Day 70

It's been 70 days since you ran away ... 70 days of sadness, confusion, uncertainty. My heart aches.

I can't see the future right now, and I'm terrified. One of the things that had always guided me, encouraged me, comforted me, was a vision of a brighter future.  I feel helpless, small and invisible without that vision.

You are exactly where you are today.... Warts and all.... Because of choices you made. No one else is to blame.

My prayer for you is a deep healing.......for you to fully accept that your complaints are the consequences of your attitudes and behaviors.  You must stop blaming others and learn to accept who, where and how you are.  Without accepting these things, you will continue to make poor choices.

Blood Shed, Forgiveness to Accept

None of us deserves the grace that God gives us none of us deserves the blood that was shed for our sins, but he gives it to us anyway.

Kaitlyn, like anyone else,deserves forgiveness and deserves a second chance; and if I could give away all my future so that she would have that second chance, I'd give it gladly.

I understand that my sadness and my pain doesn't come from her.l  The sadness in her brain - that what she's feeling and experiencing - those are hers, but I am sad because it is Christmas and I miss my daughter.

I have missed her for a long time now and I understand fully that the angry young woman right in front of me is not the daughter that I'm missing, and I understand that I may never have a relationship with this confused and angry young woman.

When Kaitlyn is under the influence or when her hormones are out of control, that other side of her comes out and she's pretty mean and vindictive.

I got a chance to see that this weekend -  first in a phone conversation and then secondly in my face-to-face visit with her.l  She was aggressive and angry.  Maybe I have no sympathy for her, or maybe I am tired.

I do not want to make decisions for her future based on my hurt feelings, but this is the side that I see of her the most often - the mean and ugly and hateful side.  The sweet side that I've seen a little bit up in the last couple of weeks, and I haven't seen that in a long time.

It brings into question whether her addiction started from her emotions and pain or whether the addiction is a result of her bipolar disorder.  The swinging personality often happens with no trigger.

It makes me think of my dad in the last year so his life; he had gone to a rehab after hip replacement surgery and was sober for the first time in years.  For the longest that I can ever remember my dad was always intoxicated, but he was, in his sober moments, so mean and vindictive and just horrible to people.

It is a very helpless feeling to be right here - first as a child wondering what I could do or what I can say to make it better for my dad  and now as a parent wondering what I can do what I can say to make it better for my daughter.

She wants her way; that's all that will satisfy her when she's in this mood - no arguing no disagreeing, no trying to reason - just tell her she's right. There is no moving forward;  she pushes a point that she knows is wrong just to incite the conflict.  She wants desperately to be right, even though she knows she can't win that specific point.  I have fallen prey to this trap many times in the past.  If I agree with her, she gets irritated because she feels I do not listen; if I disagree with her, then she gets to say no one understands her.

I need professional help to decipher what she's actually saying. I realize by inciting a conflict with me, she's hoping for connections. I feel she's just drowning inside and  trying to figure it out herself just like I'm trying to figure it out.

We are truly stuck.  Prayer and complete reliance on God's mercy keeps me going each day.  There is just no easy fix, and I'm dealing with a young woman who has legal authority to walk away from our relationship as I try to salvage bits and pieces.