Teeter.

I have come to several understandings over these past few weeks while I have been MIA from my blog; I do not fully comprehend every element of every understanding I have found and tucked into a mental pocket – on the contrary, I have only been collecting these understandings to sort through on another day.
Boo was released from the hospital a week ago pending her next major surgery at Stanford (the one that focuses on the scar tissue building up at the base of her vocal chords and keeping from speaking on her own); she came home to my parents’ house because that’s where she wanted to go. My parents were gracious and forgiving enough to allow it (at the time that the decision was made, everyone was so desperate to keep Boo from returning to the track and many acceptations were made as a result of that desperation); it only took a matter of hours for Boo to begin to fall back into her old routines after being released from the hospital: wanting to go here or there on a whim, spending countless hours on my phone with any one of the stupid people she calls “friends”, being secretive and sneaky, dishonesty, shadiness, and eventually stealing again, too. My parents made her leave and I tried to let her come with me – but she proceeded to steal from Dice, my roommate right away. I can’t allow her to spread her affected instabilities to the realm of my ONLY safe haven; she had to leave my house as well.

She hasn’t changed; despite all of it, there isn’t even a slight shift into a more mature and/or personally responsible creature in regard to who Boo continues to be.

The thing that has driven the biggest and longest standing wedge between my daughter and me in more recent years has been BOO. Boo is 110% incapable of owning her faults, much less her personal actions…it is increasingly more impossible to try and reason with her at any given time because she has this obnoxious entitlement issue that causes her to fly off the handle defensively whenever she fucks up – which is often. As soon as she becomes aware that I’m onto her, or as soon as I call her out on anything shady or dishonest that she does, she blows up and leaves (especially now that she can play her “I’m eighteen” card). It’s always been this way though, even when she was very young – her best defense has always been a good offense. And she makes certain that by the time she’s ready to come back into one of our homes, we are so happy she’s alive and safe that one of us will bend and let her in.
I am sick of it. It is unhealthy. I see what it is doing to my parents again, mentally and spiritually and financially, and I can’t let it continue. The question now is:
How will I clarify myself on this issue for all to understand and perpetually respect? Is that even possible?
I will not allow my child to hold my family hostage through her outrageous behaviors anymore; things have changed for me since she turned eighteen, also, and it is a card that I can now play as well. But where is the line that defines dead and cold from wounded and bleeding out slowly in the snow? All that know for sure is that I will not spend a single year more of my own life in feeling as if my very existence is hinged upon Boo’s behavior and the things that her behaviors create in the lives of those around her. There was a point when it dawned on me: how her father continues to abuse me through her very actions…I escaped her father and have risen above his reach, such abuse cannot continue in any context.
At what point does it become okay to admit how unhealthy my own child has been to my own livelihood and how destructive she continues to be in the midst of the tiny village I have managed to construct and maintain in her absence?

The Struggle.

All that is happening now does, indeed, go back to the incident in Arizona. The surgeries that she has already undergone and recovered from have each been in attempt to separate scar tissue that has grown around Boo’s trachea from being cinched by a belt for nearly two days; also – her inability to speak has finally been de-mystified as well. The same thing is happening at the base of her vocal chords, as a result of scar tissue build-up, only the vocal cords have been permanently affected by residues left from the chemicals that Boo had been forced to drink during her captivity. The doctors have done what they can without sending her to a specialist for what is considered as “delicate surgery”; the next step to come.
Within the month, she will be going to Stanford for such things…and I have little doubt behind her strength or ability to deal with it. She remains in care still – a milestone in and of itself; she is bored beyond description, covered in bed sores, and must be feeling pretty low…yet, she hasn’t left again. Her little boyfriend (the one who do not necessarily like so much but cannot deny his humanity in comparison to the other men she has surrounded herself with in the past) comes to visit her now; I know that makes her feel like the world isn’t ending, after all. Anything that helps her to stay put and ride out the road ahead through her physical recovery – I am on board with it.
She has grown up so much…in such a short time…she is so jaded and darkened by her own experiences, that I watch her struggle with simply being cared for by another human being…it’s rough. But she’s letting it happen – as hard as it may be on her.

Digestion.

At this very moment in time I am so overcome with love for Boo. There’s not a particular reason why besides that she’s my daughter. And despite it all, she’s so brave and so strong. Even if she has a complete lack of her own self-worth…she is beautiful.
My best friend Sam (more of a guardian angel the gods have blessed me with for whatever reason, I don’t ask questions) helped me to understand a key element of this nightmare situation a few weeks back…and yes its only barely setting in now.
She said,

“Babe, the Boo you are waiting for is not going to come back. She’s gone.”

Admittedly, this was NOT an easy conversation for me to digest; and luckily I have a best friend who understands my slow computation process; part of her likely expected me to explode at such a statement. But between me and my best friend, anything can be said without such lingering negative affect – and so the story goes. After my conversation with my best friend, I went through some different things: types of mourning, grief, and acceptance of a loss so deep that it cannot be treated or cured.
During all those trials and emotional roller-coasters, things continued to play out with the current situation surrounding Boo and her status, reinforcing the fears and sadness and loss. And then, something happened. The last time Boo was found unconscious and unresponsive – right before they gave her the first tracheotomy – my perspective and/or perception had shifted somehow.
Now, anytime I spend with Boo is different, but not in a bad way. I do somehow see her as a different girl from my own, yet, she is still my daughter. And, all I can do is try my best to be a good mother to the Boo before me today. She will not be the things I have been hoping to see her become…now at least, maybe never. But should the Boo I have today survive through this, there’s hope for a relationship with her, instead. Which is good enough for me.

Re-inflated.

Apparently, she thought that walking downstairs and meeting “a friend” at the hospital was safe enough.
All I know is that within the hour of her leaving the hospital, her trach cap had been taken away from her and she was unable to speak and barely able to breathe. She spent almost 36 hours away from medical care with a brand new, unsettled tracheotomy that needed attention.
She has returned now; out of sheer necessity of course…and she has further complicated her own condition by allowing the trach to become clogged and dirty. Now they will need to replace the original trach with a new one – another surgery, another gamble with her life.

Sidenotes.

I’m talking with a boyfriend of hers,
he’s one I never liked…
but since she has self-destructed again,
he has fallen to despair,
unsure and confused of the “whys” and “how’s”,
shocked by the daring gamble she lives by,
“Why does she do this?”
“She hates herself underneath her stuck-up front, kid…
life has never given her a reason for anything more.”
sigh
sigh
why?
why?
Why?

We just don’t know.

Deflation.

“Hope is a good breakfast but a bad supper.”
~ W. Rawley

When you have a daughter like mine, this is the element that destroys you:
The incurable death wish that transcends even a hole in her own throat; Boo left the hospital last night at some point with an unknown couple and has not returned.
Granted, it is her M.O. to disappear from a recovery unit in the hospital, she has always done that. But never before has she had something as serious as a tracheotomy to worry about. She was notably struggling to breathe in the hospital – what is she going through out there? I don’t understand…I don’t believe it…but I am forced to accept the fact that she intended it. She apparently walked out by her own free will once again. She likes to think that she knows everything and has it all under control, somehow…and…well, we have all seen how well she keeps things under control…
So once again, as of the instant I woke up this morning:
My heart has disappeared to an unknown location outside of my body but still pumps and beats painfully.

Still On Process.

In yet, another, whirlwind of dramatics and emotional shock, I am martyred by one or all of the others in this fucking hopeless situation. I am writing my commentary prior to a quoted copy the text message I received upon waking up yesterday morning – out of the fucking blue from my perception of things…I haven’t spoken to Boo since she was in the hospital in Arizona after she has been kidnapped, tortured and raped. It had been directly following that final contact that she decided (for no apparent reason outside of boredom?) to turn right around and make up some horrible bullshit story about our conversation. The story that she told my parents was nothing but lies, of course; and for once I had truth on my side, as they had both been standing right with me during the last time I was on the phone with Boo, so they knew that she was totally fabricating a story about me that was untrue as it gets. Neither of them say anything to her however, and so the whole thing served as just one more wedge Boo has put between she and I, and in my opinion: she does these types of things to me spitefully…there is just no other explanation.
So, unsurprisingly, she wound up in the hospital again two nights ago (I only received this information from my mother who promised to keep me posted) with “breathing difficulty”. She was close to being throttled to death at a tortuously slow pace with a belt by the man who kidnapped her only a month ago, she smokes methamphetamine like it’s her sport, she doesn’t eat right or take care of herself…so it really didn’t come as shock to me when she found herself having issues swallowing and/or breathing after another few days’ hard running; I didn’t react as if she were on her death bed somewhere. It has become rather difficult for me to even feel anything anymore, when it comes to Boo and her constant self-endangerment. I know that is awful, but it’s true…I almost feel as if any time or energy that I spend on her is just that – an expenditure…and one that I don’t have the means to cover after so many trips to the fucking bank with it.
Anyway, my mother went to see her without even updating me of the actual hospital or anything first; and proceeded to let Boo use her phone for whatever reason. On that phone, is EVERY text message that I have ever sent my mother (because my mom has no scruples at all when it comes to anyone else’ privacy etc.) and Boo read every last one. Needless to say, there were some recent messages that were not the definition of endearment in regard to her (SHE BEHAVES LIKE A FUCKING STREET RAT AND SHAMES ME REGULARLY); she hurt her own feelings by snooping through somebody else’s private shit, in essence.
I will be honest and admit that I DID send my mother a text during a volley we were having that pertained directly to the totally random bullshit song and dance that Boo made up after she and I last got off the phone. It hurts me deeply to be the first one that my ONLY child strikes at without a second thought; it is the most disheartening and discouraging notion to find out that your child badmouths you regularly – especially a child you have poured so very much into. I was hurt by the revival of Boo’s old ways regarding the lies she insists on telling about me, unwarranted lies that are damaging and lasting. I made the statement of:

“She is a hateful and spiteful little creature for telling you guys that…”

FROM: Boo
TO: Me

“I’m a spiteful and hateful creature…. You know what fuck you because a real mom would have been there for me when I was almost dying no matter what the situation is or was but, you’re selfish and you don’t want to be in my life this is just a way to get attention. I can’t believe you I wish you would just act like a Mom and not a sorry excuse of a sick person you blow my fucking mind you are crazy I’m glad you talk so much shit about me you are crazy and to be honest you need help but you already know that you don’t have any room to talk about me because you are even worse and is crazy how you can talk about your daughter like that when she’s in the hospital hanging by a thread you are sick and I can’t believe I still have love for you good luck in life and keep my name and life out of your mouth.”