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,

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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.

7/25/14 Oh, Katie

Oh you,

Kaitlyn, you are the most obstinate and precocious person I know.  Only you could turn a discussion about help into an accusation that "mental health issues" is a government conspiracy.  I had to laugh at that.  What I don't think you were expecting me to do was agree with you.

You have used your "mental illness" as an excuse to do drugs.  It has been the banner of your rebellion, the excuse for all the times you neglected your responsibilities or hurt someone else.  It has been your battle cry for why you allow so much sadness and negativity to shape your character and to rob you of the wonderful future promised to you.

So, when make the statement that "mental health issues" is a government definition, a government conspiracy, I agree.  My next statement dissolves years of excuses and deflection.  When I tell you that by abandoning your potential you have proved the government right, you quickly shift to say that you can change it all anytime you want.

You're a crafty one, Katie Pickles.

I find it even more amusing that you have told me several times in the last couple of weeks that no one else can carry on an intelligent conversation with you, and in pleading with me to talk to you, you have to accept my boundaries............you cannot belittle or degrade me to make yourself superior.

I did not intend for this.

Your life is yours to make something out of.  At some point, you must accept the responsibility that any mess you have is of your own making.  I sure love you.

Take the Pledge

Prayers for Kaitlyn

The power of faith, of prayer…………… This topic is one so personal and messy for me.  I have a strong love/hate relationship with my faith.  I always have.  It’s my classic passive / aggressive reaction to a strongly emotional topic.

Faith is like that.  It is emotion.  It is inextricably tied to everything without a tangible link or presence of its own. 

When I hear stories about the miracles played out in the lives of others, I want to rage at the unfairness of it and delight in the magic of it all at one time.  Today, I am pleading for a miracle for Kaitlyn.  She needs one.  I would sacrifice my future, my life even, to grant her a miracle of recovery.

In the last year, I cannot discern what part of her struggle is from her mental illness and which part is from her drug addiction.  They are inextricably linked.  I just want to put my arms around her and make it all go away.

Sadly, there is no happy pill, no instant fix, no cure that comes easily.  Recovery and healing will take a lot of hard work…………..and it’s the type of work that even mature adults struggle with.  I cannot imagine being 18 and having no perspective of tomorrow.  Kaitlyn cannot deal with future.  All she can do is react to the immediate need.

I have always been the exact opposite.  I cannot deal with immediacy without having some sense of a future outcome better than where I am.  I need a roadmap, a plan.  Ok, I’ll say it, I need a happily ever after.

I want Kaitlyn to go to rehab.  As I listen to success stories on KLove, I want to physically drag her to Teen Challenge.  I want recovery.  I want to call into the show and tell them my 10 seconds of good that is Kaitlyn's recovery and healing.  I desperately love my daughter.  

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.

Falling Apart, Finally

And just like that, a week and half of being fairly okay and trying to move to acceptance, and I almost fall apart.  Not understanding what triggered it and having a wave of emotions flood over me, all it took was an unexpected noise to send me into a panic.   It's completely horrifying.  The hardest part of this panic attack was knowing that this confused anxiety is Kaitlyn's daily reality.

Today marks the end of the seventh week that you've been gone, 49 days, almost 2 full months.  You missed Halloween nd my birthday.  Thanksgiving is now a week away, and I can't bear the thought of you not being here with your family who love you.

As much as I would love to make this all about me or about what you've done wrong, I also know that it takes a lot of pain and sadness to drive a person to extreme behavior.  I also know you are living  a private hell of your own that you did not create for you to be gone this long.

What I would say to you right now is thast everything will be alright, and I am not mad.  I love you and no matter what, I'm always on your side.  Even when I'm mad at you, I love you; just because I can't see you doesn't mean that I don't know, that I am not aware of you. I love and miss you very much.

You are wonderful, and you know deep inside how much you are loved.  Praying for you, hoping for you, these have kept me from completely falling apart.  No matter what I am feeling, I know that you are dealing with your own issues, ones that I cannot fix.

We all miss you.  Please come home soon.