My Kid is Driving Me Crazy: A Mom's Survival Guide for Living with a Child with Mental Illness

By Tamara Arnold

My Kid is Driving Me Crazy helps mothers thrive while living with a child with mental illness. Mental illness in a loved one sucks! Some days, all moms want to do is stay in bed, because facing reality seems insurmountable. Living with her son, who suffers from depression, anxiety, and oppositional defiance disorder (ODD), taught life coach Tamara Arnold how to become the successful woman she is today. Tamara spent years going to therapy, for herself and with her son, learning how to balance living with mental health with having a strong sense of self. My Kid is Driving Me Crazy helps other who are living with people with mental illness learn to separate themselves from the chaos, redefine who they are, and figure out what they want for their future.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jun 5, 2018
• ISBN: 9781683506928

Book preview

Introduction

We live in prisons with the doors wide open.

–Rumi

There came a day when I walked into my laundry room and found my sixteen-year-old son standing there, chair in front of him, cord in his hands. Panic, fear, adrenaline, and terror shot through my body. The visual imprinted in my mind, burning into my memory. I can still see it when I close my eyes – every possible outcome playing out in one moment. As selfish as it sounds, the main thought I had was, Oh God, no, please not in my house.

I don’t think you can prepare yourself for it. I mean, I knew there was potential, but the reality was so different.

Ever since Ethan was a baby, he was different than other kids. He didn’t make friends easily, exhibited strange behaviors, and drew pictures of knives and death. Seeing him in the laundry room that day, ready to do it, broke me.

The previous ten years of our lives had been a battle to get the right systems in place, work through different medications, find the right people to talk to – and we were losing the fight. I was losing the fight.

When your child wants to die, or at least talks about wanting to die, who can you trust to help you? Where do you go to get answers? I looked, but there were no books, people, or programs out there. Everything I found was so sterile and cold regarding mental health.

I don’t know about you, but for me having a child that suffers from mental illness can feel like the loneliest island in the world. No one understands. They smile, and tell you how strong you are. If you’re lucky, they ask if there’s something they can do to help. You know they mean well, but when things are falling part around you, you don’t want help. You want to hide.

Have you ever woken up and wondered what happened to your life? Where did it go? Who are you? After ten years of fighting with Ethan and for Ethan, I didn’t even recognize myself anymore. I was a shadow fighting to stay above water, to keep the one I loved from losing himself, but in the process, I was losing myself.

Mental illness in a loved one sucks! I mean it full out blows chunks. Every thought you feel, day you wake up to, second that passes, is consumed with wondering how they are doing and how you are going to help them.

For a decade, I spent my life only being Ethan’s mom. Appointments, putting out fires, trying to keep him safe, worrying. I lost myself in that role. I forgot all about the me who wanted my own things in life, who had dreams. I’m a huge ham, and I believed I was going to be an actress, in theater or on television – I wasn’t picky.

When, eventually, Ethan and I broke up – stopped talking and parted ways, which had to happen – the real journey of my life began, the part where I rediscovered who I was without him. It was super freaking scary.

I learned how to nap through meditations, make friends with a weirdo named the Universe, dance in the kitchen, let go of the crap that kept me paralyzed, and step into my days with excitement. My mornings shifted from lying in bed, pondering if it was worth getting up to face the day, to waking up with a smile on my face.

When I committed to understanding that my relationship with my son wasn’t healthy and I had to fix it, things took on a whole new shape. I can honestly say it was the toughest journey of my life, but one that saved my life, and my son’s. It is the very reason I became an intuitive life coach – to help other moms who are going through what I went through, to help them step into their power and see an incredible future ahead of them.

Let’s call it an adventure. An adventure isn’t always easy; you must fight the bad guys and do things that make you uncomfortable. Look at Frodo in The Lord of the Rings. He stepped out on his adventure and then came back completely different.

That’s what this book is about – it’s about courageously stepping out of your comfort zone to see if there are other possibilities, and opening yourself up to the idea that every day doesn’t have to be a struggle, but can be filled with ease and joy. Three years ago, I was barely getting out of bed, and today I am writing a book. This works.

You may want to grab a journal to write your feelings as we go. If you are an anti-feeling-writing kind of person, you don’t have to write your feelings down. If you do write your feelings, you might want to read the book once, and then go back through it again and write your thoughts. Do what works for you. This book is about you.

If you are writing, which will enhance your journey, name your journal something special. The Me Book, I’m Badass, The Super Spectacular Writings of… – there is no right or wrong. Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and ask for your journal’s name for this adventure. Whatever you hear is perfect. Don’t second-guess it.

Allow yourself to believe and trust what I have written here. Doing so can’t be worse than losing yourself or your child.

Chapter One

How Bad Can It Get?

The wound is the place where the light enters you.

–Rumi

Iwish I could tell you things were wonderful as a new mom, and I had a rocking relationship with my first born, but I can’t. For over a decade, my life was miserable. I didn’t like my kid.

Ethan and I had some good moments, but most of our lives we were fighting. Fighting against each other, fighting against the school system, fighting our inner demons, which was the hardest battle of all.

Ethan’s biological father walked out of his life when he was three, which I am sure ignited abandonment issues. Then the ex, who is my daughter’s father, making him write lines and blaming him for everything, definitely didn’t help. By the time I met Jeff, my husband now, Ethan was fourteen, and was in no mood to listen to anything Jeff had to say. Ethan had been shunned by the men in his life who were supposed to love him. This would cause a hurt boy to lash out.

The chaos began when he was five and he stole a bouncy ball from the Butterfly Conservatory. He pulled it out over lunch, and when I asked him where he got it from, he told me he had found it at Nanny’s house. Really? The bouncy ball with a butterfly in it came from a place you hadn’t visited today?

When Ethan was eight, death was a regular topic of conversation. Ethan threatened to kill himself, drew extremely graphic pictures of death, and started to isolate himself from other kids. That freaked me right out! My mom doesn’t exactly love life, so I was a little more sensitive to this than