Day 1

May 1, 2013

I guess I have finally surrendered, although time will tell if that’s actually true. Many have told me that I have the makings of a great book. I don’t know about that. But I do know that if I don’t find a way to really address some of what I feel it may lead to not only my own detriment but hers as well.  
I am the mother of a mentally-ill child. As I type this she is currently 11. Lately her outbursts and mood swings have become much more difficult to manage and harder to cope with.  Recently something we had feared for some time finally happened - the police were called as my husband tried to keep her from running into the street.  All they saw was a man holding on to a child who obviously wanted to get away. This happened on the campus of the local university where she had an appt. with one of the specialist in the Dept. of Psychiatry. They blocked my husband’s car in, three police cars sirens blazing. Thank God the doctor was there to describe her outburst and fit of non-compliance. But it doesn’t take away the humiliation my husband had to endure, or the fact that some stranger with no idea of what was really going on, was allowed to make an anonymous phone call with wrong information and then leave the mess for my husband to try and explain.
I think the incident frightened her a bit and we had a little reprieve from her outbursts, but it didn’t last long.

By the weekend she was back to banging on car doors, yelling at the top of her lungs, threatening to hit us, running from us, refusing to comply with simply requests and the list goes on.
This past Sunday she went ballistic at the church. Often she leaves her fits of rage for home and we are left feeling as though many might think we are making this all up. But for whatever reason this past Sunday, she just could not keep it together. She yelled at my mother, blamed me for whatever she was feeling, and refused to get cleaned up (she had a wetting accident, more on that later).
It often makes leaving for school and work in the morning very difficult . This morning for example, she didn’t want me to help her brush her teeth. She clamped down on the toothbrush, refused to hold still, tried to get away.  Since she doesn’t brush well on her own and currently has braces (she has an intense overbite from sucking her lip), if I don’t help her, the teeth will decay. The dentist says she already has the early stages of it. If we can get her to brush better it won’t go any further, but of course, the important word in that sentence is IF. 

I am hoping that this journal won’t become just simply a place for me to vent (although I plan to do plenty of that), but I hope it will help me gain perspective and give me the chance to remember all the fun my daughter and I can sometimes have together. I hope it will remind me that no matter how tough the road sometimes seems she is still one of the most important people in my life and without her, things just wouldn’t seem right. 
Well, wish me luck.