The other day, I totally lost it. I even wrote a post that I may never make public because it was not something to be proud of – failing as a loving mother and wishing for what I shouldn’t wish for.
So, today was a bit of a carryover of that frustration, of wanting to just chuck it all. Looking at Emma drowning in her own self pity, and listening to her asking how life would be in an insane asylum, I gave her a choice.
If she continued to believe that she had permanent brain damage and would never get better, then it was best, for my sanity, for her to get the hell out of my life. If she could not even start to believe that she could be normal or get better, then I was wasting my time, resources, and effort on her, and it had to stop, today.
Her choice was to either change her belief from hopelessness to one of believing that she could get better, even just a tiny bit. If she could not believe in that, then she was to get out of the house and out of my life, and I would lock her out until she was ready to at least try to change her attitude and thinking.
She chose to walk out the door in her old tshirt and sports shorts and as she exited, I closed and locked our front door. It was with both a sense of relief and dread – very strange feeling of doubt that what I just did was a very bad thing, and a glimpse of hallelujah that I got her out of my life. I also had a feeling of guilt about how I would be judged – as a bad mother.
To hell with judgements. One must do what needs to be done in order to survive. With the self absorbed self dooming Emma not making any effort on her part, I would go crazy. I already did go crazy for a few moments yesterday, and Emma was not worth my world, not all of it. If she was a lesson that I needed to learn from, then I suppose that I am failing. So be it. I am failing, but Emma is also failing.
She is the one who needs to get up instead of me dragging her along to a place that she doesn’t think she can reach.
I watched her from inside the house, and she walked down the driveway into the front yard and paced back and forth for a while. Back and forth, back to the front door, and then back and forth in the yard. I knew at that point (with relief) that she wasn’t going to walk down the street and into the great big scary unknown beyond our house.
After about 10 minutes (that felt like an hour), I unlocked the front door while Emma was out of sight in the yard, and a few minutes later, I heard her say something, the screen door opened, and Emma came into the house. She said she would change her thinking, she would work at thinking positive, at getting better.
Maybe it was too short a period of time of being expelled, I won’t know what will come of this. I do know that this is a turning point in the way that I treat her. Gone is the nice sappy gooey supportive mother with unconditional support. That isn’t me. It is a front, or what I think I must be, and it has been non productive, perhaps even counter productive in Emma’s mental state. I’m a mean mommy. Not proud of that, but that’s the kind of mother I have been. Strict, un-huggy, high standards, self achiever.
I made some conditions with her. She can stay in the house with us whenever she believes she can get better. Whenever she believes that she will not get better, she goes out of the house, and we’ll leave a tent out there for her to sleep in.
1 and 2 days later
Perhaps it had to happen, because I could not stand to see Emma or be around her in her poor me no hope state of being. My husband set up a one man tent in the front yard for Emma. She was told that whenever she feels that she will not get better, she has to get the hell out of the house and go live outside. She will be able to come in the house for meals, bathroom breaks, but she and her lousy attitude will have to live outside unless she decides to think positive.
Emma is no dummy. She knows how to push buttons. Her first questions were if she could have a sleeping bag, and what if it is too dark in the tent. Yes, she can have a sleeping bag, and we’ll give her a battery powered lamp.
Well, so far, she hasn’t gone outside in the tent yet. And whenever she gets that glaze and zombie stare in her eyes, I tell her to go outside, since she is choosing to not get better. She will pull herself together and say that she wants to stay in the house, that she will get better. She is also drinking more water – which she must do since she is currently going through EDTA chelation to remove mercury from her body.
What a difference! Hope this lasts. I guess you could call this tough love. I call it coming to the end of my rope and fighting for my own sanity. We’ll see, I’ll update as time goes on.
Day 3
While sitting with Emma during lunch, I asked her how she was. She seemed okay and then, as an ambulance’s siren went by, she said “scary”.
As I have been going through treatment for my chronic stiff neck and shoulders, I told her my experience of not noticing when the pain is gone, but I notice when the pain returns. Pointing it back to her, I said that she may not notice when things are normal, when faces look normal, but when things and faces look scary, then she notices them.
Emma then said that faces (including mine) look scary most of the time. Fine, I thought, and started talking to her about the times when they don’t look scary are when they look normal.
In the course of 2 seconds, Emma went from things looking scary most of the time to deciding that things look scary all of the time. She, in essence, shut out the idea that there were periods of time, even if for just a little while, that things looked normal. She was adamant that now things were scary ALL of the time and at no time, not even for an instant, were things ever normal.
I told her to get out of the house and go outside then. I needed her out of my sight and life at that point. And she needed to get out and away from the comfort of being able to bask in her paranoia.
At this point, it isn’t just about her getting better. I am selfishly also trying to keep myself from going mad.
To tell you the truth, it feels good and as she was out the door and sitting around on the front lawn, I saluted her departure from the house with gladness and a sense of relief.
After about 30 minutes, Emma was back, saying that things can be normal. Not sure if she really meant it or just wanted to come back in, but I’ll take that as a good day.
2 weeks later
Today I took Emma to see another doctor about getting her plastic boobs removed. The doctor asked her why, and she said because she needs to have them out when she goes into the mental hospital.
Of course he was shocked and I was very taken aback myself. She had this zombie look about her, no emotion, and as he did a brief exam, he told her that he doesn’t recommend the surgery to remove the breast implants because her nipple could collapse and she would be depressed looking at her body. In other words, he didn’t want to do it and gave a worse case scenario so that she would decide not to.
In the car ride back, I went ballistic – all this time, instead of getting the hell out of the house when she thought that she wasn’t going to get better, she was pretending, just to stay in comfort on her damn bed staring at the ceiling and thinking of the negative “permanent brain damage, yadda yadda yadda..”
I did not let her come into the house and told her to stay out there forever if she didn’t change her belief from never getting better to can get better. I wrote out 2 positives and tacked them to her ceiling above her bed, “I WILL BE WELL” and “I CAN BE NORMAL.” As of this moment, she is still outside in the front yard, looking at her toenails or at the grass.
It is strange, but somehow I feel at peace with her being outside and not with me in the house. I must be a mean person – because being the nice sweet understanding mother just isn’t me. It is a lie. Being this bitch of a mother who wants a dysfunctional idiotically doomed person out of my sight and living space feels great! I imagine pushing her off a cliff. I feel on the fringe of going mad again.
When my husband came home from work, he saw Emma sitting in the front yard and made her go in the house to change her clothes and do some yard work. She told me that she will work on getting better. I just didn’t want to talk to her.
Today is a very bad day.
Next day
What a difference a day makes. This morning, Emma looked just a bit worried, but did not seem as preoccupied with herself and her problems. I took her to her 3rd neuro biofeedback session, and the therapist said that she did very well.
It was interesting sitting in towards the end. Fishes were swimming, and Emma had 3 or 4 wires attached to her head. She was controlling the flow of the fish with her thoughts. Dr P showed her progression on a chart – Emma’s memory was very very low, so recalling things was very difficult for Emma – which has been the case for awhile. A blue line above indicated a great deal of fear.
Dr. P explained that hyper sensitivity to sounds and light can be caused by high levels of fear, like PTSD – war veterans or those who have experienced trauma. Bring down the fear, and the symptoms can be alleviated.
We went to lunch, and then to Costco, and Emma looked almost normal. She still had a dazed look on her face, someone described it as an over medicated look, but she was able to adjust and handle a lot of people around. She is also chirpier today – starting conversations and asking questions.
What a difference a day can make!
The very next day
I must say, what a difference a day makes again, but this time it was a reversal and back to the zombie like daughter who doesn’t believe she will ever get normal again.
I really think that she should not be with me anymore. I am much too impatient and not at all understanding. She says “yes” to my questions about how important it is to believe in a better result than a condemned one, and all the reasonings and proof that point to her brain being physically fine and NOT damaged are negated by her belief that it is permanent brain damage and not fixable. HELP!!!
How do you change a person’s belief, especially if it is a damaging belief? This is a bad situation. A mother who is losing her temper and control and a daughter who’s mindset is one of no hope.
1 month later
Emma’s brother and sister are home for a visit. She seems almost like her old self with them – or maybe it is that they keep her occupied, which is what I do not do. She still gets anxious whenever she hears an ambulance, but not to the point where it paralyzes her with fear. She actually is listening to the sound and can hear it before anyone else can.
I have been irrationally hoping for a total reversal of her condition when her siblings came home. Instead she just adapted to their being there instead of changing for the better, and she laughs and talks to them like the old days, but she still continues to hold onto the belief that she will be the way she is forever.
I feel like I am nearing a critical point of giving up and either going crazy myself, or getting rid of her to save my sanity. I almost feel that if I were gone, Emma would get better, because she would have to. Or, if she doesn’t ever get better, why am I wasting my time, effort, heart, and spirit on her?
I feel great resentment – selfish resentment, and it is affecting the way I treat my husband, and it is really affecting how I feel about Emma’s younger sister – a spoiled self centered young adult with a college degree with poor attitude. I want to be gone from both of them, but is that the way a mother should feel?
It is getting to the point where I need help, or I need to just push everyone away. Is Emma suicidal? She sometimes acts like she is when she says she doesn’t know how she is going to survive. I know I should not be this way, but I am just so tired of it all right now, I really don’t care. I just want everyone to be gone, or for myself to be gone.
I tell myself that I am a strong woman. I know I am. It is just so weary sometimes to keep going. But I must, mustn’t I?