Today

Today is the first day of the fall quarter.  I am taking four classes this quarter: Critical Thinking; Medical Terminology; Business Communications; and The Ancient Near East.  All online, of course.  I enjoy taking classes and learning new things.

Heading home.

Tonight my two grandsons and I board a Greyhound Bus and head home.  We have spent five weeks here with my beloved son and his family.  It has been a good visit, it is always a good visit, but home is good too. My son will be flying out to California in the morning with my two granddaughters who will be entering the foster care system tomorrow afternoon.  My heart aches.  I wonder if this feeling of hopelessness, sadness, and heartbreak will ever pass.

Update

My daughter called the police to report that I had taken her children and that she wants them back or she is pressing charges.  The police officer called to talk to me.  He was the same one that did the welfare checks on her and that I had talked to about this situation twice.  I updated him on the situation and my son talked to him and gave him information on what Child Protective Services was doing with the case and where things stood right now.  I wrote a detailed letter and sent it to the officer to include in his report.  Later that afternoon, two days ago now, we got the call we had been dreading.  California CPS was taking the girls back to California and putting them into foster care until they could transfer jurisdiction to West Virginia.  My daughter told CPS she would rather have the girls in foster care than here in West Virginia.  She is angry.  She is cruel and manipulative and selfish.  She is still seriously mentally ill but she is also these other things.  My granddaughters are being hurt over and over again by the actions of their mother.  My son and my other daughters and I will continue to do what we can to gain guardianship of the girls.  Pray for us, pray for them.

Continued...

My daughter is with him.  Or she had been since his release from jail on August 3rd.  They finished moving their things out of their apartment and into storage and picked up her belongings from the tow yard where they car she crashed is being held.  Then they got a motel room in Auburn, California and spent at least the weekend.  She texted me that she wants her children returned to her.  I told her to call the social worker in charge of the case.  She told me that I was going to ruin her life if I talked to the social worker and that if the girls were not returned to her she would go to the police and report me for kidnapping them.  She doesn't seem to understand what has happened, is happening, or what will happen next.  She wants her family back.  I want her sanity back.  I want him to leave her alone while at the same time I don't want her alone.  I want her safe and getting the help she needs.  I want to rush to her and take her in and never let her go.  But, I can not control the situation and I can not make her better just by wanting it so. 

Sadness

My daughter has a mental illness.  She has bipolar disorder with schizoid affect.  She suffers audio and visual hallucinations.  She doesn't take her medications as directed and instead she self medicates with drugs that worsen her illness.  She has experienced a great personal tragedy this past year, the disintegration of her fifteen year marriage due to her husband's "inappropriate behavior" with their two teenage daughters.  When her daughters told her what was happening she did everything she was supposed to do; she called the police and protected her children.  My daughter and her daughters spent months talking to people from the police, the district attorney's office, the local women's center, and victims assistance.  My son-in-law was eventually convicted, branded a sex offender, sentenced, released with time served, and put on parole.  Then he called my daughter who was in a state of mental deterioration.  She had not been taking her medications as directed; she told me that with her husband gone she didn't need them anymore.  The balancing act she had been practicing for most of the last year was precarious at best and when he called the balance beam tilted and she fell off.  She talked to him as he pleaded with her to believe that he was innocent.  She wanted her family back.  She was hearing voices.  He knows how to manipulate her, especially in her mental state.  She took off with him (he cut off his monitoring bracelet) leaving the two older girls with me and taking the younger girl who is eleven.  She was gone two weeks before they returned to the area and things began tumbling down on her head.  He was arrested and put back into jail where he spent three weeks. The voices in her head were louder and reality slipped away.  She ended up leaving her youngest daughter in a McDonald's and crashing her car.  She spent eight days in a psychiatric hospital then was released without a safe place to go and without proper medications.  My eleven year old granddaughter is now in a children's shelter in California while her two sisters are with their uncle in West Virginia.  My daughter is still hearing voices.  She is convinced that computers are reading her mind and that terrorists are stalking her.  She believes the only safe place for her is with her husband and according to her they are planning to be together after tomorrow.  I am currently in West Virginia and won't be able to get back to California for at least a week.  I text my daughter and call every day and wait to hear from her.  I feel helpless to help her.  I don't know what to do.  I love her and am scared for her and heartbroken thinking about the way she and her children have suffered, are suffering.  I want to cradle her in my arms and tell her that it will all be alright soon, to tell her to give me her pain the way I did when she was small.  But I can't and she can't give me her pain because her pain is wrapped up around her mind holding her hostage.  I pray everyday for answers, for advice, for anything that will help my baby.

Woes

It was a crazy trip from Carson City, Nevada to Charleston, West Virginia but we are here.  Tuesday, July 10, 2012 we headed out from Reno, Nevada on Amtrak's California Zephyr which would take us to Chicago where we transfer to the Cardinal heading to Charleston, WV.   The five of us boarded the train loaded down with luggage and bags of food to get us through the two day and three night train ride.  We had settled into our seats and finished a dinner of turkey sandwiches when the text came from my eleven year old granddaughter, the younger sister of the two granddaughters traveling with me.  She said her mother had dropped her off at a McDonald's in Sacramento.  She was told to call the police and wait right there.  I immediately sent texts to my son and my two other daughters this latest event.  My son and youngest daughter got on the phone and began calling Sacramento police and sheriffs.  My oldest daughter, getting ready to board a plane to Arizona from San Francisco, was on the phone with my son and me.  Then my phone rang.  It was my granddaughter who said she was fine and then handed the phone to a sheriff who told me that after my daughter left her daughter at McDonald's she had apparently crashed the car she was driving.  Physically she was bruised and had some cuts but otherwise okay; mentally she was not.  At that time it was not known whether the crash was accidental or intentional. My daughter was taken to the hospital and my granddaughter would be picked up by CPS and kept safe until arrangements were made.  This all happened a week ago now. 
Since then it has been several phone calls back and forth between all of us and CPS and the sheriff.  My daughter was moved to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation and immediate care.  My granddaughter is currently in a children's shelter until temporary custody arrangements can be made.  There was a preliminary court hearing yesterday and there will be another on Friday.  My daughter will be in the psychiatric hospital for at least two more weeks then I have no idea at this time what will happen.  We are hoping that she will get ongoing care, perhaps an inpatient program for a short while and then a half-way house until she is stable on her medications again.  We will have to figure out a living arrangement for her as she no longer has her apartment and no one in the area to stay with.  We are hoping that her youngest daughter will be joining her sister here in West Virginia but need to go through CPS and the legal system.  We have been able to speak to her in the shelter each day and have sent her a few changes of clothes and a stuffed animal so that she will have something of her own while she waits.  

I can't write anymore about this right now.  My mind and my heart are filled with sadness and worry. 

"Power"

"Power"

Living   in the earth deposits   of our history

Today a backhoe divulged   out of a crumbling flank of earth 

one bottle   amber   perfect   a hundred-year-old 

cure for fever   or melancholy   a tonic

for living on this earth   in the winters of this climate

Today I was reading about Marie Curie:

she must have known she suffered   from radiation sickness

her body bombarded for years   by the element

she had purified

It seems she denied to the end

the source of the cataracts on her eyes

the cracked and suppurating skin   of her finger-ends

till she could no longer hold   a test tube or pencil

She died   a famous woman   denying

her wounds

denying

her wounds   came   from the same source as her power

-Adrienne Rich, 1974

Update continued...

After summarizing what has happened lately I should now say how I feel about it.  With that I am having a hard time, a hard time identifying the feelings involved.  I feel numb most of the time lately unless, of course, I am so stressed out that I am crying.  I would say that underneath this numb feeling I am sad, angry, and frightened.  Sad that my daughter is suffering from a mental illness that she sometimes, and too often, self medicates.  Sad that she has had such a difficult year, that her marriage has dissolved and that the man she has loved for all of  her adult life has betrayed her and her daughters.  Angry because she won't take responsibility for the situation she has created because her pride stood in her way.  Angry that she is now taking her ex-husband's word and feelings over those of her daughter's.  Angry that she does not call her daughters enough, does not want to talk to the oldest when she does call, and does nothing but blame others when she talks to me.  I am also angry that she has made me responsible for moving and storing her possessions and for posting and selling those things she doesn't want any longer and then not being there for those interested in buying them.  Angry at myself for making myself responsible for these things. Frightened that she will take these girls back before she is stable enough.  Frightened that she will remain in association with those who use drugs.  Frightened she will allow her ex-husband back into her life betraying even more her daughters, his victims.  Those are the feelings that lay beneath this numbness that more often takes hold of me.  The stress has become physical.  I have gained weight despite the efforts I take- eating a healthy wholesome diet and walking at least an hour each day despite the constant urge I have to disappear into the solitude of my room and to pull the covers over my head.  My depression is palpable.  I continue to take my own psychotropic medications and keep my appointments with my psychiatrist knowing that if I don't take my own mental illness, bipolar-II, seriously I will not be able to cope with the hectic world around me.      


I leave for West Virginia in ten days and am so looking forward to the trip.  We, four of my grandchildren and myself, will be taking the California Zephyr to Chicago and there we will transfer to an Amtrak train to Charleston and my beloved son, his gorgeous wife, and my two amazing granddaughters.  As I have already told you in earlier posts I live with my youngest daughter, her husband and their eight children.  We plan on leaving Carson City before the end of the year and finding a place for ourselves in the Charleston, WV area in order to be closer to my son and his family.  I have always wanted to live on the East Coast and we hope that at some point we can purchase a little land in New England; land enough to farm a bit.  For the present I am just so looking forward to the trip and putting a little distance between my daughter and myself so that she can find her path and I can step away from my co-dependent tendencies.

Update

Life moves on.  Since last I wrote, we have moved into a new apartment across town and two of my granddaughters from my second daughter, Renee, are spending some time with us.  That makes thirteen people here. ten of them children.  Renee has a mental illness.  She is bi-polar with schizoid affect.  She has hallucinations, both audio and visual,delusions, and paranoia.  She has recently gone through some very difficult life events and life changes.  Her fifteen year relationship with the father of her children has ended because of his inappropriate behavior against two of their daughters.  He has been convicted and is now a register sex offender.  Both my daughter and my granddaughters were in need of counseling but my daughter refused the offer of help and declined counseling.  So, no one talked about what had happened.  My granddaughters have been traumatized and betrayed by their father and let down by their mother.  My daughter did everything she could to see that he was punished but neglected the need of counseling for her daughters and for herself.  She became the sole support of her household for the first time in fifteen years and  became the person responsible for running the everyday affairs of the household.  She began dating soon after the relationship ended, often recklessly.  She surrounded herself with the wrong kind of people, people that put her at risk.  Once her ex was released from jail he initiated contact with her and despite the restraining order in place she communicated with him. She stopped taking some of her psychotropic drugs and replaced them with illegal drugs.  A little over a month ago she called to ask if I would stay at her place with the girls while she went to Reno with some friends. I arrived at her place on the arranged date to find my daughter had left two nights before taking the youngest girl with her and leaving the two older ones telling them that she wasn't returning and that they needed to stay with their uncle or their aunt.  The girls were upset and afraid to tell me so I did not find out for three days.  I called my son and talked with him about the situation and he advised me to call the police and report what had happened.  I did.  I was told that since she had left them in my care there was no criminal act and that I should just do what was needed to keep the girls safe.  I didn't hear from my daughter for several days despite several attempts to contact her by my son, my oldest daughter, and myself.  When finally we heard from her she said that she was overwhelmed, that she had been hearing voices, and that she "just couldn't do it anymore."  She believed she was doing the best thing for herself and her girls.  She didn't reveal where she was or how she had got there but we deduced she was in Idaho with a friend.  How she got there was still a mystery.  She wanted me to put her things into storage.  She hadn't paid her rent and the apartment would have to be vacated by the end of the month.  The girls still needed to finish the last two weeks of school so I would have that time to pack and move things into storage.  I did what I could.  She had neglected housework for some time by the time I had arrived and things had gotten pretty bad.  I packed things up but left the house for her to clean and left what I couldn't fit into the truck as well as her things and her youngest daughter's things.  I am on a fixed income and the cost of the moving truck was a hardship on both me and my daughter and son-in-law that I live with.  But, we packed up the rented truck and move things into storage.  My daughter showed up at her apartment the day after we had left it.  She was upset with the state of the place and that there were still things left for her to deal with.  I felt, and my other children agreed, that I had done more that could be expected.  We feel that she left without thought for her daughter and that she expected others to take responsibility that should have been hers.  She blamed others for her actions and for her inaction.  We let her know that had she asked for help we would have been there for her but that the way in which she handled things and the way she had left her girls was not right.  This is over simplifying the situation and all that was said between us but so much was said that can't be reported verbatim.  She informed me, once she was back, that she had left in her ex-husbands car, that he somehow got to her, and that is also how she returned.  She also informed me that he had cut off his ankle bracelet and was running from parole.  It is our assumption that she left with him, that things didn't work out as she had planned, and that they came back to pick up where they had left off.  I do not know if he is still with her at this time but she does still have his car.  She has until the end of the month to vacate the apartment and has no idea where she will go to then.  The two older girls are here with us and the plans are for them to accompany two of my grandsons and me on our long planned trip to West Virginia to visit my son and his family and for them to stay with him for the next school year at least.  But, with my daughter things change daily and we must prepare for anything.  I do not want to give my granddaughter back to her at this time.  I believe, as do her siblings, that she needs to get back onto her meds and to seek psychiatric help for the issues she is experiencing.  Life is happening and the best we can do is take it one day at a time while trying to do the best we can for my granddaughters and hope that my daughter finds her way.

How does one kick start a new life?  I wish I knew.

Down & low

When I started this blog I had the best of intentions as to keeping up with it and being interesting. But that was many moods ago and I find myself increasingly depressed and feeling hopeless. I take medications for this but they don't seem to be helping much these days. In fact, I am wondering today why I bother at all. And I do mean at all. At least today. I find getting up and going through the motions of the day tedious, trying, and tiring. I want to lay down, close my eyes, and sleep long and deep. But I don't sleep much these days either. My mind races, my thoughts scattered at the same time they are obsessing over things out of my control. I am lonely. Lonely for someone of my own. I live in a home with nine other people and I am lonely. I need a hug. I need someone to want me. I miss love. I am fifty-five years old and lately I feel old. How will it be to grow old alone? I had always thought I would be with someone through these years. Like my parents who were together fifty-six years. But, it doesn't look like that will happen for me. I can't seem to hold onto love. And it isn't just love. It is my life. I have accomplished nothing and look forward to nothing. Nothing except closing my eyes for the last time. Fatalistic, yes. Wishful thinking, yes. I have told my kids I will hang around and let nature take its course but it doesn't stop the way I think, the way I feel, the way I yearn for release.