The Monsters Are Back...

As I sit down to write this, I am not even sure where to start. It has been a very rough few months for Mary. My heart is heavy as we have just been through an hour long ordeal with her. I hurt for my daughter who wishes she was never born. I long to take away the monsters that exist inside her head.

When Mary was 5, she became very afraid of monsters. Although she knew that there are no such things as monsters, her questions to me were always, "but what if they really do exist, and you have just never seen them". Her biggest fear was the bathroom, where she was positive that monsters lived in the vents of the heating system. She has gotten over that fear, or at least has come to realize that they don't live in the bathroom vents. But instead the monsters exist solely inside her head. They scream at her until she can't hear anything else, and then she realizes that the voice she hears screaming is her own.

For quite some time, those monsters have been silent because of good medications, a great team of doctors who are committed to helping her, and the support of family and friends. However, the past several months have had her spiraling downward. For whatever reason, maybe her age and physical growth, maybe the changes in the seasons, or who knows what other reasons, she has been very unstable. Changing medications or medication dosage levels seem to help temporarily, but after a couple of days, the spiral begins again. She has complained of her brain racing and being too loud. She has been alternatively too hyper and giddy, or very depressed and wanting to die. And often those two states mix in a soup of mania and depression that are indistinguishable from each other. Her anger and aggression towards the family has been escalating. School has become a challenge and for the first time ever, she actually had a major meltdown in school. And tonight, the monsters came back.

For the first time in quite a while I was fearful to leave her alone because of what she might do to herself. She kept saying that she can't take this anymore, she wishes she was never born. She said that she wanted to jump out of her window (3 stories up). She was fearful of going into the kitchen because she wanted to take a knife and kill herself with it. She was planning to run away and never let me find her. And alternately she wanted to do whatever she could think of that would hurt me emotionally. She just wanted quiet, but couldn't stop herself from screaming. What made this different than the last time the monsters were screaming in her brain is that she was completely coherent the entire time. Reasonable? No, not at all! But coherent and able to carry on a conversation with me, yes. I am not sure what to do with this new twist?

In the past several months, I have been praying for relief for Mary, peace for the rest of the family and that God would change our circumstances. Yes, I know that my heart needs work too, but really I just want Him to fix this problem and then we will work on my heart later. But earlier this week, God reminded me to pray that no matter what my earthly circumstances, that my heart would be found faithful. I confess right now, it is so easy for me to just get angry and then shut down. It is much easier to deal with the reality of having a bipolar child if I am not on that emotional roller coaster with her. So, I put on my game face and pull myself up by my bootstraps and march forward. What I think He wants is brokenness in my heart so that He can make beauty from all this ugliness. I am still not sure what that looks like on a day to day basis. But I am convinced that this is what He wants from me. He wants me to trust Him with my child, knowing that He holds her in the palm of his hand. He sees every tear that she sheds and He weeps too. He has a plan for her life, and that plan includes having bipolar disorder. He can and will use this as a redemptive work in her life, and in mine. So, I can go to bed tonight, knowing that He is in control, and His plan is better than mine ever could be.