Ketamine Insights

We Were Never Able to Find the Right Thing: A Mother's Story

• Season 2 • Episode 13

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Molly interviews Adena, the mother of a severely depressed young man. Trigger Warning: Suicide, Severe Depression

Depression, like most serious illnesses, is best treated within a community of care including friends, therapists, artists, physicians and loved ones. Together Adena and I discuss what that community of care could look like, and the difficulties she faced finding support for herself and her son Jordan. 

Adena emphasizes the importance of habit and routine for depressed young people, as well as finding community and discouraging isolation. She also recommends cultivating things that can bring meaning. Whether it's a class, a job or a pet, this can do a lot to combat hopelessness.

I hope this discussion will help to validate the struggles of friends, family members, and especially the caretakers of mentally ill people like me.

Take a moment to listen to the music of Adena's son Jordan Brooks. It can be found at jordanbrooksmusic.com, and on all the streaming services.

If you enjoy Ketamine Insights, please share it with a friend and rate and review it on your favorite podcast platform. That really helps!

Further Reading:
Body Dysmorphic Disorder can be found here and here
Dialectical Behavior Therapy can be found here and here
An article on the costs of Special Education is here

Support us and join our community at https://www.patreon.com/ketamineinsights or at https://mollydunn.substack.com/ 

Email us at ketamineinsights@gmail.com (We love to hear from you!)

Our Instagram is @ketamineinsights

You can also find all of our episodes on YouTube and on our website https://ketamineinsights.com/ 

If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis, please get help. In the US, you can dial 988. You are never all alone.

Remember to advocate for yourself, and never ration your joy.

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[00:00:00] Theme Song: She's sometimes sad, she's sometimes happy. She's doing things to make her life less crappy. Trying a treatment that's new on the scene. Let's sit back and talk about Ketamine.

[00:00:19] Molly: Hello, this is Ketamine Insights, a podcast about mental health and psychedelic medicine. We're made by and for people with mental illness, so we're not trained experts. We're patients, caretakers, and allies helping others navigate the difficulties of depression and other mental health challenges. Thanks for being here.

[00:00:41] If you're new to Ketamine Insights, I recommend starting with our first episodes from 2022, especially if you're interested in ketamine in particular. Those first episodes are chock full of information about the confusing world of therapeutic ketamine. I make this podcast by myself from my house. To support my work, please subscribe via Substack or Patreon.

[00:01:05] You can find those links in the show notes and at ketamineinsights. com. Today we have a wonderful interview to share with you. You'll hear us use two acronyms. ECT is electroconvulsive therapy and TMS stands for transcranial magnetic stimulation. Both are non chemical treatments used for depression and other serious mental illnesses.

[00:01:29] You can learn more about each of them in episode three. Okay, let's get into it. Many of our listeners have depression, but we also have a lot of listeners who are caretakers and loved ones and family members, friends of seriously depressed people, and that's a struggle of its own. While I always advocate for patient centered care, it's also important to keep in mind that watching someone struggle with mental illness can be heartbreaking.


[00:01:58] Figuring out how to help them can feel impossible. Today, we're going to focus on one mom's experience. Adena, thank you so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate you for being with us today. Adena is a published public health research with the Veterans Affairs Administration. She's an essayist, a feminist, a breast cancer survivor, and the mother of son Jordan.


[00:02:22] So thank you so much for being here today, Adena. I was hoping first you could tell us a little bit more about yourself. 


[00:02:28] Adena: Sure. So I, I live in the Boston area. I've lived here most of my life. I've lived in a few other places, but mainly in Boston. I work as a public health researcher and currently I work at the VA in what's called health services research.


[00:02:45] But I've worked at many different places. I've worked at universities and hospitals and public health research centers. I've done this work for over 20 years and prior to this I worked in health education and then I was doing things like teaching sex ed to kids and coordinating a family planning training program.


[00:03:05] So I've done a lot of interesting things. Um, I'm married to my husband, Arnie, and we've been together for over 30 years. Um, we met at a Jewish group that we were both members of. Judaism is a strong force in our family. My dad was actually a Hebrew school principal and I really spent a lot of time as a kid around the synagogue.


[00:03:30] And I'm also a creative writer and that's how I met you. Right. 


[00:03:36] Molly: In our writing class, which has been a lot of fun. So any, but, but a different topic than what we're going to talk about today. Right. I actually, I guess not too much because we're writing about the things that, um, have affected us through the years.


[00:03:48] And so that does definitely. touch on these topics. So, can you say a little bit about why you chose to come on this show? 


[00:03:56] Adena: Sure. So, my son Jordan struggled with mental health issues for a long time, for about 10 years, and unfortunately, he decided to take his own life, and that was two years ago. I know that other parents are out there struggling with their own young people who are having mental health issues, and I wanted to come on the show to talk about how difficult it is to find support for you as a parent and also to find help for your young adult child.


[00:04:30] So I, I thought this was a great opportunity to really talk about some of the problems. for that. 


[00:04:41] Molly: I think that's so important and a big part of what we're trying to do on this show. So I appreciate you coming on to do that. Can you tell us a little bit about your son, Jordan? What kind of person was he?


[00:04:52] Adena: Sure. I, he was a complicated person. He was very, very sensitive. Um, he had a great sense of humor. He was very musical, and he loved music even from the time he was just a baby. And he took violin lessons when he was about 7 or 8, but then he became a big sports guy, and he was playing soccer and baseball and basketball.


[00:05:18] You know, all during kind of those elementary years and into the teens, he started playing guitar when he was about 15 and he instantly loved it and really was good at it right from the beginning. And he started guitar lessons and voice lessons. And by his late teens, he was totally serious about music.


[00:05:39] And during COVID, it was really interesting. A group of musicians started meeting together on Zoom. And this was actually a really good period for Jordan. He started writing his own music during this time and hanging out with all these other musicians on zoom. He eventually started producing his own music, which is all done with software on the computer.


[00:06:01] And. You know, he went through good periods and bad periods, but ultimately things really got bad. And in 2022, and then at the beginning of 2023, he was very hopeless that he would ever get any better. And he decided to take his life. 


[00:06:20] Molly: I'm sorry for your loss. Thank you. I guess this is a big question, but I'm I'm wondering if you can describe what it was like to be the parent of a seriously depressed child and then an adult.


[00:06:33] Like from the parent's perspective, what was that like? 


[00:06:36] Adena: Well, you know, he really didn't start showing signs of depression till about 14. So he was actually a happy child. He wasn't the easiest child, but he was a pretty happy child. But at 14, I can almost pinpoint it exactly. We were on a trip and he was very focused on his nose.


[00:06:57] And like every, you know, every mirror, every window, you know, he was just focusing on his nose to, you know, an extent that was really worrisome. And now I realize that this was the start of something he had called BDD, which is body dysmorphic disorder. But at the time, I didn't know that's what it was. And I think he also had OCD.


[00:07:22] obsessive compulsive disorder too. And the two are kind of related, but BDD, BDD is like a subset of OCD. Cause what you're obsessing about is something on your body. It could be, you know, something in your skin or your hair or your muscles, or, you know, any part of your body. Um, but it's something that you just can't stop thinking about.


[00:07:48] It becomes, um, And so this was one of the things he was dealing with. He dealt with a lot of different issues, but, and it's very hard to treat BDD and OCD. Both of those are really hard to treat. The other thing I wanted to say is that it's somewhat ironic because I was also a depressed teen and young adult.


[00:08:10] And although my depression was different than Jordan's, it wasn't as severe, and it wasn't as debilitating. I was able to function, you know, I could go to school, I went to college, but I did have kind of this low level depression. But no one really knew what to do about it. When I was growing up in the 70s, No one really talked about depression.


[00:08:32] It, you know, it was, it was just not a thing. It was not understood. And so I really didn't get the help I needed till my early thirties. And I've been on a low dose of medication since then, and that's really helped me. Um, so it was kind of ironic to me that, you know, he started having these symptoms. And even knowing what I knew, I couldn't really, um, figure out how to help them.


[00:08:59] Molly: That's one of the things that I wanted to touch on as well was like, I know one of my main challenges has always been accessing the care that's available and even accessing the information that's out there is really difficult. Did you guys have trouble accessing that care? 


[00:09:16] Adena: So the issue wasn't finding therapists.


[00:09:21] There's probably a million therapists in Massachusetts where we live. I mean, the problem is finding the right therapist. And one point I wanted to make is that for a young person, I mean, think about it. You're, you're telling a stranger your most personal issues, and then there's a chance you might not like them, and it might not be a good fit, and then you have to meet another person and talk to them.


[00:09:48] And, you know, for an adult, that's hard, but for a young person, it's really hard. And so, There's no way you're going to have your kid shopping around for a therapist the way you might as an adult. So you kind of find someone, you try it with them, you hope it's going to work, and you know, it's, it's really such a non scientific way of dealing with it.


[00:10:14] You know, so somebody recommended someone. So he saw that person for a while. Then I realized things weren't getting better. So we moved on to someone else. That wasn't working out. We moved on, you know, so there was a whole string of different therapists. 


[00:10:31] Molly: Mhm. And then I know he also tried sort of the gamut of other treatments.


[00:10:37] I think a lot of people don't even realize that so many other treatments are out there besides therapy and prescription medications. How did you? I guess you have a background in public health, so maybe, maybe you were aware already of what was available. How did, how did you kind of end up navigating that, that maze?


[00:10:58] Adena: Yeah. I mean, yeah, so first it was therapy and then we started seeing a psychiatrist. to start some medications. And, you know, I think they did help some, but they didn't help completely. Um, so then we started looking for different things. I, I'm not exactly sure how I started hearing about the other things, but we definitely tried, we tried TMS, we tried ECT, we tried ketamine.


[00:11:26] Some of Jordan, one of Jordan's therapists did EMDR. So, it was really the whole gamut, we saw people from the Department of Mental Health, we saw school counselors, teachers who specialized in special needs, we went to special programs for anxiety, for BDD. I think a big part of the problem is that each program is kind of, you know, siloed, as we say in public health.


[00:11:52] They don't talk to each other. So, one person has all this information about the patient, but then they don't communicate that to the new program. So you're kind of starting from zero. And that's also kind of humiliating to a young person to have to go through that over and over again. And, and also for a young person who's struggling every day, having therapy once a week is not enough.


[00:12:16] They need something every day. Um, For example, another example is Jordan was in this anxiety program. They were doing desensitization. So they were having the kids go into like stores and ask for strange things. But that wasn't his problem. He could go in stores and ask for silly things. His problem was he was having a lot of anxiety about school.


[00:12:43] And so, It, they weren't focusing enough on that particular thing. So even when you're in a program playing paying a lot of money, spending a lot of time going in this program, they're not necessarily doing the thing that you really need. 


[00:13:01] Molly: Yeah. I think there's such a lack of individual, like you can go to an individual therapist and get that individualized care.


[00:13:09] But then as soon as you end up in a like partial hospitalization program or what is it, IOP and PHP, the, um, Intensive outpatient programs. I found the same thing, that they're very unpersonal. I went to one, I can't remember how long I was in there before they even took my history at all. It was days and days and days and days and I was like, I'm sitting here in these groups.


[00:13:36] And you're giving me new prescriptions to take, but you haven't even taken my history. And it felt very, very like they're just checking the boxes and it's, and it's kind of the same thing for everybody who comes through the door. 


[00:13:49] Adena: Yeah. That's, that is really weird. Yeah. Jordan did. He did a couple of partial hospitalization programs, you know, I, I think there was one that actually seemed to work and I think it's because he connected with some of the other patients.


[00:14:05] And so that. I think in and of itself, just that there was like this little community of people that kind of liked each other that helped. And a big issue for Jordan was that the depression made him very isolated. And, and so anytime that something happened where he was able to be in a group with other people, that was a positive thing.


[00:14:30] So, you know, the programs where he actually connected with the other patients, that sometimes, Was healing in it, in it and of itself. And actually one of the programs he was in, it was actually like a week long hospitalization program. They all exchanged numbers and they had like this group text and it, you know, it went on for a long time.


[00:14:53] And, you know, that was for better or for worse, they were keeping in touch with each other. And, you know, it was, I found that very interesting. 


[00:15:04] Molly: As you talk about the different, you know, the TMS, transcranial magnetic stimulation and ECT, electroconvulsive therapy, it makes me think about how difficult it can be to keep the momentum of treatment going, especially as you're trying different things and the physicians often aren't talking to each other and you have to give your history over and over again.


[00:15:24] And that can be exhausting. And especially as somebody becomes a patient. The person now who, as, as an adult, the person who has to sort of navigate the system is the person who's depressed and doesn't have the wherewithal. I speak from my own experience, just trying to navigate that system when you don't have a lot of hope and you don't have a lot of wherewithal is so difficult.


[00:15:47] And that transition from, Teenager to grown adult is probably really hard from a parent's. I mean, I know I'm sure it's hard for every parent to know how much to let go and when, but especially when someone is suffering with a, with a really serious mental illness. 


[00:16:06] Adena: Yeah. Uh, that, that was another point, uh, uh, that I really wanted to make is that the whole issue of, you know, when they turn 18, they're supposed to be making their own decisions about.


[00:16:20] medical stuff. And so mental health falls into that. But if you're mentally ill, you can't make good decisions. And, you know, if you're depressed or it's really this weird balancing act because If they can make a decision, you want them to make a decision and be independent. But sometimes they're so, you know, debilitated by the depression that they really can't make a decision.


[00:16:45] So you're really in between a rock and a hard place. It was, it was terrible. I'll never forget one example. Things got really bad one summer, and I really thought Jordan had slipped into psychosis, like he was really acting strangely. And I tried calling a number of programs that dealt with psychosis, and they wanted him to contact them.


[00:17:09] I'm like, my kid is psychotic. How, how can you expect him to, you know, it was just, it was insane. And they would not. You know, do anything without him somehow giving consent or being. So it was, I was so frustrated. It was, it was just impossible. 


[00:17:30] Molly: That's, that's so rough. And then that might change six months from now.


[00:17:33] He might be able to have those conversations, but he might not need that treatment anymore. And so how do you. Right. It's, 


[00:17:43] Adena: it's, when you have a young adult, you want them to be as independent as possible. And when he could be independent, I, you know, I let him be independent. I mean, he took that independence, but when When he couldn't, and you're really in an impossible situation as a parent, because you see your kid needs help, they can't access the help themselves.


[00:18:11] You're, you know, you try to arrange things, you set up appointments, you call programs, whatever. And, you know, and some of them do understand that. The young person isn't able to do it themselves and they accept them in but some of them don't so it really varies from program to program, but it's, it's a very uncomfortable place to be.


[00:18:34] And so Jordan was, he was already in his 20s, by the time things got really bad so he was, you know, legally he was supposed to be making his own decisions but a lot of times he wasn't able to.


[00:18:49] Molly: And in those Sort of situations, I guess in most situations with mental illness, I feel like healing often requires a full community, a village, you know, that might include medical support, friends, family, therapists, even artists, wraparound services provided by social workers, all those parts come into it.


[00:19:13] And I guess I have two questions for you on that side, which is like, what resources like that, what community resources did come through for you? And did you find that there were some where those resources either didn't exist or didn't accept or didn't, you know, didn't step up to the challenge at the time?


[00:19:31] Adena: It's really hard to put it all together. Like I said, I feel like there's a lot of silos, like you have your therapist, and you have your psychiatrist, and then, you know, there's a program perhaps, or and then there's school, uh, that might have some kind of a special program. Um, it never, we were never able to find the right thing.


[00:19:54] I mean, that's kind of my bottom line. I think probably what he needed is called a therapeutic school. And after we had tried a lot of different school programs that didn't seem to work, we tried to get the school to agree to send him to this therapeutic school, and where, where they really have emotional support like all day long, in addition to academics.


[00:20:22] But the school, they're very expensive, and so the school district doesn't want to pay for them. I mean, I understand that, but we had to hire a lawyer. To go with into, with us into the IEP meeting to try to convince them that this is what Jordan needed and they wouldn't, they wouldn't do it. 


[00:20:43] Molly: Wow. 


[00:20:44] Adena: So Jordan left school after 11th grade because it just wasn't working anymore.


[00:20:52] Um, and that wasn't a terrible decision. He actually started working for a while and that was not bad. and he he got his GED. So that was, you know, that was okay, but it was very frustrating that the school wouldn't agree to send him to a therapeutic program, which by that point he really needed. 


[00:21:13] Molly: Yeah. And you feel like you're banging your head against the wall at that point.


[00:21:17] Like how, when you finally find the thing that you think is needed and you can't actually get it, that it must be infuriating. 


[00:21:27] Adena: Yeah. And I understand. I mean, There was just a huge article in the Boston Globe about how, you know, these school districts are paying for these special, you know, so many kids have so many different needs nowadays.


[00:21:41] You know, learning needs, emotional needs, and you can't send every kid to a special school, but clearly Jordan was not able to function in the high school. And, you know, at this point it was high school, it was just, he was just too anxious and yeah, they wouldn't go for it. So that was. That was really frustrating, among many other frustrating things.


[00:22:10] Yeah, 


[00:22:10] Molly: yeah. You mentioned, since we talk about ketamine so much on this show, I wanted to touch base about ketamine in particular. You mentioned that he did try it, but it sounded like he didn't find it too helpful. Was that the case? 


[00:22:23] Adena: Yeah, I mean, one problem is Jordan tried a lot of things and probably didn't stick with them for long enough.


[00:22:30] He was going through a particularly rough period at one point and I suggested that we try ketamine. And we went to kind of this freestanding clinic. It is a little weird going to these little freestanding, you know, you're, it's in this building and it's these people, you know, it's just very weird. I don't know if you experienced it that way too.


[00:22:50] Oh, 


[00:22:51] Molly: my. But no, it definitely does seem strange to have a psychedelic experience and then go up to a counter afterwards and take out your credit card. 


[00:23:03] Adena: It just felt almost shady, you know, I mean, I know it was legal, but it felt really weird to me. It was just in this nondescript office building, you know, and he was really struggling at that point.


[00:23:15] And he did, you know, go through the experience, but he didn't like the way it made him feel. He felt. He didn't get relief from it. It, it kind of made things worse. So, and it was very expensive. So, you know, I didn't, I didn't encourage him to do it again. I mean, he didn't want to do it again. And he also at one point wanted to try ECT and that's a pretty serious thing.


[00:23:44] And we went to McLean, which is a big psychiatric hospital in the Boston area. He tried that again, he tried it once. And. He really, you know, had a lot of side effects afterwards, he didn't feel good, and I couldn't You know, he was supposed to go back and he, he just did not want to go back. The one thing he did do that he did stick with was TMS.


[00:24:08] And summer he did TMS and I think it's like six weeks or something. I can't remember. Right. It's a lot. It's every day. So he drove himself. It was located a couple of times over. He drove himself or I would drive with him and do it. And the person who was running the program was a nice person. You know, it was, it was a pretty.


[00:24:28] present experience, but I don't think he ever felt any relief from that, really. And one thing I have, one thing I wanted to mention that I'm very angry about is DBT. Do you know what DBT is? Oh yeah, what is it? Dialectical behavioral therapy. A lot of people were saying DBT is something that he should try.


[00:24:50] And he took classes and he did programs. And DBT is, it's very complicated. It's like, if you're feeling this way, you do this thing. And if you, you know, if you're, if you're feeling overwhelmed, you dunk your face in cold water. And there's this opposite action. If you're feeling like you don't want to do something, you do it anyway.


[00:25:11] So there, I mean. It's fine. It was not going to work for him. It was too complicated. It was too involved. And I don't know, for some reason people are always talking about DBT and it was just not going to work. 


[00:25:31] Molly: That's, it's funny you bring that up actually. I don't think we've ever talked about DBT on this podcast, but I actually had a very similar experience where.


[00:25:42] It was recommended to me, but it, like you said, proper DBT is actually very intensive. And there's usually a whole class and there's this huge book and the woman who wrote the book I think went through electroconvulsive therapy herself. And so she is seen as this patient advocate who wrote this stuff from her own experience.


[00:26:05] And I remember bringing up some, some parts of the training. I didn't agree with them. Like I strongly disagreed. They kept saying we'll give you a reason to live. Like if you do these things, you'll have a reason to live. And I was like, I actually already have a reason to live. Like, wow. How are you taking that from me before we're even getting started?


[00:26:25] Assuming that I don't have that, like I don't have much. 


[00:26:29] Adena: And I 


[00:26:29] Molly: felt very strange about the language they would use. And when I brought it up to the, practitioners, they always told me back, well, you know, she went through it too, as if that was the credentials that it took. And I was like, well, so did I though.


[00:26:46] I have been through ECT. I have been through all these treatments that you're talking about. And then it came back to that same thing of like checking the box, putting everyone through the same program. And 


[00:26:55] Adena: it just, it 


[00:26:55] Molly: felt very, It actually felt very unpersonal and I didn't last long. 


[00:27:00] Adena: Yeah. So Jordan at one point tried to go to college.


[00:27:04] It was a college nearby and he, but he was going to try living there in a dorm and it really didn't work out. He had a lot of anxiety and he came back home and then his therapist suggested that we try this kind of an intensive DVT program again at McQueen's. And that you would go to every day. And it was just a lot of this workbook and these, these strategies mm-hmm


[00:27:32] And everyone was like, this is it. This is the best thing. This is the thing that is going to, to, you know, the non medicine thing that's really gonna make a difference. And I just didn't see it. And obviously he didn't see it. Um, so. I don't know. We need better treatments. We just need better treatments. 


[00:27:53] Molly: We do!


[00:27:55] It's funny to me, the thing about needing better treatments is like, DBT has been around for 50 years, but it hasn't been improved. It just hasn't been improved. And because the studies are on the current, um, version of dbt, that's considered the gold standard, but it hasn't really, they haven't done comparison studies to find out if they changed this or change that, would it be better, you know, all the time.


[00:28:22] So it's very, like, like you said, it's kind of an unscientific approach. And there's a lot of, a lot of momentum pushing for these same programs that have been used for generations. And there's, you have to kind of develop a whole new approach if you're going to modify them instead of improving on the ones that you already have.


[00:28:45] Adena: Yeah. You know, I'm a researcher and I do look at the research sometimes. They need to use something standardized to measure. So they'll use like a survey, you know, so say they get this depression survey before the treatment and then after the treatment and see if the numbers have So it's, it's very People are too different.


[00:29:09] I feel like it, you can't just do the same thing. I actually think that the most important thing is the therapeutic relationship with the therapist. And if you have a therapist that really gets you, that could make a huge difference. 


[00:29:25] Molly: Absolutely. 


[00:29:26] Adena: Yeah. 


[00:29:27] Molly: Yeah. And I don't want to trash dbt for the people who it has worked for.


[00:29:32] I'm sure, you know, and great, like different things work for different people and I don't want to discourage people from trying something just because it didn't work for me or didn't work for someone else. But I do want to kind of like give people the. Freedom to say, this doesn't work for me and own that and just move forward with a different treatment if that's what's necessary, because not everything is a match.


[00:29:55] And like you say, the personal relationship between The client or the patient and the therapist does seem to be such a important part of healing and it doesn't matter as much from what I've heard about the research. It doesn't matter as much what approach necessarily the therapist is using. We had an episode about this in season one where we talked about like how to interview a therapist, which as you said, is a lot easier for an adult to do than it is for um, A younger person, it's ethereal, right?


[00:30:28] It's very hard to tell when you'll get along with someone and it might take several meetings and those meetings are exhausting. And so it's hard to start over and yeah, 


[00:30:36] Adena: yeah, it's, it's certainly harder for a teenager or a young adult than for, you know, adults. An adult who hopefully has more of a sense of self.


[00:30:49] I do remember during that last year when things were not going well. Jordan had a therapist he'd been seeing and they had a good relationship but it seemed like he needed more and different things and really focusing on the BDD which was not her area. And so I was calling and trying to find somebody who focused on BDD.


[00:31:12] And he said, You know, periodically I would find someone and they, you know, I would talk to them and then they would want to meet Jordan. And so, you know, he would have a call with them or meeting with them. And it was really hard. It was really hard for him to meet these people and explain to them all his issues and what he was going through.


[00:31:32] You know, he was embarrassed. And it, it was terrible. I mean, that, that spring we probably talked to five different people and it, it was just so hard. I don't even know how to describe it. You know, he would talk to somebody. They would listen. They would kind of say, well, it sounds like this is the issue.


[00:31:55] And, and then he had to decide, did he want to continue with this person? It was just, it was, it was really, really hard. It's 


[00:32:03] Molly: such a vulnerable position to put yourself in and to have to do it over and over again. And then, and you're kind of like waiting for their judgment in a way, even if they're nice about it.


[00:32:18] It's like, you're opening up your chest and saying like, what's wrong with me? And it's such a hard, that's such a hard conversation and to have to repeat it. And sometimes people don't, they're not always the nicest. And even if they are competent, it doesn't, the feeling of having to search for care is just, It's so tiring.


[00:32:39] It's tiring if what you have is not related to your mental health. It'll wear on your mental health if what you have is a broken leg and you have to shop around for doctors. You know what I mean? 


[00:32:50] Adena: Yeah, it's true. But if it's mental health related, it's, it's excruciating. I remember, Jordan, there was a male therapist.


[00:32:59] It's not that often that you find a male therapist. Therapist and it seemed like it was a good fit and Jordan talked to him. I think it was a Zoom meeting and at the end of it, he was just completely devastated. He was like, this guy listened to me and then he repeated back to me all my problems and it just, it completely devastated him to hear that repeated back.


[00:33:28] Um, and it was. You know, what was I going to say, you know, I said, you don't have to see him if it's too uncomfortable. But, you know, so we just kept trying and trying and trying to, to find the right person. And I just keep saying the problem wasn't, there wasn't help. It was finding the right help. And that's what we couldn't find.


[00:33:54] Molly: How, how do you think your son's illness affected the larger sort of family dynamics? 


[00:34:02] Adena: Yeah, I mean, that's a really good question, actually. It does affect your family dynamics. Part of the problem was that Jordan came to me and he really pushed my husband away. And there was a lot of anger towards my husband.


[00:34:21] anger that I, I attribute just to the depression, but it's actually not that unusual a dynamic that they'll focus on one parent over the other. So I had all the attention focused on me, you know, Please help me. Please help me. And then my husband was pushed away. So it was really uncomfortable as a family to have that dynamic.


[00:34:46] Molly: It sounds difficult. I'm sure it's, it's hard to, all of the relationships get strained. 


[00:34:52] Adena: Yeah, it definitely caused a lot of strain and stress. I mean, for me, it was, one of the reasons I'm in the writing program is that I'm writing about how hard it was. I was parenting a child for almost 10 years who was suffering and, you know, it really weighed on me.


[00:35:12] It was very difficult and, but there's a lot of parents out there dealing with this stuff. Um, that was something else I wanted to mention is that there's, uh, There's not a lot of in person support that I found, but there is some online support. I actually have two Facebook groups that I've found very helpful.


[00:35:35] One is there's a Facebook group and it's parents of young adults with mental health problems. It was something that I was invited into. So it's a very private group and, and it's all people dealing with exactly what I was dealing with, you know, young adults who have very severe. chronic mental health issues.


[00:35:55] And it's not that we necessarily came up with good answers, but we at least supported each other. Because in the real world, it's very hard to find support. I mean, people do not want to talk about their kids having problems. Um, everyone's putting on a happy face. And even if you find someone who you can talk about, it's still, it's just not, something that's very open.


[00:36:21] I mean, I have close friends who I could talk about who and knew what was happening, but you know kind of to the wider world, you just don't talk about that the way you would talk about, you know, say if your kid had cancer or your kid had, I don't know, some other. It's just, It's just not really comfortable to talk about it to the, so these online groups were very safe.


[00:36:45] And the other one was after Jordan passed away, I found a group for parents who lost children to suicide. And that's also on Facebook. And that's actually been really helpful. And the reason is, is because Losing a child to suicide is very specific. It's very different from an other loss, and it's very different from losing someone else to suicide, say a partner or a parent.


[00:37:14] But losing a child to suicide is a very specific experience. And this group of parents understands this very specific experience. So, it's actually been very helpful. Because people will just write about what they're dealing with and you can kind of understand and they understand you because of having this really specific experience, so.


[00:37:39] Molly: That makes sense. It's, I was, that was going to be a question that I asked you is about, you know, how do you find community in during these difficult times? And I think. A lot of the time, the community isn't about, you know, tips or things you can do to help the situation. It's really just about the community part.


[00:37:58] It's about having someone understand what you're going through. 


[00:38:01] Adena: Right. Obviously, people do try to offer some advice, but it's, it's very, there's really not that much different. It's like therapy and medication. And then there's different programs that you can try. If things get really bad, you take your kid to the ER.


[00:38:26] If they think that they're a danger to themself, they'll put them, you know, in some kind of a hospital for a few days. Then they come out. Then you start the whole cycle over again. It's really not a great system at all. 


[00:38:41] Molly: No. Was there any Do you have any advice that you did get that you found helpful or is there any advice that you wanted to pass on to parents that are, or loved ones that are facing similar problems?


[00:39:00] I do have some advice. 


[00:39:02] Adena: I, some things that I've learned. If you have a depressed young adult, it's really important for them to have some kind of a routine. Either they go each day to school or they go each day to a job, or they go to a volunteer thing, but sitting at home and sleeping in your bed and not doing anything every day for weeks on end.


[00:39:27] is really bad for people and I kind of wish we had pushed Jordan more to have a routine. Another thing is community. Even when you're depressed and you don't want to be with other people, it's really important to have connections with other people. And I think, um, The isolation really contributes to the depression.


[00:39:54] And, um, I know it's really hard, but somehow, um, it's just really important to connect, uh, depressed young people with other people. And, and that's almost like an oxymoron because when you're depressed, you don't want to be with friends and you know, you don't want to, how are you going to make friends if you're depressed?


[00:40:14] And, and I, and Jordan would. you know, try to get together with his musician friends. And then it was really hard. And he'd come home and he'd say, I just didn't like how I felt. I wasn't being myself because I'm feeling depressed. So like he would try. but it wouldn't, it wouldn't make him feel any better.


[00:40:36] But, but, but having people in your life is really important. And then the other thing is just having something in your life that makes you feel like your life has meaning. It's It's really important to feel like you're doing something meaningful. I, I mean, that goes for everybody, but I, I really think for young people who are struggling with depression, you know, again, you know, is it school or is it a job or volunteering or taking care of a pet or something that they're doing every day that gives them a sense of, you know, this is why I'm here kind of, kind of thing, because what you're really fighting against is this hopelessness.


[00:41:18] Um, And I guess the other thing to say is, um, you know, it wasn't just depression. I mean, Jordan had this suicidal ideation and for years, I mean, and he would even talk about it, you know, and, and that's, everyone doesn't have that. Not everyone has that. So, you know, this was really very deep and, and he, he found that You know, thinking about suicide was actually comforting because it was a way that he could think, oh, this pain could end.


[00:41:54] He was in a lot of emotional pain. So, you know, it's, it's not, it's not, that's not something that everyone has. But I guess the last thing I want to say is just the mental health system. It's just really not good. It's not coordinated. It's not,


[00:42:12] it's, You know, you need a therapist, you need a medication provider, you probably need other things too, you know, depending on the age of your kid. And just putting all the pieces together to get the right care, it, it's, it, it's really quite a struggle.


[00:42:34] Molly: I think the, it sounds like you're describing such a difficult circumstance that that validation that it's incredibly difficult is by itself very helpful. You know, like this is not difficult because you're bad at things. This is difficult because it's difficult. Yeah. 


[00:42:56] Adena: That's a, that's a really good point.


[00:42:58] So I, part of my work, I'm a researcher, but I'm also what's called a project manager. You know, I managed research projects. It's very hard because at work I'm very effective. I can move all these parts around, get things going, move things along, you know what I mean? And it was very frustrating that in my own life I could not figure out how to solve this problem.


[00:43:22] It just, like, fundamentally, I could, I could call a million people, I could send a million emails, I could do all these things, but I could not find a way to solve it. save him. And that is very frustrating, very sad.


[00:43:46] Molly: Well, I want to thank you so much, Adena, for coming on to the show. I really appreciate you. Um, I know it's not an easy conversation to have, and I think it does help so much to try to bring these things out into the light and increase the ability for people to have these conversations. It's such a important thing.


[00:44:06] So thank you so much for, Using this platform. I really appreciate you coming on the show. 


[00:44:12] Adena: Thank you. I really hope it does help somebody cause there's, there's a lot of people struggling out there, a lot of parents struggling with kids and I hope, I hope something I said can help a little bit. 


[00:44:27] Molly: Thank you so much, Adena.


[00:44:28] Adena: You're welcome.


[00:44:32] Molly: Thank you for listening to another episode of Ketamine Insights. I want to share with you that Adena's son, Jordan, was a wonderful musician. You can hear his music at jordanbrooksmusic. com. You'll find that link in our show notes, as well as links to some relevant articles on topics we discussed today, including body dysmorphic disorder and dialectical behavior therapy.


[00:44:57] If you're struggling with mental illness or caring for someone who is, please know that you're not alone. There are a lot of people facing similar challenges and community is healing. I recommend signing up for something, anything. Whether it's a support group, an amateur choir, or a drum class, community helps.


[00:45:18] Eventbrite and Meetup are great places to start. So is the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Find your people. This podcast was hosted and produced by Molly Dunn, and our music is by Solid State Symphony. Until next time, remember to advocate for yourself and never ration your joy.