Struggling to Survive - The Fight of and for My Daughter's Life, by Naya Elle James

I recently watched the new film Everything Everywhere All at Once and cried throughout the whole end as I watched Michelle Yeoh’s character physically pull her daughter from the abyss that threatened her existence. It was too close to home.

Three years ago, that’s exactly what I was doing with my then 14-year-old daughter.

What started out as my attending the South Bay Families Connected Parent Chat to talk about the seemingly typical challenges I had with my daughter—too much screen time, the plummet of self-esteem in front of social media, peer influence—became a lifeline over the following year as I rose to the challenge of having a child dysregulate to the point of attempting her own life.

Unfortunately, I am not the only one. I’m part of a parent support group chat that achieves upwards of forty families in and around the South Bay.

What is happening to our children? Why are they so broken?

I won’t attempt to answer that because I haven’t a clue how we ended up here, or rather there are too many clues and not enough clear cause and effect paths. I will share my own story in the hope that if you are facing anything like what we did, you might feel less alone, or even better have a modicum of further clarity to answer the question, What now?

I can tell you this, the numbers are not in our favor. According to the World Health Organization statistics posted in November of 2021, globally one in seven 10–19-year-olds experiences a mental disorder, and suicide is the fourth leading cause of death in 15–19-year-olds. In the U.S., the CDC reported that in 2019, among adolescents aged 12-17 years old, 36.7% had persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, and 18.8% seriously considered attempting suicide. That means that if your teenager is at a party with twenty kids, about four of them are suffering. And those numbers are pre-pandemic. If you’re reading this blog, I don’t have to tell you that it’s far worse now. In a national online survey, 80 percent of young adult participants reported significant depressive symptoms.

What should you do when your kid slides into a set of bad statistics and you feel like (or are) following them down the rabbit hole?

For starters, if you’re in denial, get out. You don’t have time for it. A child struggling isn’t about your failure as a parent, it’s about what you do now and how committed you are to changing yourself so that when your kid does get better, they aren’t coming home to the same shaped hole that they left.

Second, oxygen mask on you first. To be cliché, this is a marathon, not a sprint. And self-care is not optional. If you don’t find a way to ask for help, you’re staring at burnout that serves no one, especially the child you want to help.

For my daughter, it started with the recovery of traumatic memories earlier in her childhood. An inappropriate touch opened her eyes—this wasn’t the first time. Soon thereafter, her grades slid from A’s and B’s, to D’s and F’s. I ended up in a circle of her eighth-grade teachers and counselors in what amounted to an intervention. We discovered that my daughter was leaving nearly every class for five to twenty minutes to go to the bathroom, where she was crying, vaping, and getting high. She would return to class, put her head down on her desk, and be utterly disengaged. What was going on?

That was the first time my daughter opened up and shared that she had been sexually abused as a child.

While the group of caring adults rallied to get her resources—an IEP that included group and individual counseling services, it wasn’t enough. Within a month she was hospitalized for suicidality, and in less than two months, we were back in the emergency room due to an intentional overdose. Days in intensive care, followed by lockdown at a psychiatric unit, landed us in our first round of residential treatment, where we also embarked on a journey with Child Protective Services. I learned all the acronyms: TRO, PHP, IOP, RTC… the list went on.

Once again, after seven weeks in residential, she was released to attend a day program. School in the morning followed by five hours of intensive treatment every afternoon (that’s the PHP: Partial Hospitalization Program). I dreaded weekends when she would disappear without notice. I spent many days driving around searching for my daughter at police stations and elementary school playgrounds, where kids would gather to get high. It didn’t matter how many consequences were given, or how many tears were shed.

In my parent support group, the SBFC Parent Chat, other parents praised my stamina—not only was I struggling to get my daughter the help she needed, but I had a newborn nursing son at the same time. I would bundle him into the carrier and bounce while sharing my fears and frustrations, desperate for someone to give me the answer.

Moe Gelbart, who facilitates the group, looked me in the eye as my daughter continued to spiral, and said, “She needs 24-hour care. It’s time.”

I had no idea what that meant. I didn’t even know that existed. I documented everything that was happening—the desperate texts, the incidents of running away, the drug use I couldn’t stop, the group of kids who she chose to hang out with that eventually were put in rehabs and jails themselves. I brought it to my IEP team of psychologists and school district advocates. What do I do? And in a life-saving decision, they said they would send her to residential treatment in Utah. Utah? Could I let my daughter go to another state, away from me for months on end, with people I didn’t know or trust? Isn’t that where kids get worse, not better?

In the end, I let her go. I held her in my arms the night before she was to be picked up. She had been so high for four days that she could barely talk. By that point, she was refusing to clean herself. She was covered in lice and had cuts and bruises from self-harm. I lay her head on a towel as she was passed out and combed each strand of hair. My baby girl, gone. Innocence, lost. Would we survive this? Was this the only way?

When the authorities arrived at 4am to transport her to Utah, I stepped aside. They were trained for this. I was so afraid she would run, or leap out of the SUV, or say she had to go to the bathroom at the airport and bolt. But she made it. She threw up for two days upon arrival from drug withdrawal. They promised me she would be okay.

I have never cried so much in my life. I have never begged for mercy and grace so hard in my life. I have never felt so utterly alone and bereft. I have never had so much doubt in my ability to be a mom. Weeks passed before I could wake up without an emotional hangover.

And then came the work—my work. My own self-care. My determination to find forty minutes of joy per day (that was my rule, even if I had to string together two minutes at a time over the course of 24 hours). My son needed me. I needed me. I did the work. I asked for help. I went to so much therapy it was a joke—individual, family, group, workshops. After a lifetime of my own trauma work, it still hadn’t been enough to get through this. But I did.

And so did she.

Fast forward three years. Today my daughter is seventeen years old. She spent fifteen months in residential treatment after eight months in and out of lockdown psych wards, shorter residential treatments, and hospitals. We were incredibly lucky that she landed with an extraordinary team of therapists and family teachers who embraced her, disciplined her, and taught her to have hope. They raised her when I no longer could. And when she came home, the first six months were brutal—boundaries, consequences, constant talking, and coaching to get to where we are today.

My daughter is the strongest person I know. She overcame so much over the last three years. She earned her status today as a girl with plans for the future. She is part of our family. She’s going to thrive.

Not everyone gets such an outcome. I’d like to say we lucked out, but we didn’t. It took a village of support and massive work by all of us, and most importantly and especially her. But she did it, and she still does it today.

It’s not all cupcakes and roses. We still struggle. She still has bad days, sometimes bad weeks. But we are worlds away from where we were. And I have my baby girl back.

So, what’s the takeaway? Like I said, if you’re in denial, get out and get into action. You can do this. For us, the perilous path she took in response was deadly, but we survived. Please take your kids seriously when they tell you they are sad. Get them the help they need, but just as importantly get yourself the help you need, because you do. No one gets through this alone. It takes teachers, police, schools, therapists, doctors, families, friends, and strangers. We are so lucky to have the resources here that we do here in the South Bay. SO MANY people care and are here to support you as a parent and friend.

Take the first step and go to the Parent Chat. You may start off wondering why you can’t get your kid off the phone or get them to finish their homework. But having a community of people who already know you and support you on your parenting journey is essential. Because four out of five kids are struggling with their mental health right now. Get with people who see the signs. Learn the symptoms of suicidality. Know where your kid is at—not only geographically because you have Life360 on their phone, but where they are inside themselves. Assume you’re wrong. Or at least that you don’t know.

If the Parent Chat doesn’t work for you, find and attend an Al-Anon group if your kid or anyone in your family has ever struggled with addiction. It changes the way we think, and we need to know what lenses we wear that we don’t know we have on. Reach out your hand. Give yourself permission to have needs while your kid needs you. Get with people who share your journey and can witness you. It saves lives.

Nowadays I go out to dinner and look around and I wonder, what are these people struggling with? How many of you are hiding the pain of what’s happening at home? We all need support these days. It’s non-negotiable. And it’s the best gift you can give yourself and your child.

I wish you peace.

By, Naya Elle James

Naya Elle James is a writer who shares real life experiences through books, essays, and film. She believes that stories have the power to heal us, making what’s personal, communal, and returning us to hope. She is the author of Untouched and Untaken: A Woman’s Journey to Overcome Her Generational Legacy, a memoir about overcoming a legacy of abandonment to become the mother her daughter desperately needs. She is part of a small team of creatives at Samansara Media, where she co-writes novellas and screenplays about what it means to live our own versions of love, the nature of impossible choice, and how to evolve past the limitations of modern life. You can learn more about her and follow her work at nayaellejames.com.