Day 38...........Looking toward the Future

Day 38...............38 days that I just can't even begin to explain.  I cannot explain what the last 38 days have been for me, your mom.

I miss you so much and worry about you every minute of every day, not only when I'm awake but also when I'm sleeping.  I pray for you nonstop just as others are praying for you.

In all this time apart, I've been able to understand that it's more than just my feelings or the feelings of your sisters and grandparents.  The distance, the time away, has allowed me to deal with other emotions so that I can truly focus on your side of it. I get it.  For all of my fear, anxiety and confusion, you are feeling even worse than I am.

I hope at this point is that you will come home and deal with this appropriately that we can mend our bonds and put your future back in place.

I love you, Kaitlyn.

Trying to move toward Acceptance

When Kaitlyn was younger, she had such a fierce determination.  I saw this in her face during the very first studio portrait made of her at only a few week old.  Sometimes now when I see that photo on my dining room wall, I must pause to ask myself what I did wrong.  Dwelling on this sense of guilt benefits no one, so instead I have been saying deep, heart felt prayers and trying to move toward acceptance instead.

When Kaitlyn was in the 7th grade, about 12 years old, she asked me this profound question regarding social relationships.  She told me a story about having a box of 96 crayons, the one with the sharpener on the back.  She asked why others would ask to use your big box of crayons when they had their own.  Explaining further that it took her a long time to get that bigger box, she just did not want to share with others, even if they could not afford the bigger box.  Of course I knew the deeper implications to her story, understood the question regarding human charity that Kaitlyn struggled with.  I remember staring at her so intently, mesmerized by the depth of her perceptions.

This is how my relationship with Kaitlyn has been her whole life.

When she was only 4 years old, she would focus on whatever game of make believe caught her fancy.  She would line up her dolls and stuffed animals along one wall of her room in some pattern and then leave them in that pattern until some new idea caught her attention.  Her make believe could last for days.  Neither of her sisters ever played on this level.

 

She has approached must of her life with this same intensity.  Look at her self portrait added to this post.  She would work on her lips for hours only to find some hidden flaw only she would see.  Even after it was complete, she would scoff at it, unsatisfied.  Me trying to define things for her has never been easy as she sought always to define them for herself.

As her mom, watching this dark, uncertain journey terrifies and saddens me.  I truly want so much more for her.  My own preservation must take priority as her missing status moves into the 4th week.  At this point, I have no idea what her future holds.

 

DABDA

 

The 5 stages of grief.

 

Denial

Anger

Bargaining

Depression

Acceptance

 

My 5 best friends of late, I am working desperately with my therapist to move toward acceptance so that I can be healthy and supportive for Kaitlyn when she finally stops raging at the world.  I am truly no stranger to grief; I've been here many times before.

 

Resources are valuable.  I've stated this repeatedly, because without accessing support services, a parent of a disturbed (missing, angry, defiant) child cannot cope effectively with the trauma or the consequences of the situation.  I have met several other parents of emotionally disturbed children recently.  Each story has some similarities but vast differences.  What I glean from our conversations is that survival is possible, even renewal of the parent / child relationship once the tide of destructiveness runs its course.

 

I miss my daughter.

 

I love her so deeply that I feel her pain and suffering all tied up with my own.

 

In desperation, I want to hold her, comfort her and protect her from herself.

 

 

Day 18............Possible Leads

Through this whole ordeal, I had a hunch that Kaitlyn was in the area, staying with friends.  Even when my mind would slowly drift to other possibilities, I could logically ponder facts and statistics to highlight the more possibly likelihood that she was with friends.  Everyone has said the same thing.

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.

A Place for Teens

Since placing a post on Kaitlyn's Facebook page, this blog has received about 25 views per day. I realized that those viewing this may be teens in similar situations, and so I decided to share some resourceful information just in case. What I would hope Kaitlyn knows is how to access resources even if she decides not to return home.

 In a perfect scenario, Kaitlyn would return to her home, the one she's known her whole life.  If for some reason she feels she cannot be here, I would want her to find a safe place.

Austin has a teen shelter.  There is no need to go without food, warmth or safety.  A call to 311 Austin can summon a police officer to escort a homeless teen to LifeWorks.

The weather here has turned cool and damp.  I just can't help but worry that Kaitlyn is outside in this weather, alone, scared and hungry.  Each time I see a young woman standing on a corner pan-handling, I slow down to make sure it is not my daughter.  So many teens are homeless, either by choice.

Some Teen Runaway Facts:

1. There are approximately 1.7 million homeless teens in the U.S.
2. 39 percent of the homeless population is young people under 18.
3. About 75 percent of homeless teens use drugs or alcohol as a means to self-medicate to deal with the traumatic experiences and abuse they face.
4. 5,000 young people die every year because of assault, illness, or suicide while on the street.
5. A U.S. Department of Health and Human Services study found that 46 percent of homeless youth left their home because of physical abuse. 17 percent left because of sexual abuse.
6. Approximately 40 percent of homeless teens identify as LGBT.
7. Over 50 percent of young people in shelters and on the streets report that their parents told them to leave or knew they were leaving and didn’t care.
8. The average age a teen becomes homeless is 14.7 years.
9. 1 in 7 young people between the ages of 10 and 18 will run away.
10. Teens age 12 to 17 are more likely to become homeless than adults.
11. HIV rates for homeless young people are 2 to 10 times higher than reported rates for other samples of adolescents in the U.S.

Reading the stats does not put my mind to rest.

No matter what started you on this path, take a step toward healing, toward self-sufficiency.  There are options.

Missing

In the event that a child runs away or in some other manner goes missing, it is very important to act quickly.  This whole process can be daunting.  Contact local law enforcement immediately.  Know the laws, because information provided to parents varies from agency to agency, and even from officer to officer.  The first time my daughter ran away, I had a pro-active detective who kept in contact with me and I felt actually helped.  Maybe he didn't, but as an anxious parent, feeling supported made a huge difference in my coping.

It is so important to know resources.  Missing children and runaways can also be reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.  As a parent, having support is vital to surviving the unknown.  So often, we want to remain private, not to divulge too much information out of embarrassment  or fear of how others will react; however, having support contributes to positive coping.  I am finding it so difficult to focus, and knowing I have friends praying for me, ready and willing to listen has helped calm me.  Even if it is 2 a.m., the NCMEC has a 24 hour hotline.

More than anything, I just want to see my daughter's beautiful face.  I need to hear her voice, watch her smile.  The not knowing is devastating.  I wish I could say I never thought this would happen to my family, but as a child, I watched similar situations with my siblings, and as my ex-husband's paranoia heightened, he would often disappear for several days, sending me in complete panic juggling all the uncertains.  I just wanted so much more for my own children.  I know all parents want more.

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.