Night
Evening FallingA Soft Lamenting...
Nights were difficult for Cassi. Not that days were easy, but nights were horrific. Her two roommates, Kristi and Zach, were a couple and spent most evenings in their bedroom. My daughter, by this time, was having the same concentration problems that I do know...and I bet a few of you know exactly what I am talking about. She couldn't watch television due to this...I can't watch television. Night times were when her loneliness reared it's ugly head and spewed forth hurtful lies that she believed...”You are alone, you will always be alone...You are a loser and always will be...you have a degree and only make $11.50 an hour and you will never get a better job...you live in the South, where you don't feel accepted and you will never get out...You have Borderline Personality Disorder, it's a fatal disease because it has a high suicide rate, it's only a matter of time...tick tock...”
All of her fears and insecurities became magnified as the sun went down...the only thing that would soothe her was Hayley, her first love and on-again, off-again girlfriend...Most times Hayley would not visit her or even talk to her. If she did, it usually ended up in a fight that made her feel worse than ever.
My child would drug herself to sleep every evening. Not every night, every evening...at 6pm she would start. A Judy Garland cocktail of Klonopin, alcohol, Benadryl, Nyquil, phenergan...whatever she had or whatever she could find...overdosing wasn't a concern, she felt her days were numbered anyway. If she woke up in the morning, fine...if not, fine...obviously she had built up a tolerance and had no fear of death...but a fatal fear of the pain and loneliness that nighttime brought.
Could you just stop and think about this for one minute...imagine how I felt, knowing my child was in so much pain she had to sleep from 6pm until 5am when she had to get up for work. I knew that...she told me that...She also followed up any threats I made with the one statement she knew would shut me up...”If you do that I will kill myself”. What were these “threats”??? ”I will make you move back home”. “I will have you Baker-Acted”. “I will call your doctor”. I threatened to withdraw financial assistance we were helping her with...I threatened to kill myself...I promised to give her more money...anything and everything I could think of.
She did it anyway. Should I have quit my job, moved her home and watched her 24/7??? The thing about Borderline Personality Disorder is that yes, it has a high suicide rate in the young, it gets better with age...if only I could have bought her more time. She had no faith in the “It gets better with age”, but clung to the “High suicide rate in the young”...she really believed she had a terminal illness and it was a matter of time.
I can't write what I would like to do to her careless doctor who labeled her this way...we still don't know for sure if that was her problem!!! She was a cutter...old-school psychology always assigns cutters to that category...doesn't mean it was true.
What does any of this even matter??? I want my baby back...I want her whole, happy, unscarred physically, mentally and emotionally. Her arms were butchered at the end. She wasn't even trying to hide it.
In August, she overdosed on Klonopin, so her doctor increased her dosage...HE INCREASED HER DOSAGE. We still don't have her toxicology reports back yet...I hope to get some answers then...but again, what does it matter??? It won't bring her back.
Nights were difficult for Cassi. Not that days were easy, but nights were horrific. Her two roommates, Kristi and Zach, were a couple and spent most evenings in their bedroom. My daughter, by this time, was having the same concentration problems that I do know...and I bet a few of you know exactly what I am talking about. She couldn't watch television due to this...I can't watch television. Night times were when her loneliness reared it's ugly head and spewed forth hurtful lies that she believed...”You are alone, you will always be alone...You are a loser and always will be...you have a degree and only make $11.50 an hour and you will never get a better job...you live in the South, where you don't feel accepted and you will never get out...You have Borderline Personality Disorder, it's a fatal disease because it has a high suicide rate, it's only a matter of time...tick tock...”
All of her fears and insecurities became magnified as the sun went down...the only thing that would soothe her was Hayley, her first love and on-again, off-again girlfriend...Most times Hayley would not visit her or even talk to her. If she did, it usually ended up in a fight that made her feel worse than ever.
My child would drug herself to sleep every evening. Not every night, every evening...at 6pm she would start. A Judy Garland cocktail of Klonopin, alcohol, Benadryl, Nyquil, phenergan...whatever she had or whatever she could find...overdosing wasn't a concern, she felt her days were numbered anyway. If she woke up in the morning, fine...if not, fine...obviously she had built up a tolerance and had no fear of death...but a fatal fear of the pain and loneliness that nighttime brought.
Could you just stop and think about this for one minute...imagine how I felt, knowing my child was in so much pain she had to sleep from 6pm until 5am when she had to get up for work. I knew that...she told me that...She also followed up any threats I made with the one statement she knew would shut me up...”If you do that I will kill myself”. What were these “threats”??? ”I will make you move back home”. “I will have you Baker-Acted”. “I will call your doctor”. I threatened to withdraw financial assistance we were helping her with...I threatened to kill myself...I promised to give her more money...anything and everything I could think of.
She did it anyway. Should I have quit my job, moved her home and watched her 24/7??? The thing about Borderline Personality Disorder is that yes, it has a high suicide rate in the young, it gets better with age...if only I could have bought her more time. She had no faith in the “It gets better with age”, but clung to the “High suicide rate in the young”...she really believed she had a terminal illness and it was a matter of time.
I can't write what I would like to do to her careless doctor who labeled her this way...we still don't know for sure if that was her problem!!! She was a cutter...old-school psychology always assigns cutters to that category...doesn't mean it was true.
What does any of this even matter??? I want my baby back...I want her whole, happy, unscarred physically, mentally and emotionally. Her arms were butchered at the end. She wasn't even trying to hide it.
In August, she overdosed on Klonopin, so her doctor increased her dosage...HE INCREASED HER DOSAGE. We still don't have her toxicology reports back yet...I hope to get some answers then...but again, what does it matter??? It won't bring her back.
Replies
Hugging you tight as you struggle through these issues. One of these days, you will come to peace with the \"should\'a, could\'a, would\'as). My Michael died of a self-induced drug overdose (accidental on his part). We don\'t have the answers about what to do with active drug addicts (my younger son is recovering). I have heard it all about tough love, kick him out, he and I have talked about wanting to kill ourselves but not wanting to hurt each other! It is horrible, plain horrible, knowing that our kids are in mental pain and there is not ONE damn thing we could do about it. But that is what we have to understand and accept....there is and was nothing we could do about it! My younger son\'s demons are his own to fight and resist. Hugs to you and keep on writing...I know it does not seem like it will, but time will lead you to an acceptance and a sort of a healing. We don\'t forget, but we do go on, if we allow that possibility for ourselves.
Peace.
I am so, so sorry, Gina. There are so many questions and so much that just seems wrong -- but no matter what, it is not your fault. I know we all slip into \"what ifs\" and wonder what we could have done to change the reality of our children\'s deaths, but we can\'t change it and we are not to blame and I hope you can let that go. You loved your daughter, you would have done anything humanly possible to save her, but you were not a mind reader and you are not omniscient. I am so very sorry for your loss of Cassi.
Gina, I had to wait 8 months for my son\'s autopsy report & my grief counselor said something that made a lot of sense. No matter what the report says, as she said, \"The worst has already happened\".
Please be gentle on yourself. You would have moved heaven and earth to save Cassi if you could have. She knows you love her. Hold onto that. Tight hugs, Linda
I wish there was something I could say to ease this horrible pain you are suffering over your poor daughter. I worried about my daughter all the time. She Had Lupus and on powerful drugs, but she kept up her drinking and pot, and crank, In a way she killed herself to. she died a horrible death. I could do nothing it would just go over and over in my head \"why\" what was she thinking. I should have went to her house more stayed longer at the hospital. Then I finelly got the call \"you better get up here to hospital Rosalind is not doing good\" We jumped in the car just racing the hospital was 50 miles away. I jumped out of car ran down stairs to ICU. I was to late she died. It is so horrible. but all you can do is get up everyday and go on with life. With swollen eyes from crying. feeling empty and lifeless. just went about the day. I was mentally and physically just burnt out. But it does pass you never forget your child, But your life will have joy again. Big hugs Mary Ann
{{{HUGS}}}
Here really are no answers to make sense of this horror. Peace!!!!
Feeling your heart and offering mine...
She may have been misdiagnosed, unless the diagnosis was done as a \"differential\" diagnosis: this means, examining psychiatric history, notes of observation of therapist, and extensive written testing (it takes three days to complete, three hours each day).
You described my kid, except that she stayed up all night with her internet \"friends\" and slept late into the day; and she never had control of her meds except for that one time when she convinced me she felt \"like a baby\" not being able to manage her own Klonipin (the anti-psychotic was still in the safe). Next day she attempted overdose on Klonipin. Never had control of it again. I did live 24/7 in what was essentially a lock down psychiatric ward. Even otc pills, shaving razors, butter knives, scissors and screw drivers were locked in my safe behind a padlocked door in my bedroom which had a deadlock bolt on it. You had to be Houdini to get into that safe. I used to walk around with the keys stuck down my bra so I could get into my own bedroom. It didn\'t help.
The suffering you describe sounds very much like psychotic depression. Her Dr.....the one who increased the Klonipin after she OD\'s on it....well, that\'s malpractice. But very hard to prove in court. I know you can\'t help yourself from thinking these things over and over again; I still do it but now the echoes of sane analysis from my therapists and psychiatrist are voices that accompany my self torture. It was inevitable. It could not have been prevented. I remember once saying to her, eye to eye, \"If something is wrong, you\'ll TELL me, won\'t you\" and with a clear truthful gaze she answered, \"of course\". It was the next day she tried to take all the Klonipin.
There\'s no rational explanation. There never will be. I understand the horror and the pain and the self blame and the feeling of responsibility. The What Ifs....the Why Didin\'t I.....Truthfully? For me, the worst part of all of this is the thought that she did not think even once about what this would do to the rest of my life. BUT that is the hallmark of true mental illness. We *know* what effect our deaths would have on so many people; they were incapable of *knowing* that, I\'ll never understand why.
My heart hurts for you. What pain Cassi was in.
I really hate labels, and Personality Disorder is a dreadful label to put on a young woman.
People cut themselves because of deep seated pain. Finding the cause of the pain would be more appropriate than a label. It is horrendous for a mom to watch and be unable to make things better for our kids. You did all you could do, the best you could do. No, quitting your job would not have helped. And you couldn\'t quit your job and force Cassi to move home.
You did not fail Cassi, the health care professionals did.
I wish I could be there to cry with you.
Love and caring hugs,
Marlene
My daughter was a \"cutter\" also - I know the pain of watching your daughter struggle with so many issues....Gina, you\'re right - nothing will bring her back. DAMMIT, DAMMIT, DAMMIT......Sometimes answers that we want will help, sometimes those answers don\'t help.....My heart is heavy this morning with sadness for you and I\'m hugging you oh so tight.....Vicki
Hugs and love, I cry with you and for Cassi!