A Bitter Pill to Swallow

 

This week we gave the go ahead for our daughter to be medicated.

I had sat the week before watching the psychiatrist write the prescription, and I felt a wave of panic sweep through me.

‘Stop’ I said.  ‘Can we think about it?’

I knew deep down that there was no other way.  I knew that we were there, in that room, because our daughter needed pharmacological intervention.  And that it had in fact become less of a choice and more of a necessity. But I still had to come to terms with it.  And in that moment, I simply wasn’t ready.

‘I can give you a week’ she replied, nodding.

So here we are – a week later.  And the inevitable has had to happen.  And I’m still trying to come to terms with it.

But, what I have realised is that I probably never will – that for any parent, the need to medicate their five year old is never going to feel okay.

The brain is a complex organ.  There are no quick fixes.  Medication for the mind is complicated, with no two individuals responding the same way to the same drug.  There are side effects which can cause damage to organs or further mental deterioration, and that need treating with yet more drugs.  The body can also build up a tolerance, deeming a drug that once worked ineffective.

Matters are further complicated in young children whose neural pathways are still being rapidly formed.  Medication is never going to be a magic cure.  It is a lottery as to whether it helps.  And your child basically becomes an experiment.

Gulp.

But for me personally, one of the hardest things is accepting that my girl, at her young age, will not be able to communicate how the drugs make her feel, or even be aware that she’s taking them.  She has no say in how her own brain functions.  This feels like a true violation to me – a necessary one, nonetheless.

To be honest I view the need to medicate the brain as no different to the need to medicate any other organ.  If it malfunctions then it needs treatment…After all, you wouldn’t refuse a diabetic their insulin would you?

But this is certainly not something my husband and I have taken lightly.  We’ve not simply agreed to it on a whim.  Yet by sharing this step in our journey I know we are risking judgment.

Until you have spent years fighting for your child, trying to find something – anything – that might help them…

Until you have wept tears of sorrow over them each night…

Until you have woken each morning, dreading what the day will bring…

Until you have wailed at God in anguish…

Until you have watched your three year old lose their mind…

Until you have done, or felt, all of these things, you are in no place to cast judgment.  Ours is a lonely enough path without it.

Instead, appreciate that as parents this is not a position we could ever have imagined ourselves in.  Recognise that we only have our daughter’s best interests at heart.  Understand that, far from harming our girl, we actually owe it to her to do this – to never stop searching for something to make her life better.

 

Read about where our road to medication began here 

Read more about our journey in my following posts 

Making Sense of it All

Birthday Wishes

The BROKEN System

Christmas 

 

For information, help and support:

What is PANS/PANDAS? 

PANS PANDAS UK 

The National Autistic Society 

The PDA Society