Sunday Afternoons at my House ...

An EXCEPTIONALLY wonderful Sunday afternoon with Jessie. Started out with a few necessary 'beauty' treatments, then on to dinner that Dad had cooked, next Disney.com on my laptop - set up next to my desk on a small table ... Two gals just surfin the web .... all the while chatting and having a delightful time.

We start getting ready for her to go back to her Group Home since she likes to throw fits about leaving ... even though she ADORES the place, her Day Hab and her friends. It is just something she does (and SO, SO hard ....).

Got her goody bag packed, the Group Home aide came to get her (this had stopped her fits, she will happily skip off to THEIR CAR ...) hugs all round and the door closes.

I breathe a sigh of relief to have dodged "The Monster Tantrum" yet another week. They really bother me and the sadness, frustration and depression that is generated by them seems to stick to me like a second skin that only time will eventually slough off ...

Minutes later we hear her very, very loud high pitched banshee wail coming from the vicinity of the aides car. I want to run and hide in my closet ... anywhere, where I don't have to hear the "I don't want to go back"s, the manipulative crying ... 10 volumes too loud, but I open the door and step outside - determined to not let her in the house. That's one point for me ... one thing she will not win just by screaming at the top of her lungs.

She is strong and trying to barrel past me, the aide standing there wondering what to do. Her kind, brown, gentle eyes are wide and frightened ... she has never seen Jessie act in any way but happy and bursting with enthusiasm and joy .... she clearly does not recognize this young woman in front of her - pushing, and screaming, and hitting - this is a private show - for parents only ...

And it is most definitely a "show" she can turn it off whenever she feels like it. Happens all the time. If I weren't in the process of rejoicing that the ordeal is over, I would probably be much more angry about how she does it so easily ...

Gary arrives just in time to help me with the "not going back in the house" stance. She moves on to " Act 2" sitting on the ground, removing her shoes and kicking me if I get too close.

Our mode of operation during these 'tantrums' is to calmly talk to her - ask her questions "Why don't you want to go back?" She doesn't know. "Why are you acting like this?" She doesn't know. The screaming follows a wave pattern - at it's lowest, neighbors a block away can hear her ... At its highest - those same neighbors can hear her from inside their house, windows closed, air running and a football game on the Telly ... up loud.

It's running a typical course, the logical part of my brain saying "Just ride it out" while the "Mother" part of my brain ... that part with a direct, non-stop path to the heart ... is off in a dark corner somewhere weeping quietly ...

Things apparently are not going in a manner that would most keep her amused, so she decides to head on to "Act 3" - a very common act ...during the last months she lived at home you could count on this skit played out almost daily ... sometime with multiple encores ....

I see it in her eyes a second too late. I involuntarily yelp out "Jess!" the WORST thing I can do ... react. In fact, this is how she has perfected her show - by seeing what gets the biggest reaction ...

We try not to react at all, but much easier as a theory of "How not to hand your daughter ammunition to break your heart, freak you out, make your blood boil in anger, etc, etc, etc" than it is to accomplish in actual reality ...

She balls her fist and hits herself in the nose as hard as she can. My hand and lung mere milliseconds too late. She has won this round ... but not entirely. True ... she now has blood POURING from her nose, and true ... she is letting it drip from her face onto her hands and arms and clothes and the ground. But the ground in this episode happens to be the front porch, not the light cream colored carpet inside that she loved to defile ....

A small victory, but you haven't lived until you get to ... daily ... clean hundreds of blood drops from your carpet ... And in later years - wipe down the walls after she discovers the joys of finger painting and discovers what happens if you get close to the wall and just blow out, hard, of your nose ...

(just an inappropriate side note: the blood? SO MUCH NICER than during the stint where we tried to get her to sleep in her own room and locked the door from the outside - giving her MULTIPLE times where we got her a drink, she used the toilet, etc. But every night the screaming continued ... and every night, be it one, two, three or four hours since we had put her down for the night - she decided it would be fun to fingerpaint the walls, herself, the carpet, her bed ... with her feces.

Every.

Single.

Night.

Discovered our breaking point was 3 months ... gave up trying ...

My motto?

Since around 1988?

"It can always be worse ...".

See?

Now the blood doesn't sound all that bad, does it?)

But as for her latest trick - the blood flowed freely and often ... If you, for fun, decided to Luminol our house? You would have me down at the "Station" in Interrogation asking me where I hid the body ....

Her arms are dripping blood, half her face is covered. The pretty dress she was wearing was beginning to look like a crime scene photo. I sigh and go inside for a washcloth. Old, familiar territory.

The logical part of my brain is starting to panic. I call the woman in charge of the group home ... Jessie ADORES her. She talks to Jess, she tells me she is coming to pick her up herself ... we hang up. I small ray of hope enters my psyche - Jessie loves Iffy, she will go with her, no question about it.


The Group Home aide leaves.


Gary says he will take Jess to the backyard and wait with her until Iffy arrives, cleans her up a bit.


I return inside. When Jessie is like this - I seem to fan the flames and make everything worse, so usually my actual self can be found approximately in the same type of spot as my "Mother" brain .... hiding in a remote corner ... trying to keep that 'weeping' part bottled up ... Generally depends on the day whether or not I succeed.

As I am standing in the office looking at my computer monitors, but not really seeing them ... overwhelmed yet again by my emotions. I marvel that it really, truly - after hundreds of 'productions' - NEVER, EVER stops feeling as if someone has drop-kicked me ... then ripped my heart to shreds just for good measure.


There is no hardening here ... no "getting used to" not even a smidgen of 'learning to cope' ... just me


Staring at nothing ....


Shaking. ...


Thoughts all a jumble ...


Tears dripping from my chin ...


Heart in tatters ...


Wondering -


How long?


How long this time?


How long will it take to put all my pieces back together again?



And as I wonder how long, this time, will it be before I gain some sense of emotional control, I hear Gary and Jessie laughing in the backyard ...