Piecing

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I apologize, I'm not used to checking the Piecing forum. My daughter and I are in a very good place right now, but it was extremely difficult. She's 23 now. It started at around 16. At least the worst stuff.

She became anorexic about the fall of her sophomore year, took until near the holidays for me to find out. I hospitalized her. Here is where I should have followed a DB lesson: sometimes therapy hurts. The initial therapy helped, a transfer to an expert eating disorder hospital made thing extremely worse. The repercussions lasted years. She was thrown in the midst of all ages suffering eating disorders. I believe now young girls should not be placed with older women suffering the same disorder. What they learn is new bad problems. Plus, psychiatrists try out all different kinds of meds. I would never do this again.

When she first entered she was at the very top of her class (tied)--honors chemistry, physics and English. She ended up dropping out of HS.

After the 2nd hospital stay she got involved with cutting, drugs, alcohol, all kinds of different things. She became more agitated and fairly violent. During this time I found out I had colorectal cancer. (I feel like I'm telling someone else's story, but it's mine in a verrry brief nutshell). When I thought I was going to need chemo and radiation, she went to live with her dad 300 plus miles away. That ended up lasting a year. It turned out surgery removed all my cancer (knock on wood almost five years out), she moved back about a year later. There was a relapse in her behavior, but I sweartoGod that God walked into our lives in the form a police officer. Feels like it anyway.

She threatened to kill herself, so I called the cops. We had the most wonderful person arrive. He connected her to the local church. The woman there was the local women's chaplain at the county jail, she was also a foster mother for teens, and had a great heart for them. She was willing to talk with us.

It's easier to talk about DB than to DB.

This woman helped us set goals. Helped HER set goals. DB helped ME set goals. One of her goals was to get her GED. This took a very long time. She also had to volunteer at the church, just some office work.

These things were made and blown over and over and over again. It took about a year and a half.

Our communication was TERRIBLE. Very dramatic. All of the women in this household are very lively strong-willed people.

I learned to use THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE. Godblesstextmessaging--it probably saved our relationship.
Who knew. We could not talk f2f. We could not talk over the phone without hanging up on each other (easier to moderate than it is to actually DB your children....or for me. I'm here because I understand, not because I'm the best at DOING it.).
We've been good for maybe 2 years if I have the timing all right.

We still have to use THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE.


A CHEESELESS TUNNEL for us is to get in a long verbal conversation, it spins around and goes in crazy emotional directions.

I have to say, we dropped family counseling and she dropped personal counseling. The very best counseling was with this woman at this church. She hadn't heard of DB. But she was definitely solution oriented. And she was incredibly no-nonsense.

My daughter has her GED, is studying at the local community college and has maintained a steady job for a year and a half now. Now she wants to get a job that will pay for her BS. She is getting good at setting goals.

I can be succinct when giving advice....when I talk about myself, sometimes I'm all over the place, so I may need to clarify a point or two if this isn't clear.