Breath of Heaven

I have been hearing one of my favorite Christmas songs in a new light these days. Amy Grant's Breath of Heaven chronicles the thoughts of Mary as she was carrying our Savior. I have always thought this was a beautiful song, but lately the second verse really meets me where I am. "Do You wonder as You watch my face, if a wiser one should have had my place? But I offer all I am, for the mercy of Your plan. Help me be strong, help me be... help me!" I wonder, does God wish He had chosen a wiser mother for my daughter?

It seems like so much of parenting this child is like trying to hit a moving target. We want so badly to do the right thing, to always make the best choices and to always be wise in parenting her. But so much of the time, we are off center by leaps and bounds. What we think is a good parenting decision (You will go get the blood drawn, it has to be done, end of discussion!) could cause post traumatic stress disorder to raise it's ugly head. So we go the opposite direction (would you like it if we could switch you to a different school?) and we set her up for a personality disorder. So which is the lesser of the two evils? We can't really win here?!?

The past week has been interesting to say the least. Between itching to distraction, seeing things that are not really there, and feeling like the soda bottle is about to explode inside her head again, it has been a roller coaster. I don't know at this point what is being caused by what and keep thinking each day that maybe I should call the pdoc? But then things seem to level out and I rethink calling. Maybe it is just a bad day, a bad hour, etc.? Does the new med just need time to get into her system? Do we need to go up again on the lithium? Is my high tolerance for these behaviors getting in the way of making the call?

I did call the tdoc on Saturday to talk about the whole ghost thing from Thursday night. She was great and gave us some good ideas of ways to help Mary get "unstuck" in her head about it. Instead of letting Mary sleep in our room, she suggested that one of us sleep in her room so that she could face her fears, but know that she is not alone in dealing with it. So for the next 3 nights, I slept on her bottom bunk bed. Yesterday I asked her if getting a baby monitor for her room so she could call for us in the middle of the night if she became frightened, would make her feel safe enough without me sleeping in there all night. She agreed and after sitting with her until she fell asleep last night, she made it through the night without us in there. She is cooperating with telling her brain to "stop" when she starts thinking about it and building it up in her mind. Those are all good steps in the right direction.

However she was SUPER irritable over the weekend. I don't know if it was the anxiety caused by the whole ghost incident, whether the new meds are not strong enough (or too strong), whether it is because we switched one med for another and then switched back 5 days later, or what is going on. The irritability has gotten a little bit better as the week has gone on, but it is still there. She told me one day before school that school was going ok but she was feeling so irritable she was afraid that she was going to punch someone if they did even one little thing that was frustrating to her. The pushing and loudness of the hallways are frustrating to her as well. She looked ready to lose it when I picked her up yesterday afternoon. I offered to see if we could get her a pass to leave class a few minutes early so that she could go to her locker and be at the next classroom door when the bell rings. But she really doesn't want to stand out any more than she already does, so she doesn't want to do that.

So my thoughts today go back to that song... "Breath of Heaven, hold me together, be forever near me. Breath of Heaven, light in my darkness, pour over me your holiness, for You are Holy. Breath of Heaven."