I just walked out into the middle of the frozen lake, and it opened and swallowed me. The water is sucking me down. Everything is silent, I am screaming, but no sound is coming out. Darker, colder, now I am growing numb. It’s over, and I have no energy left to fight. I just lay on the bottom. I can’t breathe. I can’t move. Will I rise again, or will this be my end, too?
DAUGHTER CHALLENGES
Our conversation on Monday went disappointingly as expected but not how I hoped.
I wrote and wrote pages of notes so that when I spoke to her, I spoke with calmness and clarity. Have these past few months been a waste of time. No, probably not. I needed them. And I need to forever remember them. I need to remember that tonight, when I tried to communicate with her, she stonewalled me. I came with a pure heart. I came with a mothers love, with eyes that see the best in her. I asked her to please help me understand. “I can’t.” She says she doesn’t have a plan, doesn’t know what she wants, and can’t do more than she is. I call bullshit. I could list several things she’s done. When she first arrived here, she was incredibly pleasant, helping around the house and actively participating in life with me. She is very resourceful. Now she lays in that van all day, yesterday, bringing some guy here and having him sleep in the van with her and then hang out on the lawn all day. Seriously?! She can do a lot more than she is. She just won’t.
I won’t participate any longer in this mess. It’s a winding, hilly, pot holey road, being a parent of a mentally ill adult child. What exactly is the illness? How do you diagnose mental illness? How much is out of their control? Do meds help or not? How much do you fight for them, and really, that is up to a system stacked against the parent.
They generally are master manipulators, yet they are also very broken. I don’t think my daughter would choose this, I truly do think mental illness chooses a lot of it for her.
I did come to my end today. She was not being a good guest anymore. I had tried to talk to her again today. I had offered her an umbrella for shade. She was very negative.
I sat down beside her, my hand on her back. “I am sorry we are having a hard time coming to an agreement.” I say I ask her if she recognizes that things are different. “Yes”
“What changed?” I ask. “You keep pushing me to do too much.”
“What was the thing that crossed the line?” “This! You are always talking to me.”
“Ok, let the record show I tried.” “Ok”
“Do you want anymore work?” “Fuck no!”
I have hit my end.
What lies ahead, I dare not think about it yet. Soon, she will drive her van away for good. Will my heart be ready. No, probably not, but I can do hard things.
LANDLORD CHALLENGES
Tonight, my landlord came, knocked on the slider I could not open, and told me she was done. She came unexpectedly to mow and said there were five pieces of poop. She could find only two, but this was grounds for her kicking us both out. She told me I was trash and she was sick of “my games,” huh? You mean for paying my rent on time for 9 years and keeping the place clean and updated. That game? Oh, the game of trying to help my mentally ill daughter. That game? Fucking Christians…..sorry if you identify as a christian. I have met many wonderful humans, but Christians like her make me wretch.
‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine you did for me.’
Her lawn is her God. More important to her than a human.
There was an end I was not prepared for. That pop can burst after my landlord called me trash. The loathing I felt could not be repressed. I felt a thousand pound boulder crushing me to the ground. I have fought to believe I am worthy and to be told I am trash raised up a force in me I did not know was buried in my soul. I have bit my tongue year after year when that repugnant woman knit picked everything I did. I knew she viewed me as not Christian enough. When other neighbors would exchange their Christian speak with her, and her tone with them was so pleasant, then she would talk to me with such disgust. I let it go. I knew who I was, I fought the lies that the devil was slinging at me.
Tonight though, that fire burned up from the depths, and I let loose. I held my ground, I dropped calm and collected, and the inferno roared out of my eyes, then my mouth, and then my daughter pushed me, and I errupted. Years of frustration exited me without hesitation.
That’s when the lake devoured me. Here I sit, trying to write me way out. I’m afraid to stop writing because then I’ll have to sit alone with my feelings, with my fear. Can I?
The nights are always an empty abyss anyway. Shit, I am scared to be alone. I have to go back into my place that slumlord wants me out of. I will have to look at the nothingness I have. The housing market right now…ugh 😭 The swirling water keeps pulling me into the darkness. I can’t even raise a finger to fight. Maybe tonight I don’t. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe?
In one week, I will be 59. What is this life? What am I doing? What have I done? Tomorrow, I will revisit these questions. Tonight, I pray the peace that passes understanding finds me and sustains me. Let the wounds stop bleeding.
Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love,
for I have put my trust in you.
Show me the way I should go,
for to you I entrust my life. Ps 143:8
findingkympossible 