Mantra: Kid First, Self Second, and Oxygen

As the Boy has continued to struggle with his anxiety and depression, I have been reaching out to friends whose kids have had similar if not the same issues. Their advice:

"Take care of the Boy first and yourself second."

I know this comes as a great contrast to advice given to new (and probably all) parents: As flight attendants will tell you, put your oxygen mask on before you take care of someone else.

Interestingly, this has be explicit for parents because they might not otherwise do that. The instinct would be to take care of your kid first. Parents would hold their breath while they wrestled the mask over their squirming kid. (I think this policy is part because the airline does not want to deal with a passed out parent and a freaked out kid.)

If you are walking with your toddler and it starts to rain, you would zip your kid's coat first likely before you'd zip your own. Unlike the oxygen mask on the airplane, rain is not a matter of life or death. Being wet is a matter of discomfort. A mom can withstand an inordinate amount of discomfort. A toddler cannot.

Dealing with a kid with mental health issues can be a matter of life and death--for the kid, not the parent. In this case, it means putting the oxygen mask on the kid first and the parent withstands the discomfort.

The plan is for the Boy to leave in a little more than a week for wilderness therapy. As the time gets closer for him to leave on his journey of healing (I hope), I am starting to see a little bit of light. I have put myself second for the past several months, putting relationships with family and friends on the back burner while I tend to the Boy. Some of those relationships I have neglected. Others haven't been neglected but rather put in a holding pattern.

I am grateful for the patient support many have given me. My dad has listened to me rant and rave for months, as has my friends Ellen and Patty. I owe them all a tremendous debt of gratitude. I owe my co-workers the same. Ellen took three weeks off of work before she sent her daughter to wilderness therapy--she said it wasn't a great idea as all she did was fret at home. I looked forward to the distraction of work, but I can't say my game is 100%. I am lucky to have years of experience behind in a variety of environments that I can pull on to help me manage to get through with a decent amount of grace and composure. I am reading Bel Canto, a book about people in a hostage situation, and how these people manage to cope, a majority of them are extremely composed. There are things that we are trained to do in our lives, and putting forth a good public face when your life is complete shit is something white upper middle class Americans are very, very good at. Part of it is training and seeing your friends do it. Part of it is having a solid support network of people who can see behind the curtain when your life is falling part. The other part is sleeping on sheets with 700 thread count, eating nice restaurants when you don't have the bandwidth to cook and having the extra pocket money to buy fresh cut flowers just because.

This week, I was invited to a baseball game for work a few days the Boy is dropped off at wilderness therapy. And for the first time in a very long time, I have something to look forward to, even though it is small.

"After I get back from dropping the Boy off, I really could use a hot dog and expensive beer," I wrote in an email accepting the invitation. And it is true. I am hoping to get hammered. Maybe not literally, but metaphorically. I know I could get drunk if I wanted to, whereas now I am on edge, fearing a hangover or intoxication might make me less capable of caring for the Boy. I am looking forward to not have actively be involved in what the Boy is or isn't doing. Someone else is going to take care of him in ways that I can't.

Dropping him off at wilderness might be both the hardest and easiest thing I'll ever do as a parent (I hope.) Hard because it will be hard for the Boy; easy because I feel confident that he needs help and I am glad to get him back on the path to have a fruitful and meaningful life.

I am looking forward to breathing again while someone else puts the oxygen mask on the Boy.