For Samantha, it sometimes still feels like it did when she was 11 years old with a knot in her stomach, waiting for her mother to come home from a late night of doing drugs. Samantha was at home taking care of her younger brother, while her mother was out doing heroin with strangers.
Samantha, who is 17 and wishes to remain anonymous, grew up in an unstable household filled with drugs, violence, and pain. Yet, as her parents battled their demons, Samantha began to develop demons of her own, without support from her family.
“It was very difficult and just emotionally draining having to deal with everything constantly, I was just fed up,” Samantha said. “Like ‘why can’t I have just a regular life, what did I do wrong?’”
Ever since Samantha can remember, her parents were addicted to drugs, primarily prescription drugs such as Xanax. Samantha says she remembers those late nights when her parents would argue profusely, waking up both her and her younger brother.
When Samantha was six-years-old, she walked in on her mother cheating on her father, leaving a disturbing image in her head.
Eventually, her father soon faded out of the picture and Samantha’s mother retained the custody of both Samantha and her brother.
“I grew up with her and had to endure her behaviors,” Samantha said. “As I got older my mother kept using and it was affecting me negatively. I began to close down and shut down and I just wouldn’t talk to anybody and I wouldn’t let myself feel anything.”
Read more: New Britain School System Develops Programs to Support Mental Health
Brief Happiness, Then Despair
When Samantha turned nine years old, her father returned to their lives. She and her brother would visit her dad on the weekends. Although she did not completely forgive her father for leaving, she found herself happy again because a sense of normalcy was back in her life again.
However, that came to an abrupt halt when her father committed suicide when Samantha was 11.
When Samantha’s father passed away, her mother began using harder drugs such as heroin and crack to cope with the loss. Her mother no longer cared about anything that happened in the house.
Samantha found herself thinking she had no reason to live anymore. Samantha felt worthless because her mother could not stay clean for her and her siblings. Eventually, her mother noticed the dark change of behavior when Samantha was in the sixth grade.
“She then began to send me to a counselor because she was concerned for me at that point,” Samantha said. “After my dad died, it was the sixth grade, I went to the school counselor and I was like ‘sometimes I just don’t want to live anymore.’”
The school’s policy was to inform the parents of a child who is demonstrating suicidal symptoms. However, just as it looked as though Samantha would begin to receive help, another obstacle arose.
Samantha was living with her grandmother at the time, and she says her grandmother told her to say everything was fine, and to forget about what she had said about not wanting to live. Samantha’s mother encouraged her to continue her sessions with the counselor. But once the counselor began telling Samantha’s mother everything that was said after the sessions, it caused Samantha to shut down.
While Samantha continued to battle her mental demons, she began to harm herself physically by cutting her inner thighs. When Samantha was in the seventh grade, her mother caught her doing this. She says she did it to feel something because she was tired of feeling numb.
After leaving counseling in middle school, Samantha’s depression and anxiety became much worse.
A Turn to Drugs, Alcohol
“As I got older, I kind of spiraled back into like depression and anxiety and just always being nervous like, ‘oh what is my mom going to do next?’ and things like that,” Samantha said. “And then once I hit high school, I started to rely on substances just trying to make me feel something other than just nothing.”
Samantha began using marijuana and alcohol. At one point she started to mess around with cough medicine. She said she got away with it because her mother was completely involved in her other dangerous habits with her boyfriend.
Her mother and her boyfriend fought a lot at the home, and when they argued, Samantha’s mother would threaten to commit suicide.
“My mom attempted suicide every time they fought because she wanted to bring him back in because she knew he cared too much to just leave her in that state,” Samantha said. “It was actually really disgusting, she would just take a lot of pills and swallowed them all and call him and he immediately comes running back and help her throw them up and whatever,” Samantha said. “I remember one time, it was in one of their final arguments, my mom just actually started physically hitting him and throwing stuff around the house. She was just sick of him, she found out he took money from her,” Samantha said.
As things started getting worse in the home for Samantha, she laid in bed all day and never left her room other than to go school. Eventually, even going to school became a trying task. When Samantha was awake, she remained in her bed and did not speak to anyone. She would pretend to be asleep when people entered her room to avoid communication.
Finally, Some Help
In her sophomore year of high school, her mother was caught using drugs at the home with the man who was then her boyfriend. The Department of Children and Families removed both Samantha and her brother from the home. She was sent to live with her aunt and uncle on her mother’s side in Bristol.
“My aunt noticed quickly that I wasn’t really an outgoing or extroverted person. She thought at first I was just really shy and introverted, but after months of being here, probably in the mid-sophomore year she realized like ‘there is something wrong with her’ and they sent me to counseling,” Samantha said.
It was that counselor at Wheeler Clinic who diagnosed Samantha with anxiety and bipolar disorder, with depression as a side effect of her disorder.
During her sessions, Samantha worked with her therapist to delve into her problems with her mother. As she let her frustrations and bitterness out, she began to resent her mother less and less. Eventually, Samantha wrote a letter to her mom about all the things her mother put her through and how it made her feel.
Every session, Samantha would add a paragraph to the letter. Then at the end, she had to decide whether to give the letter to her mom or to shred it. She shredded it.
During the course of her therapy, Samantha and her mother began to take joint sessions in an effort to repair the relationship. However, Samantha’s mother continued to disappoint her outside of therapy and she eventually cut her out of her life.
Samantha said living in her aunt and uncle’s house finally provided both her and brother with some consistency. They were strict and had rules for them to follow, but she says it was exactly what she needed to have stability back in her life.
Her therapy sessions were going well as she continued to address all her problems. However, at the end of sophomore year, her therapist went on to do private studies outside of Connecticut, leaving Samantha without a therapist for her whole junior year.
Her guardians did not want to return her back to Wheeler Clinic because the therapists there were constantly on the move. They wanted dependability in Samantha’s life.
An Ongoing Process
In her senior year, Samantha returned to therapy at a clinic located in Bristol. Her therapist, Megan, treats Samantha once every two weeks, with a focus on helping her boost her self-esteem. Megan says her number one priority is building a strong relationship with Samantha and her patients, along with providing them with the proper care.
Samantha is in a better place now and has learned how to cope. And she still has to attend to her mental health. Due to her experience with her mother, who abused prescription drugs, Samantha has opted not to take medication. Instead, she writes everything down in her journal, as Megan has suggested.
“Writing just feels good to get everything out. I feel like I don’t have other people in my life that I can talk to about myself, and my problems and my family other than myself,” Samantha said. “In a paper, I can just write it down and it just there and it is good to have it out.”
She believes that teenagers should take advantage of the resources out there and not be afraid to be vulnerable to their issues. She says mental health is not a game and seeking help should not be shameful.
Samantha says the fear of what others think should not get in the way of seeking help.
“Seek help. I think that’s really important,” Samantha said. “I know a lot of people are turned off by therapy because they think ‘oh, my therapist will just run back to my parents and tell them everything,’ but, I can guarantee you, especially if you are not eleven years old, your therapist will most likely than not keep everything between you guys. Talk to friends, not only family but anybody you trust.”