Saving Laura: The Perfect Storm

The last few weeks have been very eye-opening for me as I have helped my daughter file for disability. She has given me permission to write about our journey and what we have discovered along the way.  First, I have to say I NEVER would have imagined having to help my daughter apply for disability at the age of 20. To look at her she seems perfectly fine and able-bodied. But looks are quite deceiving.

As we watched my daughter’s mental health begin to deteriorate we were scrambling for answers and help. To completely understand how we got to the place of filing for disability for a 20 year old woman in the prime of her life, we have to go back a few years and put some context to how we got to this place.

At the age of 10 my daughter was sexually assaulted by a member of our church.  We did not find this out until age 13 when we discovered she had been cutting herself. We began to seek counseling for her cutting. We wanted to see if we could determine what was going on inside our daughter that was causing her to hurt herself. During her course of counseling we discovered a journal in her room that was never meant to be found. It was discovered under a china hutch-like Murphy bed that was bolted to the wall. The journal was found behind the cabinet and under the 6 inch space in which you had to contort your hand to just to reach the space. The journal began to tell a story that would forever change the course of all our lives. With this new information, the cutting finally had some context that made sense. When the counselor confronted her with knowledge of the sexual abuse, Laura curled into a fetal position on the floor and just cried. The counselor asked her if she felt she would hurt herself if she went home and she said she felt suicidal—so for her safety we had her admitted to a local psychiatric hospital for observation.

While at the hospital the doctor diagnosed her with depression and began her on some antidepressants.  Laura continued in counseling with an individual therapist to start working through some of the trauma, now that ”the cat was out of the bag.”  It was a long and emotional rollercoaster for her.  The school year came around and she began having trouble concentrating in school (which is not unusual for victims of trauma) but the school recommended we get her evaluated for ADHD.  So off to the doctor we went again. By asking a few subjective questions, the doctor declared she had ADHD and we left the office with a prescription for an ADHD medication (which are amphetamine based meds,) So by the age of 14 my daughter was now on 2 psychotropic medications.  

The next few years were rocky—as most teen years tend to be with all the issues of puberty, hormones and body changes.  We asked the counselor if this could be side effects of the meds and she assured us the meds were safe and this was just likely normal adolescent behavior. But the rollercoaster ride my daughter and my family was on seemed to be on steroids! We began to wonder if this could be side effects of the medications and questioned the doctor greatly about this. The doctor assured us the medications were perfectly safe and she likely just needed an increase in the dosage. So her dosages were taken to the next level… and so did the turbulence of the roller coaster ride.

By age 17 my daughter had gone through a turbulent pregnancy and had been off her meds for the safety of the baby.  Soon after she gave birth, and in the thick of being a single mom with post partum baby blues, and somewhat socially isolated since she did not have a car at the time, her world went into a dark, dark depression.  Her ob-gyn prescribed a new antidepressant which we had hopes would help her get over the hump of the baby blues. The meds had some very unexpected side effects that we were not prepared for.  She was experiencing insomnia on a level I’d never seen before. She would go up to 2 days with no sleep and she would have tremors. One night she felt off-balanced and fell and hit her head on our ceramic kitchen tile floor and ended up with a concussion. Thank God she was not holding the baby!  A few nights later she came into our bedroom about 3:00 a.m. and she was sobbing uncontrollably and saying “Something isn’t right! I don’t know what’s wrong, but something isn’t right!” She was sobbing so hard her body was literally shaking.  We called her ob-gyn the next morning who instructed us to make an appointment with a psychiatrist. We did ASAP!

Upon going to the psychiatrist’s appointment, the nurse practitioner ran her through a series of screening questions about mood swings (as if any postpartum mom didn’t experience those on some level!). Laura responded to the answers truthfully about her mood swings after the birth and the frequent crying spells and feelings of loneliness and depression.  Next, we saw the actual psychiatrist for less than 10 minutes who emphatically declared Laura had bipolar disorder. He took out his prescription pad and we left with yet more scripts for psychotropic medications.

Being a mental health professional, I sat down with her when we got home to look over the side effects of the medications and we discussed needing to be aware of them and when/if we would need to contact the doctor if there were any concerns. The concern that immediately jumped off the page at me was this particular bipolar medication could cause “a cardiac event” if doses were missed. So I sat there and told her EMPHATICALLY that she could not risk missing even one dose and she could not stop the meds without medical help. I explained the importance of communication with her doctor about any of the side effects—and sooner than later! (Little did I know that would put in place the ingredients for the perfect storm that would soon sound sirens on the life of our family.)

Every time Laura started experiencing symptoms or changes that concerned her, she would call her doctor and he would immediately up the dose. If the dose had to be adjusted more than twice then they would add a new med to the cocktail she was already taking. This perfect storm was now raging daily. We never knew what to expect or what we would find when we got home. Some days she would sleep 16-20 hours a day. Other days she could go 2 days without any sleep at all. She was on meds to wake her up, meds to make her concentrate, meds to make her happy, meds to make her calm down, meds to make her go to sleep and her world was just spiraling out of control and she had no words anymore to express to us what was going on because every time she would call the doctor he would add one more med to the mix.  

Then there was the day we got the call from my sister. Laura had been living with her as she was trying to start a new life. When I picked up the phone, as I saw my sisters name on caller ID, all I could hear was sobbing and I could barely make out any words she was saying. I began to raise my voice at her—“SLOW DOWN!! I CAN’T UNDERSTAND YOU!!” Then it was clear as day!” I can’t wake her up. She won’t respond. I don’t know if she is breathing! And there is an empty bottle of Seroquel on the floor next to her.”  I told her to call 911 and I literally walked out of my counseling practice in DFW and got in my car to head for Austin!

Life was never the same once the first doctor prescribed her the antidepressant. That made her foggy-headed and unable to concentrate, so then came the ADHD med which was amphetamine-based. After taking that for a while she was wired! Then the doctor diagnosed her with anxiety so he added in benzodiazepines.  When she was at the place of normal postpartum depression they diagnosed her with bipolar disorder which added in mood stabilizers and anti-psychotics to the mix.  The more I began to research the side effects it was frightening how many of the meds had suicidality as a side effect of the medication!  

Shortly after Laura was discharged from the hospital she moved back home. After the suicide attempt we were all terrified. So we requested she keep seeing her psychiatrist so he could monitor her better and keep her safe. Oh how I wish I knew then what I know now….. I now know that I was basically sending a lamb to the slaughter. But I truly thought I was doing everything I could do to help my daughter.

So within a year of her returning home, her life had degenerated to such a place we were filing for disability since she was completely unable to work. Her fear of being around people had gone far beyond a normal “phobia”—she was paralyzed by the fear and now a prisoner in her own home. She was afraid to drive places and would have panic attacks multiple times a day. We would help her set appointments for counseling sessions, but many of the meds had her sleeping schedules so off-kiltered that she was either a walking zombie or could not wake up with any level of functionality at all and she would miss the appointments.

Soon we began hearing her tell how she was afraid because she was meeting people who knew her but she had no idea who they were. She would lose days of time. She could not remember what day of the week it was, or even what month it was. She would suddenly become alert and find herself in places she did not know how she got there.

And that is when she was diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder. As a therapist, I know a little about this condition. It is typically trauma-based and is a coping mechanism for the person to be able to process the trauma on their own terms. So the psyche splinters into multiple personalities in order to process. That is when Laura introduced us to Amy, Ashley, Amber, Sophie, and “The Other”. 

Amy is the fierce gatekeeper and protector of Laura—the others fall in line with Amy’s orders. Each is a part of Laura—just different expressions of how she can handle the trauma of all that has transpired from the original trauma at age 10 to the psychiatric trauma of the meds and side effects today at age 20. 

And if that was not enough for her to deal with, in February of this year Laura's fiance had decided to take advantage of a time when Laura was depressed and wanting to cut again. Instead of helping her get some professional help, he waited until she was passed out on her medications and took an exact o-knife to her legs and cut into the flesh of her legs up to 18 and 20 inch vertical incisions -- multiple incisions-- that, in the end would need stitches, but due to the amount of blood loss he became too afraid to call for an ambulance. She never got stitches. She drifted in and out of consciousness and woke to her roommate trying to help clean the blood off her.  The friend was also too afraid to get Laura medical attention and she almost bled-out from severe blood loss.  The roommate attempted to hold the flesh of Laura’s legs together with butterfly tape. The tape snapped and would not hold the flesh together. She needed stitches but her friends were too afraid to call for help for fear the fiance would go to jail. As we look in retrospect, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. She had a complete breakdown and went to the hospital, one more time, for suicidal ideations and depression. It was in that hospital stay where she found the courage to end the relationship and file assault charges on the ex-fiance.

I am just a mom that has resurrected that mother-bear instinct as I have heard my daughter call us for help. When she cries, she tells me, “My brain just doesn’t work right”.  And I cry too—because she is absolutely right. Her brain us under chemical assault and it is largely my fault. I trusted psychiatry. I trusted the doctors. I had no idea the doctors had a bottom-line affair with Big Pharma and they were strange bed-fellows. At no time was my daughter a consideration in that sorted relationship. Every time she reported a side effect they warn you about in the packaging instruction, the doctor only upped the dose or added one more med to the mix.  I am now a mom on a mission. It is time to SAVE LAURA! I am armed with hours of prayer, hours of research and a providential GOD who is guiding me to doctors who are able to help remedy the chemical poison that is holding her hostage. My God is able! I WILL see her FREE by the power of God through Jesus Christ.  Every now and then I see glimpses of my Laura in there…. And she is literally having moments of clarity where she sees us, and with tears running down her cheek, she simply begs , “HELP ME!”

If you know and love our family, please pray! We are on a journey to wholeness and wellness for our Laura Ashley!!