D.I.D....

Thinking especially of you this morning @Smc. How are you going?

PS Understand about mess and visitors. I think my mess has been proportionate to stress too.

@Former-Member, ta. Have had a couple of busy but good days. Yesterday was a catchup with a Christain organisation that I attended while I was doing my ceramics cert. The afternoon was a get together for past students. At one point there was a bit of sharing high point/low point since graduating. That was challenging. High point was hard to think of- settled on our recent birthdays/anniversary party. Low point was too easy to think of... Dinner afterwards though was enjoyable. We ended up sitting next to a student doing the same course as Younger Son, and it was great hearing about both his experiences in the course and the challenges of being a Christian in a somewhat "hostile" setting. And along the way hearing a bit about our son from someone else's perspective. 😄 (It was good stuff- they get along well with each other, but there's one of two things we'll give our son a friendly ribbing about. 😉 )

And today Hubby was demonstrating his trade at a small town event. Outdoor setting and lovely weather. So now we're home and somewhat tired, but as I was expecting that, I've got a mostly-cooked meal in the fridge. (I pre-cooked potato chunks, and we'll put them in the oven with assorted toppings (ham, baked beans, cheese, ??).)

@Determined, I don't think any of us would last long if Older Daughter was living at home. There's all sorts of little things that she says or does that feel highly "discordant " to me. Comments or actions that I can see are a little bit off kilter. All part of the MI struggle, but I end up feeling uptight about all these small and hard to define things.

And also when I'm around her, I'm always a bit hyper-vigilant, and that is very tiring. She often finds normal social settings stressful, and either her pain levels go up, or she has a teary meltdown, or both... and same has happened when the family's been together, and she's found cheerful banter and noise hard to take, or she's reacted badly to any background stresses (sometimes real, sometimes perceived). So I find myself constantly trying to monitor how she's coping. She also likes being in control of her own setting, and has a lot of trouble fitting around other peoples needs and preferences, but we cannot constantly give her priority in those things without it being detrimental to others in the family.

Her frequent SH means that we can never say for sure that she's safe, but at times I've been in the next room when it's happened, with only a closed door separating her. Being nearby would be no guarantee of her safety, but would put us in a position of being held more accountable for her safety, and more responsible for getting her medical attention. If it's a nighttime occurence, it often happens after Hubby's taken his anti-anxiety "no driving" nighttime tablet, so we'd have ambulances and police cars coming to our place. She'd probably ask me to accompany her (bye bye sleep), and I'd be constantly fielding questions from well meaning friends in town concerned about what was going on at our place... to say nothing for the emotional stress that would result for her already-very-concerned younger sister.

We love her, we so much hope that one day her life will pull back together, but we're so close to burn out ourselves. We need the protection provided by a little bit of distance. If that wasn't there, I think we'd get beyond being able to cope with supporting her.

I can understand all of that @Smc and relate

Thinking of you and your family and trust and pray things can improve for you all.

Me too @Smc ..... 💓

Thinking of you @Smc and hope all is as well as can be.

Hi @Determined et al...

Have been a bit incommunicado due to dodgy on-and-off internet over the past week. Am overtired as usual... Hubby's off in the car transporting Daughter to a scheduled medical appointment at the moment.

Am hoping this afternoon will be a good one, one way or another. Going with Younger Son to the city to try to buy his much overdue 18th Birthday pressie- a top hat. He's got a big head, and we havent been able to arrange to buy one locally. He'd like to have it for an end of year university ball he's going to. He's 20 going on 21... it's ridiculously overdue. 😛

He's been stressed about his end of year assessments, the organisation for an upcoming trip with friends and a few other things happening at the same time, so I'm hoping that some downtime on a train trip with me will be good for both of us.

Soooo.... today.

Older Daughter is going in for an indefinite stay in a private psych clinic in the city. She's going to a different one to the previous admissions, because it's where her psychiatrist is currently working. It should be a nice place as such. More trees and things around it than the other clinic, and closer to suburban train lines which will make visiting easier.

The main aim is to see whether adjustments to her medication can do anything to help her constant and graphic nightmares, which seem to link in with her SH to some degree. However, changes to requirements with the insurance providers means that she will have to participate in the group therapy sessions, which she has always made great efforts to avoid in the past. She's anxious about this, and expecting she'll have panic attacks (very likely she will). I'm pointing out that if she does, that's one of the things that the staff will work on with her.

I'm guessing that there's a real possibility that she will mentally "go inside" and one of the alters will take the reins. So we may get some disturbed/disturbing phone calls at times.

Am not sure how big a pile of baggage we're going to see when we pick her up. She rang last night when we were going to bed (and very tired) both worried about the stay and concerned that she had too much stuff, but couldn't see how to reduce it. All I could suggest was "Go to bed and look over it again in the morning".

She brings food and her own crockery and cutlery in case she can't mentally handle what they're serving there (OCD). Not for all her meals, but enough that she has an option if she can't handle any given meal at the dining room. She has a lot of trouble eating food from shared serving containters, and breakfast cereal is often in large "help yourself" tubs, for example. Shared fruit platters or serving bowls of salads ditto.

She also brings a bedroll because she perfers to sleep on the floor. A massive teddy bear. Craft projects. So yeah, it adds up.

Hoping and praying that the day will go as well as possible. It's an early afternoon admission time, so we expect to get back home about dinner time. I've pulled a tub of homemade tuna mornay out of the freezer as an easy dinner. Heat and serve with noodles- that'll do.

@Smc

Thinking of and praying for you and your family today especially. Really hope some progress can be made at this admission.

Me too @Smc .... ❣️