EVERYONE AGREES THAT TREATING CHILDREN EARLY ON FOR MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES IS CRUCIAL, BUT BARRIERS TO DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT CAN MAKE THAT DIFFICULT.
When Stephanie Elliot’s son was in the sixth grade, she noticed a concerning change in his demeanor.
He’d recently been put on a new medication for epilepsy that seemed to be working, but the side effects included his sudden morphing into a sullen, fearful boy who asked questions like, “Why am I even alive?”
One night, genuinely afraid that she was losing her son, Elliot called her local emergency room. They advised her to not let him sleep alone and to bring him in first thing the next morning.
She slept in his bed that night, then drove him to the local children’s hospital the next day. From there, she had to wait three days for insurance approval to transfer him to a psychiatric hospital.
They also had to wait for a bed to open up at that hospital — where he would spend another week under round-the-clock care, being weaned off his meds and kept safe.
Their ordeal didn’t end there, though.
After recently writing about her experience for The Fix, Elliot told Healthline, “He didn’t get better immediately. I would say it took about a year for him to level out and show signs of the kid he used to be.”
“He was treated quickly and appropriately,” she added.
And it was that fast action to get him the help he needed that she credits with how she eventually got the son she knew back.
Published by: Healthline
