A family struggled to find mental health help for their teenage daughter. They are not alone.

Editor’s note: This story is part of an occasional series on youth mental health and Wisconsin’s efforts to address it. The story contains depictions of self-harm that may disturb some readers.

Christine Gehrke came home from parent-teacher conferences last spring to find blood on her bathroom floor.

Gehrke immediately ran to find her daughters. In a bedroom, her 17-year-old son was crying. Next to her was her 15-year-old son. She seemed to be bleeding everywhere.

“My older daughter had just walked into the bedroom right when the little girl had self-harmed,” Gehrke said. “She had probably 100 or more large, long, deep cuts on her arms and legs. And we had just discovered that.”

Gehrke, a teacher in the Fox Valley, was one of many parents who shared her story through WPR’s WHYsconsin about accessing mental health resources in the state.

Parents gave examples of trying to get help for their children but facing months-long waiting lists to see counsellors.

“I am a pediatrician. Most therapy offices either do not accept new patients, do not accept patient insurance, do not accept children under a certain age, or have a waiting list of three to six months,” said one respondent. “Schools and doctors are doing their best, but these kids need therapy and support.”

Gehrke said she wanted to share her story as a wake-up call to parents and policymakers.

“If a parent wants to be proactive and help their child, the odds are almost insurmountable,” she said. “It’s a landscape that if the government got involved, it could alleviate all the difficulties. If I can help any other mother, I would be happy to do so.”

Long delays

During his state budget speech last year, Gov. Tony Evers declared 2023 the “Year of Mental Health.” His two-year budget proposal included a $500 million increase in overall mental health spending, including $270 million to expand services in schools.

Much of this funding was cut during the legislative budget process.

However, for years, Wisconsin has increased spending on youth mental health services. But the struggles Gehrke experienced in trying to find help for her daughter show just how difficult a problem treating youth mental illness can still be.

Over the past year, Gehrke said her family has faced delays in finding care and lack of communication with health care providers and insurance companies.

She has wondered many times if her daughter will ever get the help she needs.

WPR is not naming Gehrke’s daughter because she is a minor. To avoid identifying her daughter, WPR is also using a different name than the one Gehrke is known by.

Family sent the girl to many facilities for help

The evening Gehrke found her daughter on the floor, her family spent more than six hours in the emergency room as staff tried to find a psychiatric hospital room for the teenager.

The girl was taken to a facility in Green Bay, where she remained from March 1 to March 7, 2023, Gehrke said.

During that time, Gehrke said she called the facility every day, trying to talk to her daughter or get information on her condition, but was unable to speak to anyone.

Frustrated by the lack of communication, Gehrke’s husband drove to Green Bay and brought their daughter home.

During the summer, the teenager was hospitalized three more times.

She went to a day treatment program in Sheboygan from June 25 to July 7 for an eating disorder.

From August 1 to August 11, she was in an inpatient hospital in Oconomowoc for depression. Beginning Aug. 14, she was hospitalized in Brown Deer for depression, then transferred to Oconomowoc until Aug. 20, according to Gehrke records.

Gehrke said her daughter, now 16, is in school part-time. She continues to self-harm.

“She has periods of time where, yes, she has planned to commit suicide, but she hasn’t completed it,” Gehrke said. “The self-harm was because she wanted to show on the outside what she felt on the inside. Even now, her wounds are healing and she’s not happy about it.”

Before she got sick, the young girl loved the outdoors. The family biked and kayaked together. The teenager read for days.

“She read the entire Twilight trilogy several times and was writing her 150-page book with several friends, each taking a different role writing from their own unique perspective,” Gehrke said.

Her daughter’s grandparents have been saving for her college education since she was born. Most in the family have degrees in education.

Gehrke hopes that one day her daughter will be healthy enough to be successful in school.

A ‘broken’ mental health system

While all teens are reporting increased mental health challenges, girls and LGBTQ+ youth are faring worse than boys on nearly all measures.

In 2021, nearly 3 in 5 American teenage girls said they constantly felt sad or hopeless — twice the number of boys who said the same, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This is a nearly 60 percent increase from the previous decade.

The CDC conducts a youth risk behavior survey every two years. The 2023 data will be released in the fall.

In Wisconsin, the results are similar.

One in 4 girls here are seriously considering suicide, said Linda Hall, director of the Wisconsin Office of Children’s Mental Health.

During a recent interview with WPR, Hall was open about the problems facing teenagers and their families: “The mental health system is broken.”

“If you want to get a mental health appointment, you have to wait four to six months,” Hall continued. “Well, if a child is in crisis, you know that’s not the answer. … We have a system that doesn’t encourage people to get mental health treatment early, when it would be really helpful.”

Feelings of belonging can help ease depression

Over the past decade, there has been a steady increase in monthly visits to UW Health Kids’ emergency department for mental health reasons, according to the health system.

There were about 15 patients per month in the pediatric emergency department for psychiatric care in 2012. This increased to 40 patients per month in 2022.

Hall said young people want to feel heard and they want to feel like they belong.

She said anxiety and depression increase when people feel undervalued, so building a base of support early in a child’s life is essential.

Many times, Hall said, young people who are struggling stop going to school. But being in school may be the best place for them.

“We look at a lot at school about mental health,” Hall said. “Less than half of children who have a mental health diagnosis receive treatment. And of those who do, 75 percent are getting something through school.”

Gehrke’s daughter began to change when she was 13 years old.

She stopped communicating with her parents and sister, instead spending most of her time on her phone in her bedroom. Her depression also began to take the form of an eating disorder.

“We knew it wasn’t a good thing and we noticed she would eat very little or nothing at all,” Gehrke said. “But we didn’t know she was buying laxatives.”

Gehrke, who has been a teacher for more than 20 years, admits she and her husband had a blind spot with their daughter.

Gehrke believes her excessive cell phone use has contributed to her inner-city mental health.

“To be honest with you, we kind of ignored it,” she said. “We should have been more consistent in saying, ‘You can only be on your device from this time to this time.’

At the same time, Gehrke’s daughters were both on nearly year-long waiting lists to see counselors. Gehrke said he would like the government to pay for counselors to go to school and then work in the state.

“We deserve to have resources at our disposal and we don’t have them,” Gehrke said. “Be careful your daughters and their friends. If she spends a lot of time alone, don’t wait like we did.”

Where to get help

The Office of Children’s Mental Health does not provide mental health services. But it provides resources for families and youth.

,Uplift WI: Anonymous, confidential, support from certified specialists. Call 534-202-5438 noon to midnight

,Teen line: Adolescent peer support. Text TEEN at 839-863 from 8:00 PM to 11:00 PM Call 800-852-8336 from 8:00 PM to midnight.

NAMI Teen and Youth Helpline: Peer support for adolescents and young adults. Text FRIEND to 62640 or call 800-950-6264 Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Love is respect: Information, support and advocacy for young people with questions or concerns about their romantic relationships. Text LOVEIS to 22522. Call 866-331-9474.

THEParent Stress Line: Trained volunteer counselors. Call 800-632-8188.