Lying prostrate before the mountain

I was talking to a friend of mine about skiing. I told him that I am terrible at it because I can't get out of my head. The minute I pick up any momentum, I think, "Hey, I'm doing it!" And then I promptly fall on my butt. My friend said, "The minute you stop lying prostrate before the mountain, you're done for. The mountain always wins."


Ah yes. Those words rang true. The same it is for our precious girl.


"Your daughter attacked me." As a joke, when she is acting out we each call her "your daughter" - but this was no joke. I raced home. There had been punching, biting through the skin, ripped out hair, broken glass. Then, tears and a slammed door.





This just three days after a therapy session where all agreed that things were going well. She had made some minor and achievable new year's goals. One of them was being real about school. See, she's 17, and we're looking down the barrel of adulthood. Another was actually utilizing her time in therapy. For another day - reflections on finding a good therapist, but suffice it to say here we have one now, after 12 years. We were working on decreasing the "acceptable levels of dishonesty" and trying to get her to feel safe expressing her emotions. But no major incidents in the new year. Hey, we're doing it!


Then came that little bit of string that we tugged on. Tuesday, she skips class, lies about it. Wednesday, she steals $100 from my mom. She leaves $80 of it on the dresser, in her typical way, courtesy of that part of her that wants to get caught. And the simple act of returning the money to my mom on Thursday sparks this vicious physical attack.


Well, once you start tugging and the thing starts unraveling, you have to keep going. When we had that sneaking sense she had stolen $40 earlier in the year, we didn't press the issue. Now, we learn of much more stealing, from our workplaces, from my sister, probably from me too, although I rarely have cash. I find an old computer in her room, which I had disassembled and put in two pieces in my room. She had clearly gone through my room in great detail until she found both pieces and had been in her room watching a horrific mix of Avril Lavigne videos and goofy YouTube clips and violent pornography and Glee. Most recently, on the night of the attack, she had looked up pictures of her biological mother on the Department of Corrections website.


So now I'm thinking that this attack may have had more dissociative elements than I had previously estimated. Now six pretty-good weeks has become six weeks of stealing, lying, hoarding, and sneaking. And what is all the money for - to run away? Let's add flight risk to the mix. And although we have not seen cutting in three years, we had not seen physical aggression in three years either, so let's put self-harm back on the table. Count the knives, constant observation. Prepare for a fight to go to school. What was the number for the truancy police again? Tell the school. Tell the therapist. Take that old computer out of the house for good.


And somewhere in all of this there is me. I remember that, when I break down crying as I watch a bagel toast. As I drive to get groceries. As I sit in my bed. Which is where I am an increasing amount of time because the depression is setting in - the physical inability to get up and face the day. I take my vitamins. I schedule cover so I can get to the gym today. I arrange to work from home. I text my therapist, and this is a first, so she texts me back and we get a time to meet. I talk to my sister. I talk to my two friends who know the truth about my life. I try to eat regularly. I visit my RAD blogs. I start this blog. I do all the things that I know how to do for that elusive "self-care" that everyone tells me is so critical. But I'm falling. I'm drowning. I'm on my butt.


Dear Mountain: I see you. I respect you. I lie prostrate before you. Show me the way.