Navigating Emotions
Have you ridden on a wooden roller coaster and felt that exhilaration of climbing to the highest peak, followed by having your stomach drop down to your knees as you descended to what felt like your demise? Coexistence with someone with a mental illness feels like this, and having to parent them carries more weight. We desire to nurture and care for our children hoping they have a bright future. We all come from different backgrounds, and I’m sure that each of our parenting journeys looks very different, but one thing rings true—parenting someone with mental illness is a daily rollercoaster.
We start the morning with a child who either wakes up cheerful, lethargic, or angry. It feels a bit like roulette—you have to prepare for a loss and for addressing the low point, but sometimes you win, and it’s a noneventful day. If any of this resonates with you, then what I’m going to say next might make some sense. Navigating my child’s emotions is one of my paramount day-to-day jobs. Not only do I provide in-house therapy to help talk through what ails him, but I keep some comedic jokes in my back pocket in the event I can provide some laughter if nothing else works.
The mood fluctuations have become such a regular occurrence that we have had to develop code words that help him identify which mood he has entered. If it is anger, something like Hulk correlates well. If it’s lethargy, it might be Eeyore, but I’m sure you catch my drift. When I call out the mutually agreed-upon term to describe what is happening, it lets him know I see his mood shift. Then together, we identify how to proceed. Almost without any verbal cues, the mood tends to soften, and we can go about our day. I have learned that these mood changes require time and patience to allow them to sink in fully. Then I can process and proceed accordingly Identifying the mood gives me a roadmap for moving forward with my responses and reactions to whatever may follow.
This process we have implemented together in navigating moods has taken a long time to reach. It has dramatically helped me understand how to be more compassionate and approach a situation that previously might have been volatile. I’m not saying it’s foolproof. At the very least, it has helped create a path to open communication and a better understanding of what is physically or mentally going on during a mood shift. It can never be easy to know how to react when your child suddenly seems angry when you ask him to do a particular chore that you have asked him to do many times before without inciting such a reaction. These are the things that we often take personally and find ourselves agitated and punitive. If we react too quickly in these situations, it could lead to conflict. It could be avoided if we stop for a minute to assess what is happening within our child. It may be their mental illness rather than deliberate defiance.
I’ve realized that these sporadic mood changes have even been a source of surprise for my child. One minute he is fine, and the next frustrated or angry and entirely bewildered by it. I’ve watched this pattern countless times, and when you sit and ponder these emotional fluctuations in your child, your stomach drops, causing that sinking feeling I described when you descend downward on the roller coaster. What are we to do? I constantly ask myself that question, and all I can say is to pray for strength and help. Pray for comfort and peace. Pray for joy in the little victories and know that this may be as good as it gets. We love our children deeply. We are frustrated with our children (even when mental illness isn’t present), and we endure to move forward. It is all we can sometimes do, and I hope everyone reading this can take a deep breath and exhale while we virtually hold each other's hand on this challenging journey.
Are you a Christian parenting an individual with mental illness? Join the Eleventh Willow private Facebook support group to meet other parents who understand. Let’s help each other walk this path.
Photo by Gabriel Valdez on Unsplash
