I’ll admit that at times I felt that a good smack on the bum would perhaps go a long way. Yet my heart urged me to be patient and involve as many people as I could find to regain some balance and stability for all of us.
I found friends and family, teachers, neighbours and acquaintances, anyone who ever had anything to do with Georgie and who liked her smile or who enjoyed her company, even if only briefly. Late at night with the rest of the family sound asleep, I found events, people, places and objects. I unearthed everything in Georgie’s past that gave her a little pleasure at some stage. And I strung all of these stories and messages together to bring her a message of love and worthiness and appreciation.
After many months of hard work, at Georgie’s 13th birthday I presented her with Georgie’s “Life so far” manuscript and our management plan based on what I had uncovered.
It worked .. for a little while.
Did I find a miracle cure for depression? Nope. Did we find a way to manage Georgie’s depression? Yes, very much so.
We went from a dizzying rollercoaster ride to a tame merry-go-round, which occasionally malfunctions, by either going a little too fast or stopping altogether. But ask either one of us which we prefer and the crooked merry-go-round will get thumbs up every time.
The events described above took place between 1987 and 2001.
Afterword written in the year 2014
Today I read in the news that psychiatric drugs soar among Aussie kids. The website News.com.au tells me that the number of prescriptions for antipsychotic drugs jumped 49 percent among 10 to 14-year-olds over a four-year period, according to a study of government subsidised prescriptions.
The number of prescriptions for antidepressants increased by more than a third in that age group, according to figures for 2009 to 2012 published in the latest issue of the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry.
It doesn’t look as if we have made much progress with regards to helping our troubled youth.
You cannot protect people from themselves.
Georgie letter to self
The most terrifying thing for me throughout the whole ordeal was the feeling that unless I kept my eyes on Georgie constantly … she was not safe. Of course, it is impossible to keep your eyes constantly on any child. This meant that I lived in constant fear. Eventually, I came to realise that you cannot protect anyone from himself or herself.
Fifteen years later
It is now fifteen years later and we’ve travelled a few more valleys since. We’ve tried and applied whatever is available for mood disorders and then some.
We discovered and applied God’s Word
We gave up altogether on counselling, natural therapies and whatever else we tried that worked a little, for a while. What happened was that we discovered God’s Word and instead of searching out new methods, therapies and supplements, we prayed. We prayed a lot. We searched the Scriptures and applied whatever verses were relevant and we did so continuously and persistently.
Slowly, little by little, dark clouds parted and little devils got chased out … and some big ones too.
I’m proud to say that Georgie has matured into an adolescent who’s managed to grab hold of her mind and her life and with God’s help is rapidly becoming the master of her universe.
God heard our prayers
Once more God heard our prayers. In the process, I learned much. One major lesson for me was, that as human beings we have many limitations and not in my hand but,
Is Georgie still fighting demons? You betcha, but no more than any of us. Nowadays she battles her demons so gracefully and with such a sense of humor that I enjoy hearing about her adventures, and instead of pulling my hair out, I now roll over laughing when she relays her occasional roller coaster rides.
Hahaha, all my fears have evaporated, both my girls are now better to me than seven sons each and I really did give birth to an angel all those years ago …
ABOUT THIS BLOG – We’re researching the truth of living forever according to GOD’s Holy Word; Sola Scripture. Popular opinion tells us that everyone who ‘believes’ and has ‘faith’ will go to heaven. Is this true? I decided to ask the prophets about the truth of it all.
ABOUT THE CONTENT – All content on this website is copyrighted and you can read more about this here. Please also read the disclaimer about my authority and qualifications.
ABOUT SCRIPTURE CARDS – If you want to send free Scripture Cards to your friends click here and you want to buy hard copies of Scripture Cards you can click here.
The episodes where Georgie was depressed, phobic and anorexic were becoming longer and longer and it became harder to find the vivacious, charming and cheerful Georgie.
I was getting scared. I took her suicidal thoughts serious and every time I found it a little more difficult to cope with her dark episodes. Georgie’s black moods were running our lives. My decisions were now influenced and motivated by fear. If only I could find this one person who understands and can help us. If only…
As mentioned earlier, helpful doctor friends wrote prescriptions for Zoloft and all sorts of medications for me to administer as I saw fit. After all, I’m a doctor’s wife; I had tricks up my sleeve and was capable. Or so they seemed to think. I certainly didn’t feel capable. I felt utterly alone and lost.
Suicidal thoughts
After seeing all the therapists, counsellors and doctors, we were still no further to get a hold on the problem or even get a decent diagnosis. It was clear that she was depressed and hid behind her phobias. It was clear that Georgie had suicidal thoughts and was dead set on becoming the slimmest girl in town. It was obvious that her emotions on a daily basis ranged from as low as you can go, to as high as the sky. But why? This mixed bag of observations didn’t get me any closer to sorting any of it out or even getting a handle on it.
I was obviously not helping by refusing to put Georgie on permanent medication and also refusing to accept any labels that I felt could be detrimental to her sense of wellbeing. Feeble as that sense of well-being might have been.
Opposing opinions
The various doctors and therapists gave opposing opinions ranging from chemical and hormonal imbalance to blaming her environment, parents, schooling, and genes, to prescribing antidepressants, counselling therapies and natural medications. All the while my girl was slipping away from me whilst I was holding her hand. She was clearly not in control of this demon called depression and nor was I.
Why would any child feel the way Georgie did when all around her did their utmost to help her out of her dark moods into the ordinary humdrum of daily life?
letter by Georgie
Permanent roller coaster
By the time she was twelve years old, she was on a permanent roller coaster of emotions. When I held her hand I got dizzy on the highs and nauseous on the bends. When I occasionally let go of her hand, she disappeared into the dips and valleys and every time this happened it was a little harder to find her and get her back on track. When she is on track, Georgie is a vivacious and talented student. She is also a born performer, dancer and singer with a natural ability for public speaking.
When the gene factor was mentioned, I remembered Georgie’s grandfather self-medicating with liquor and beer for his seemingly continuous depressive state. There have been suicides on both sides of the family. One of Georgie’s uncles was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and committed suicide at age forty-seven, as did another uncle in his thirties who was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Some genes.
What was I to do?
Medicating Georgie permanently was never optional because both her uncles had been on meds when they took their own lives. It is a well-known medical fact that anti-depression meds can bring on suicidal tendencies in certain people. For the brief period that she was on anti-depressants, Georgie found the side effects the meds brought on more alarming than ‘her natural self.’
I live proudly with the overprotective mother label. There are many things a mother may not advertise when she lives with a child who is not your typical average child. Most mothers in this situation will choose to keep their child safe and alive, above complying with social convention and order. I am certainly one of them.
But if I was part of the problem, I could also be part of the solution. I didn’t know how, but I was going to find out.
I decided that I was the authority on my child’s health. I was the one who walked, limped and crawled with Georgie as we tackled the valleys and hills of her disease. Over the years I’d taken a lot of notes and made many observations.
I learned to read her eyes and judge her frame of mind long before she came crashing down or was aware of another episode coming on. I noticed what it was that brought on these episodes. Even though some of them came out of the blue, others were brought on by situations, circumstances and diet.
Pull out all stops
I learned that the priority is not to pick her up after she’s crumbled, but to pull out all stops to keep her well.
I said to Georgie, ”It’s you and me, kid. This is what we do. Tell me what you love doing best of all, what makes your heart sing?”
It was a struggle to find favourite things to do and love because by now Georgie was depressed most of the time. Asking her what it was that makes her heart sing was enough reason for her to burst out in tears and tell me that there was absolutely nothing on this planet that made her happy.
It broke my heart that my 12-year-old daughter couldn’t think of anything at all that made her happy.
I reminded her of the times that we had an ice cream on the beach and I asked, did that make her happy at the time? When she answered “yes,” I suggested that if it made her happy some of the time in the past then perhaps another ice cream could make her happy sometime in the future. So was it OK to add it to our list? She nodded yes.
Even as we were working on her Happy List, she told me more or less every day that her life wasn’t worth living and why bother? And she wanted me to know that, really, she wasn’t worth the effort.
ABOUT THIS BLOG – We’re researching the truth of living forever according to GOD’s Holy Word; Sola Scripture. Popular opinion tells us that everyone who ‘believes’ and has ‘faith’ will go to heaven. Is this true? I decided to ask the prophets about the truth of it all.
ABOUT THE CONTENT – All content on this website is copyrighted and you can read more about this here. Please also read the disclaimer about my authority and qualifications.
ABOUT SCRIPTURE CARDS – If you want to send free Scripture Cards to your friends click here and you want to buy hard copies of Scripture Cards you can click here.
All rights reserved – I Thought It Was A Little Angel – part 2
copyright myemmanuel 2014
names and places may have been changed for privacy reasons.
This is a true story.
“Oh, look,” I whispered, “It’s a little angel.”
It was twenty past ten in the morning at The Birthing Centre of the Royal Women’s Hospital in Paddington on a chilly May morning. “Oh, look,” I whispered “It’s a little angel.”
Little did I know.
Even before she had teeth, this little angel bit my nipples so hard with her gums that it brought tears to my eyes. She went on doing this for as long as I was breastfeeding. At the time I thought that all babies did that. As soon as she could talk she told me that she would like to cut me up in little pieces and fry me in a frypan. The first words she wrote down on a piece of paper said: “I hat you”.
I loved her more than I had ever loved anything in my life.
Euphoria
The feeling of euphoria after her birth was, and still is, unequalled. The feeling of despair that followed is similarly unmatched.
I still don’t know if my feelings of despair were due to undiagnosed postnatal depression, chronic sleep deprivation or the inability to cope with a baby born with rage in her soul.
My beautiful newborn baby didn’t like me or the world very much and she made sure we all knew it. From the moment she was born till the birth of her sister two years later, she cried or screamed most of the time, unless I held her.
No time for dreaming
With my husband as a doctor, people thought that I had it all under control. In my dreams. That is, if I was ever to get any more dreams with this child demanding two hourly breast-feeds around the clock. And even well after her first birthday, she still refused to be weaned. She trained me so well, the only option left for me was to oblige.
She refused to be cared for by anyone other than Mummy. This arrangement was flattering, impractical and utterly exhausting.
When Georgie (her birth certificate reads Georgina Angelina) was fourteen months old, I hadn’t slept more than two hours in a row since her birth. The only thing that seemed to pacify her was rocking her to Joe Cocker or BB King tunes. Remember the one ‘getting by with a little help from my friends?’
I can tell you right now, not a friend in sight when I was carrying my screaming baby.
Big salty tears
In a desperate cry for help, I took my severely sleep deprived body and baby to the Canterbury Children’s Hospital.The registrar at the hospital assured me that the rats crawling over me at home at night were mere hallucinations due to chronic sleep deprivation. I found comfort in this.
The hospital didn’t help. A shortage of beds meant that I attempted to get some shuteye on a straight-backed plastic chair. The screaming of other children kept me awake. After one night of this, the third in a row with my eyes wide open, I took my baby back home. My husband collected me from Bondi beach with my eyes still wide open and big salty tears running down my cheeks.
Two days later there was a knock at the door. The hospital had sent a social worker to check up on us.
The timing was perfect. It was another of those mornings when I had forgotten to check what Her Majesty wanted for breakfast. Georgie wanted cornflakes. I opened the front door with my face and hair covered in porridge. The social worker looked at us and asked if I wanted any help.
I said, “Yes please”. My husband said, “No thanks. We’re coping really well”.
Who’s the captain?
After the social worker left, there was one sentence playing endlessly in my head: “Who’s the captain? Who’s the captain?”Sh..t, I didn’t even know I was on a ship, let alone that someone needed to be steering it.
I get seasick at the best of times .. no wonder this wasn’t working.
Thank you God.
Some months later Crystal was born. Georgie now has a playmate. A sister who not only tolerates her quirky and energetic behaviour but actually delights in it.
Thank you, God.
Georgie was a demanding baby. Nothing prepared me however for this demanding baby turning into an angry two-year-old, an obnoxious three-year-old and a bossy and fussy four-year-old. When Georgie turned five we all agreed that she wanted to go to kindy. I took her to our local Rudolf Steiner School a couple of mornings a week, for socializing. She could be utterly charming when she wanted to be, she approached all strangers with the biggest widest smile you’d ever see and a greeting of “Hi, do you want to be my friend?” Few did.
Mood meter
She was forceful, bossy, angry and disarmingly charming. I discovered that when she ate certain bread with sugar and preservatives in them, she transformed from a reasonably ok child into an angry belligerent monster. Georgie went through periods of phobias and food disorders, and by the time she was nine I’d taken her to see every alternative therapist within fifty kilometres of where we lived.
Many sand therapy, Alexander, Bowen, Homeopathy, Yoga, Aikido and herbal remedy sessions later we’re still none the wiser.
By the time she was twelve, Georgie had had several bouts of severe depression, written several suicide songs, and invented a mood meter. By then I had taken her to see all the doctors, paediatricians, counsellors, psychiatrists and natural healers I omitted last time around.
The treasure I was left with after my travels was a free trial box of Zoloft (anti-depressant) to give my twelve-year-old, “As you see fit.”
At my wit’s end
I was truly at my wit’s end. I discovered that Georgie couldn’t eat chocolate or anything containing sugar without getting severely depressed. She needed regular meals or would become hypoglycemic and severely depressed. She needed to stay in a safe, secure and familiar environment or she became disoriented and guess what? Depressed.
Upsets, loud voices, arguments and disagreements all led to silent tears and Georgie checking out. In fact, any stress she experienced, no matter how small, was likely to find her in quiet little corners of her bedroom with eyes staring blankly into nothingness.
The depression Monster was getting the better of me. I don’t know which one I found harder to cope with: the raging toddler destroying anything in sight or the despondent, withdrawn teen. Some of her depressive episodes were severe and prolonged and the only way I knew how to nurse her out of them was to hold her tight, kiss her tears away whilst repeating a million times over; “it’s OK,” don’t worry, it’ll be OK.” When these episodes occurred, all was black and dark in and around her, access was denied and she couldn’t perform even the most basic of human functions without help or assistance.
The whole situation was becoming quite unmanageable.
ABOUT THIS BLOG – We’re researching the truth of living forever according to GOD’s Holy Word; Sola Scripture. Popular opinion tells us that everyone who ‘believes’ and has ‘faith’ will go to heaven. Is this true? I decided to ask the prophets about the truth of it all.
ABOUT THE CONTENT – All content on this website is copyrighted and you can read more about this here. Please also read the disclaimer about my authority and qualifications.
ABOUT SCRIPTURE CARDS – If you want to send free Scripture Cards to your friends click here and you want to buy hard copies of Scripture Cards you can click here.
