Our Story Begins: Mom & Me on Mental Health

Hey, climbers! Before we dive in today, I want to pause. This is not a light episode. We're talking about mental health, about suicide, about the moments no parent ever wants to face, and no teenager ever thinks they'll have to survive. It's raw, it's messy, and yes, we laugh nervously through some of it, because that's how we get through, but more than anything, it's honest. If you need breaks while listening, please do. And if even one person feels a little less alone because of this conversation, then it's worth every shaky word. This is mom and me climbing mountains together. Welcome to mom and me climbing mountains together, a podcast about showing up for each other in the messy middle of life. I'm Eleni, and alongside my mom, Ashley, we're sharing our story of navigating mental health, identity, family, and all the ups and downs that come with growing up and parenting at the same time. We don't have all the answers. What we do have are honest conversations, sometimes heavy, sometimes hopeful, but always real. Our hope is that by climbing these mountains together out loud, you'll feel a little less alone in your own journey. So let's take a deep breath, settle in, and let's begin. Okay, so we'll start off with a mom disclaimer, because that's what I do. I'm ready. Ready to do a mom disclaimer for this episode, and this podcast in general, we're going to be talking about some heavy stuff. So, pause it, leave the room, come back to it later. We will probably be crying, crying through us, but know that we're talking about mental health issues. The topic of suicide will be brought up, and just bear with us and know that there's light at the end of the tunnel. Mom, disclaimer out. So why are we here today? What are we doing today? We are here to discuss, like a certain disclaimer, we're here to discuss mental health. This is stemming from my personal experience with it that I've had in most recent past years stemming mostly from COVID, I think, that's mostly where they sparked around. And I know I'm not the only one, because COVID was definitely a hard time for everyone, and mental health was a big, but not so big topic at the time, just because everyone was so isolated from each other that a lot of people got down and things that weren't so happy started happening. So quite a few events have happened. At the end of eighth grade, you were hospitalized, at the end of ninth grade, you were hospitalized, and you're now starting your senior year of high school. And there's been a lot that's happened that has led you to the point where you actually even want to have a discussion with me about mental health, where we can both try and bring up topics that will help others, because we have those types of bleeding hearts where we need to try and help our community and everything, but I think their experiences we both learned that doing what we can to talk about mental health, to where even one person can hear us, if we can just help impact that one life, and maybe even feel better about our own in getting that heavy stuff off of our chest, our world is going to be a lot better place for all of those conversations. So in the episodes in this podcast, we're going to try to not scroll around obviously across different topics, but we both do have ADHD, as we've learned in this long journey. So we're going to try and stay on track, but this first episode for sure is going to be an intro. Obviously, like you said, of why we're here. So those that first hospitalization that you had at the end of eighth grade, we had just moved to Duluth. We were briefly in outer suburb of Memphis for, I don't know, not even nine months before that during COVID, which was absolutely insane down there. Yes. But we started off in Vancouver, Washington. That's where everything had shut down. We were in the epicenter of COVID, the COVID breakout, and you were what's in sixth or seventh grade at the time when all that started? Yeah, I didn't finish sixth grade technically because it was around March, maybe May and M month. You didn't finish through your school, but you had to finish online schooling. So technically, I would like to correct you. For listeners, you did finish, but your world was completely torn apart, like everything was completely different. Yes. Seventh grade, you finished in a hotel room in Mississippi, in that outer suburb while we were waiting to get kids for our house. Definitely. Interesting. And then you did a mix of online classes and starting maybe in person once eighth grade. Let's see, did in class or you did in online for eighth grade. And then you after a couple months of school, had already started, you started in person classes up here in Duluth. Yeah. And middle school is rough. Yes. It's, I don't even think rough is though, is enough. That's the thing. I think everyone knows middle school is difficult. People are starting. Yeah. Right. Bodies are changing, things are changing. People become kids become more aware of family dynamics. They're starting to learn how to become more independent. They learn more about the world and have more self-awareness as well too. And then when you have access to everything online because you have to take classes virtually during a pandemic and things like that, you kind of see a lot of scary stuff and it becomes pretty lonely. And so at the end of eighth grade, we were in Duluth for about six months and you started realizing that high school was starting and that you were only four short years away from becoming an adult, like a legal adult. How'd that feel? Um, scary. And it still is. I'm 17 now and I'm a few short months away from being legal in the world. And it's, it's scary to think about. But knowing that like here I am talking about eighth grade and yet I'm here in senior year of high school, I know that it's not so scary. We've been able to have a lot of things you've taken advantage of a lot of opportunities. You've, you know, we're able to, you know, not going to door and have some beautiful golden doors open for you to grow as a person. But it looking back, I mean, I'm going to be 40 soon. And even as your mom with three kids and working, you know, having a job, having three kids, working, being an adult, I still don't really quite know what I want to be when I grow up, right? Being an adult for an adult is scary too, right? But as an eighth grader who had just moved from living very temporarily in a place where it was very racially divided. It was, there was a lot of black. There was a lot of white and a lot of black versus white. And you are neither. Well, well, technically speaking, I am half white. You are half mixed and you are half tongue in Polynesian. So listeners, there you go. There's another little topic there that we are bringing in. Elaine is benefiting the world as a person of color. She's, you know, Polynesian, but she doesn't fit into black or white. So she has that on her plate. We had a lot of different family dynamics happening where neither grandparents are in the picture and we're at the time. And you have this scary, scary, scary weight on your shoulders of impending adulthood and high school. And what are you going to do with your life? And you just didn't even know like who you were as a person. It was terrifying for you. Yeah. So at the end of eighth grade, about two weeks before graduation. Yeah. And may at the end of me actually think I can remember the rough date of it, about the 28th things got a little too much for me. And I needed help. I didn't want to deal with the problems of the world and of life because everything was too much for me. I left all my friends. I was across the country. It was only my family and I, new school, COVID, just got off of online school. Like you said, the impending doom of adulthood, it was, it was too much for me. Yeah. So that is when I'm not just going to sound bad, but I'm not sure what I did for this particular attempt because there were three, well, there were three instances total. I think I, at the time, I didn't know how to ask for help. And there were, I've been talking to my middle school counselor at the time. And she was telling me, if you can't do it vocally, type it out, write it out, and just give it to them. And so that's, that's what I did. I grabbed my phone, opened up notes app, and then just typed out what I was feeling to my parents because I couldn't vocally ask for help. But we didn't see something like that until the second hospitalization. That very first time was the very first time we took you to therapy. Oh, sorry. I just told the wrong story. No, I think that's the right one. No, too, right? You went, you were trying to find places to ask for help. You and I at that time, there was a huge communication block there. Yeah, there was a big disconnect between us. And I know that is not uncommon with teenagers and their parents in general, right? Yeah. You know, as your mom seeing you, like, I kind of knew something was up, but then asking to talk about it or just checking in like, Hey, how are you doing? How school like trying to ask those questions without seeming like I was fishing for something was very difficult, right? Yeah. And it's like, you know, as a parent, you hear stories from other parents of teens or like, Oh, they're just being a teenage jerk or you know, there's the jokes like that or just puberty hormones, which is a thing. Like don't get me wrong, right? Hormones mess with you. And when you have all of them raging, all of a sudden, it's hard to have even physical control over your body, right? So you are trying to find a way to tell anyone how you are feeling and it got to a point where I had was finally, finally, finally able to get you a therapy appointment. And I just remember, I don't know if you remember that day very well. I haven't actually thought about it until right now. Let me do a little build up to that. Go for it. So this is my first therapy appointment ever that I've ever had. And like you said, I've been trying to find ways for me to vent. And I previous to the appointment, I kind of talked to some of my friends about how I was feeling. And surprisingly, they were some of them like actually kind of felt in the same boat because it was just a really hard time for everyone too. And when you set me up for the therapy appointment, I was thinking, oh, well, I might as well just go on until everything about what's going going on? Cause why not? I don't really care what's going to happen. She's not going to do anything to me. Well, we got there. And I told the therapist everything. And the session wasn't even done. This was just the intro to my story. And she went out to get my mom. Yeah. What was it? It wasn't even like 20 minutes. I don't remember. But I don't remember exactly. But I remember being like this seemed really short. Really short. Yeah. Because therapists and mental or not mental, sorry, health providers are legally liable to reach out and tell somebody else. They're mandated reporters. Yeah. Thank you. They're state-minded reporters. They're it is a part of their license. It is literally their job where if someone is in trouble, if their life is in danger or someone else is, yeah. So as a minor, when they when they realize the life and death border has been crossed in that discussion, they do need to let the parents know. Yeah. You want to say anything else about it? Well, I don't want to say it lucky for you, but lucky for you, the hospital was like a minute or two away. Yeah. So take two steps back. We're at this appointment. And this therapist comes up to get me, right? Yeah. Can you come in? We need to chat about some things. And so we go in there. And it was an immediate, so Elaine has told me that she has suicidal thoughts and has a plan to act on those thoughts, but has not yet because of her younger brother and sister. And I'm pretty sure everything that happened after was less than five minutes, but thinking about it now, it feels like five hours. And I can feel myself freezing up right now. Yeah, we do. It's like we're laughing, but we're also nervous like laughter people. So it's kind of how we get through things. So I'm letting us know we're laughing through this microphone right now, but it's definitely a nervous laughter. I previously, way before Elaine was born, had worked at a treatment counselor for as a treatment counselor for adolescent girls who were put into a specific program for behavior and all sorts of issues. These girls had a really tough life, but apart as a part of my job, as a treatment counselor, I had to have very top of the line restraint and safety training. So if a girl were in the frame of mind where she wanted, if we were out in a shopping trip to teach them how to go to the grocery store to buy groceries for themselves and we were in the parking lot, and they felt the need to try to analyze themselves and go run in front of a car, I would have a certain hold on their arm that I could do fairly quickly without impacting them physically in, you know, like hurting their arm or like pulling their arm out of its socket, dislocating. I don't, you know, there's safety measures there. Of course. All I remember, I remember like three more sentences maybe being discussed with the provider and it was something surrounding what do I do now? And for me, I'm kind of like, I can be an aggressive go-getter. I just want to do something about it. And she was so passive and calm about the situation where she's like, well, one week and I know something about talking and two is like, or you, you probably should take her to the ER and that's what I did. I went straight. We went straight out the door. I put you in a certain like arm hold where I was like holding her armpit. We walked, I don't remember if it was downstairs, I think I did it through the elevator. We just don't remember. I don't remember. She remembers on ground level. No, but I walked you across the street to the vehicle we had at the time, got you in, locked the door. Don't know if you remember this. I locked the door so you wouldn't jump out of the door because I have some PTSD moments from working as a treatment counselor and things that happened there. Locked the door because I didn't know what you were going to do. Walked around the vehicle, unlocked my door only, got in and drove to the ER, which was really close by. And I did the same thing across the street to get you into that hospital. And then, I don't know, I'm like, feel myself raising up again, like again, all hell kind of broke loose. And they took you back. They started doing stuff. And then I was immediately out of the room. And you were in this insanely frightening situation where you were by yourself. And I was not there to help you. For many hours, I'm going to pause the moment because this is a lot. And I want, I want our listeners right now to be able to take a moment if they need to to walk away. Because this is heavy. A lot of people have been in moments like this. And I can tell you, regardless of your situation and your family dynamics with your guardian, parent, whomever is legally responsible and is also heart responsible for taking care of you. Anyone having to drop off their child in a moment like that is absolutely f-word freaking terrifying. I'm trying not to curse, but I do have a party mouth. So it's scary. You should feel afraid in that moment. You should feel fear. The child in that situation should also feel the same way. It is not perfectly fine to feel that way, but it is, it's unfortunately very normal for that situation to be insanely traumatic and terrifying. And I do like to have control in my life. So I like my biggest thing. I want to have control over situations so that I know that my kids are safe, right? But I also know that I can't control everything my kids do. I just need to know how to control the resources to be able to help them. I was completely out of my depth. That was supposed to be a pause for our listeners, but it is okay to to be afraid in this moment and to feel as a parent and guardian that your your control is spiraling out of your hands, your say and what happens in your child's life is spiraling out of your hands, wondering if you are the reason why they're there is that's there. You will not have all the answers in that moment in time. So coming kind of back to the situation and what happened, I'm in this moment where all I know is that I want my kid to be safe and I I need to figure out what to do next. And yet I got to sit there for hours in the ER while you were in that back room. That was a huge moment as a parent for me. I mean, I've gone through scary things before, but that was a huge moment for me of that was my holy crap. I'm graduating from eighth grade and going to be in high school moment. That was holy crap. My kid is going to be an adult very soon and I can do whatever I can to help them to be a successful adult, but ultimately I have no control over the situations that my kid is about to make for themselves. And I remember a case worker coming by at some point to talk to me and that's when I kind of found out more a little bit more about what happened than day before beyond what I was told in this therapy appointment that like totally rocked my world. And thankfully it's not as severe as some cases of people attempting to unify themselves, but it's still very real and very life threatening and very very very very scary. I know we don't have video, but I'm looking at you right now trying to feed off of you to see when you want to talk or if you're ready to talk about you don't have to go all in, but I remember after the case worker I tied up with you at some point time I ended up coming back to a room with you and I don't remember if we I think I went and sat by you or something and I don't remember if we held hands right away, but as soon as you saw me started bawling and then I started bawling. And in that moment I was like she either was faking something and now realizes like holy shit, this is the impact, this is a consequence of that decision or it was I really really do need help. And I'm so glad that my mom is here, but I'm also ashamed of the fact that I need help. You're nodding your head yes. Hold on because this is actually the first time that I've fully heard your site so hold on. Yeah, we've had snippets here and there. You want me to keep talking? On my end you want to wait for your your site or um. Well, I'm just the gig like okay. It felt like it is still being dream yeah the entire time that we're there. So it wasn't really, I don't want to say as impactful, but I I blacked out a lot of it because of how traumatic it was. So I don't really have as much story, juice as you do for mine, but I what I felt then was real. There may be like little things I might have been faking, but what I was feeling that was a hundred percent sincere. Yep. But you've never gone through something like that. You didn't really, you've known that people go through those experiences, right? I didn't actually think about everything that people went through. I just knew like oh if they think that you're mentally unstable then you go to a psychosilum. That's that's like what I was told through like stories and stuff, but I didn't actually think about it each step of the process that takes. So for me, I have lived, I've had relationships with domestic violence issues. I have a aunt who passed away who had severe depression. I've done a lot of stuff through my schooling and obviously my work as a treatment counselor to learn about situations like that, but I had never actually lived through this step-by-step play of what actually physically and mentally has to happen to get you to the point of even scheduling a therapy appointment, right? Like if people schedule a therapy appointment because they know they need help, that is still terrifying because it's new and it's different, right? And they've never done this before and then there's so many social stigmas out there of like, oh, people find out I'm crazy. It's like that's okay, we're all crazy, whatever. We all have issues. Right? The voice is, but it's mental health. If your mental side of your body is not healthy, you need help. Not everyone has an answer. That's why you go to a doctor for help. That's why you go to nutritionists. That's why you go for, there's neurology, there's specialties, cardiac doctor, right? For me, with all that training, formal, informal that I've had in my life, what made that so serious for me was one simple, simple concept of being at that hospital in the ER at that time was the fact that I made the choice to take you there, which meant that anything that happened after you were admitted there was outside of my control. I could not just say, screw it, just kidding, we're done. We're going to go home. You were in their legal care, right? They have and had a legal responsibility to make sure they did everything to make sure you were safe at that time, right? Yeah. They don't know our story. They don't know your support system at home. They don't know your medical history. They know none of that. They just have to gather information and then they can present us with, this is what we're seeing. These are choices you may or may not have. These are events that may or may not need to happen next. So for me, going into that room, holding your hand, knowing that for however many hours these specialists have taken data on you, they've taken tests and all these things, I realize like I literally am just a fly in the wall, watching all of this scary shit happen to my barely teenage daughter. And I was along for a ride and I didn't know where it was going to go. But you were there and you were alive, right? Which means that for me, there was hope to get through it, right? Because however challenged you felt or sassy to be like, fine, I'll tell you, I'll tell you, I'll tell you to the therapist, you still told someone, right? You weren't at a point in your life where you were giving up or maybe you were at that point, but an opportunity came up where you had a moment to tell someone about it. You took that chance on yourself, right? Yeah. You did that. And that's what was so scary for me is I didn't know what choices from here on out that you were about to make for yourself. Because no matter how much parents care about their kids, the kids will still go make the choice. I can give you all the tools in the world. You were still going to go out in the world, go outside that front door of our home every day and decide how you want to act. You decide how you want to care for yourself, how you care for others. You care for your school and the classes that you're in and you're learning what you put in your body. You are making that decision. So when I went in there to hold your hand, I don't know if it was more to comfort myself or to comfort you, but it was more than anything to say, like, I am completely here for you. And I want to support you making the best decisions you can for yourself. And I remember saying something to you that day, I think it was when I had the armpit thing of the hold when I was walking you the truck and I said, I will always fight for you, even if it's fighting against you. And I wanted to fight those bad thoughts in your head and all of the situations and all the circumstances that brought that darkness into your mind. But there's no punching bag there for that, right? It was me realizing I didn't want to be like other parents where it was there where the highway. I wanted to sit in this journey with you and learn because I'm not a certified therapist. I'm not a certified MD. I might have some experience, but I am not as special as any of those. So who am I? Just because I birthed you to say this is what's going to happen because this is best. So let me take another quick pause. Any listeners out there, parents, if you're listening and you are like that, you need to figure out how to let that go. Because no one was given a blueprint of how to be a parent from day one. And if this is unfamiliar, unfamiliar territory and your kid is going through the situation, you also have to learn and you also have to grow. You also have to change and evolve if you want to be in that child's life. You willing to put yourself out there and allow yourself to make mistakes so you can learn through them and make a better outcome because if you are doing such things, you never know if you may be adding to the darkness or not. So you have to be willing to listen and be there without giving back, giving feedback or telling them what's right or wrong, like you said, or just trying to I don't know what I'm trying to say, but fix everything for them because you can only be right next to them. And there are two sides to choose with them or not. And hopefully you do choose with them because for me, I know that you played a big part in my journey, mom. You were there with me. And I hope that for parents listening, sorry, hold on, that you can be there for your kids too. I'll be a bit more direct. Just shut up and listen. Just shut your mouth as a parent and listen to what's going on. And as whether you were the godfather from the movie and that's your parenting style, but if you're there with your kid at their therapy appointments or in the ER taking them there because they have a plan to unify themselves, shut up and just listen and just feel what is happening in this moment. Because this is your future too. We're going to talk a lot about stuff like this going forward. If we've pissed anyone off, good because honestly, you're feeling an emotion right now. You're having a reaction to what we're saying. And anger is a valid emotion, but try and figure out why you're angry, please. Are you angry because I've insulted you in some way or something like that? This is my challenge to you. If you were here because you want to learn something about how to help your kids and you just got triggered by what I said, you have to figure that out for yourself in order to succeed with maintaining a healthy relationship with your child. I've had a lot of growth moments in the last four years and I think we're going to all explore that all together. So maybe we should save a little bit more for next time, huh? Yeah, keep them on their toes. We'll talk a little bit more about what actually happened with talking to the doctors and more about the kind of play by play and what happened with the ER and the visit and all that next time. I think that's a good idea right? Yeah. Thanks for climbing this part of the mountain with us. These conversations aren't easy, but they matter. And we're grateful you're here listening and climbing alongside us. If today's episode stirred something in you, just take a moment to sit with it, maybe journal about it, share it with someone you trust, and if you really are struggling, please remember you don't have to carry it alone. In the U.S., you can dial or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline anytime. Again, in the United States, you can text or dial 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline anytime you need. Thank you to the Anne-Bang Crawl Foundation for fulfilling dreams with their grants to girls like me and to Asher, owner of the Duluth Creative Co., who helped bring our vision to life. You never know who you'll meet along the way. We'll meet you here again soon, with more stories that remind us none of us climb alone. Until then, we'll learn to hope, take the next step, and keep climbing.