The Quiet Grief of Parenting a Child With Depression
No one really talks about the mental and emotional toll depression takes on those trying to love the person who is struggling. No one talks about how it is often more of a marathon than a sprint. As the mother of a child who suffers with clinical depression, and drawing from my training and experience as a social worker, I have found that there is a great deal of information available about treatment modalities, psychotropic medications, and how to support the individual living with the diagnosis. There is far less information about the sleepless nights spent worrying, the seasons when no matter how much love you pour into your child, they cannot feel it, and the reality that therapy and medication do not always provide a quick fix - or sometimes, what feels like any fix at all. There is even less information about the numbness, anger, exhaustion, and grief that caregivers begin to feel after years of difficult conversations with their child. No one talks about the constant ...