Raising Teens with Mental Illness

Join me in the journey

I was always intimidated by the teenage years, perhaps because my own adolescence was rocky, filled with painful friendships, my parents’ divorce, and an eating disorder that lasted seven years. In some ways, I felt like I went underground from ages twelve to nineteen, caught up in my own dark tunnel, and didn’t emerge until college. College meant a fresh start, a chance to redefine myself, to recreate my community, to find the healing I desperately needed.

When I became a mother, I couldn’t believe how alive I felt, how my intuition guided me, how nursing soothed me in addition to the baby. I loved every parenting stage before my kids hit puberty: carrying babies close to my chest in a sling, setting up a “sandbox” in my kitchen for toddlers, reading endless picture books to preschoolers, taking elementary-aged kids on outdoor adventures and baking zucchini muffins together (yep, I was a crunchy granola mom). Okay, I didn’t love all of it: I remember crying on the phone to a friend as I scraped poop out of underwear every day for four months, wondering if that kid would every master potty training. The terrible twos were…special. But none of compared to my fear of the teen years.

Within a year of my oldest child entering middle school, she began showing signs of depression. Before I knew it, I wasn’t just learning how to parent kids through the ups and downs of puberty; I was navigating mental illness. And even when I thought we had it under control, I was wrong.

An Authentic Space

I suspect I’m not alone. As I’ve talked with other parents, it seems that many of us have stories of kids who have struggled with depression, anxiety, and eating disorders. Many of our kids look “normal” on the outside while holding significant pain inside. As parents, we often don’t know what to do or how to talk about it. We hunt for answers, sometimes finding answers, sometimes not. We might look for someone to blame: our kid’s friends or school, our spouses, our family’s genetics, even ourselves. It is often too frightening to admit that this illness is out of our control.

My hope is that this could be a place where we could all know that we are not alone, where stories are welcome. If you have struggled with any of these issues for yourself or your teens, I’m glad you’re here. I see you! I think companionship is often just as powerful as advice; it provides hope that we will make it through whatever dark valley we are stuck in.

Stories of Hope

I plan to share stories from our family’s journey through mental illness, eating disorders and ADHD. I thrive in sharing the hard parts as well as the triumphs and I’m not afraid to share my mistakes. I hope you will share your stories too! As someone with a strong Christian faith, I look for the intersection of faith and mental illness, the grace in the hard moments. At the same time, I hope that, whether or not you are a person of faith, this space will encourage you. Also, I am not a therapist and don’t offer professional advice beyond my own experience- every situation is unique! Our family’s reliance on therapists has been invaluable in navigating our daughter’s evolving journey.

Envisioning the future

Please join me! I’ll be posting weekly here about our journey, our learnings, writing, and whatever else comes. I’m also finishing a memoir of our experiences which I’ll share about in the months to come.

Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear from you: what have the teenage years been like for you, either your own adolescence or the parenting journey?

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