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The Pope family, who live in a quiet corner of Greenville with a few pets and a horse that takes Charlie to the Darke County Fair each year, as well as a miniature donkey that serves as the horse’s coyote-proof bodyguard, opened their home to the Dayton Daily News. Charlie and his mother, Tiffany, shared what it’s been like dealing with the worrisome changes in Charlie’s mental health and the stigma that comes with those challenges.
For Tiffany, that period in her family’s life nearly two years ago meant having to watch as Charlie lost the sparkle and joy in his eyes.
The spark that was inside Charlie has since returned, as evidenced by her opening up about struggles that even adults twice her age would find difficult to put into words.
According to Dayton Children’s Hospital, mental illness can affect people of all ages, including children and teens. It’s normal for children and teens to feel sad or depressed from time to time, but if it lasts for more than a few weeks, it goes beyond the average sadness experience and can affect a child’s daily life.
“One way to gauge this is, is it really changing the way you function?” said Dr. Kelly Blankenship, chief of psychiatry at Dayton Children’s Hospital.
According to Dayton Children’s Hospital, depression is a mood disorder that manifests as a sad or irritable mood that lasts for more than a few weeks and can affect a child’s daily life.
‘Very dark times’
Charlie began to become pessimistic about almost everything, she said.
“It was a very dark time,” Charlie said.
Trying to deal with his emotions alone, Charlie fell deeper into depression, didn’t want to leave his room or his bed, and felt like nothing mattered anymore.
She lost interest in the things that usually bring her joy, she said.
“Everything became very quiet,” Charlie said. “Instead of hanging out with my friends and doing the things I wanted to do, I was spending a lot of time in bed.”
Charlie dropped out of certain sports and other activities, and Tiffany initially thought that his interests might have changed.
“We realized we’d quit something and hadn’t replaced it,” Tiffany said, “and all of a sudden it occurred to us that we weren’t doing anything we loved anymore.”
“It was just so hard to include her in our lives and we just watched it become a vicious cycle,” Tiffany said.
Finding a solution
Tiffany and Charlie had always been close, so they began talking about what Tiffany was seeing happen with Charlie.
“We knew it wasn’t her fault and it wasn’t just teenager stuff. Teenagers go through a lot and have their down times, so I think it can be really hard for parents to tell,” Tiffany said. It was clear Charlie was struggling with something serious.
“Realizing that this was a serious problem, we immediately began looking for solutions and support,” Tiffany said.
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She also found it hard to cope with her depression because she felt like she had no reason to be depressed.
“She thought she could handle it and that she was going to be OK,” Tiffany said.
Her depression may have been gradual, but once it reached its peak, she knew she and her family needed help, and fast.
“Then it just got really bad,” Tiffany says.
Charlie ended up being hospitalized, but it was also the catalyst for her realizing she needed help.
“I think what helped me the most was it was a wake-up call that this is a serious problem and something has to change,” Charlie said.
Overcoming Prejudice
For Charlie, medication proved to be part of the help he needed to manage his depression, but he had to overcome the stigma surrounding mental health to be able to seek help.
“This is something my mum and I have spoken about, it’s like another stigma that it’s caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. Mental illness should be treated the same as physical illness, at least in terms of attitude,” Charlie said.
Blankenship said some people may be genetically predisposed to suffering from some degree of anxiety and depression if left untreated, making them more likely to suffer from mental illness even in the absence of social stressors.
“And the opposite is also true,” Blankenship says. “Some people have genes that make them very unlikely to develop depression or anxiety, no matter what life throws at them.”
Most people will fall somewhere in the middle, she said.
“They have a genetic predisposition to depression or anxiety, even if it’s mild,” Blankenship says, “and when a social stressor hits them, they start to feel sad or anxious.”
The stigma around mental health says they should be able to get over it, but Charlie said it’s like an asthmatic refusing to use their inhaler to help them breathe.
“If you break your arm, no one is going to question, ‘Oh, that’s awful that I have to put a cast on my arm when Sammy doesn’t have a cast on his perfectly healthy arm,’ because you have different needs than other people and your arm is broken,” Charlie said.
Charlie credits his mother with helping him accept the fact that he had a problem and that he needed help for his mental health.
“I was lucky to have a very attentive mother, who loved me very much and knew straight away if something was wrong,” Charlie said.
Become an advocate
Seeing Charlie enjoying life again and feeling hopeful for the future was everything Tiffany wanted as a parent, she said.
“That’s all I want,” Tiffany said. “Seeing my daughter grow up, become independent and be able to make good decisions for herself is what helps me sleep better at night.”
Charlie traveled to Washington, D.C., last year to speak to lawmakers about his own mental health journey, on behalf of the more than 7,000 children treated for behavioral health crises at Dayton Children’s Hospital that year.
Not only has this journey helped her advocate for thousands of children and young people facing mental health issues in Ohio, it has also helped her measure her own growth by showing how she took the dark times she faced and turned the experience into something positive.
“From that point on, a year ago, I was so depressed and thought nothing was going to change and that I had no influence on all of this,” Charlie said, “and now here I am in Washington, D.C., talking to members of Congress.”
By simply sharing his experience, Charlie was no longer held back by prejudice.
“I may not be changing things, but at least I’m trying to,” Charlie said.
