What's Wrong with Us?

(original draft date - April 2015)

For a long time, I felt like something was wrong with me and my daughters when it came to relationships with the bad people.

I always felt under scrutiny, never good enough - striving always to be better to gain their favor, to gain their acceptance or to gain their approval.

That scrutiny manifested in my relationships with my daughters.  Most importantly, the scrutiny of even the tiniest of flaws in myself and my severe disapproval of myself has a lasting impact on my relationships with my daughters. 

Those mistakes I must suffer with, live with and try to make amends for during my remaining lifetime; I hope my daughters will forgive me someday.  I hope they can move forward and understand that I didn't know what the bigger picture was just like they didn't know what the bigger picture was.

There are moments when I feel alone,  isolated and even angry because I feel like something is now missing in my life; it's a healthy thing to let go of unhealthy people and it's a healthy thing to face regrets and sadness and  to make amends for those regrets and sadness.

This post started because I feel without purpose; I feel that everything I once believed drifted away and in silence and isolation; I stand unable to move.

Kaitlyn is such a beautiful young woman; she is smart and funny and so insightful.  She has her mother who loves her more and more and more each and every day. I want so much more for her.

I want so much more for all of us. I want healthy adult relationships so that my daughters and I can spend time together; I miss them,

------------------------------------------

It has become the norm for me to dictate my thoughts into my mobile app on my phone and then edit later.  My mind is such a blur of things - emotions, thoughts, memories, hopes/desires, chore lists, voices (my own and others) - and a constant almost desperate search for some purpose in my life.  Kaitlyn will go under the radar for about 2 weeks before she resurfaces and wants something.  I always recognize that what she's really needing is contact, no matter how trivial it may seem to me or to her other family.  Mental illness takes a toll on family members.  It's so random and unpredictable.  Most people suffering from mental illness have an obvious problem - drug or alcohol abuse - that others will point to, judge, mock and not forgive.  I run interference so often, that I do it automatically.  It's exhausting.

Kaitlyn called a couple days ago almost in tears asking to come home for a while.  She always cites something - illness, exhaustion, hunger, etc...............this time, she is battling with some poison ivy and allergies.  She cannot truly rest where she is living, so she wants to come here to have her mom take care of her.  The stress her presence has on my life is unmentionable.  She can be sweet and accommodating one minute and hostile the next.  She has tantrums like a 5 year old but has the intellectual sharpness of a young woman with an excellent education.  It's a roller coaster.  To survive her, you must be on task and prepared...........forgiving and made of steel.

I just started this book "All My Puny Sorrows" by Miriam Toews.  The main character is the younger sister to a woman with mental illness and suicidal tendencies.  Reading it breaks my heart as I must consider the deeper emotions of my youngest daughter toward her older sister, Kaitlyn.  There are times when I want to get into the minds of my daughters and see how they truly see their lives.

Promising Potential

The hardest part of letting go of a child is also letting go of the dreams.....you know, the ones we have for her when she's small.  As I glance at pictures of my beautiful daughter, I remember all the promise that existed at the time each of those little snippets in time embedded into that picture.  It's funny how looking through old photos does that.

 

Even under perfect circumstances meaning that my daughter had not diverted into a life of self-destruction, the little girl I see in these photos no longer exists.  Even if she had not had her innocense shattered by a cruel and selfish act of someone she loved and trusted, this little girl has grown into a young woman.  It's torture, really, to look at these old photos.

 

At a time when we should be planning her Senior year, ordering her beautiful Senior pictures, getting ready for new journies in new directions, instead, my days are filled with visits to therapists, probation officers, juvenile court, truancy officers and waiting helplessly by the phone for any news about her safety.  Oh my, it is so unfair I could scream.

 

Over the last couple of years, I have been diligently scanning old snapshots.  Then, I spend lots of time with labeling, sorting and cross-referencing into folders for each of my daughters.  My hope is to give each girl a digital collection of family photos and keepsakes.  When my heart aches, I barely can focus on my  normal daily tasks much less look through hundreds of photos of my precious daughter.  The sad reality is that for years, I could not look at my own childhood photos without weeping. 

 

Child sexual abuse is a sad and often ignored piece of my family dynamic, just like it is in many families.  We talk about diabetes or cancer, the cousin with MS, the alcohol abuse and the chain smoking, but never do we venture into the reality of incest and sexual abuse.  All the potential excuses run franctically in my mind:

it's generational

we just didn't talk about things like that

it's not as bad as you think it is

lots of families have this same issue

he can't help it

the alcohol made him do it

what could I do?

get over it.

 

 

 

 

But when it comes to my own daughter, none of these excuses are good enough.  She deserves more than an excuse.  She deserves action.  Yet, she fights me every step of the way.  There are days when I think she would be better off if I had just let it alone.