And the living is easy..or is it with a bipolar!!! Ahhh!! It has been touch and go with Lynn this summer so far. She has presented many challenges. I have had to watch her and keep close tabs on her whereabouts. She just doesn't have a grasp on the consequences of her actions. I have found that keeping her busy with very constructive activities like volunteering at a local summer day camp - in an outdoor, nature sort of setting was so very good for her in many ways. At first she went reluctantly, then she made a few friends there and enjoyed the work she did with the children. She begged me to go back. She ended up with more than 200 community service hours for the time she spent helping out at this camp. The camp director loved her and told me so every day. He said she was such a big help. The director put Lynn with a child who had Cerebral Palsy. She was his care giver for the week he was in the camp. She shared some very meaningful camp experiences working with this young boy. She was a self-starter taking it upon herself to see what needed to be done and setting about doing it before being asked. If this is any indication of how she will conduct herself once she becomes an adult, what is this mother so worried about?! In spite of all the pain and heartache...this young lady can make me so proud!
Every bit the teenager, she spent the summer text messaging her friends and friends of friends. This turned into an obsession with her. Even during our two weeks in Hawaii, she spent much of her time in the hotel rooms texting everyone she knew back in Georgia and Florida. Upon returning home, she promptly got on her lap top computer and spent her time "instant messaging" her friends and friends of friends. It's the "friends-of-friends" part that lead to trouble for her in late summer. Given even a moment of idle time...with all her friends from this area back in school a week before she had to go back to boarding school, Lynn found herself in trouble that could've led to a very serious situation for all of us. This is when we realized that for Lynn, the Internet-instant-messaging is like a drug...dangerous and addictive. On day three of the week prior to going back to school, and all her friends already back in school, Lynn had just the night before received her lap top back and with that her computer privileges. I walked into her room mid morning to find her "chatting" online with a boy from another state...a "friend" of her boyfriend. This "friend" whom her boyfriend told her was bad news...and to stay away from him was a convited criminal. He is her age and has been in trouble with the law. He was a sick and scary individual. His "MySpace" site provided evidence that this was not someone who should be in my daughter's life in any capacity. Lynn was warned by her boyfriend...yet Lynn was intrigued..as she always is with danger. She was literally 2 seconds away from sending some seriously compromising pictures of herself to this boy at his request...I read the dialogue and he was a nasty young man. Lynn immediately lost her lap top...she attempted to lie about what she was about to do. I took her cell phone away. I explained - somewhat impassionately - much about the consequences of what she was doing...I tried to tell her what she was inviting; be it now or in the future. I told her as her mother, I felt I needed to steel my heart against what will happen to her in the future because it was much too painful to think that my beautiful daughter was setting herself up to be raped, beaten and or killed in the future...that she was also inviting danger to visit our home and could bring that danger here to harm her mother, her sister and possibly her father. Sometimes I am so so very scared for her future. She doesn't have the capacity in her brain to understand consequences...she is clinically sociopathic.
Sociopaths are often thought to be criminals. That is only because most criminal behavior is sociopathic - lacking in conscience and consequence for others. Lynn doesn't want to hurt others...but she does not possess the sense of guilt or morality that most of us possess. In addition to her bipolar disorder, Lynn has a chemical imbalance in her brain that doesn't allow this experience for her-the experience of the sense of morality. Sadly, her therapist explained to me just this summer that there is NO CURE for this and furthermore, at this time there is NO MEDICATION to correct this in her brain. We are treating her for her bipolar disorder, but we cannot treat her for the sociopathic behavior. All we can do is model, repeatedly the behaviors we want from her. We must condition these behaviors in her with repetition of healthy relationships and proper actions to her behaviors.
Attending boarding school has been an excellent answer to providing Lynn with the unique environment she needs. At boarding school, she has had the best opportunity to interact regularly with her peers and faculty and staff...not her parents. The environment at the boarding school allows her to develop healthy peer relationships. The faculty and staff provide consequences to her unwanted actions that are much better at motivating her. Because of the fact that they are not her parents (with us she did not feel threatened...she knew that she didn't need to correct her behavior for long because we would either give in or get distracted and forget.) At the boarding school, Lynn fears the consequences...being sent to the dean, etc. The consequences there are threatening to her because they are embarrassing to her in front of her peers AND they could possibly threaten her future..getting into the college of her choice. As hard as it is for me as her mother to send her away to school...I miss her terribly, I know in my heart that the sacrifice I am making is a pure act of love for this child.
So I end this post with a summary of our summer...and a beginning to the new school year. Lynn is back in school. She is a freshman in high school. I am proud of her and I am scared for her. Only too quickly will she be 18 and starting college. We have just 4 quick years to set her on the right path. I am hopeful I am scared. No matter what, she will always have my unconditional love.
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