My ‘child’ is now 45 years old and has been living with me off and on for the past six years. But one does not expect a middle-aged child to return home in such awful shape. I could manage for myself okay but to add another human with huge needs into the mix was daunting, indeed. So this is the story of my disabled adult child, Tall Girl (TG).  She knows I write about this though she chooses not to read it at this time. She recalls little of it and is embarrassed and ashamed when she realizes how much havoc she wreaked. So this is mine and TG’s story of our adult journey.

 My head was still thick with sleep fog when I answered the phone at midnight. All I heard was a high pitched keening voice screaming, “I can’t take it anymore!! I can’t take it anymore!!! I’m going to run this car off the freeway!!!”  I sat upright , “Tall Girl?? (TG) TG??”  The sound of her head hitting the steering wheel repeatedly and her anguished incoherence spiraled across the telephone towers and into my ear. The incoherency repeated itself until I could get enough air in my lungs to blast through the phone: “Stop this right now and shut up!  Where are you?  “I don’t know, she replied, “I can’t see any signs,”.  So I instructed her to pull off at the next exit and hoped to heaven she was not in an unsafe part of this very large metropolitan city . (At the time I lived about a 12 hour drive from TG.) Fortunately she was not all that far from her house.

(Interesting how even in our worst confused moments we never seem to stray too far from our stomping grounds). For the next hour we talked about what she could do. She had lost her fifth job in five years; the married man she was dating was, of course, not leaving his wife, she was still doing dope while skirting the edge of safety with characters of ill repute and still not being any kind of parent to her children.

She managed to convince Married Man (MM) to load her stuff up and drive the 12 hours to me. I had her meet me in the airport parking lot. I had long ago made the rule she could not bring anyone male or female to my house until I met them a few times someplace else.  I asked her what happened to her car and she told me she had driven it to death and a wrecker service had towed it to her ex-husband’s house.   She and he had joint custody of the kids and they resided with him. But I was really worried that with this latest escapade he might not be as generous or forgiving about visitation. I asked her if he knew she was leaving and to where and, surprise! No he didn’t. I made a mental note to call him the next day to find out what had been going on and to let him know she was safe. (Confabulation was TG’s middle name)

First stop was the family doctor’s office for blood word to check the status of her general health and to check for STDs. (Promiscuity had been a big factor in her life the past few years as well) I also asked for a referral to a psychiatrist. The FP said she didn’t know who would take TG as a patient since she had no insurance.  I sat there a bit stunned and said, “But she is not well.  What if there is an emergency and she manages to fulfill her suicidal thoughts?” Well then call the Mental Health Crisis Hotline. I ‘ll get the number for you.”  Next step was the welfare office to see if she could at least get on food stamps and Medicaid.  During the next two weeks we averaged 3 stops a day working the various agencies.

Thank G-d it was the end of April so my semester had essentially ended and I could do the paper work from home. I could not trust her to be by herself after I had seen her go to the grocery store decked out in what can only be described as hootchie Mama clothes and 3 inch heels which pushed her height to about 6’1”. I tried to explain how intimidating that was to other people especially when she talked in what can only be described as a bellowing tone and had a pretty short fuse.

When we finally were ready to go back to Social Services to sign papers, I told her, “I’ve figured out what’s wrong here. You slick up in a business suit, style your hair, put heels and stockings on and as long as they do not press you for longer than 10-15 minutes at a time you can make it through. They don’t see the walking wreck I see every day. So today we are going to do it differently. Put on two different tennis shoes, a cowboy shirt, jeans, no makeup and leave your hair alone.” She looked at me startled and started to protest and I just gave her what my kids and grandkids call my ‘stink-eye’. She shook all the way to the agency, tapping her foot, both hands trembling. I didn’t know if I had done the right thing or not but I did not want her to wind up under a bridge and I was running out of ideas and money fast.

Again we met the same kinds of resistance(s) that had plagued us for going on a month now.  Finally I stood, pulled myself up to all of my 5’4” leaned across the desk getting as close as I could to the woman and said, “If something is not done soon, she won’t be alive in another week and I might damn well not be either!” Whereupon I grabbed TG making her stand up and yelled, “Look at this! Does this look like an organized human being to you?!!!” We were whisked immediately to the mental health counselor about whom I cannot say enough kind and wonderful things. She convinced TG to check herself into the psychiatric unit for a little rest, “ You must really be tired, sweetie, and your mom looks tired so let’s see if we can get some healing going.”  I wanted to just sit down, put my heads in my hands and bawl my eyes out with relief.

The journey continues and there are many stories along the way about how we BOTH learned to live with Bipolar disorder. The psycho-pharmaceuticals needed to just keep her even, the insurances falling thru and the drug bill being $1000/month until it could get straightened out, learning to trust some but not too much are all stories for another time. This is as much of the story as I can manage and it’s the first time I’ve ever written or spoken about it.

She is disabled, mentally ill, has a mental disorder….pick your label. The concern is that she will never be able to function on her own. I managed to snag 5 acres in a lovely part of the south where her sister lives, so we are now all near one another. When I die TG gets the house since even on disability she could afford the payments.  I worked a lot of extra part time jobs before I retired to make sure she had a place to live that could not be taken from her.  She hates the dog business so she’s going to have to come up with something else to patch the gap between what’s available in work and what she can do.

For everyone struggling with a child (adult or minor) with a disability, my heart goes out to you and I pray for continued strength for you….and for me.