Author: Outrunning my demons

Walking again

/ Outrunning my demons / 2 Comments

That brings us to last Thursday. I dropped Paul off at the airport before first light. He was travelling for work and wouldn’t be home until Sunday. When I got back home Angel was heating some water in a glass bowl in the microwave. The microwave starting sparking and flames shot out from the side inside. So far things were off to a bad start. Maybe the microwave starting on fire would be the worst thing that happened while Paul was gone. Ha ha, funny. It wasn’t the worst, but it was the first.

My mom had spent the night but was leaving soon to head to the police department to sign some papers because a caregiver from my brother’s group home stole his phone. She called Arabella and told her she needed to check out of the hotel she put her up in a few nights. I didn’t know where she was going to go from there. She applied for an apartment with this guy Will whom I never met and didn’t know anything about besides him trying to kill himself a couple times.

The rest of the day went by in a blur. I went to bed when I normally do. I turned my ringer off. I slept until 3 AM when I awoke to go to the bathroom. At that time I checked my phone. I received a call around midnight from a No Caller ID caller. My heart started to race. That didn’t seem good to receive a call like that in the middle of the night. I’ve gotten calls from the police as a No Caller ID caller before. What was going on?

I also got a text from Arabella saying she was in the ER. I texted her back asking her what was going on and if she was alright but didn’t receive a response. I was wide awake now. Next I called the hospital ER department and asked to be connected to Arabella’s room. Arabella answered sounding very weak and tired. I asked her if I could talk to someone, anyone if she couldn’t talk. A nurse, her friend that took her in. Arabella said she thought I didn’t care and hung up on me.

What the hell was going on? Was it an overdose, a suicide attempt? I tried to reassure myself she was okay. She is in the hospital. They are taking care of her. She is alive. But it was little comfort as I laid in my bed alone trying to fall back to sleep. I may have dozed off a few minutes here and there. After a couple hours sleep was futile so I decided to get up and get on with my day. Right after I got up, the power went out. Because sure, why not? It didn’t stay off very long, just long enough to have to reset things.

The minute the psychiatrist’s office was open I called. I had to leave a message and decided to get on with my day. I planned on going for a run. Not sleeping was not a good enough excuse not to. Otherwise I would get nothing done if I was waiting for a stress free moment to live my life. Although I didn’t feel up for it, running is a healthy way to deal with my stress. After I left, my mom called and said Arabella came over to her house to sleep. She said Arabella told her she thought she was having a seizure and went to the ER. My mom wondered if it was a side effect from her new medicine. She just started Lithium and I remember a doctor once saying that it could be a problem with her thyroid disorder.

The psychiatrist’s office called me back a couple hours later. The nurse said that Arabella did not have a seizure. The ER diagnosed her with hyperventilation. That was a relief. She did tell me that Arabella threw me under the bus. She told them right after we got back from our vacation with her that Paul and I took another vacation. We left her home alone to starve as she was too weak to get out of bed. She also told them we gave her $200 when she turned 18 and wanted nothing to do with her. The nurse said the day after her initial psych evaluation appointment, she had an appointment with the psychiatric nurse where she was acting erratic and couldn’t hold a thought.

The nurse also said that Arabella tested positive for cannabis. She said that teenagers who already have a history of mental illness are more likely to have a negative reaction to pot. She thought maybe Arabella’s delusions were marijuana induced even more so with the high THC cannabis that is available today. She said that there was nothing I could do unless Arabella wants to quit and she didn’t know if it would even be reversible. She said she would discuss everything with the psychiatric nurse and call me back, but she never did.

After thinking about the situation, I wanted to tell the nurse that Arabella has a family history of the exact mental health struggles she is dealing with but not as extreme as her. She was experiencing paranoia and delusions before she even started smoking pot. Maybe smoking made it worse? Honestly, I think genetics is a bigger factor than smoking is. This is from what I know of our family history. Paul never knew his dad so there could be so much more effecting this than we even realize.

Right now I am kind of kicking myself though. Arabella was in inpatient 3 times within 4 months. After that she spent 2 months in outpatient, another 2 months in residential. Outside all of these programs, she has seen 5 different counselors within a year and a half. I thought she would come out of residential fixed. Part of this is my fault for thinking that. She was gradually getting worse and worse but I couldn’t accept that. I was setting her up for failure. She couldn’t go from residential care to seeing a counselor once in awhile. She fell through the cracks. She became an adult and no longer qualified for the adolescent outpatient program.

Basically she couldn’t go from wheelchair bound to walking like normal again. I thought residential was the miracle cure. I still believe it saved her life, but it wasn’t the end of her mental illness as I thought it would be. I realize that now.

Borderpolar with SAD

/ Outrunning my demons / Leave a comment

Last week my daughter said she accidently sent me a text which contained a screenshot of a conversation she had with her friend. As her parent, I found it to be very disturbing. I was debating on whether or not to post this and decided that I needed to talk about it. I want to warn you in advance that it might be triggering because I will be discussing drug use and suicide.

Arabella: I tripped too too hard on cough medicine that I was seeing hallucinations. Cause I took around 13 at night. And then the next morning I took 13 more. And I was planning to call the police because of them. As I was so miserable. That when I wanted to take a relaxing shower I saw the bath turn into like intestines. Something you would see only in really fucked up entertainment like movies or like books. But then there was screaming and the devil talked to me. And luckily V picked up the phone and talked with me and told me not to call the police. And just had me sit and talk with her until I went to bed or she did, one of those. And she told everyone at school that…

V: And that’s a pretty weird call to get from someone you don’t talk to regularly that you didn’t think did drugs. And she was calling to say she took too many pills and was crying saying she had to call the police because she saw the devil talking to her in a bathtub.

Arabella: That was me. That is more than 4 times the safe amount to get fucked up within 24 hours. That fucks up your liver. That’s why I don’t think I’m going to live long.

Will: I’ve tried to OD with a variety of OTC and a couple prescription pills.

On the bottom of the screenshot of the conversation between Arabella and Will there was a selfie of Arabella looking awfully messed up with the caption good-bye. Underneath it read, I took too many pills.

The first thing I did when I got the message was make sure it wasn’t recent. I believe the attempt to OD originated before residential. It wasn’t a current call 911 threat. I literally felt sick I was so heartbroken. I didn’t know or maybe I’ve been in denial. She wasn’t like this before. Her mental health issues all started with an out of the blue suicide attempt. Before that she didn’t do drugs or even drink. That all changed after her third inpatient hospitalization. She met a girl there who was into stealing and drugs. That’s when it all began. She didn’t have many friends left at that point. I thought it couldn’t be that bad to have a few friends from the hospital. It’s not as if anyone healthy or well adjusted wanted to hang out with her. Now I know why they discourage those types of friendships post hospitalization.

Arabella told me a couple of months ago that she didn’t like being sober. She said she liked pot but when she couldn’t get that there was alcohol. She also told me when she didn’t have money she would shoplift cough medicine. I had no idea it could be so bad. I mean it wasn’t heroin, right? But that was before residential, right? Because she was supposed to go to residential and go into remission and lead a happy healthy productive life. That’s what I was telling myself anyway.

Sometimes teenagers experiment with drugs and alcohol. Alex did. He wasn’t an easy teen. There was that one kid in the neighborhood. When we found out, he wasn’t allowed over there anymore. But he lived a few houses down. It was hard to stop once it started.

But this was different. She wasn’t with a group of friends experimenting. She was alone. Was she trying to kill herself?

When we were on vacation, Arabella wanted us to buy her alcohol and weed. We didn’t. She was already on a smorgasbord of pharmaceutical medications. I honestly didn’t know she had a problem. Maybe she doesn’t. Maybe I’m in denial. All I know is that since the trip she went into a downward spiral. She lost her job. I knew she would be okay if she was able to hold down a job. Now that is even gone.

The initial diagnosis also includes substance abuse. I haven’t wanted to face it. I’m certain that the dual diagnosis of borderline and bipolar has the highest suicide rates. If you add substance abuse to that, the prognosis is very poor. My daughter already has had multiple suicide attempts. I have to live with the fact that my daughter is seriously mentally ill. I could get a call any day.

It’s been especially hard because she has been more delusional than I’ve ever seen her. She sincerely believes that I’ve been starving and torturing her. It’s been making it nearly impossible for me to help her. I feel so helpless. There is nothing I can do. She hates me and has been abusive towards me. Should I tolerate that because she is mentally ill? When do I let go and take care of me? I feel so much anger and despair. I’ve lost a lot of hope and don’t see this ending well. I want a miracle. I want her to be the one that beats the odds. But what if she doesn’t? I’m so afraid of what might happen next. I’m worried sick.

The squeaky wheel

/ Outrunning my demons / 5 Comments

Last Wednesday my mom came over. She walked in saying she told my dad she was going to move back into my house if he didn’t take a shower. In an instant I felt more stressed. She lived with us I would guess somewhere around 4 months. My dad showering was always a fight. If it was up to my dad he would never shower again. One time he didn’t shower for a whole year. It is a topic of marital conflict that I would bet most of your parents never have had.

It wasn’t long after my mom showed up that the police called her. She found out not only one, but two of my brother Matt’s caregivers in his group home stole money from him and his roommates. It broke my mom’s heart because she really liked one of the caregivers because she was good to Matt. Not only that, but my mom found out that someone most likely a caregiver stole my brother’s cell phone. My mom got a cell phone bill for hundreds of dollars on Matt’s phone for texting and data. My brother doesn’t read nor write. He said he couldn’t find his phone for the last couple of weeks. No wonder why, it was stolen.

This was very upsetting for my mom. She is going through so much. Sadly, it’s nothing new. From what I heard the police were going to arrest one of the women as they have a low tolerance for people that steal from the disabled. My mom needed to go to the police department the following morning to sign a subpoena to get the cell phone records. It never ends for my mom. The week before Matt was exposed to COVID and his roommate had pneumonia.

As my mom was dealing with some major problems with her special needs child, I was dealing with some major issues with mine. I knew that my mom was not as concerned about me in that moment as she was with everything going on with my brother. I spent my whole childhood pretty much used to that. My mom always said the squeaky wheel gets the oil. Some way or another, Matt was always that squeaky wheel. The other three tires never made much noise in comparison.

The last year and a half Arabella has been that squeaky wheel. Lately, she is all we ever talk about. She was sending me upsetting texts while my mom was busy with everything going on with Matt. Lately Angel picked her maid of honor for her wedding. She was excited because she was also picked as the maid of honor for that friend’s wedding. We were happy for her, but then the conversation quickly switched back to the problems we are currently having with Arabella. Angel said it wasn’t fair. She was doing great but no one ever focuses on her.

I understand totally as a special needs sibling. Tonight Paul and I are taking Angel and her fiancé out to eat to thank her for keeping a good eye on the house and pets while we were on vacation. We try to celebrate the good, but in all honesty everything going on with Arabella is bringing us down. There isn’t a lot of joy in my life right now. On a scale of one to ten I would list my joy rating at a zero. One of the only things that is keeping me from jumping off a cliff (or should I say the Kennebunk bridge) is looking forward to my daughter’s wedding.

Arabella’s time at the hotel was running out. She wanted somewhere to stay and didn’t want to stay with us or with my parents because the environment was way too unhealthy. She wanted to stay with my best friend’s family. Cindy has an 18 year old son living at home. I told my best friend not to let her stay there. If my daughter makes false allegations against her son, or husband for that matter, it could ruin their lives and I couldn’t live with that. Would she end up living in a car? Winter is coming. Then she ‘accidently’ sent me a text conversation she had with someone which detailed her overdosing. Maybe I’ll share that tomorrow. It’s hard to read though as a parent. Every day I expect a phone call telling us she is dead. That’s my life right now.

She doesn’t want anything to do with us, she said. But then she asked me if I would take care of her frogs. I have been but I don’t want to. I feel sad because every time I look at them I think of how they were a gift to her to show her how much we care. I don’t want her to take them because I am afraid they will die because she can’t even take care of herself. As I went to the pet store last week for more crickets, the guy who worked there forever commented to me how happy he was to see pets in good homes like mine. I almost started crying. I have a good home?? It’s so easy to doubt that anymore. I’ve been told how awful I am that I am almost starting to believe it or think that others see me that way.

How do people view me? Am I still the kind calm person with a sad smile? Or do people just see me with the weight on my shoulders that brings me down? Do they see the angry lady who beats her fists against the walls? The sad lady that almost cries in pet stores? Or do they see the real me in there somewhere? The me I can’t even see anymore. I’m so beyond broken at this point. Dealing with this stress day in and day out is killing me. But I’ve been through hell before and kept on going.

Finally time for MY nervous breakdown??

/ Outrunning my demons / 4 Comments

Last Tuesday I had an appointment with my therapist. I was actually feeling pretty good. I mean, we had a diagnosis and that was going to solve everything. The puzzle pieces finally fit together and I was able to psychoanalyze my whole family.

I was still a little annoyed about my mom trying to drum up support for me by telling everyone I was ready to jump off the Kennebunk bridge. My therapist told me that my mom is giving me support in the way she wants to receive it. That resonated with me but angered me. I’m almost 50 years old and my mom has no idea how to support me yet I had somehow figured out how to support her before I was 10.

My therapist asked me if I was feeling suicidal. I told her I was angry not depressed or suicidal. Gauging how angry I am if it burns into depression then I would be pretty screwed. Later in the afternoon, I had an appointment with the eye doctor. I found that to be stressful because I hate it when people poke and prod my eyes. To make it even more stressful, the doctor who we’ve been going to over the past decade asked how the kids were doing. Boy, Arabella must’ve graduated and should be off to college by now. Yeah, I would’ve thought that too if I was you. Is she working somewhere? Yeah, she is a waitress but I don’t tell her that she most likely lost her job. Maybe she just needs to figure out what she wants to do? I finally admit Arabella has mental health issues. I try to change the subject. Yeah, my oldest daughter is getting married. Wow, you have a lot going on.

I wish I could say small talk isn’t painful but these kind of conversations happen all the time. It’s normal. My daughter graduated and people who don’t know want to know what she is doing with her life. Before all this happened she was on the honor roll college bound track. For a time I even thought by having her go to residential, she would be fine again and go off to college. Maybe if she had a diagnosis, there would be a pill that would fix her and she would go to college and everything would be fine. The denial is over now and the anger burns.

I had had enough peopling for one day. Screw it, I was going to sit in my hot tub and relax with a beer. My mom called me twice while I was trying to relax, but I didn’t answer because I was trying to relax. Her calling me multiple times a day was nothing new. She calls and calls until I call her back. I just didn’t want to deal with it.

It was a nice day so I decided to sit on my front porch with a beer before making supper. I was sitting there when my mom texted me she was trying to get a hold of me because my brother Luke was on the way to the ER. They thought he was having a stroke. WTF?? My baby brother, a stroke?? I called my mom back right away.

Simultaneously, while I was on the phone with my mom there was a commotion in the front yard. Paul told me the police might be coming. My son was skateboarding with a couple of his buddies and they decided to light up in the woods across the street. A lady walking by threatened to call the cops on a bunch of kids smoking something, somewhere they weren’t supposed to be.

Great, my brother is having a stroke and the cops are coming. I was already angry before all of this and flew into a rage. I chucked my almost full bottle of beer smashing it onto the sidewalk. I repeatedly bashed my fists against the wall. I screamed fuck so many times that it put my brother Matt’s Tourette’s to shame. I said the word more in that 5 minutes then I’ve ever probably said it my whole entire life up to that point. This was my kind of nervous breakdown. I had finally snapped.

The cops were coming and they were probably going to end up taking me away, a middle aged woman having a complete and total meltdown in her front yard. By that time, pretty much all of Alex’s buddies scattered. The dog was lapping up what was left of the beer on the sidewalk. I didn’t want him ingesting broken glass so I started cleaning it up. Not only did I feel bad about tripping over the dog the night before and he could barely walk, now he is drinking up the beer with glass shards. OMG!! I’m going to go crazy, crazier. I couldn’t take it anymore.

My mom called and said the doctors thought Luke had a migraine not a stroke. While I was on the phone with my mom Arabella kept calling her. I already told my mom not to give her money. My mom said she wasn’t going to give her money but was going to put her up in a hotel room for a couple nights. Again, I felt upset because it seemed to me that my mom was going along with her delusion we were abusing her.

The police never showed up that night. I had a talk with my son. I told him he needed to knock that shit off. Maybe that would’ve been acceptable in our old neighborhood, but not here. Don’t make an enemy of the neighbors. I don’t need the extra stress in my life right now.

Guess how much sleep I got that night?

Diagnosis

/ Outrunning my demons / Leave a comment

I told Arabella she needed to come home on Sunday to pick up her medicine. She said the psychiatric nurse changed her medication but she didn’t say what changed. I was afraid to give her all her pills, but what choice did I have?

She stopped by and said she was staying at her friend Kami’s house, but they wanted her out by Tuesday. She said because of our drama and abuse, she wouldn’t be coming back here. She said it has been wonderful living with a normal healthy family. Arabella asked us if we knew what it was like to grow up like that. Of course, Paul and I both responded that we did not. I felt hurt and rather defensive. But how could we give something we never had? We did our best. Paul asked what Kami’s family had that we don’t have. Arabella said they have food that can be eaten at any time. It always went back to that, the delusion we are starving her.

She said she would text me her diagnosis once she left. Although they didn’t do the full psychological testing yet, they gave her a diagnosis of borderline, bipolar, and schizoid personality disorder. They also listed binge eating, insomnia, alcohol and cannabis use, and child physical, sexual, and emotional abuse with a word behind the abuse listing I didn’t recognize. I looked up the word the following morning and it said that it’s was a symptom of a health condition. So basically she thinks she has been abused because she is delusional.

I felt a sense of relief that I finally had some answers. Then I took it one step further and analyzed her results. It made sense. I believe that Paul’s mom had undiagnosed borderline/bipolar with delusions. I didn’t know a lot about schizoid so I looked it up. In it I found the definition of my dad. I always thought he was depressed but I never remembered him crying once in my life, even when his mother died. This disorder is characterized by lack of affect, laziness, isolation, and an inability to form close relationships with emotional intimacy.

Then I took it one step further than that. If my dad is unable to experience emotional closeness with another person why would my mom stay? She always said she stayed because of her religious convictions but no one would blame her for leaving after what my dad did. She was always the main breadwinner, so it wasn’t that. I looked further. I think my mom has dependent personality disorder with anxiety. She can’t handle being alone even if it means staying with my dad. Regardless, she is also seeing a psychiatrist.

Needless to say, Paul and I were both raised with all of our parents experiencing mental health struggles and now we are seeing something similar in our daughter. It didn’t just pop up out of the blue. The pieces finally fit together.

I was finally starting to feel hopeful again. Then something bad happened. Angel and I noticed that our 14 year old dog was especially stiff in his back legs that day. As I was walking around the corner with an overflowing laundry basket of towels, I tripped over my dog because I couldn’t see him. He started limping and having a hard time walking. Was he going to be okay? Was anything going to be okay? I felt a tremendous amount of guilt because I caused suffering. I was back to feeling sad and upset.

Will we ever get a break?

Home again, gone again

/ Outrunning my demons / 2 Comments

After we got home from our trip, Arabella did not thank us and tell us she had a great time. She told me specifically that I was too controlling and she wanted all of us to just leave her alone. She wouldn’t even accept hugs from grandma. She was scheduled to work the day after we got home and she went in but came home early stating that the manager who liked her quit.

Arabella was scheduled to work Sunday morning but I was not home to see her off in the morning as Paul and I went to church. Once again I was feeling angry as I listened to the worship leader talk about a God who could move mountains. The pastor was talking about miracles and healing. But my faith has reached an all time low. God, why don’t you heal my daughter? Why is she getting worse? Paul wanted to stay after for prayer, I wanted to go home. This lead to a fight. I wanted to see if Arabella made it to work but her car was still at home when we got back. I went in her room and told her she was late but she wouldn’t get out of bed.

An hour later Arabella came out of her room wearing a hat and a fake pair of glasses. She asked Angel if people would recognize her in her disguise. She wanted to go gamble at the arcade and wanted to know if anyone from work would see her if they would recognize her. Of course she was recognizable! We told her if she wasn’t up to going to work, she shouldn’t be going out and having fun which angered her.

The following morning I had my counseling appointment. I told my counselor about our trip where Arabella accused us of abuse and neglect and left at night to wander off by herself. She thought I should call her psychiatrist’s office. When I got home from the appointment, Arabella once again did not go into work. I was really concerned now that she lost her job. I did call the psychiatrist’s office even though she was supposed to go in for a psych evaluation later in the week.

The following day Arabella slept again all day. She refused to eat supper with us which was not unusual. That evening I heard her leave the house after I went to bed. She came back home around 2:30 AM and it woke us up. Paul went to check on her in the middle of the night. She didn’t want to see him. He confiscated a bottle of vodka from her room. I was rather worried about that because I didn’t want anything to stop her from going to her appointment later in the week and now she was really mad. As if having answers would somehow make everything all better.

The next evening I went out to eat with my best friend. Arabella was gone when I got back home. Later that evening she texted me to say she left and was never going to come back home. She wouldn’t tell me where she was. She turned her location off on her phone. She sent me a message saying she might need to go to the ER. I asked her why. She said she was starving to death because we didn’t feed her. My daughter is obese and she thinks I am starving her. It was yet again another sleepless night.

The next morning I was on the phone with the psychiatrist’s office again. They were very helpful. It wasn’t the first time my daughter left home with allegations of abuse and neglect but it was the first time after she turned 18. Sadly, there isn’t a lot I can do. What I really need right now is a miracle but I’m not getting my hopes up.

Gratitude week 94

/ Outrunning my demons / 4 Comments
  1. I went to the eye doctor this week and will be getting new glasses. I was a little worried about my eyes because they are so sensitive to light, but everything is fine.
  2. I have been having problems for years doing the eye puff test. Any time I have to look into any of the eye machines my eyes start blinking and watering. About half way through I asked if I could cover one eye and then I was just fine. The lady thought I was having a hard time with the machines because of my sensitivity to light. I’m grateful to finally find a solution to the problem as it was really embarrassing and caused me a lot of anxiety about going to the eye doctor.
  3. Two family members ended up going to the ER this week and I am glad to report they are doing fine.
  4. Yesterday I went up north to celebrate my niece’s birthday with Angel, Alex, and his new girlfriend. We had a great time visiting and playing games. It went so much better than I expected.
  5. My daughter and son got along great too. I’m grateful for that because they don’t always get along. Angel got to know Alex’s girlfriend better. It was great to see them all talk and laugh.
  6. My son got the old moped running up north. I haven’t been on it for years and took it out for a ride yesterday. I had so much fun that I am seriously thinking about getting my motorcycle license next summer.
  7. My husband got wood from a tree that was down at my parent’s place. It was nice to help him haul wood along with our son. Afterwards, I took the 4 wheeler for a ride. It was also a lot of fun.
  8. Besides yesterday’s trip up north, the week has been incredibly stressful, but I made it through. I was even considering starting an anti-gratitude list.
  9. I slept really good last night for the first time in months. Maybe having fun and getting a break from the stress did me some good.
  10. My husband was out of town for work half the week. I will be leaving soon to pick him up from the airport and bring him back home.

The last night, Connecticut

/ Outrunning my demons / 5 Comments

We left New Hampshire late morning on our way to Connecticut to spend our last night before flying home. The traffic between Portsmouth and Hartford was absolutely crazy. We had a couple of close calls. Once I looked over to notice we were almost out of gas which was stressful. I was hoping to stop at a gas station with a bathroom, but no luck. We had to stop at a wayside.

Paul drove 45 minutes out of the way to eat at the chain restaurant Arabella works for at home. It was a nice gesture on his part, but I was feeling quite hangry as we didn’t eat lunch until 3 PM.

We arrived at our Airbnb at check in time. This time we stayed at a shared house. The top floor was ours and the host lived downstairs. I didn’t realize this at first as I made my way downstairs and opened the fridge. I was rather embarrassed once I found out and ran back upstairs. The host came home after work and introduced himself to us. He was a kind and quirky man and I instantly felt calm and at peace in his house.

We decided to go out for appetizers on our last night since we had such a late lunch. Arabella left to go for a walk by herself at night. When I tried to coax her to come with us for our last meal, she replied angrily that she is 18 and can do what she wants. Apparently going out to eat with us is not what she wanted. I had a cup of soup. The next morning the host made us a huge breakfast. He said that he had nightmares about it. He dreamt the coffee pot had a hole in it. He also had this dream that I had a whole bunch of little kids he had to cook for. I laughed and said now that was truly a nightmare. I couldn’t get Arabella up to join us. I left behind the food we bought the day before because I didn’t know breakfast was included.

Our vacation was over. It didn’t quite go as expected but we tried to make the most of it. Paul and I agreed that next time we would take a trip alone together.

Crossed that one off for sure

/ Outrunning my demons / Leave a comment

Honestly, I didn’t know if I was in Connecticut before or not. But this time I crossed it off my bucket list of states visited for sure.

I think I was 19 maybe 20 when I went out east. I was dating this guy named Brad. He was in the Navy. It was a long distance relationship for the most part. His mom’s house was an hour from my parent’s house. His college was 2 hours away from mine. Then there was the time he spent 6 months at sea. Once he graduated he was sent to a Naval base in Rhode Island. We dated almost 3 years. I guess we just couldn’t sustain a long distance relationship on letters and long distance phone calls when he wasn’t overseas. But anyway…

Back in the early 90’s Brad came home for Christmas break. Maybe that was the year he had the little jewelry box under the tree which disappointingly at the time contained a diamond necklace. He was a nice guy but we were too much alike to for it to work out anyway. We had the same personality. We were perfectionistic. Neither of us liked to talk on the phone and we were both left handed. But that year after Christmas I flew back with him to his Naval base in R.I.

I don’t remember much about the trip, just strange things. We flew into Boston and took a limo back with several other passengers I didn’t know. Brad was gone during the day and I stayed at his house by myself. He shared a place with his step-cousin and his wife and kid whom I didn’t know. His cousin was always stationed somewhere else. It seemed kind of weird actually that he actually lived with someone else’s wife and kid. But the wife and kid were gone the whole time I was there. So I sat all day by myself. I did a lot of laundry but never cleaned the lint tray which I got yelled at for from Brad by the wife when she got back. I remember I read the book Salem’s Lot by Stephen King. Why do I remember such crazy things? At night we watched Beavis and Butthead.

We drove around and looked at the mansions along the ocean and walked the cobblestone streets. I was there in January. It was really cold and snowed. The snow stayed on the ground which seemed to be rare as children looked excitedly for something to make into a sled. We went dancing in a club that played dance and rap music by a DJ with a record player that played backwards a bit to make the classic rap sound.

We spent some time in Boston. I hated it there. There was a woman that made a snide remark about me to her friend as we were entering a store. I was a small town girl and I was afraid there. I was not used to gas stations that you had to pre-pay gas for where someone stood at a register behind bulletproof glass. I felt it was a dirty and unsafe city. I wonder if I still would feel that way.

I remember there was turbulence on the flight back home. I remember my parents picking me up late at night from the airport. I remember it was 50 below. They brought me my warmest jacket just in case the car broke down. Those were the days we thought we would and probably could freeze to death if our car broke down on some lonely country road. I remember times it was so cold you were afraid to turn off the engine to fill up with gas. Sometimes a car wouldn’t start in that kind of cold, especially if they were low on gas. I remember getting stuck behind a train for a long time and the couple in the truck in front of us were full on making out while my parents and I sat in awkward silence.

It’s almost been 30 years and I remember all of those things. But I can’t remember if I’d been to Connecticut or not. I remember being in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. I remember crossing a bridge and seeing a sign that welcomed me to another state I’d never been in. It thought it might be CT. But of all the things I remembered, I can’t remember that.

One thing I can say for sure, I’ve been to Connecticut now.

A night in New Hampshire

/ Outrunning my demons / Leave a comment

It was time to head back south. We needed to check out of our Airbnb at 9 AM. Before leaving I needed to start a load of sheets. The notes also said to take the garbage to the curb. The dumpster was overflowing when we got there flies swarming in circles around the lid. It was expensive. The bed uncomfortably sagging so I would roll into Paul during the night. The coffee pot didn’t even work. I was wondering why it was full of stagnant water the first time I tried to fill it. But the host was nicer than most.

We had plans to spend one night in downtown Portsmouth at another Airbnb. This I assured everyone would be the nicest place because it had the highest price. From Bar Harbor, we decided to stop in Bath for lunch at a pizza place where I was able to order lobster on my pizza. Honestly I wasn’t crazy about the lobster on my pizza. It didn’t seem to belong on pizza next to my pepperoni any more than fish would.

After we sat down and ordered our pizzas, Arabella said she was ashamed of us for not feeding her. She was practically starving. WTF???!!?! She yelled at us that we never had food in the house and was embarrassed to tell her friends we wouldn’t feed her. She said all of these things while we were ordering our food. Her accusations of neglect and abuse were very upsetting to us. Then after lunch, we stopped at the grocery store (because where else would you take your kid if you are not feeding them???). She verbally attacked me in the grocery store in front of everyone.

Thankfully our trip was almost over. I was sad because I thought it would be a good time to bond with Arabella. Maybe if we take her on a trip she would appreciate everything we do for her. Maybe if she goes to a residential mental health facility that we pay for out of pocket she wouldn’t struggle as much with mental illness. The time for bargaining and denial passed. Our daughter was getting worse, not better. It was time to face that.

When we got to Portsmouth, Arabella was exhausted. She said she was going to take a nap and she probably wouldn’t be up in time for supper. At times she has been known to crash, sleeping 12 hours. Maybe she would wake up a new person. In the meantime, Paul and I decided to take a walk around town. There weren’t a lot of shops open so we didn’t stop. Instead we took a walk down by the river and crossed the bridge. Our mood one of mutual sadness. Something was really wrong with our daughter.

We came back to the Airbnb to pick up my mom and Arabella for supper. Arabella was still sleeping and didn’t want to go with. We went to another seafood restaurant. It was really busy and the service was slow. The bartender was also our server and waited on all of the tables around us. The food was unremarkable. The ambiance was nice though.

We got back to the Airbnb later than I thought I would. I brought back some extra food for Arabella in case she woke up and was hungry. When we got back, Arabella was up. She was dressed up wearing makeup and a mini skirt. She turned up her nose at the food I was offering and said she was going to go out to get something by herself.

Although the shops were closed, there was live music playing that we could hear outside of our bedroom window late into the evening. It wasn’t in the least annoying. I thought Portsmouth was a charming and clean town. I was really struck we were not approached by panhandlers at all on our trip. I think the biggest problem we faced was parking (especially in Bar Harbor). I can’t imagine trying to find a parking spot in peak season.

Most of the Airbnb’s we stayed at were old. Some of them were older than the state we live in. The staircase in the Airbnb in Portsmouth was so small there was no way you could carry a dresser up those steps. Comparable to where we live, the cost exceeded the quality. I didn’t feel comfortable leaving a review saying it was too expensive because maybe that is the norm for the East Coast. The houses did have a lot of character though and it was an experience.