Men’s Mental Illness

men's mental illness

Men’s Mental Illness

Hi, welcome to Gma’sPhoto! This post was inspired by our trip to St. Joseph, MO for our summer party fireworks purchase. On our drive, we always stop into one particular Chinese restaurant. It was here, in May 2011 our journey with men’s mental illness began. I call it our dark days.

Thank God, I am being totally sincere. Not at all saying HIS name in vain. We are out of the dark (as long as our son is taking his meds). Occasionally, there may be a cloudy day, metaphorically. For this I am very grateful.

I want to share our experience as parents of a young male adult child at his onset of mental illness. I had felt like I missed something when he was growing up. The what if’s consumed me. This is the beginning of our story, Kevin and Debra’s story.

men's mental illness
One of my favorite photos with me and Adam.

Telling the story now, I have the hindsight. Just wish what I know now, I had known earlier when Adam was still in middle and high school. Adam tended to be more emotional than our daughter. While Adam was in his senior year in high school he worked on the senior slide show for the class graduation. Adam and a couple other guys were part of the group. One of Adam’s comments was that this other kid was getting all the credit. He mentioned it several different times. According to Adam, Adam was doing most of the work. Okay, nothing too unordinary right? On with my story.

Graduation comes and goes. Summertime is here. Adam was getting nose bleeds. Not too uncommon, especially when he experiences allergies. He goes off to college. All is going great. His grades are better than when he was in high school. He was able to focus on his interest, arts. First year of college was fabulous. Summer rolled around. Adam wanted to live in Lawrence for the summer. Grandma and Grandpa said it was okay that he stay with them, with conditions. Those conditions were he could not smoke, do drugs and stay out late. No problem.

Age of onset of mental disorders. Roughly half of all lifetime mental disorders in most studies start by the mid-teens and three quarters by the mid-20s. Later onsets are mostly secondary conditions. Severe disorders are typically preceded by less severe disorders that are seldom brought to clinical attention.”

source one

Our son was graduating from community college May 2011. We were proud, are still proud parents. We invited family to attend the ceremony and after for dinner to celebrate. Kevin and I had drove North to Hiawatha where Adam attended community college. When we got there, Adam was no where to be found. One of his roommates said he had already left. We were confused. We called Adam and he said he did not want to go to graduation. He was driving back to Lawrence to my parents home where he was going to stay for the summer.

We called Kevin’s parents, Kevin’s sister and her husband, our daughter and her family. My parents already knew so we did not need to call them. Luckily no one else drove the whole way to the graduation. We had them meet us at the Chinese resturaunt. What an evening.

During the summer Adam became more paranoid. My parents had Adam go to the doctor office for drug tests, on more than one occasion. Each were random. Every time the tests would come back negative. One night Adam’s behavior was such that my parents called the police. Adam was taken to the hospital. Erika had gone to the hospital to be with Adam. Upon his release from hospital, Kevin and I had to acknowledge we would be responsible for Adam and that he would be in our care. This is when we observed his behaviors we only heard of from my parents.

Adam had many different behaviors. More than I can recall. Just that his behavior was not right. Adam did tell us he had been taking drugs and knew which ones helped him to concentrate and stay focused. Adam’s doctor is the same doctor I went to and the one my parents went to. This was a major factor in the help we received for Adam. Kevin and I went to this doctor. The doctor said drugs was not the concern at this time, it was his mental state. A few recommendations for the best doctor for Adam were given to us.

Adam began his treatment. I had previously sought legal advice about guardianship. The attorney asked if we had doctor statement that this would be in Adam’s best interest. At this time we did not have this and the attorney said it would be very hard to get guardianship granted.

Eventually, Adam had a ‘team’ that consisted of his Case Worker and therapist. Adam made a few poor decisions that resulted in his therapist to refer Adam to a psychologist. The psychologist (Dr.J) did an intensive session with Adam and ultimately she provided a letter stating it would be in Adam’s best interest to have a guardian. Once we had her letter, the family doctor also wrote a letter supporting the guardianship. Adam’s therapist wrote her letter supporting guardianship. The psychologist (Dr.E) who prescribes Adam’s medicines wrote his supporting letter. With the four letters Kevin and I hired a family law attorney. We are now Adam’s Co-conservator, Co-Guardians.

This story is not complete, however this is where I will end my post. Eventually I will return with more of the story. I wanted to share in case someone else may be going through a similar struggle. If so and you have questions, I would be willing to go more in depth with you in a one to one conversation. Send me a message using my contact form.

Take Care. Best wishes, Debra
Gma’s photo

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Scarborough Fair

Scarborough fair

Scarborough Fair | My Sunday Snapshot 17

Hi, welcome to My Sunday Snapshot 17. This week’s image was taken while my grand daughter was practicing her piano. I knew she was playing the piano and practiced every Sunday. It’s just been a while since I have heard her play. My youngest was the first to practice. Upon her request, I did not go downstairs to watch and listen to her.

Fortunately, I could hear while upstairs. The sound was lovely. When it came time for Briella to practice, she did ask me to go with her. She had three songs she practiced. Wow, I was mesmerized. It wasn’t until after she was finished that I thought to record. So I asked Brie to play the Scarborough Fair again. She told me she plays slow to concentrate on her finger placement. Then she will bring the tempo up. I like the slower tempo and told her so. If you would like to hear Brie play, click the center triangle (or center of below image) to start the video.


She’s just 12 and I am so proud of her. Thank you for allowing me to share this with you.

Have a wonderful week!

Take Care. Best wishes, Debra
Gma’s photo

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my Sunday snapshot

Pictures can produce so many different emotions and feelings. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words! Share your fun and interesting image from the past week.

My Sunday Snapshot 17

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Sidewalk Chalk Masterpiece | 101 in 1001

sidewalk chalk masterpiece

Sidewalk Chalk Masterpiece | 101 in 1001

Hi, I’m so excited for this wonderful time with my daughter and grand daughter. We had planned to meeting up at my folks house today. Beautiful day outside. Erika brought some sidewalk chalk. It just happened that I was able to mark off #9 from my 101 in 1001 goal list.

Erika had Brynlee lay on the driveway and she drew around her, making an outline.

sidewalk chalk masterpiece
Making an outline of Brynlee.

Brynlee then drew my shadow’s outline. The image of me standing with arms up and out with the shadow, Brnlee took the picture. After drawing other art, I had Brnlee stand where I was standing with her shadow over my shadow’s outline. Couldn’t get her to understand the sun shifted. 🙂

more sidewalk art

The two horizontal images, Brynlee wanted us to draw rabbits. Top right, Erika’s art, bottom left mine is the face outline and Brynlee’s is above the flowers.

sidewalk chalk art
Fun creating sidewalk chalk masterpieces!

Memories made!

Take Care. Best wishes, Debra
Gma’s photo

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Go Back

go back beach

Go Back | My Sunday Snapshot #11

Hi, welcome to My Sunday Snapshot 11!

Looking through pictures on my phone, I ran across my Florida trip images. There are so many pictures I want to save to an external storage. Even with my cloud storage, there’s something about saving to my own drive, security. Who knows, those services may raise the price to an amount I would not be willing to pay. I would still have access to my memories. After reminiscing- Oh, how I want to go back.

go back beach side

go back sand castle

go back to feeling sand
I can still remember how the sand feels.
go back sunrise
Beautiful Sunrise

Take Care. Best wishes, Debra

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my snapshot Sunday
Pictures can produce so many different emotions and feelings. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words! Share your fun and interesting image from the past week.

My Sunday Snapshot 11

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter