This Mom is Talking

With a heavy sigh, she began. Her fingertips poised over the keyboard, she began typing and deleting...  typing and deleting. "Nobody wants to read about this," she thought. "Nobody wants to talk about it."

But that's why it keeps happening. Because nobody talks about it. 

Her child had been suffering for a long time. Her teachers dismissed her timid cries for help. Her friends distanced themselves from her drama. Even her therapist gave her simplistic answers and ignored the symptoms of a more serious illness. And her mother, weary of the tears, never knew the magnitude of the pain she was in.

Eventually the pain was more than the child could bear. She cried out so loudly that those around her could not ignore her any longer. It was the bravest thing she had ever done and because she cried loudly enough, her mom took her to the hospital where doctors could take care of her. 

When that child was two, her leg was broken. Her mom took her to the hospital and the doctors took care of her. She came home with a toe-to-hip pink cast. Everyone signed the cast. Everyone said "Awww, poor baby. That must hurt!" 

Now the child is in the hospital and most everyone looks away. They don't know what to say. They promise to keep it hush-hush. 

But we can't keep it hush-hush. If more parents knew that there were so many children in pain and that they are not the only ones, then more parents would listen to their children's cries before it's too late. 

Because they have nowhere else to go, the children in pain find each other. They find each other on Instagram and other internet forums and they post pictures of their pain and they support each other in their pain and they feel like they're part of a community, but it's a dangerous community where children make plans to die. And many do. 

These children use shower time to cut themselves. They starve themselves. Their smiles are lies. They say they're okay, but they are not. They say they're tired when they mean they're in terrific pain. They want someone to find out but they don't want to tell because they worry about what people will think if they know. They don't tell because they don't want to be a burden and a worry to their parents. They don't tell because they don't even know what words to use.

So this child's mom is talking about it. She doesn't care if people don't want to hear. She doesn't care if it makes other people uncomfortable. Maybe one other mom will recognize her own child and hear her daughter's pitiful cry for help and she won't label it as teenage angst and drama. Maybe she'll look until she finds the scars and she'll get help before it's too late. 

And maybe people will start talking.

You can follow me on Twitter: @CeceliaHalbert