I posted on Facebook a couple weeks ago that I had just had one of the roughest weeks of my life. I’m ready to talk about it now. My dad has struggled with depression and PTSD for his entire life. He grew up in a family with an abusive father and has dealt with the repercussions of that childhood trauma ever since. This includes severe, debilitating depression, anxiety, anger, poor sleep, and the difficulties of facing triggers for his PTSD. It has effected not only him but our entire family.
I have known about his struggles for most of my life – I saw him struggle when he and my mom divorced, I visited him when he went to a short-term inpatient program at Oregon Health Sciences University for electroconvulsive therapy, I watched him struggle to get off the couch some days. However, it was not until this recent episode that I realized how truly debilitating his depression could be. On March 28th, R and I flew him to the East Coast to help with the intake process for an inpatient program in Massachusetts.
The program he started on the 30th specializes in just the kind of trauma and depression he struggles with. The average patient reports significant improvement at the end of their stay and my family and I are incredibly hopeful that this will be the key to improving his mental health. I will admit it may not be a complete fix. This kind of struggle remains, even with high quality treatment, but I hope this will get him to a point where it is no longer debilitation and is something he has the tools to deal with when it gets bad.
However, this program is costly. The average stay is five months and the total bill will be in the neighborhood of $160,000. His insurance has rejected his initial claim and without help it will be difficult, if not impossible for him to afford anything beyond the initial six week intensive program. The best results come from doing both the intensive initial program and a step-down program that lasts from 1-9 months. My dad really wants to stay for the five months to get the best and most thorough help he can. You can read more about everything in the crowd funding campaign I started, “Help Tim With His Act of Courage”.
To help him I have started the campaign on Generosity by Indiegogo. This is a no-fee platform (aside from the processing fee for credit cards), so you know that 97% of your donation goes directly to supporting his care. It is run by donations from campaign donors, but that is optional – you can just change the donation to $0.
I’m asking now for help for him. Kind words (I’ll forward any emails sent to mcs@murr.cc), shares of this campaign, and financial support are all so helpful. Open discussions of mental health are so important and I hope this not only helps my dad, but helps normalize mental health as a health problem to be dealt with in the same way as physical illness.
Thanks for taking the time to read this and for helping not only my dad but my entire family.