I realize that in some ways, imagining the worst made it easier to avoid lots of underlying issues in my relationship with Kaitlyn or with the reality of mental illness and addiction. Even as I type that last statement, I realize that many families whose children are missing, possibly from foul play, would give anything to have a mental illness or addiction problem to deal with instead. These are very murky waters where we swim.
The stress of this all is rapidly catching up with me. I spend many hours either with a severe headache, shoulder / back pain, sleeplessness or indigestion. As I spent an hour of pure hell last night trying to quell acid reflux, tears finally fell. Only a couple hours before, I had been out looking for Kaitlyn following some leads provided by a couple of her friends in our complex. I now know where she has been all this time and that she has been hanging out at a different high school other than hers.
Stress..............even when we don't feel stressed, dealing with issues can effect many aspects of our day. While some people get "jumpy" or "moody", others may internalize stress meaning that the jumpiness is hidden. I cannot tell you how many people have told me in these last couple of weeks that I am handling this all well. Smiling, I want to launch into the hidden physical effects, but I smile and say "thank you". Whitney recently came home from school and shared with me a video she had seen about the positive benefits of stress. As I watched it, I knew most of what the speaker posited, and for a few moments, I wondered if I was overreacting lately. What Kelly McGonigal speaks about is not the prolonged, intense stress associated with a missing child, mental illness or addiction. That Whitney thought about me when she watched it and wanted to share with mean meant so much to me.
Underlying issues............even if many tell me differently, I feel an enormous amount of guilt.
1. Kaitlyn has been saying for a while that she does not like me and does not want to live with me. Am I just too selfish to hear her? Is there anything to her complaint? I dreamed that Kaitlyn was found, and that all the people she's been hiding out with presented valid evidence that I was an unfit person. I can't help but wonder. The underlying issue encompasses many things..............teenage rebellion, co-dependency, denial, over-bearing parenting.
2. 18 days of no contact from someone you love is such an enormous issue. Could Kaitlyn be that cruel? She must understand somewhere deep inside what pain and suffering she is causing, not only to me, but to her sisters and grandparents. Did I do such a horrible job raising her? The underlying issue is an addiction and stress anxiety from her childhood abuse. Our extended family dynamic has created such a stigma of shame.
3. Bailing out of her life and abandoning her responsibilities really scares me. The women in my maternal family line have a very long history of abandonment. I want more for my daughters. Part of my naive self believed that through love, support and education, this circle of abandonment could change. In much the same way, I believed once that the circle of addiction, abuse, and incest could also be broken. As all these elements culminate with Kaitlyn, I must face the fact that I was wrong. That's hard for me. I believed it, believed so much in the power of faith and prayer, also. To face the fact that I was wrong jeopardizes much of what I believe in the world now. Underlying issues with this include my own childhood abuse, denial and trust issues.
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