Try and Stop Me
A Daughter's Challenge, A Father's Poetry
Nonfiction, Health & Well Being, Psychology, Mental Illness, Family & Relationships, Adolescence, Fiction & Literature, Poetry
| Author: | Dave Preston | ISBN: | 9780969954040 |
| Publisher: | White Rose Content | Publication: | October 17, 2016 |
| Imprint: | Language: | English |
| Author: | Dave Preston |
| ISBN: | 9780969954040 |
| Publisher: | White Rose Content |
| Publication: | October 17, 2016 |
| Imprint: | |
| Language: | English |
The moment you have a child your world changes. What a gift!
The pure joy of welcoming a new life into yours puts everything else in perspective. Parents struggle with infant feeding, teething, toilet training, first falls and injuries, the stress of school, bullying, and a myriad trials and disappointments we must witness, share, and cope with. Energy ebbs and flows.
Teenage years are fraught with the agonies of puberty and peer pressure. We watch from the sidelines as our kids struggle to be accepted for who and what they think they are, or feel they want to be.
Parents must surely be forgiven for sighing with relief when this exciting but challenging journey of ten or fifteen years begins to get easier. Until one completely normal day we’re ambushed by news. A short, sharp telephone call from a stranger kicks me in the stomach. “Your daughter’s taken an overdose and she’s being rushed to hospital by ambulance…”
My daughter, barely fifteen years old and apparently coping with life, was not coping at all. She’d hidden her inner torment and depression, and kept that ugly monster in a secret cave. But suddenly it was all out in the open, in desperate need of medical help and serious parenting, and more. She had tried to kill herself seven times, and she was getting better at it with each attempt.
These poems are an attempt to share a few of my thoughts and feelings about the hardest parenting period of my life.
The title, Try and Stop Me, was the terrifying message I read daily in her face, in her actions, and in the loud and angry silence that fiercely grew between us. It was a deadly challenge, and one I had absolutely no choice but to accept. Is there a happy ending? We’ll see.
The moment you have a child your world changes. What a gift!
The pure joy of welcoming a new life into yours puts everything else in perspective. Parents struggle with infant feeding, teething, toilet training, first falls and injuries, the stress of school, bullying, and a myriad trials and disappointments we must witness, share, and cope with. Energy ebbs and flows.
Teenage years are fraught with the agonies of puberty and peer pressure. We watch from the sidelines as our kids struggle to be accepted for who and what they think they are, or feel they want to be.
Parents must surely be forgiven for sighing with relief when this exciting but challenging journey of ten or fifteen years begins to get easier. Until one completely normal day we’re ambushed by news. A short, sharp telephone call from a stranger kicks me in the stomach. “Your daughter’s taken an overdose and she’s being rushed to hospital by ambulance…”
My daughter, barely fifteen years old and apparently coping with life, was not coping at all. She’d hidden her inner torment and depression, and kept that ugly monster in a secret cave. But suddenly it was all out in the open, in desperate need of medical help and serious parenting, and more. She had tried to kill herself seven times, and she was getting better at it with each attempt.
These poems are an attempt to share a few of my thoughts and feelings about the hardest parenting period of my life.
The title, Try and Stop Me, was the terrifying message I read daily in her face, in her actions, and in the loud and angry silence that fiercely grew between us. It was a deadly challenge, and one I had absolutely no choice but to accept. Is there a happy ending? We’ll see.
