P. turned 21... plus a lot of other things

P. turned 21 on Friday, though we didn't celebrate until tonight. I don't have pictures of the blowing out  candles because P. prefers to not be sung to and not have candles. I can't believe this child is 21 already, but it also feels as though she has been 21 for a while because of her maturity. P. is currently working as a riding instructor at the stable where I take lessons and is doing well. Her goal is to be able to afford to move out and into an apartment; she would prefer sooner rather than later. 

As much as I know this is the right next step for her, when it happens I will miss her. She is funny and smart and I value her opinions on things. P. has also been hugely helpful in the care of R. Take yesterday, for instance.

J. and I (and A.) drove into Evanston (my third trek into the Evanston/Chicago area in two weeks) because we needed to attend a memorial service. I truly did think that we would be home in time for dinner, and this is what we told everyone at home... including R., who is exceedingly careful about triple checking when either of us will be returning. (I bet you can already see where this is going, huh?) Well, the memorial service was on the longer side, then there was the reception to pay our respects which also took a while to work our way through the line. Plus, when you live in a place for 30+ years and have attended the same church for all that time, there are people to greet and catch-up with. It is not a speedy process. So it was already late-ish when we left the church.

Our good friends, the H-S Family, are in town because their daughter is celebrating a wedding this coming weekend. They had just arrived in town, so we swung by where they were staying on our way home from the service. We'll be seeing them again, but even so, it is difficult to try to catch-up in a very short amount of time, especially when you don't really want to have to leave. But we knew that every moment past dinner time was borrowed time, so we got in the car and headed home. 

We realized at this point that there was no way we were getting home in time to eat, so we contacted P. and told her to have everyone make a bunch of scrambled eggs and toast. (We always have enough eggs to feed an army.) Those of us driving picked up something on our way. When we got home, everyone was fed, happy, and content. P. had brought in the horses, and everyone was watching a movie and eating popcorn. I did pay P. for her efforts since it was all very much just dropped in her lap. It was lovely to come home to a regulated house.

And then...

While R. managed to hold everything together yesterday evening, last night and today were completely different stories. She woke up several times during the night, and this morning was a quick downhill slide into PTSD territory. She and I spent a long time on the couch together this morning while I helped her regulate talking about what she was feeling and why she was feeling it. R. is so afraid to touch her more challenging emotions, she will do just about anything to avoid feeling sad. As her behavior has become more organized, it becomes more and more evident that so much of what was (and still is, frankly) challenging was all about avoiding acknowledging her deep sadness. I can count on one hand the number of times she has actually cried tears since she has been part of our family. Instead, she will try to move away from us, sometimes leaving the house or she will go and pester a sibling or she will get very angry or try very, very hard to do things that she knows are outside usual permissible behavior. All of this because having someone get angry with her or annoyed or whatever is far easier than having to deal with her own emotions. 

So there is that as well as her underlying fear last night that this time J. and I were actually not coming back. It is not an irrational fear for her because it has happened before. We said we were going to be home at a certain time, but we weren't. All of that then triggered some truly tragic memories and feelings which she still doesn't have the capability or language to actually cope with. R. then is put in a totally untenable position: she cannot allow herself to feel her own emotions, but she is totally flooded by emotions and memories all at the same time. Her body's way of escaping the impossible? To have a seizure (or in the case of today, two). Her emotional system becomes so overwhelmed that releases all that tension by seizing. 

But here is the good news. There were times today when she did manage to be more regulated. This is very different from past times when we could expect three days of near-total disregulation. (And I'm not kidding myself that we won't see two more days of needing an exceptional amount of co-regulating.) But there were moments of reprieve. R. was able to enjoy P.'s birthday dinner. It's a small bit of progress.

[Make that three seizures. She just had another one in bed as I was finishing writing this. My poor girl. I so wish there were some faster way to convince her that she is safe and loved.]