p13. Jingle Bells or Jingle Cells?

I think the hardest thing about being a parent of a bipolar young adult has become TRUST.

How do you learn to trust your kid and when do learn - it’s OK to trust your others?

Da has been living on her own for just about three months and was doing OK. She is still doing extremely well at her job and because of this her Medicaid was pulled and once again she is left without health insurance. I am not sure how Da is expected to take expensive medication without insurance and I really can’t understand how we have become such a “welfare” dependant society that one is penalized for doing well.

Last week I received a collect call from the Justice Center (city jail) it was Da and she was once again incarcerated. She told me it was because she had another probation violation - she missed a “drop”, which is a random drug test. Well it was for a violation, but not what she told me, she was in trouble again. I was so deflated and disappointed in her.

Her father told her the first time she was put in jail that she would not be welcomed back into our home until she is drug free, working and paying back her debt from the things she had stolen to buy drugs. She seemed to be doing so well and with Christmas coming up, I just felt we had to let her come and stay for “Santa”. I know my husband agreed, but now we have this latest “violation” and we cannot trust her to come here.

She told me she had been without her medication for three weeks, she told her dad she had been taking her medicine, upon my questioning after knowing the real violation problem, she told me she had been taking half doses to stretch it out - another lie. After all these years with Da, I still can’t believe she could just crash and burn in three weeks time, her former therapist reminded me that SHE could.

So how do you get the trust back into your relationship? I think it’s even a step further than that, I think the question should been how do you get the word “trust” even back in your vocabulary. I am sure that most parents of teenagers go through this phase of parenting. But, when you have been manipulated by an extremely smart, bipolar kid, who has sped through life in major mania - your other kids really get the raw end of the deal. I think you get to the point where you pretty much don’t trust anyone or anything. This is so sad, and so hard to overcome.

What does a parent do now?

During this holiday season, it reminds me of the “What would Jesus do?” question.
What would Santa do?
What would the Warden do?
What would the Psychiatrist do?
What would her sisters do?
What would her caseworkers do?
What would YOU do?

Heck the big question should be - what would SHE do?