My child has no coping capabilities. I blame her dead dad

Just go with the flow. Dear Lord if there was any skill I wish I could teach my daughter it would be to just go with the flow. Yes it’s not what we planned, yes I know its not what you want, but it is reality so just go with the flow and make the best of it.

Right now, we are in the middle of a severe winter storm. That picture is of my back yard. It’s not snow, its ice, because it does not snow here, it ices. There is at least an inch of ice on everything, in most places it is more like three inches. There is no power, no hot water, no internet, no cell service. I am sitting in my cold dark house under a pile of blankets using up my computer battery to write, which I will have to post later.

My 13-year-old daughter is in the bathroom taking a shower, a cold shower, in a cold house. I can hear her crying from the living room, because shes cold and miserable and wants power and hot water and internet.

One mile down the road is my boyfriend Justin’s house. He has a generator, which means heat and electricity and with a little finagling hot water. The roads are clear enough to drive on. We are not over there, because my child does not want to be over there, she wants to be home. She says its because his boys our loud and obnoxious, well their little boys, they tend to do that.  I do not actually think that is the real reason. I think the real reason is she cannot cope, when things go out of the norm for her, when they do not go her way, when they do not go according to her plan, she does not know how to deal with it. Her anxiety skyrockets, the littlest things push her over the edge.

Yesterday we also had no power, yesterday I told her we could not sleep at home it was too cold, we were going to go sleep at Justin’s house where the heat was. She protested but was able to bring a friend with her and after about an hour of pouting decided to have a good time. I thought she had a good time.

This morning she woke up and immediately wanted to go home. “After breakfast” I said. I made hot coffee, and bacon, and French toast. All things I could not make at home because we had no power. It was warm, it was great. She was completely miserable. “Mommy I just want to go home, I need to be home. Please take me home” I thought to myself ya we can go home for a couple hours and she will be cold and want to come back. Nope, I’m freezing and she says “it’s not cold at all.” So were staying home tonight, were going to snuggle together in bed and I’m going to pray the power comes back on.

Justin asked me if I thought she was just being 13, cause boy is she ever 13. She’s always right and I’m always wrong and it’s a miracle shes managed to keep herself alive for 13 years because I certainly couldn’t have  done it on my own.  (I just got up out of my blankies and holy crap its cold) I told him, yes of course she does that, but this is different.  This isn’t I want my way, this is I need to be home, I need to feel safe. I can tell this is different, this is her anxiety sky rocketing, this is her not being able to cope with change, this is because her dad is dead. Justin also recognized the difference. She feels safe at home, even if it’s freezing, even if there’s no power, home is her safe place.

She did the same thing at the end of the summer. There were wild fires very near our house and we had to evacuate. (our house didn’t burn down thank God) Her anxiety went through the roof, she was more irritable then her usual 13 year old self. She would cry at the drop of a hat. She needed to know where I was at all times. If I got up to get some water or go to the bathroom she asked me what I was doing. She is constantly walking on the edge of a cliff and the slightest bump pushes her over. You can read my blog about that by clicking Here.  Because change and things being different and not knowing what’s going to happen to her freaks her out because her dad died.

She’s acted like this before that too, anytime something out of the normal comes up. It all started when  her dad died. She was the little girl who went from being able to conquer the world to being afraid of everything overnight. Her dad died suddenly in the middle of the night and just like that she was no longer the same person. I was no longer the same person either. For almost two years she refused to leave my side, even for me to get a glass of water, even for me to go to the bathroom.

When stressful things happen to her like a nearby wildfire or a giant ice storm, she reverts back to how she acted when her dad died. Because she doesn’t know how to cope with life stressors, because we didn’t know how to cope when her dad died, I didn’t know how to teach her that.

I try to remember not to strangle her little teenage neck. I try to remember that she didn’t grow up easy like me, she can’t just go with the flow, that synapse in her brain doesn’t fire. Her anxiety fires, her fear fires, her trauma reflex fires. Her dad died and she is incapable of coping. Fucking asshole.

I saw this meme the other day:

This is my Baby Girl, She acts crazy during ice storms because her dad died. Fucking asshole.

I wrote a book about my grief. You can read it here: Carry on Castle

P.S. Our power is now back on and we are warm in our house. It went off around 12am Friday and went back on around 5pm Monday