More at Stake - Treating Mental Illness with Food

I last blogged here over one year ago. When I checked in today, I was tempted to remove that past post where I was motivating myself to get fit in the year I had until my 40th birthday.  That year DID pass and I didn't make any progress in my health.  It's easy to be discouraged when I see my tendency to dream big, then do nothing.

This time, though, I come to this blog with a new reason to "Run Toward Freedom."  After a year in and out of psychiatric hospitals, receiving varying diagnosis, and taking more medication than we like to think about, we are finally looking at changing our family's diet in order to treat not only our child, but the entire family.

Last year, I shared three posts in my other blog about our daughter's depression.  I'm moving that thread over here to keep a record of changes we make and changes we see in our child and ourselves.

To give readers a very short version of where we are now regarding our child's diagnosis and treatment:

• she's had 5 hospitalizations over the past 12 months, all of which she went willingly
• her last stay ended last week
• over the past year, she has been treated for depressive disorder, anxiety, and mood disorder
• she has a new diagnosis of "bipolar, not otherwise specified," but they assume type 2
• if this new diagnosis is correct, it means that her medication over the past year was doing more harm than good
• she tried and quit about 4 or 5 different medications: anti-depressants, anti-anxiety and anti-phychotic
• from a young age, this child has not responded well to and/or responded very negatively to many medications (as evidenced with previous allergy and asthma medication)
• in addition to medical treatment and hospitalizations, she sees 2 therapists weekly, one of whom does EMDR therapy

One more key piece of information: Over the past 12 months, we've felt "stuck" with our psychiatrist due to insurance constraints. This was our first time to ever have a psychiatrist, so we were learning as we went along.  Our teen's doctor was impossible to reach outside of our scheduled appointments. She didn't seem to really listen to what we were needing and even disregarded our teen's therapist, who called and shared some concerns. As of Friday, we've dumped that doctor and have hired a private practice psychiatrist who is giving us some much-needed new hope.  I would encourage any person or parent going through this to do whatever you must to find a psychiatrist who you can feel is on your team, who is reachable, and who is working toward your same goal.

To say we've felt hopeless over the past year is an understatement.  We've felt like the pain of this mental illness will never go away.  We've lived in a state of frequent (sometimes constant) stress of walking on eggshells, wondering when the next episode is going to hit.  Our teen feels so tired of the war going on in her brain, she has often felt like death is the only way out.  It's heart-wrenching for us as her family to witness.  It also wears us down and wears us out at times.

Over the past few weeks, I've talked to a number of friends about what our child is going through. Repeatedly, what keeps getting brought up are these words:
gut health
clean diet
removing toxins
vigorous exercise

One person shared with us his own experience treating his bipolar with diet, another shared her experiences fighting stage IIIC cancer with diet over the past 3 years.  Other friends have shared how drastically changing their diet improved their life in a major way.  I can't ignore the obvious sign. I feel as if God is using these people to make clear a path for us.

We have a lot of reading and research to do for now.  I'll do my best to keep up this blog with the changes we are making and changes we see and don't see. These changes won't be easy, but, more than ever, this isn't just about weight, body image, or being able to run a 10K in under an hour. It's about saving our child's life.