House Bill 693: Wake Up North Carolina

Dear North Carolina,

I recently read an article about House Bill 693, the Teen Medical Ban.  I respect the concept of wanting to broaden the spectrum of parent-child communication and force parents to be more involved in their teen’s mental health and ultimately their life decisions.  However, I believe the way we should force parent-teen communication upon North Carolinians is through mandatory parent-teacher-student conferences, not healthcare.  You see, health care is too risky.  By considering this bill, you are putting lives of hundreds of teens at risk.  Here are a few scenarios to consider:

1.  A young girl, perhaps age 16, has been repeatedly molested by her father.  She gets pregnant and doesn’t know who to turn to.  She wants to seek guidance in options that she has, but is unable to confide in any sort of counselor because of House Bill 693.  She asks her mother to accompany her in seeking medical care (only because it is required by law), but her mother is unable to accept the reality that her husband rapes her daughter.  Even if she agreed to accompany her, she is immediately turned off by the requirement of a notarized letter of consent because she can’t have her local notary finding out about their family secret.  4 months later, the young girl has started to show.  Dad finds out and beats her until the baby is gone.  The young girl never receives the proper medical care.  If she survives, she will be sick for months.  Her adult years will be spent moving from counselor to counselor trying to recover from this traumatic event, trying to forgive her mother, and trying to forget her father.  I know what you’re thinking – in this situation, DSS would have stepped in, right?  Wrong.  The fact of the matter is, DSS, while a totally necessary and useful establishment, isn’t solving all of our problems.  There are thousands of cases that should require the attention of social services, but never receive it because the whole scenario occurs “behind closed doors.”  After this girl has been shut down by a counselor, a notary, a medical advisor, and her own mother, how could she possibly have the courage to call DSS?  Social Services ­­­­­is a scary term for a teenager…much scarier than the term “counselor.”
2. A 12 year old boy has been living in a house full of cocaine addicts and decides to take up the habit himself.  A year later, he wants to quit the drug.  He needs help.  Mom won’t take him to get help because her habit would be discovered as well.  Dad isn’t in the picture anymore.  The boy continues with the habit because he can’t quit on his own.  6 months later, he overdoses.
3.  A 17 year old girl has a birthday in March.  She has started to question the reasons she exists.  Her emotions consume her thoughts and the only way out seems to be ending her life altogether.  She has had some recent issues with her family that seem to be irreconcilable. The pain is too much and she has nowhere to turn.  She does not feel like she is able to talk to her parents about the situation and because of House Bill 693, her school counselor is not an option unless her parents are involved.  She thinks if she could deal with the issues within herself, her relationships would improve across the board.  March is too far away.  The weight of the world on her shoulders has become too heavy.  Scared and confused and broken, she ends her life.  Her pain ends, but her family’s pain has just begun.  Why didn’t she tell them?  She was scared she’d be judged or mocked.

That last girl could have been me.  At 18 years old, I moved out of my parent’s home because of circumstances that could not be reconciled.  5 days after moving out, I checked myself into a behavior health center.  My birthday is in March.  Had my birthday been in June, I would not be alive today.  I would not have made it those next 3 months.  I needed help and I didn’t think I could ask my family for it.  There are thousands of people like me.  People who are begging for the pain to stop aren’t strong enough to expose their deepest, darkest side to their parents.  We need help and mom and dad aren’t the kind of help we need.  We need doctors with degrees and training to save our lives – that’s why we require such an extensive education to handle crisis situations, such as these.

There are already modifications in place that require parental involvement in mental health situations: 

• At any behavior center, if the child is under 18, they require you meet with your parent/guardian in the presence of a counselor at the end of treatment to discuss the coping techniques the child is going to utilize to keep themselves on a healthy road to recovery.  They also discuss what the parent can do for the child to make the transition easier.  These are discussions that should DEFINITELY be a part of any mental health treatment of a minor.  BUT, this discussion should occur at the end of treatment, when the child is stronger, rather than requiring the parent to allow their child to seek treatment in the first place.
• In any counseling situation, the counselor is required to report “dangerous situations or behaviors” to the parent.  The parent is made aware of any situation that may need their support.  Also, at any time, the parent may call and request information of the frequency of visits their child has made to the counselor’s office in a school setting.  If the parent is concerned about his/her child, he/she may request that the counselor speak with his/her child “just to check in.”
• In matters of substance abuse or eating disorders, a parent can check their child in at any time to a recovery facility with little to no questioning from a counselor.  The intake session involves the parent as much as they would like to be involved.

I would like to respectfully submit that we are targeting the wrong group of people.  This bill requires the child to be the adult.  The child must go to mom or dad and ask for help.  The child must take their care into their own hands by being the first one to act.  The responsibility should not be on the child.  The responsibility of communication within a family should be placed on the adult.  The child should be allowed to seek personal help on a private level.  We all deserve the right to privacy.  But the parent should be involved enough in his/her child’s life that he/she knows when their child is not emotionally balanced.  The parent should have full rights to know what’s going on in their child’s life, but they should not HAVE to be involved.  Because there are situations where this sort of involvement could potentially hurt the child worse, rather than save them.  This bill will be effective in opening the line of communications in middle to upper-middle class families, but it leaves everyone else out.  It creates more problems for all other families.  It halts the recovery of anyone who is unwilling or unable to receive parental consent for mental health care.  This bill may save a few mother-daughter relationships, but at what cost?  The lives of hundreds of teens across the state? 

This is wrong.

Respectfully Yours,

An Experienced Mental Health Survivor

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