I Swear You Will Be Fine

Many parents and even many people have a strong aversion to psychiatric medication. I was also one of them, a very long time ago.

I still remember the day you first saw a psychiatrist. The psychologist you saw was concerned about your suicidal ideations and wanted a psychiatrist review. He was insistent to start you on medication. Despite buying the medication, I could not bring myself to give it to you that night. There was opposition from everyone, but mainly from myself. You were too young to have an opinion. I still remember looking at the pills late at night after everyone was asleep wondering if I should or shouldn’t give it to you. Eventually, it was many days later that I gave you a small dose. You were only 11 years old. And after a few days, I stopped it.

Weeks later, we started our long relationship with Dr A. He recommended a very small dose of medication. He gave me the confidence that he knew what he was doing. And I started it.

Over the next several years, it was a common and unfortunate cycle. We would start a new medication, it would work well for a few weeks, and then it wouldn’t. Dr A would then increase the dose, or add a new medication, or change the medication. For 9 years, this was the pattern. Thought not trained in psychiatry, there is no medication I am now not familiar with. And so are you.

When I discussed this on Alliance of Hope, many parents said this was the same pattern with their own children with BPD- the cycle of medication working for awhile, and then not working. As we know, there is no known medication for BPD. There are only meds that can sometimes suppress some of the symptoms.

Late 2022, after some of our most tumultuous months, you started a very small dose of a combination of a new medication. This miraculously seemed to had solved a lot of problems, or so I thought. For the next 2 years, there were hardly any changes. They were also your best 2 years in recent times, beyond fabulous grades, and losing weight with a brutal fitness regime to have the fittest body possible. In fact in September 2024, even the frequency of the appointments with Dr A also reduced for the first time in 9 years. 

And then it all came plummeting down. Unfortunately in October 2024, there was a need to increase the doses. What followed was the most number of changes we ever had to do. There were days when we were changing the meds almost every 2 days. Days before the 31^st of December, I had asked Dr A if we should increase your meds. He was overseas and by the time he got back to me, you had improved and I didn’t increase the meds. This will forever be one of my biggest regrets. Had I increased the meds, would you still be here? 

Also in his email to me, he said he would change your meds to something else when he saw you next on the 2^nd of January. I looked at the name of the meds and thought to myself, “But we’ve already tried that”. 

More to follow in part 2.

Love you darling,

Mum