO THERE, Mr. Lamb Chop.  Anyhow, most children under the age 21 lack the frontal lobe awareness to make and keep executive decisions in a meaningful way.  This means ,perhaps, they should not be allowed to go build ice castles away from family and friends and try to work on problems on their own.  The good Lord put us into families for a reason, he created our brains the way he did for a reason and I have not been able to be away from my dear lambs or kids, or foals, or call them whatever you want, for more than a few days at a time. It is MORE than just me spoiling them. It is an inherent felt knowledge of what my lambs need and it is family.

Baa-ram-ewe, baa-ram-ewe. To your breed, your fleece, your clan be true. Sheep be true. Baa-ram-ewe.”
Babe, the pig

Fly: All right, how did you do it?

Babe: I asked them and they did it. I just asked them nicely.
Fly: We don’t ask sheep, dear; we tell them what to do.
Babe: But I did, Mum. They were really friendly.

A friendly smile. A kind word. A gentle rub on the forehead. Yes, that will do. a little bit of goodwill, compassion and kindness can create in this world.

I have been more than distressed the times my babies, they are still babies whether they are 0, 5 or 10 , were hospitalized and I was given certain visiting hours. During those days I hardly slept.  One child was taken to a hospital when she was just 12.  I assumed I would have been allowed in at my leisure, just as I had been when she had had her tonsils out.  I was horrified when I found out I could only visit once a day at 5 p.m. This was all because she had a mental psychotic illness and not inflamed tonsils.  That day I had my four month old, whom I was nursing, in the Super 8 hotel.  We just hung out and watched the hours go by.  At 5 p.m. I walked down the side walk and looked at the building where my daughter was.  The windows were covered with that coating that makes it difficult to see into a building, but the occupants can see out.  I heard a noise and I looked over, I could barely see the outline of a palm on that window.  It could have been anyone's palm, but somehow I knew it was my baby girl's hand and she had been watching for me all day. I almost fainted on the sidewalk as she pounded on the window and I rushed into the building  to see her. Indeed it had been her hand! They thought I was a strange parent as most parents could not wait to get a break from their kids and just drop them off for days.  I demanded extra visits and they gave them to me because our family lived so far away.  The medications they found and the testing they did at that hospital were phenomenal and they have helped her to this day.  However, for some moms that are not used to being away from their kids and who do not want to be away from their kids, the system needs to be revised.  I wish this were the only child that has had to go to the hospital for this kind of thing, but it is not.  Our family has had three daughters that have required hospitalization at different times of their lives.  These were the WORST days of my life being away from my babies.  Something in me just knew they needed to be visited and mainly, part of their therapy involved HOME.

I am NOT saying it was easy having them home. The medications do not magically work while they were in the hospital the few days and then continue their fine work at home. Many times it took six months of experimenting and horrible side effects while waiting for good results. One of our daughters developed a rare condition called dystonia,from one antipsychotic, which is very painful. She had painful, intolerable muscle spasms that set her screaming in pain.  I had just had surgery and was in recovery and here my poor daughter developed this horrible condition that sent her screaming in pain. We both cried together...me from surgical pain, her from muscle spasms. At one point, I wondered if the medications were worse than the disease. We tried chinese herbal medicine and were told her body was just "too cold" and she had to drink from this strange jug of herbal medicine everyday.  The practitioner had a dog that looked like "Toto" from the wizard of Oz.  I saw many people with turbans or wigs go to see him and knew they had suffered the ravages of cancer.  They had mixed results, and we had no change at all.  On no therapy, however, at all this daughter became catatonic and just sat and rocked most of the day. She did not seem to know who we were or even who she was! One neurologist said if we did not find a medication to work she might become a vegetable.  After this daughter wandered from home a couple of times because she was confused. very SCARY events,  the doctors thought about shock treatments. When she became a danger to herself she was back in the hospital, but again, as soon as we could we brought her back home.  I wanted to be the one to sit by her when she was rocking back and forth. I wanted to be the one to wash her hair, to help change her clothes. Even when she did not know I was her mother, I still was her mother and I could NOT fight the instinct to care for my babies. Especially when they were sick.Our home was not perfect, but my husband and I loved our kids, had cleaned up their throw-up, had walked them when they had colic, had changed their diapers. We wanted to be the ones to help them through their hardest times, even if it was not all a bed of roses.  "In sickness and in health", extended beyond our marriage vows and encompassed our whole family.

I agree with NAMI(National Alliance for Mental Health) that segregating children from family and community can impede effective treatment.  Our family is evidence that supportive family and love works!!! Our oldest daughter with Asperger's and psychosis is in remission, our second daughter with schizophrenia and cognitive loss is regaining function and our third daughter with Tourette's and past episodes of violence was medicated as a young child and is now a happy teenager and is medication-free.  The therapies for our kids have varied greatly as have the medication regimens. The only thing our kids have in common is that our family has stood by them and for them and that we have loved them through the good the bad and yes, even the very, very UGLY at home!!!

Individualized plans of care help overcome the problems that result from fragmented or uncoordinated services and systems.

Evidence shows that offering a full range of community-based alternatives is more effective than hospitalization and emergency room treatment.¹⁸ Without choice and the availability of acceptable treatment options, people with mental illnesses are unlikely to engage in treatment or to participate in appropriate and timely interventions. Thus, giving consumers access to a range of effective, community-based treatment options is critical to achieving their full community participation. To ensure this access, the array of community-based treatment options must be expanded.

In particular, community-based treatment options for children and youth with serious emotional disorders must be expanded. Creating alternatives to inpatient treatment improves engagement in community-based treatment and reduces unnecessary institutionalization. These young people are too often placed in out-of-state treatment facilities, hours away from their families and communities. Further segregating these children from their families and communities can impede effective treatment.

Emerging evidence shows that a major Federal program to establish comprehensive, community-based systems of care for children with serious emotional disturbances has successfully reduced costly out-of-state placements and generated positive clinical and functional outcomes. Clinically, youth in systems of care sites showed an increase in behavioral and emotional strengths and a reduction in mental health problems. For these children, residential stability improved, school attendance and school performance improved, law enforcement contacts were reduced, and substance use decreased.⁵²

^{NAMI(national Alliance of Mental Health) Goal 2}