I’ve wanted to share about our Keep Mommy Sane project, but I haven’t really felt led.  Parenting a child with emotional disabilities has it’s own challenges.  Part of me wants to vent after a long day.  Part of me wants to encourage those in similar situations with how we got through our day.  Part of me wants to educate readers on what RAD really looks like.  Part of me wants to not share in protection of my girlie IRL.  But most days? The biggest part of me is simply dog tired.

Have you ever had a death in the family or similar stressful situation?  At the end of the day, you just want a quiet room and a soft bed.  Maybe to scream into your pillow or cover it in your tears.  You don’t want to talk to anyone about to do lists or must-bes or even the situation itself.  Multiply that by 4 years and not sleeping for the last 10 months.  I am just fried.

What I will say is this.  Her going with Sean has brought calm to my days.  But not calm when we are all together.  It is just the same as ever.  This week has been a bit better, but it had to get worse before it did.  A RADish’s most honed skill is control.  They use it to keep people focused on them, get what they want, to have power, to keep people at bay, etc.  Sean’s decision removed her perceived control over me.  It got worse.  Way worse.  Sad and yucky.  We expected it.  But we thought that she would start acting out for Sean.  She would have if I had been completely removed from the picture.  But she still came home at the end of the day.  She still could try to get negative attention for a couple of hours.  So she upped the ante when she was here.  Saving all that fun for me—as usual.

February 9 was the worst and it continued til the 14th.  That first day was insane.  The good news is that I only lost my cool for about 4 minutes.  I started yelling at her but her behavior was so OLD SCHOOL crazy that I could step back and not engage (yay me! and yes, I get to encourage myself because if I told you what I was dealing with, you would NOT believe me).

It so freaked her out to lose control of me and my days that she pulled out the worst.  She wasn’t raging but everything short of it.  She spiraled so fast and so deep and so dark, that Sean and I could actually get to a place to sitting on our bed, curled up together busting up laughing at her attempts.  Don’t worry, she didn’t know we were laughing.  It wasn’t haha laughing either.  It was “this is SO FREAKING CRAZY I am SO SO SO SO glad I am in it with you and someone else is witnessing this, I cannot believe our life, I can’t believe she is trying this” kind of laughing.

Then?  God in his grace gave me a sinus infection and bronchitis.  I am not kidding.  ( I think I might create a hashtag for stuff like this #crazythingsRADparentssay)  It took me out of the drama.  Out of the picture.  My rest over the last four years usually comes in the form of migraines or illness.  It snapped her out of things a bit.  We are back to the newer behaviors. . . life goes on.  Pray for us as we move forward.  Pray for tenderness, submission and a focus on Jesus.  For all of us.

every day is a day closer to healing  ♥ Cate