Ups and downs...

I get swept up in the rollercoaster that it Bipolar. Each new medication, each new mood upswing and I am drunk with the feeling that things are “normal” now. All that other stuff? The stuff of the down swings? All those awful times…a distant memory..too soon forgotten just to slap me in the face with the cold reality that this too was temporary.

Lynn started the Abilify a few weeks ago. It really seems to be helping her. However, these last two weeks she has been preparing for her final exams. This causes her to be stressed and have anxiety. When this happens, she finds the one person who she knows she can take it out on and she unleashes. Yes, that person is always me. I am mother and the one who has been in her life consistently. The one she knows she can abuse and yet I will still always be there, loving her, no matter what.

This time it all started with phone calls. She is still away at school. She has her cell phone around the clock now so she calls me at various times during the day. The minute I answer, she starts complaining or even sometimes she just starts yelling. She is yelling about all the studying she has to do. She is yelling about the material she must remember for the exams…she is yelling because she wants a certain picture for her Myspace site. Whatever the concern for the moment, she is yelling. Then she huffs at me when I don’t give her the response she is looking for and *click* hangs up on me. Yes, I know. I should not have put up with this beginning with the first time she did it. After about 3 or 4 hang ups..I had it. I called her back and let her know I was through with her abuse and she was losing her cell phone for the remainder of the week…until I go and retrieve her from school for the summer. She frantically called me back and tried to tell me it was a mistake. She “didn’t know what happened and why the call disconnected.” I know better and did not buy it for a minute. I emailed her dorm mother to remove her phone from her immediately. Lynn went straight into her dorm mother and turned her phone in without being told to do so. She told her dorm mother that she would be receiving an email from me asking her to take Lynn’s phone from her. Her dorm mother emailed me right away and told me that Lynn was very upset that I was angry with her. And right she should be!!! She tried to tell me that I should reconsider with it being exam week. The dorm mother said that Lynn had been very responsible with her phone and she had really noticed a “marked difference” in her since she began taking Abilify. I warned the dorm mother to not be fooled by Lynn’s manipulation. Lynn has a way of “profiling” people and using their weaknesses against them to suit her needs and desires.

Even 2 hours away, Lynn has a way of getting under my skin and affecting my moods. I was so angry with the flagrant way she just huffed at me and blurted an insult and hung up on me. I am her mother for goodness sake! How could she treat someone who loves her, takes care of her, only wants the best for her this way! It really hurts…it’s like the sting of a slap in the face. When she treats me this way I just want to scream! These are the times when she would gloat in her success of putting me into an angry state. She was feeling bad and she wasn’t going to stop pushing all my buttons until I felt the same or worse.

She is not even home for the summer yet and I am already feeling the anxiety of her presence. I am even counting the days I will be forced to spend with her…I really want a better relationship with my eldest daughter. Again, I am swept into the cycle of the moods…drunk with the euphoria of the good times just to be let down by the bad.

Living for today.

So happy to report today that Lynn is still doing well on her new medication, Abilify. No side effects have presented themselves as of yet...keeping my fingers crossed. She will come home this weekend for Mother's Day and stay over Monday to see her psychiatrist. Could this be a new wonderful chapter in Lynn's life? What timing! Just as she begins the summer before her high school years. I am actually looking forward to being with her this summer. Summers are usually dreaded. The nonstop constant togetherness combined with her boredom in the previous years was always a recipe for a perfect storm. For this reason, I always have had her very scheduled with summer camps and various activities. However, I was simply pushing her off to others to deal with her constant shifts in attitude and moods. More on this in a future blog.

For now, I am looking forward to seeing her this Friday afternoon. We will pack my car up with many of her belongings that she will need to take home for the summer.

Check back for an update on how this weekend goes and what her doctor has to say on Monday.

Happy Mother's Day!