The Five Core Conversations for Couples by David Bulitt

Author:David Bulitt
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781510746138
Publisher: Skyhorse
Published: 2020-01-14T16:00:00+00:00

No One Sends You Dinner When Your Kid Is in the Psych Ward

“If you are a parent of a happy, behaved, and well-adjusted child, then it stands to reason that another parent whose child doesn’t fit that mold must be doing something wrong. Or does it?”

—Julie

A lot of things must go through a parent’s mind when her son or daughter is admitted to a psychiatric hospital. A lot of things sure went through mine, but there is one particular memory I have about that first time that will never leave me.

“Which time are we talking about?” David asks.

Natalie was hospitalized several times as a teenager. I was thinking about the Dominion Hospital admission. David hated it there.

“It was a snake pit,” he says.

I have seen my share of facilities, hospitals, and psychiatric wards. I understand how he remembers it that way. There were bars and buzzers, metal detectors and cameras everywhere. Except for the faux wood bed frame, our daughter’s room was what you would expect it to be—a small box of gray and white. Natalie should have been at a friend’s house, maybe watching a movie or sitting in our kitchen doing her homework and talking about boys. Instead, she was spending her days under lock and key, meeting with doctors, getting injections, and taking pills.

The fact is that she needed the help. She wouldn’t listen to us and was wreaking havoc on everyone in the neighborhood. She broke into one neighbor’s house, stole money from her friend’s mother, and spray painted the sidewalk outside our friend’s house.

“Don’t forget school,” David says. “The security guards there were probably thrilled to get a day off from chasing her around.”

School guards weren’t the only ones that were relieved. Our other daughters were happy to have a few days of peace.

“You and me too,” David says.

“I know. It’s all just so sad. One thing about that time still irritates me,” I say.

I know he knows what I am talking about, but I keep talking anyway. “How many times over the years have friends we know been sick, when someone had to go to the hospital?” I ask him. “Think about just near where we live, or narrow it down even more to just our street.”

“Plenty. I remember the one dad having that heart problem; his wife and the kids were at home. It was freezing cold,” David says.

“Do you remember what we did?” I ask. I cooked them a meal—lasagna, salad, and dessert. Why? Because, that is what people should do for their neighbors and friends.

David remembers. “You took them all of those Milky Way Squares. None for me,” he says.

He was trying to lose a few pounds.

“It wasn’t like I was tipping the scale at four bills,” he says. “One or two squares would not have hurt.”

I wasn’t the only one to take food over. I saw people pulling up in the morning on their way to taking kids to the bus stop, later in the afternoon, nighttime around dinner. All day long for days.

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