I have put off writing this blog post for over six months. I have felt in my heart for a while that I had to write it, which was confirmed to me by several important people in my life. And for some reason, I didn’t want to blog about anything else until I got this out. Hence why I haven’t blogged in six months. I’m doing it because it might help people. Maybe many. Even if it helps one person, one child, I’ll be glad I did this.

It’s taken both Kira and I a bit of work to come to the place where we can share this story. It’s important to her, it’s important to all four of us. If you disagree or take issue with anything I write, or if after reading you judge us in any way that is less than loving or helpful, please do me a favour and keep that information to yourself. We don’t need to hear it right now, or ever. And feel free to unfriend and unfollow me on social media. You’ll be doing us a favour, actually, because we don’t need people in our lives who are unsupportive and not understanding.

On September 1 of the year 2020, the worst year on record for millions of people around the world, our little family was irrevocably changed. It was the single worst day of my life.  On that day, I looked all around me and my family was in pieces.

We are a normal family. Dave and I are involved parents, we are present for our kids. We do a lot of things together. We share many interests with them. We bought a trailer years ago so we could take them camping, and then we went camping every other weekend from April to October for four years. We bought a cottage in Ontario so our kids could have spiritual camp experiences like we had when we were young. Dave does Karate and plays airsoft with Max. Kira and I craft together, read the same books, watch the same shows, and then have long, deep discussions about what we’ve seen or read. She prefers to go shopping with me over her friends. Our kids tell us EVERYTHING, and we are open with them as well. We eat together around the dining table every night and remain at the table for a long time, just talking about our day or some news story – anything, really. We do regular family devotions. We make big Saturday breakfasts and then head out of the house together to explore our city. We play board games. We go to church. Both kids accepted Jesus into their heart at very young ages. When our kids are upset, they tell us. We four have no secrets. We are a normal, healthy family.

And yet, on September 1, Kira attempted to take her own life by taking pills.

The details of that day are burned into my memory. Kira had been struggling for a few weeks already, and Dave and I were aware and trying to help. We were on the phone with Kira’s principal about the situation and the options before us. Kira texted me and told me that she’d taken a bottle of pills. She later told us that after swallowing the bottle of pills, it suddenly hit her what she’d done. Her mind flew to Dave and I and she felt sad at the thought of us finding her dead body. Her text just floated in front of my eyes, like it wasn’t real. I feel like I flew from the living room to her room downstairs in a single bound. When we got to her, she had already called 911. Kira, Dave and I were crying hysterically and I pulled Kira into my arms and just kept asking her “Why?” trying to make sense of what happened. We could hear the 911 dispatcher on the phone, asking for an address. The phone wasn’t on speaker but I heard her loud as day, that’s how loud she was yelling. The ambulance took forever to get to us. Three police cars arrived quickly, and several officers were pacing our driveway and our street on their radios, demanding to know where the ambulance was. Dave stayed on the phone with 911 and begged them to hurry. The dispatcher had entered the wrong address. They wasted time banging on someone else’s door. One officer stayed with Kira and I as the pills started to take effect. Kira grew cold and lethargic in the 20 mins we waited.

They took her to Alberta Children’s. Mercifully, she hadn’t taken enough pills to do any damage, just enough to make her very sleepy. They didn’t have to pump her stomach. We waited there several hours until the effects of the pills passed as they observed her. A mental health nurse and a psychiatrist assessed her, and decided that she was still in danger of attempting again. So, they admitted her to the teen mental health unit at Foothills Hospital. Unit 23. She stayed there for two weeks. We visited every day for hours at a time, we took her food, presents, books, stayed entire days on the weekend, basically as much as we possibly could. But she stayed there for two weeks. Someone else woke my daughter up, put her to bed, fed her and taught her, comforted her when she cried and held her while she sweated and shivered through her bed sheets while her body withdrew from the overdose. We had no idea how long she’d be there. Some of those kids had been there for months, and I was so worried she’d have to stay that long too. Thankfully, they released her after two weeks because they knew she had a stable, good home to return to, and they felt we were doing enough to protect her.

They didn’t cure her. They taught her coping strategies and how to retrain her mind when faced with a stressful person or situation. They put her on new medication and vitamins and carefully monitored her, adjusting the levels as they went. They taught Dave and I how to recognize warning signs in her and how to react to her when she was feeling sad.

It’s been more than six months since that horrible day. Kira sees a therapist twice a week and is still on medication. Outwardly, to Dave and I, she seems more even, but if you ask her, she still says she feels sad. She still says she sometimes wishes the pills had worked. As a mom, that breaks my heart. I don’t know what to do with that.

I won’t go into the details of why she did it, because the people involved might read this and get hurt. They hurt Kira at the time, yes, but there is forgiveness and reparation happening now and I want that to continue. To make a long story short, certain people in her life told she was worthless so many times that she eventually believed them. She was truthful and she was called a liar. She worked tirelessly to change things but nothing changed, which gave rise to a feeling of hopelessness about the situation that soon bled into feelings about her life in general. Dave and I knew what was happening. We were working around the clock to help her, talking to the right people, demanding help and answers but we didn’t know how deeply it was piercing her mind and soul. Things moved too fast that afternoon and took a turn when we happened to turn our attention elsewhere.

Kira says the choice to take the pills was a split-second decision that she executed quickly without much further thought. In a study of hospital patients that had attempted suicide, nearly half reported that the period between the first current thought of suicide and the actual attempt had lasted 10 minutes or less. That’s not much thought given to a decision that could end your life and change so many others.

I know some people will wonder why I’m sharing this. My good friend Briana, from church, told me she was proud of me for talking about it. She said that issues like this need to be brought into the light. In the light, they have less power. It’s in the darkness that they grow and fester. That’s one reason.

Another reason is, we need your prayers. Kira has a long road of healing ahead of her.

But the main reason is, I think sharing this story could help someone. I feel strongly in my heart that someone reading this, really needs to read it. The world is facing a mental health crisis and teenagers are the most affected group. We can’t pretend that mental illness just doesn’t happen. It’s important to talk about it. Talking about mental health helps improve our communities by making it more acceptable for those suffering from mental illnesses to seek help, learn to cope, and get on the road to recovery. Just like Meghan Markle did with Oprah, and like Prince Harry has done all his adult life. Just like my friend Dolly did last month when she undertook a 35-lap walk to honor her mother who suffered from depression and committed suicide 35 years ago. It’s no longer ok to sweep these things under the rug and not talk about it. That’s what we used to do, but we can’t anymore. And I don’t want Kira to suffer or recuperate in silence. I don’t want to show her I am ashamed and embarrassed about what she did. I want her to get the help she needs so she can get better. I want other kids and women and adults who are suffering in silence to read out story and know they can seek help before it’s too late.

I want to do my part, however insignificant it may be in the grand scheme of things, to end the stigma about mental illness and seeking therapy. I wrote about this in a previous blog post. Kira has suffered from anxiety since she was three years old. Knowing this, I struggled the depression diagnosis that her therapist had shared with us a few years ago. I’ve been treated for depression, post-partum and otherwise, myself. I was told by well meaning Christians that depression is a sin. That all I had to do was pray and God would heal me. I believed that for a long time. (Please – no Christian bashing!) But then my Pastor’s wife asked me: if you had cancer, wouldn’t you go to the doctor and take medication? If you had any other disease, wouldn’t you seek help? Depression is a disease, just like cancer. It’s a chemical imbalance in the brain. It’s not a result of bad parenting or bad upbringing. It’s not a choice or a phase that kids will outgrow. And unfortunately, it’s not something you can pray away. Certainly, God can heal someone from depression, just like He can heal someone with cancer. But He also created scientists who invented pills and doctors who can treat us. It’s disease like any other. End the stigma, end the shame. That’s the main reason I’m writing this. People need to talk about depression, mental illness, thoughts of suicide, etc, so they can get help before it’s too late.

I will share more about depression and mental health in future posts. Thank you to those who didn’t know about September 1, but who reached out to check on me and ask how I was and why I wasn’t blogging. And to those who did know, whether we told you about it or whether you read between the lines of my social media posts, thanks for the love, support and prayers. Please continue pray for our family, and especially for Kira. We need it.

And thank you for reading this super long post, and for your love, support and friendship.

~ m.

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Read Dolly’s story and make a donation to support her USHA Fundraiser for CAMH Suicide Prevention 2021