Borderline Personality Disorder

Blue Monday

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Apparently I forgot to cancel the trial and tribulations subscription in time for the new year. It’s been a rough start and I am feeling frustrated.

Some of it is the little things. This past weekend my son was performing with his band. As I was scooting my chair closer to the bar, I smashed my finger. I didn’t realize as I was pulling it in that the seat separated from the base. I sat down on my finger trapping it between the chair and the base with my body weight. Man did that hurt! My finger swelled up and was bleeding from under the nail. It still hurts a little and my finger is bruised under the nail, so I’m hoping I don’t lose my nail.

Or we can talk about today. Today I found a worm on my cat’s backside. I had to give both cats, under protest, de-wormer and deep clean their cat boxes. As I was cleaning, dirty litter box water splashed on my face. Fun times! As I was taking the dirty litter out to the garbage, the bag broke spilling dirty litter all over our walkway. I had to clean this up so the dogs wouldn’t get into it outside while the temperature was twenty below zero.

Then there are the bigger things. Like our investment falling through, from when we sold our business, that we were planning on living on the next couple years. Now I have to go back to work full-time. All the things I have been planning had to be cancelled, like our road trip out to Virginia to see Angel and Dan who will be living out there for the next couple of months. I applied for a job over the weekend. I think I have a good chance of getting it. I will need to pass a proctored exam to see if I will qualify. That was even a big process because I had to update my resume and all the stuff that goes into looking for a job. I will also need to pass a physical as the job is very active. Against medical advice I started running again.

The other big thing is that my mom’s health is deteriorating rapidly. It has become apparent that I need to take over guardianship of my brother Matt. That is not as easy as it would seem. I had to take an online class and fill out a whole bunch of complicated paperwork. At first, my mom refused to sign the paperwork to resign as guardian. She doesn’t think anything is wrong with her. She is trying to hide her dementia.

My brother Luke came home to try to figure out my parents finances. They have several accounts that are an absolute mess and haven’t been balanced in years. My mom is refusing help with her finances. Finally on Friday my mom signed the guardianship resignation letter. Luke and I went with my mom to pick up Matt from his group home. Then we stopped at the grocery store which was insanely busy. Luke and I were trying to help my mom shop with Matt. If you can imagine what it is like taking someone who has dementia and is confused along with someone with intellectual and mental illness. Neither have any awareness of other people. Matt almost bumped into someone. I had to pull him out of the way. Luke and I were very stressed out. I almost started crying in the store. But everyone was very nice and looked upon us with pity.

I have an appointment later in the week to meet up with someone from the county to see if my parents qualify for meals and in home care. I’m still in the middle of the whole guardianship paperwork process. That is also going to be intensive with the financial reporting, needing to meet with doctors and the case manager. My brother lives 40 minutes away so it is going to take a lot of time on my part to get everything set up.

Not to mention doctor appointments with my own daughter. Arabella is doing well on her new medication, but it is causing her to gain a lot of weight. At the last appointment, she gained 13 lbs in 6 weeks, so I’m not sure if she is going to go through another med change.

I have a feeling it’s going to be a long year.

The most wonderful time of the year?

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It’s the most wonderful time of the year, or is it?

Just like everyone else, I’m getting into the hustle and bustle of the busiest time of year. I’m hosting 4 parties over the holiday season. I don’t really mind the decorating, the cleaning, set up, take down, or cooking all that much. As much of a planner and how organized I am, sometimes I don’t want to do all the planning. I don’t enjoy the menu planning anymore. It’s a ton of work trying to keep in mind everyone’s dietary restrictions and preferences.

Overall, Thanksgiving went well. But try as I might, I couldn’t get the menu right. Several people are gluten and dairy free. I tried to improvise by using dairy free butter and almond milk for the mashed potatoes versus regular butter and milk. But I found out that several people were almond free too. I had to set aside some plain potatoes for my brother Matt. My mom was constantly reminding me to set some aside for him. I was so annoyed as I had several foods I was preparing at once. She wanted me to mash his separately. I made sure at least one turkey was gluten free, as I had a regular and a smoked. Then I found out Paul’s step-dad’s fiancée couldn’t have turkey. Thankfully she brought some of her own food along to make it easier. But she ate something my mom brought which wasn’t GF and my mom didn’t tell her until she was almost done eating it.

The holidays are difficult in other ways. To me it’s a constant reminder of broken relationships and dysfunctional family members. This year my oldest two kids are not on speaking terms which is hard on me. There is a lot of strife with other family members. My dad is not a part of things because he is a horrible person. I think we all just do our best to tolerate each other which is not how family should be.

My mom’s cognitive functioning has greatly declined. Thankfully I have an appointment in the books for the end of February to see what is going on. It took months on the waiting list just to be able to schedule the appointment. I’m hoping she can hang on until then. I’ve been getting concerned calls from family and friends of my mom. My mom’s friend told me my mom went in the ditch at her house. As she was leaving, she drove across the lawn and into a deep ditch. She also said my mom didn’t even look before pulling out from a stop sign in front of somebody and they almost got hit. She said my mom was no longer a safe driver. She also said my mom needed to stop babying my disabled brother and my dad needed to get off the couch. The last two have been issues since I can remember.

I am hoping to sit down with my brothers over Christmas to discuss the care of our parents and disabled brother. I don’t want to be the only one making these calls and having all the responsibilities. I’m sure they would be willing to help, but they live further away and we don’t see each other often.

Other than that, I have most of my shopping done. My husband, our kids, and their significant others all made Amazon lists which made things really easy. So far everything went good with Arabella’s boyfriend meeting the family. By the end of the year, he will have met pretty much everyone. It’s so awkward to start dating someone right before the holidays. We like him, and he is absolutely crazy about Arabella. She is going through some major medication changes and she is responding well. Earlier in the year, I never would’ve guessed we would be at the point we are at today.

It will be interesting to see what the new year brings.

What to write

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I haven’t been feeling very motivated to write since I finished my book. I say finished loosely because it is going to need more work. Nothing major though. I hope to have it ready to publish by early next year.

I think I need to revisit my goals. What do I want to do next? Try my hand at fiction? Or am I happy to keep writing on a personal blog although with my book it seems like I told everything I wanted to tell. I think I want to keep writing in some capacity, but what?

There are always things going on in my life to write about. I guess I wasn’t meant for a life of mediocrity. Sometimes I am jealous of people who live an ordinary average life who can join groups on Facebook called the dull women’s club. True story, I looked at some of their posts and some people just sit around watching their garden grow. I could only post about watching my plants slowly die.

I figured part of my problem is that I was never shown how to care for plants. My mom got rid of all our houseplants when she went on a kick that my brother Matt was allergic to them all. Last summer I bought a banana plant and the only way it lived over winter was because a friend showed me basic plant care 101.

My grandpa had a nursery when I was young. One day, he pulled out a dying shrub he was going to get rid of. I decided I was going to ‘rescue’ the shrub. So I planted it in my backyard and watered it everyday. One day I went out to water it, and it was no longer dying. It even looked twice its size, green and healthy. It was a miracle, I saved it. But now as I am older I realize my grandpa probably had something to do with my unrealistic expectations about plant rescue.

This is totally going in an unanticipated path. I do have a lot of stories to tell, but we’ll save them for another rainy day. There have been a lot of rainy days as of late. The arthritis in my knee has been acting up for the last week or so. I may soon be able to predict the weather like my relatives of old. My arthritis is acting up, it’s going to rain. How time changes things. Five years ago I would be trying to get in a run before the storm. Now I sit around and complain about how hard it is to walk because my joints can feel the rain coming. It’s hard to think I will never be able to do something again I used to enjoy so much.

Maybe I’m just having another mid-life crisis. I will be 50 in less than a month. It’s hard kissing my 40’s good-bye. Fifty is old. I’ve gained weight. I can’t see worth a crap. Some days I have a hard time getting around. Arthritis. Grey hair. I don’t look or feel young anymore. I’m at an all time low, but it’s not going to get any better. But I’m trying not to complain about it too much because those people are just a drag to be around.

Otherwise, things are going okay. Arabella is stable on her medicine. On Monday, she has a goal planning appointment with her new case manager to help her gain independence. She literally hasn’t visited with friends for weeks and spends her day following me around. I don’t mind all that much. I’m trying to enjoy what time I have with her. She never liked me before so in that way it is kind of nice. I know I’m cool and all, but I want much more for her than that.

My other two kids, Angel and Alex, are not getting along. That has been stressful because I hate feeling like I am in the middle especially with a holiday weekend coming up. Not to mention dealing with the extended family. Then having a party and turning 50 right after that.

I have been feeling pensive and melancholy lately. Maybe I just need a little sunshine.

Mental health awareness month

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Many of you are probably aware that May is mental health awareness month. Maybe you already shared the cutesy memes on social media stating you are a friend that anyone can call day or night. Maybe that is enough for you to feel good to check off your awareness month, and have moved on to planning your pride party for June. Or maybe you also live in Wisconsin and are stocking up on cheese curds for June dairy month. I know, I know…cheesy..

Or maybe you are like me and found out that mental illness is not all that cute. Maybe you or your loved one has already lost the friend that you can call anytime. Mental illness is tough. I’m sure everyone who struggles with it would remove that part of their life if they had the choice. It’s so painful and malignant, that far too many remove themselves from life altogether when it refuses to leave them.

Through NAMI, and talking with other parents whose children struggle with mental illness, I was surprised to find some striking similarities. I am not the only parent whose child attempted suicide. I am not the only parent whose child was incarcerated after a psychotic episode. I am not the only parent whose child, after making abuse allegations, moved in with another family. I am not the only parent whose child hears voices commanding them to end their life and soothing voices telling them how peaceful death is. I am not the only parent whose child has lost a lot of good friends because of their mental illness. I am not the only parent whose child was bullied because they are different.

I could make a much longer list. But the point here is awareness. Don’t blame the family. Don’t blame the mentally ill. Most would choose to change it if they could. Don’t shun them out of ignorance or fear. Treat them as if they have a potentially life threatening form of cancer. Treat them with compassion while being mindful of your own mental health as well.

Be kind to the server who has cutting scars all over her arms. For today, she has successfully battled the voices in her head. She has battled the voices outside her head sending similar messages about her worth. She has many battle wounds but is still alive fighting. That girl is also my daughter. But she could be your daughter as well. Or your son, sibling, parent, partner, neighbor, friend, or yourself.

Be aware that one in five Americans struggle with mental illness.

Green light, red light 7

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It has been a whole month now since the mania and delusions started. Arabella is gradually getting better, but these kinds of medications take time to kick in fully.

The endless pacing back and forth has gotten slower but she can’t sit down. When she talks her voice isn’t as loud as if she is yelling. She no longer talks non-stop but she is still constantly interrupting conversations. Having a conversation in the room she is in is next to impossible. If we go in a different room, she might knock on the door.

She has become like that of a young girl, around 6 or 7. She has given up smoking. I’m not sure if it is because she now thinks she is too young or even if it will stick after all this is over. If it ever ends.

The voices in her head are quieting. I didn’t know she heard voices. She told us she thought everyone heard voices. Sometimes the voices told her to do awful things like cut or kill herself. Sometimes the voices she hears are like my voice. It can almost make sense to me why she thought I was tormenting her.

It’s exhausting. At times the suffering and grief is unbearable. Sometimes I think this is going to kill me. Sometimes I don’t even care if it does.

I am envious of people who in times like these can lean on their faith to bring them peace, comfort, and hope. As a seeker, I never can seem to find what I’m chasing after.

Why has this been what is chosen for me, my daughter, my family.

Green light, red light 6

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Several times during her hospital stay, Arabella put in requests to come back home. On day 10, we picked her up and brought her back home. She was doing better, a lot better than when we took her in. But she was still manic and delusional. Maybe our expectations were too high. Or maybe we picked her up too early.

She didn’t sleep the first night we brought her home. The hospital changed all her medications. Then when she got home, she took her old nightly medications. It was a jumbled up mess so we decided to call her psychiatrist’s office in the morning to figure it all out. The process of figuring everything out took the whole day. By that afternoon, things got progressively worse. Arabella was very manic and kept interrupting us every few minutes to tell us a bunch of nonsense. By late afternoon, Arabella told us she took a couple of gummies and smoked weed. She was stoned out of her mind, and totally freaking out.

My mom stopped by for a random visit right around that time. She wanted to go for a walk, but I was in the middle of a million things. It’s nearly impossible to get all the things done I wanted to get done when I’m constantly interrupted and in crisis mode. That is when we received a call back from the doctor’s office. Paul and I took the call in Paul’s office on speaker phone while both my mom and Arabella came in and talked to us while we were having a serious discussion with the nurse. We were beyond annoyed, frustrated, and stressed.

The nurse said the doctor wanted to discontinue some of the new meds from the hospital while adding back some of the old meds and discontinuing some others. They were going to call the prescriptions into the pharmacy and would be available two hours before the pharmacy closed. She was going to need to start the new medications that evening. I was going to need to figure it all out before she went to bed. I took a bag full of her medications on hand and went through everything while waiting for the pharmacy.

I needed to go through the meds, fold laundry, and make supper before picking up the meds. My mom tried calling several times while I was getting everything together to make supper. I figured she wanted to talk about Arabella since she left while we were on the phone with the doctor’s office. I ignored her call because I was in a real hurry and didn’t want to take the time to explain everything yet again.

Then Paul came into the room while talking on the phone. He asked whoever it was if they were going to be arrested. I knew he wasn’t talking to Arabella since she was in her room. It was my mom. He said that while she was on the way home she hit a guy on a motorcycle with her car. He said that I needed to go pick her up from the scene of the accident. He said my mom was okay. The guy on the motorcycle was alive but injured.

While in a crisis, we got hit with yet another crisis. I abandoned supper to get ready to pick up my mom. Paul said he would pick up the medication before the pharmacy closed. He wanted me to do it originally because it was my strong suit. On the way out the door, I called my best friend Cindy on the phone. She lived a couple blocks from the accident. She told me I should come over to her house and she would drive me because I was way too shook up myself.

Cindy and I picked up my mom from the place where they towed her car and the motorcycle. Good thing Paul picked up the medication because the pharmacy closed before I got home. The pharmacy screwed up the medication. But at least they gave her a prescription for something she was no longer using. The hospital also gave her an injectable medicine the day she left and I got a prescription bottle with a vial of the injection in it.

While all of that was happening, I received a call from Alex’s friend. It was his 21st birthday that evening and they wanted me to come out celebrating with them. It was a sweet gesture that my kid’s friends also think of me as their friend as well. Paul was just meeting with this young man and helping him set goals to get his GED which he just finished. I will always think of my kid’s friends as children even when they are in their 20’s and able to go out to the bars. If anything, I was worried that they would all make it home safely. Especially after the kind of day I was having.

They weren’t the only ones on the road. Dan and Angel were just getting home from a vacation in Japan. The flight back home was a rough one, then they had to drive another 4 hours to get back home. I was anxious all around. My nerves were shot and I didn’t know how much longer I could handle the stress. Bad news doesn’t seem to shock me anymore.

Now I find it shocking when good things happen.

Green light, red light 5

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Another crisis was averted when Arabella rescinded the release order she signed the day after her voluntary commitment. Paul and I decided it was time for us to visit Arabella.

We arrived during adult visiting hours in the evening. Once again we had to lock up all of our belongings including our cell phones and sat in the waiting room with a sad lot of people. Like in an elevator, no one looked long at each other. We all got swept by the metal detector screening us for weapons. Then with a buzz the outside door unlocked and we silently walked down the long hallway into the cafeteria where we waited for our loved ones to arrive.

It seemed like we waited a long time for Arabella to arrive. Everyone else arrived before her. We watched while the others embraced with a smile and sat down as if in a regular restaurant to have normal conversations. Arabella arrived in disarray clutching a notebook with the word password written on it. She said password was the password and if we could read it, we could look inside. She cautioned us that the hospital was bugged. First we had to bug the system to debug the system. It was strange because they were having issues with their phone system which Arabella slid comfortably into a delusion that everything was bugged so we had to go to a different algorithm.

Arabella said she was a genetic freak. She was born of one woman and two men. She had an extra chromosome. She said she was colorblind, men can only see primary colors and women can only see secondary colors. She said she liked apple juice because she ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. When she ate she knew all the answers to all the problems of the world.

She said she needed Bryan to come to the hospital because he was her soulmate, her other half. Her bloodwork wouldn’t be complete without him coming in the have his blood drawn. They were storm chasers and she could leave now because it wasn’t storming. She spoke of science, DNA, physics, time travel, and biology. The things she was saying had an iota of truth but was jumbled and didn’t make a lot of sense. She was unable to hold a conversation with us.

But the most troubling thing was that she was slurring her words off and on. We noticed that when we were talking on the phone several times but thought maybe it was from being sedated. She held her mouth funny at random times and words almost seemed to whistle through her teeth. She said she couldn’t talk because no one ever showed her how to talk right. She also said no one ever showed her how to brush her teeth and she had gingivitis.

We were very concerned about her new symptoms. Then she started singing. They said sometimes she would sing loudly in her room. When visiting time was over, the patients had to line up on one side and the visitors on the other. Arabella went her own way and started to take one of the signs off the wall. We told her she couldn’t take the signs off the wall.

We left in shock. Our daughter was still gone. Would she ever be the same again?

Green light, red light 4

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The aftermath after our daughter was committed was like that of a bomb going off. We were left with shattered lives and broken pieces of rubble. Shards impossible to put back together even as it was a few weeks before everything crumbled.

I can’t find the way back.

We both walked around like zombies afterwards. It’s even hard to focus enough to tell this story adequately. But that’s all a part of being in crisis mode. In utter despair our tears fell to the ground. Arabella was doing so well for the first six months after jail living at home. She found a job. We gave her a stable environment and that gave us a false sense of hope and control. The stress of her tonsillectomy was enough to send her into a relapse worse than we ever saw her in before. She was seeing things and talking to people who weren’t there.

I can’t find the road she is on.

The prognosis bleak, the illness severe. But it’s not the kind of illness where anyone brought her flowers and sent her cards to get well soon. There will be no speedy recovery. Schizophrenia, people shudder in fear and stay away as if it’s contagious. It’s not the mental illness offering up cutesy meme’s of awareness and support. It’s scary and shameful without go fund me and caring bridge pages.

I can’t find anyone who really cares.

I don’t want to talk about it over and over again to people who don’t understand. It’s exhausting in every possible way. I feel tired when I wake up. Bipolar mania, she needs support day and night. She needs support when I need to sleep. No, you can’t buy a snake. You talk too long and too loud. I need a break just to get the things done I need to get done.

I don’t have the strength to do this anymore.

Borderline personality disorder, sometimes you love me and other times you hate me. Which will it be today? It’s too much trapped inside of one body. Finally the doctors were seeing in the hospital what we were seeing at home. Right away, she signed an AMA (against medical advice) to come back home. They had 24 hours to evaluate her before she was going to come back home. Could we even take her back home? She had nowhere else to go.

I don’t know how to help her.

Sunday morning I tried to hide my swollen eyes as I went to church. I felt bitterness enter my heart. I didn’t want to see the happy healthy families. I don’t want to hear about kids going into the ministry. My daughter thinks she is God, does that count? It’s painful to see the normalcy all around me, like being impoverished while everyone is feasting on their riches. I don’t feel the joy or God’s blessings. I think I’ve been cursed since the day I was born. I don’t want to see suffering anymore. Sometimes I even get bored with my feelings of anger towards a God who is supposed to be loving.

Yet I can’t find the way.

What were we going to do? Where are the answers? What if she comes home too early in an agitated psychotic state? Do I call the police? Do I send her back to jail? Do I have her face her felonies or go to prison for an illness she didn’t choose and doesn’t have control over? How was I going to make hard decisions when I couldn’t even think? Decisions that could affect the rest of her life.

Yet I can’t find the way.

We had to find a way to get her to stay as if our very lives depended on it.

Where is the way?

Green light, red light 2

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After not being able to reach anyone to talk to besides the receptionist at the psychiatrist’s office upon opening in the morning, Paul and I called the crisis center. The lady at the crisis center asked us to try to bring Arabella in. We weren’t sure if that was possible, but we were going to try. Paul went to her bedroom to try to convince her. She said she would go. Paul asked me to grab his jacket so we could leave ASAP.

I tried to follow Arabella out to the car while she screamed at me to get away. There was no way I was going to stay home. When she got into the back seat, I slid into the back seat on the other side. I was afraid she might try to jump out of the car on the way and that somehow by sitting next to her I would be able to prevent that or could de-escalate her.

Once we got on the highway, Arabella wanted us to take her back home. She said she left Bryan at home sleeping in her bed. She wanted him to be with her. Then she said Bryan was her dog and she was Stuey from Family Guy. But Bryan was also her other half, her soulmate. He felt the same way and they were going to get married. Bryan’s boyfriend found out he was no longer gay on a VR headset and now she could marry him.

Arabella asked us to turn on a radio station in the car that was on her wavelength. It had to be a specific number she could get messages from. She asked Paul to turn the volume up. Anything to placate her. Then she asked him to open the car windows, which he did a little as it was cold outside in the morning. She was only wearing a t-shirt and shorts, but she seemed impervious to the cold. Paul didn’t know how to get to the crisis center. I took her there before but he never did. When I tried to give him directions, Arabella screamed at me to shut the f up multiple times. She shoved me back into the seat.

Not only was Paul trying to get there in the hurry, he was distracted by the thought of me being in danger. He drove erratically with one eye on the rearview mirror. I typed the address into my phone map and tossed the phone to him. We convinced her to go into the crisis center with us by saying Bryan was inside waiting for her. Once inside, Arabella became quite agitated. The employees at the crisis center called the police. I told them to ask for a CIT officer, someone trained in mental health crisis intervention. Arabella ran into the parking lot to try to find Bryan who was interchanging between her soulmate and the dog. She yelled into her phone at him like it was a walkie talkie but he wasn’t really on the phone with her.

She left wearing clothes inappropriate for the weather. We asked if she would be considered a danger to herself and they told us she would not be unless she decided to walk into traffic. We wanted her to be committed, but she had to be a danger to herself or others first unless she went in voluntary and that was going to take A LOT of convincing.

Paul tried to talk her into coming back in, which she did and finally started the assessment with the crisis center employee. She was saying off the wall things. She said she has autism which was the same thing as Down’s Syndrome. The only cure for Down’s Syndrome was meth which would make it into Up Syndrome. The officers arrived as she was talking to the assessor. We explained everything to the officers.

We weren’t sure if Arabella was going to stay. She was nervous once the officers arrived, but said since the exit sign above the door was green instead of red it meant she had to stay. She started repeating green light, red light repeatedly. Then the police officers left and were replaced by officers from the sheriff’s department. Everything happened in a blur but we were there several hours. The officers told Arabella she needed to follow the rules. You cannot push your mother. She replied that she was shaken as a baby. For some reason that shocked me more than anything else she said.

The officers said if Arabella was not willing to seek treatment, they might be able to arrest her for disorderly conduct for shoving me. Then she would have to go back to jail. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to press charges. That would mean her probation would be revoked and then her felonies might be on her record permanently at the age of 20. I didn’t know if I could do that to my daughter, but I didn’t know if I could bring her back home in the state she was in either.

She was agitated, manic, delusional, and having hallucinations which clearly wasn’t her fault or how she would have chosen to live her life.

Wishing for change

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It’s been a stressful start to the holiday week. Yesterday my colitis started to flare up. Thankfully, I was able to take it easy yesterday and today. But tomorrow is another story. I’m scheduled to volunteer twice this week. We are going to celebrate Christmas Eve with my best friend and her family. The kids will be here Christmas day. The following week is pretty much the same. My best friend’s birthday, a Christmas party here with my siblings and family, and friends over New Year’s Eve. I really don’t have time to be sick.

I’ve been feeling stressed out, but not about the holidays and the parties. Last week a previous employee of ours at the business we sold got arrested. It hit me hard. She is going through a really hard time with the loss of several close family members, got into addiction, and made some bad choices that hurt herself and other people. It’s a different story when you see someone you know on the nightly news. Much more personal. People are judging her harshly, but they only know a little of what was going on. This person was very supportive towards me when my daughter was in jail. But to be honest, I don’t want to get involved. I knew she needed help, but I couldn’t help her.

Over the weekend, we had our extended family Christmas party with my mom, her siblings, and their families. My mom got lost again getting there. She started crying when she saw some people. It’s becoming more apparent my mother is slipping into dementia. It’s really hard to face. She is taking care of my dad who cannot walk whom most of the family is estranged from. Plus she is the guardian of my disabled brother. Everything is a huge mess. I think I will have to have some difficult conversations with my brothers next week. I’m the oldest and the one who lives the closest, so a lot of the problems are going to fall on me.

I don’t want to get pulled into other people’s toxic situations when I am not feeling all that healthy myself. Things are going good with Arabella now, but I don’t think it’s always going to be that way. Yesterday her probation officer said she wasn’t allowed to date. If she does go out somewhere with someone, she is supposed to let him know. I think it’s a great rule, but I don’t know how it’s going to be enforced. I never thought it was a great idea to meet up with strangers online. She probably goes on somewhere around two dates per week.

Dealing with all of these issues that are really upsetting to me is not a really great way to handle stress. Some good did come out of it. With the situation of my previous employee, one of my other previous employees reached out that I haven’t heard from in 5 years and we are planning on catching up some time after the holidays.

I plan on reaching out to our previous employee to offer her support. I really feel horrible about the whole thing and wish there was something I could do. There is a part of me that feels guilty as if I could have prevented or changed things. But that thought is not rational. I just want to fix things by removing the suffering, but I’m experienced enough in life to know there is nothing I could’ve done.

My brothers are competent guys. I’m sure we can come up with a good plan of what the next steps are with my parents. I just wish it wasn’t this way, but wishing never changes things.