Terror in the night

Poor Katelyn had the very worst scare of her life (and she has lots of scares!) in the wee hours of this morning.  I heard her go to the bathroom and go back into her room.  Then there was a strangled sort of scream and she started screeching for me.  I went in to see what was wrong and she said, "The window! There's words on the window!."  Sure enough, through the glow of the nighttime light you could clearly read, "U will die!" written on the window with someone's finger sometime when the window had been foggy. When she came back in her room it was directly in her eye line, and she can read now, so she understood immediately!  She was absolutely out of her mind terrified, wouldn't even walk past the window to go into my room to sleep. I have to admit, it was awfully creepy in the middle of the night, even though I knew it had to have been Melanie and not any sort of ghoul.

She came in my bed, but was so shook up she couldn't settle down and go back to sleep, just tossed and turned and whimpered.  About 2 hours later she screams again, certain she saw something moving in my open closet. I convince her there's nothing, but she is back on high alert again. Maybe half an hours later an absolutely blood curdling scream as she sat bolt upright in the bed, grabbing for me.  "Turn on the light! Turn on the light!"  then  "I heard a voice!! There was a really deep voice talking to me!!"

She was absolutely, terrified and convinced she'd heard something and I just didn't believe her.  She sat wide-eyed and trembling, looking all around, and couldn't even stand to lay down again, being in total fight-or-flight mode and feeling too vulnerable if she lay down.  

When she finally could lay down again she was stiff and trembling, and plastered herself to me.  She insisted we keep the light on and was afraid to try to go back to sleep in case she had more bad thoughts.  To take her mind off it, I tried to get her to think about the Twins game we're going to tonight, her first. Talked her through visualizing walking in the gates and finding our seats, seeing all the people and smelling the foods.  That finally helped, she got on a roll talking about it, and then kept talking. I let her keep talking to keep her mind occupied and she finally fell asleep around 6 am.  I was going to let her sleep in and go to school late if she stayed asleep, but she popped up about 7:30 and was eager to get ready for the day.  Hopefully her meds will carry her through most of the day before she collapses of exhaustion.  Don't know what to expect for the game tonight.

Awfully sick, awfully unhappy girl.  Kate's got a rotten cold (or is it allergies?) and is feeling miserable today.  We were supposed to go to a movie this afternoon, but she is so weepy and moany-groany that we are gonna have to wait for another day, which of course is causing even more tears.

Week going ok for Katie at school, with a few ups and downs.  She came home devastated one day because she had been unable to go out for extra recess because she'd had one behavior warning last week.  She was convinced this meant she wouldn't be able to go out all week and life was awful.  I talked with the teacher to get an accurate understanding of the requirements for extra recess so we could work on it in future.

Oh my goodness!  I am completely wrung out and in the depths of despair.  Single parenting is awful and I am ready to throw in the towel. Can't stop crying. Thank GOD it's Rob's weekend!

Kate came home from school and immediately lost her mind over having to go to Dad's for the weekend.  She still hasn't gotten over the fact that they were with him 3 weekends in a row because of Easter and felt it was "not fair" that they only had one weekend home with me again.  She threw herself on the floor and began screaming that she was not getting in the car, but then did come when Melanie and I went to leave.  She got in crying and started screaming that she was "not going to get out of this car" when we got there.  She was crying and blubbering hysterically, and I felt I needed the mental break more than ever!  

Kate was determined to cry/scream the whole way there, though I warned she was going to end up with a sore throat.  There didn't seem to be anything I could do, because if I stopped she'd be getting her way, and I really needed to get away from her for a while.  Figured I just needed to try to ignore her to show her she can't manipulate me with her tantrums, but that was really tough.  I turned up the radio, but could hardly hear over her noise.  Eventually I decided to call Rob and let her talk to him.  I got his voice mail and don't know if he could even hear the message I left over her screaming in the background, but he called back before long and I made her talk to him.  I wanted him to hear from her himself the things she complains to me about about being at his house.  By now I was in tears as well, so extremely frustrated and feeling so helpless, and then Melanie broke down too because I was crying and she didn't want to listen to Katie's tantrum all the way there. We got to Elk River before she finally stopped.

After she talked to Rob she continued to fuss for a while, but then fell asleep, having exhausted herself.  But I was so overwhelmed and exhausted I couldn't stop crying from time to time.  She woke up as we passed Princeton and started right in again with how unfair it was and how mean everyone is to her, etc., etc.  I dropped them at the house, where she clung to me and begged me not to leave.  Then I went a couple blocks away to where Rob was working to talk to him about it all.  

I walked up to him crying and sunk my head on his chest, just wanting a moment of understanding and support, an arm around my shoulders telling me it's gonna be ok, we are supposed to be partners in this after all, but he wouldn't touch me.  I continued to cry as I told him about all we'd been going through this school year and especially the last month or so, and finally about getting her started on meds yesterday.  His step-son has struggled with ADHD as well, so he's actually pretty familiar with working on finding the right dose of meds and the emotional upheaval of getting used to new meds, etc.  So at least he'll take the situation seriously.

I drove home feeling absolutely alone and overwhelmed. Still crying and utterly exhausted.  I know this may sound kind of harsh of me to "ignore" her distress and force her to go when she clearly didn't want to, but I NEEDED to get away from her for that time.  I actually spanked her last night when she was throwing a fit (and then immediately felt worse and apologized) but I was just that close to the edge and really could not handle it anymore.  Please God help things level out next week!

Rough start

Well, Kate's first day on meds was not the miracle she had hoped for.  She came home and frumped on the couch and wouldn't answer me about how the day went.  "I don't want to tell you!", was all she would say, getting teary.  I set aside what I was doing to talk with her more directly and find out why she was upset.  "I never wanna talk about it! I don't wanna tell you!"  Well, if that doesn't send up red flags...  If she's getting that upset I really need to know what happened!  "I don't wanna say anything. I'm gonna get grounded and you're gonna talk to me for a long time about it!"  Ok, so she thinks she's in trouble, but I can't imagine her ever doing anything too terrible. 

Eventually, with much drama and tears she eventually told me.  One of the girls in her class is frequently bossy to her, and Katie told her that she acts like she's the queen of the school.  This caused the little girl to cry, which got the teacher's attention, who came over to speak to them, which caused Katie to cry as well, and she was horribly embarrassed.

Poor Kate, so worried about something so innocent.  She was completely overwrought and took a long time to settle down even after I told her I was not mad at her.  I told her it is ok to stand up for herself as long as she does it nicely and I knew she hadn't meant to make the other girl cry.  She did say that she felt like the pill had helped her, "but then it all got ruined".

Praise the Lord!  We were able to get in to see the doctor already today!  She agreed completely with a diagnosis of ADHD and we were given an Adderall prescription.  Starting at 5mg for a week, then deciding if we need to bump it up to 10mg if there's still room for improvement.  She took one right away in the car before she went to school after the appointment. Let the teacher and school nurse know she's started the meds, so we will all see how it goes!

"Can't You just teach me Mommy?"

Horrible, agonizing morning.  Katie has really latched on to the idea of a medication that can help her concentrate, and has herself convinced that she is worthless without it.  She begged me not to make her go to school again until she had "that pill".  I just held her, heartbroken and sobbing, and felt completely at a loss as to what to say to her.  She says her teacher "doesn't do a thing about it", but when I ask her what she would like her to do to help, she doesn't know.  She wants me to teach her at home instead, because I've already learned all the stuff she's learning, so I can just tell it to her.  This morning she sobbed, "I'm just a piece of paper!" and asked what she meant, she said, "I just lay there and I can't even do anything!"  She was desperate to know when we would be able to see the doctor about the medication, and refused to go to school unless I came with her and asked the teacher if she had sent in her portion of the assessment questionnaire.  I did drive her to school and came in to talk to the teacher and just let her know how bad things were this morning and how vulnerable Kate is feeling so she can do as much as she can to try to boost her confidence.

Today is one of those days when I really hate being a single parent, particularly of a child with special needs. I almost called her dad this morning, when she was screaming that she would never go back to school, to let him try to talk to her, but also just for him to experience some of this tough shit that I have to go through on a daily basis.  It is so exhausting and overwhelming!

Thankfully the doctor's office did call this morning, and we got an appointment this week already on Thursday, so hopefully she will be relieved to hear that.