RealMental

I am tired of holding on, and worried about how much longer I can keep doing what I am doing. Princess is still out of school, but in a holding pattern. The doctors do not feel as though she can return to school, and I agree. We do not know what the problem is, whether the overwhelming anxiety is school in general or that school in particular. So she is home, or at her grandparents, each day while we figure out what comes next.

The treatment coordinator at our practice began the process of looking for an partial hospitalization program after Princess’ appointment last Tuesday. On Thursday they told us that there was no space currently, but that a space might open this week. Yesterday I got a call that a space had opened up but that I needed to bring her in before her scheduled group therapy session (we’ve reverted to the 5:00-7:00 program every night until we can get her into a hospital program) because the hospital requires a referral evalation that is no more than 24 hours old,and the paperwork needed to be in hand by 4:00. So, the assessment from Friday’s session was no longer valid and last night’s assessment would have been too late to be processed. I left work at 1:00 so I could pick Princess and make one of the open spots. I called the hospital around 4:15 to verify what time I was supposed to bring Princess this morning, only to be told that they  had no idea what I was talking about and that no spaces were available. When I arrived at her group therapy appointment, our treatment coordinator told me that she submitted the paperwork as agreed only to be informed that the space promised a few hours earlier was no longer there. Best case scenario is an opening on Thursday or Friday, but it’s more likely to be some time next week. And so we wait some more, trying not to be overwhelmed by the concern that each day out of a therapeutic and educational routine means more difficulty adjusting back into the routine that one would expect for a 12 year old girl.

I was home with Princess on Wednesday, and she while trying to reason her out of her room in order to get her to tell me what was wrong (and so I could watch her carefully), the phone rang from the boys’ school. The principal informed me that Hoss had run away from the property and that the police had to be called. She expressed her intention of keeping Hoss in the school building under the care of his gang (principal, VP, counselor, school psychologist, special ed team members, whoever) until something close to normal pick up time. She wanted to let me focus on Princess without needing to also watch Hoss. A few minutes later, the school called again, saying that the police were requiring me to come. In the time it took me to dry my tears, get my shoes on, close up the house and get myself and my daughter into the car, the police officer called to exhort me to get to the school. I arrived and was judged harshly by an officer who was aghast that I was initially not going to come pick Hoss up, who said he was taking Hoss to the emergency room because he had expressed a desire to end his life. Despite the professional opinions of the psychologist, counselor and school principal who administered the suicide threat assessment (a group who understand that his “I hate my life. I wish someone would just kill me” is not actually a true suicidal ideation), the officer took my son to the hospital in a patrol car. I was not allowed to leave until the mobile crisis team dispatched by the county arrived to speak to me. After some begging on my part, the officer allowed the counselor to go to the ER until my husband could get there.  The social worker and psychiatrist at the ER released my son within a few hours, noting that he was not a threat to himself or to others.

I am playing phone tag with my prospective new doctor, in hopes of getting an appointment so I can tell her about the mounting crises that make up my daily life and so I can try to get some relief. I called her on Thursday, but missed her return call at lunchtime on Friday. I called Friday night and left my work number as well as my cell and home, and have not heard back, so I am calling again. The mobile crisis team last Wednesday (a pair of neo-hippies who meant well but had nothing to offer me that I didn’t already have in place) listened to my account of the things that are happening and the things I am going to try to mitigate the turmoil, and they told me that I am doing all the right things. But doing all the right things does not seem to be making anything get better. I shudder to think of what our lives would be right now if I were doing the wrong things.

The energy it takes to get through my day is increasing. The reserves I have are decreasing. Something has got to give very soon.

It is not a good thing to get a call from the boys’ school alerting me to an elopement incident, the first in well over a year.

It is not a good thing when a police officer calls to ask how quickly I can be at the school to address the expressions of self-harm that Hoss verbalized when being brought back.

It is not a good thing when the social worker at the pediatric ER recognizes our family on sight.

It is not a good thing when the mobile crisis team is called in.

There are good things. It was a good thing when the staff took Princess (who had to come with me, since she is not safe to be left alone) to a conference room and fed her lunch while I spoke with the principal and the police.

It was a good thing when the counselor agreed to accompany my son when the officer insisted upon taking him to the ER.

It was a good thing when the school psychologist and the principal spoke of my dedication to my children’s safety and mental health, in an effort to make the officer understand that Hoss was not actually a danger to himself.

It is a good thing when I alerted the school that Hoss had been released to come home, and their response to asking if he was allowed back tomorrow was, “Yes! We want him here and expect to see him first thing in the morning.”

It is a good thing that I had already scheduled a family therapy session for 6:00 this evening.

I desperately need more good things.

She has to be right, to be wrong meant too much pain for her in ways I’ll never understand.

If one piece gets out of place, the entire structure may fall into a heap.  Houses made of cards are fragile, meticulously created.  Her queen of heart locked inside, protected.

She doesn’t see the fright, or see the scars that weren’t healing in her own daughter.  She can’t reach me, she can’t try.  Not because she doesn’t love me, but to do so would be to open the lid she’s had slammed shut for 50 years.  Without knowing, she gave me the tools to fight my own battles.

For years I’ve tried to do my part, overlook the sickness, overlook my own needs.  One sided relationships are very difficult to maintain.  When it was just me, it was a lot easier.  Now that I’ve got my own family with my own heartache, there hasn’t been as much room for me to serve her.

I love her, I admire her, I am grateful for her.  I just can’t give any more of myself or I’ll have nothing left for my own life.  You can only tell someone you love them, you appreciate them so many times before you realize that it won’t make a dent and at some point you have to let go.

For years I lived by her definition of good, I followed her advice, her suggestions.  I did what she told me to do and when I wasn’t with her, I’d hear her voice in my head.  She was my internal thermometer to lead me to the right path.  Not realizing it at the time, I was trying to gain her love and acceptance.

She didn’t mean to hurt me; she froze me out because that’s the only defense she had against the things that were too hard for her to see.

As her daughter, I thought it was up to me to try and repair the sins of the past.  To be the strong woman that she aspired to be, the woman that desperately wanted to let herself feel and give love, to live her life.

Nothing was safe for her, everyone and everything had an agenda, and that agenda was to hurt her.

I’d give anything to fix that in her, anything.  I thought for years that was my purpose, to fix her.  My choice, not hers.  She never asked for help, to do so would mean defeat in her eyes.

Before I ever fully understood any of this, I’d absorbed enough of her fears and problems that eventually set me up as a candidate for the same abuse that she experienced.  This was not her goal, I know this now.  The things we try to hide are projected onto others.

I certainly don’t blame her for that.  Not now.  For a while I did, I blamed her for not loving herself enough to get out from under her mountain of abuse and mental illness.   When I became a Mother myself, I grew even angrier that she didn’t think we were worth fighting for.

She fought for us, but in her own way.  It’s good to remember that when people love us, it won’t always look the way we expect it to.  It doesn’t mean they don’t love us.  It means their way of loving just looks differently than the way we love.

When I finally realized she did the very fucking best that she could, with what she was given, I was able to see her outside of the injuries.  To see her for the beautiful, smart, creative, loving and amazing person she is.

My strength is her strength, my compassion is her compassion, my love is her love working through me.  She succeeded in making me stronger than she was, to question, to reach.  I see her more clearly now than I ever did before.  Still unable to convince her how amazing she is, no matter how many times I tell her or write to her.

Maybe she meant to cover more ground, to be more and do more.  I know I’m making mistakes that my children will one day be hate me for.

It doesn’t mean I didn’t try, or that I don’t love them.

No, that doesn’t mean that at all.

Princess is back in the ER right now. She ran away from the school building today, shades of her brother from a few years ago. The counselor saw her leave, followed her out, and managed to stop her at the curb, just before she decided to run into traffic. She says she wanted to just run and run and let herself get hit.

Today was not one of her days in group therapy, now that she has dropped down to three days per week. Last night she told the doctor she was mostly feeling better, fewer thoughts of hurting herself and more ability to keep the thoughts in perspective and talk herself down when the thoughts do come. Tonight the doctor insisted that she be evaluated by the ER doctors before being allowed to come to group tomorrow.

She says she feels safe calm and comfortable when she is in the hospital, but she does not want to be away from home and back in an inpatient program. She says she feels calm and comfortable when she is in group. She says she feels calm and comfortable when she speaks with her LCSW on weekends. She says she feels calm and comfortable at home. At school, she usually feels calm and comfortable at the beforecare program, and the aftercare program, and first period religion class, and second period math class and third period social studies and at lunch.  During these times she can handle feeling sad or anxious or confused when those feelings come.

She does not feel this at recess. Her friends with whom she eats lunch like to play ball, which she does not.  She feels that she does not have a place or an activity or a presence that feels calm and comfortable.  She cannot or will not articulate whether her afternoon classes make her feel tense and uncomfortable.

Inpatient programs and intensive group therapy and one-to-one counseling sessions are not helping her navigate her life as it stands right now. I want her to be safe, but I do not know what tools she needs to make this happen. I’ve spent too many hours or days or weeks being the one to figure out the next move and letting everyone else know what needs done, but those solutions are not working and I no longer have the tools to figure out the next move.

When we have weathered this crisis, I am going to speak to my own doctor. I am going to request that he write me a prescription for an SSRI, but not the one I used previously because it made me tired and nauseated and I think that there are others that can help me. I am the mother of two (or maybe three) special needs children, and the wife of a man who forgets that he is not the only person with a stressful job, and the person at our office who takes care of the administrative side of the governance functions as well as taking care of the people who needs to be coddled. I can no longer be all those things without some help.

P1080767, originally uploaded by Ella_Ormerod.

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