I can’t begin to comment on Nancy’s blog about our phone conversation, except to say that Nancy is one of the few people (Super Dad and my business partner are the other ones) with whom I’ll have a conversation when LuLu is in the middle of a rough patch. The rest of you get my voice mail!

But I do think I need to add, for the record, the glimpses of the cool kid I see underneath all this mess of diagnoses. It is the knowledge that the cool kid is in there that keeps this boat of near insanity afloat. LuLu was loaded for bear tonight. I just about didn’t get her in the car to come home from church without police assistance. And I pulled over twice to allow her to dispel some more agitation. Once home, she whirled around the house, like the Tasmanian Devil, looking for something to destroy. She threatened to hurt herself a few times before tears welled up in her eyes and she spontaneously hugged me.

“I don’t want to do this anymore,” she cried.

LuLu is in so much pain (psychologically – but I don’t think physically) that she is now talking about wanting to die when she escalates like this. Further evidence in my book that her violence and rages are a “can’t stop” vs. a “won’t stop” – and yes, this fits the profile of OCD – an awareness of what’s wrong with you and true despair that you can do little to stop it.

So, since she was now calm, we talked about why she wanted to die. She was clear that it was a move to go to heaven and for all her pain to be gone. All theological discussions of suicide and heaven aside, I just calmly suggested that dying now was not likely what God had planned for her.

She calmly agreed. Then added, “But life is too hard the way it is, Mom. I just can’t stop the anger.”

Fair enough. So I reminded her that we were all working on the same team, toward the same goal – making it easier for her to stay calm. Very bluntly I explained,

“You have to do your part and I’ll do mine. You keep from hurting yourself or anyone else and I’ll keep trying to find ways to make it easier for you to calm down. I’ll go to whatever doctors and do whatever needs to be done. But you have to keep from hurting anyone so you’ll be here for me to help.”

And LuLu wholeheartedly agreed to the deal, with a smile and a hug. For that moment, we were on the same page.

And that, in a nutshell is what keeps me going. I see a kid who wants her healing as badly as I do. And yes, I’m angry too that it’s so d*mn hard for her to keep these thoughts and feelings at bay. But it is exactly like Nancy Deren, one of my readers pointed out recently:

I think when parents can move from blaming themselves or the kid, and instead try to team up with the kid against the disability of the trauma symptoms, life can feel much happier, with less anger and guilt.

Exactly! Once I was able to view LuLu's behaviors as manifestations of her disability, we were able to be on the same team - fighting the disability instead of fighting each other.

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