I am a Goddamned Superhero

Recently, one of my kids celebrated their second anniversary of choosing to be alive. Today, I’m acknowledging to myself how much of my own energy and resources I gave to the goal of keeping this kid alive. It wasn’t just one day. It was a decade of trying out medication, therapy, doctor’s visits, and a lot of phone calls and crying and me not being sure that I was going to be able to do it.

A good deal of my own SI has been a result of the trauma of us both surviving this. It’s hard to keep a kid alive if they don’t want to be alive. It’s hard to stay alive when every day is full of questions about why your kid has this problem and why you haven’t solved it yet, when people shrug and tell you that the answers are simple (medication and therapy) and that you just have to keep trying.

You get exhausted after a few months, and then you just keep slogging. Often, the very people you’d think would be helping you tell you that *you* are the problem. And so is it such a surprise when you start to wonder if that’s true, and that if you are the problem, you can also create a simple solution by not existing anymore?

I have made a handful of friends who are on this same journey with me, mothers who are keeping their kids alive, who stand between their kids and the world, and who say, “Not today, MF’s. Not my kid, not today.” And who also weep in the night, who sleep on the floor of their kids’ rooms to make sure they wake up alive, who stand between their kid and loved ones who may or may not think they’re helping—but who are not.

I am a goddamned superhero. I not only kept them alive on that one day, but I kept them alive on other days. I kept telling my kid that they were telling me the truth, that I believed them. I told them I was on their side and that we’d keep looking for answers. I gave up so much of myself again and again and again to make sure my kid was as safe as I could manage. And the reward I get in return is simple: the knowledge of who I’ve become because I chose to be this kind of mother. I didn’t ask for this, but when it came to me, I chose to be a goddamned superhero.

Friends who are on this path, I see you. I’m holding out your cape. You may wear a mask in your daily tasks, but I know your secret identity.