No strings, no hoodies.
No gum or food either. The rules at the behavioral hospital my daughter frequents are very much ingrained after four years of visits. I have learned to not measure or expect, only address and accept, because my daughter's issues are her own and "successful treatment" cannot be replicated by measuring her experiences against the path of others. Her treatment is her own and whether it be one year or four years or fourteen, her chronic illness will not be cured. Just like diabetes will not be cured, chronic. Just like asthma is not be cured, chronic. It has taken some years to accept that the battle we fight is not of victory but of management.
It's helped to curb my errant conclusions of my daughter's wrongdoings. Just like a diabetic who craves an entire bag of Lays potato chips, my twenty-eight year old craves freedom and a life that she once experienced. Her own apartment, her job, her car, her rules - she was making the calls. Not so much now that she lives at home where the tension of my No coupled against the desire of her free will doesn't make for pleasant conversations. I try to stay within the parameters by pointing out established and agreed upon rules, I bend into compromise as she bucks against perceived authority. A night out with a trusted friend can be very innocent. It also has become a trip to the ER if she isn't taking her meds properly. Or isn't sleeping. What if she gets caught up being a twenty-eight year old with other twenty-eight year olds and orders an extra glass of wine or another vodka tonic? Her ramifications are more than a sleepy night, nausea and a hangover.
I live with the reality of these failures. On the other side of her baseline are the worries about electronic chips implanted under her skin. The hallucinations about demons coming out of the walls. The need to talk away suicidal ideation. I'm left to make sense of rambling messages scribbled on hidden pieces of paper from the random voices whispering in her ear. This is the daughter who also bakes cookies for her family and composes music to the point of having an entire discography. The person who buys her sister her favorite shade of pink just because. The one who made her brother and sister beneficiaries of her life insurance policy so they'll have a little reprieve when she's gone. The granddaughter who spends hours with Grandmom and gives complete strangers all the money in her wallet because she's more blessed than they are. I have to love her all because it is her all. And so I do.
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