Yin and Yang

"So, this is my life, And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad at the same time, and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be."          Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Many apologies for letting this blog sit here without an update for as long as it has. I intend to update more frequently. Sometimes, I even gather thoughts and halfway compose posts in my mind when I'm just sitting somewhere. Honestly, though, I don't always have the emotional energy to try to put words to our experiences. I suppose the only thing I can say is that I'm sorry, and I'll try to do better. I know that people care -- I can see page views, so I know people check this blog; and I get messages/texts/etc. from people saying they came here looking for an update and didn't find one. Your love, concern, and support mean so much to me. I'm going to try to blog more frequently, and please feel free to poke me if it's been a while.

Our current situation is difficult to put to words. I can only tell you that Hope is doing well, and yet that she is unwell. Both are true. Both exist, not even alternating, but at the exact same time. 

Right now, I could honestly tell you that life is good. Hope and a friend are playing a video game in the next room, and I can hear the laughter and lighthearted conversations that signal a normal day in the life of a happy, healthy 12 year old. Right now, life has many of these moments. Hope is stable, for the most part. Daily life is pretty relaxed, and her range of emotions and experiences are well within the range of normal. Her meds are doing a great job of stabilizing her mood, and she describes herself as happy, or at least neutral, most of the time. I enjoy each and every one of these beautifully ordinary moments.

I could also, in complete honesty, tell you that things are not okay with Hope. While she feels okay on the surface, the psychosis is still present. Psychosis often comes and goes, but her psychotic thoughts have remained, unchanged, for approximately nine to ten months. This is quite concerning to her care team. The good news is that, probably because of the meds, she doesn't have the graphic, violent intrusive thoughts nearly as often as she did. She estimates that it happens every other day or so, for well under an hour at a time. (If you remember, in the beginning, it was all day every day. No matter what else was going on, those thoughts were always there.) However, the thoughts are the same. The frequency has decreased, but the intensity has not, and the way that she perceives them has not changed. She is not upset or scared by these thoughts, and does not feel guilt about them. She knows they're caused by her illness, but she considers these thoughts to be completely a part of herself, even though they are at odds with her personality and everything else about her.

Basically, everyone is very pleased with how well Hope's current meds have stabilized her mood, and how comfortable she is right now in her life. (And really, I can't overstate the importance of that. Within the last six months, this girl has been hospitalized twice, for a total of 18 days, for feeling homicidal and/or suicidal. Now, she describes herself as either happy or neutral most of the time. I can't say enough how big that is.) Nobody on her care team believes that she is currently dangerous. (We're not stupid, and we continue to be watchful and cautious. She has had these thoughts/desires for many months now, and never acted aggressively toward anyone. However, we know that she did at least make a plan to at one point. She believed that she could hurt someone at that point. She still believes that she likely could have done it back then, though even she says that she's pretty sure she couldn't hurt anyone now. Right now, we believe that's true.) The other side of this, though, is that we are in a last-ditch-effort situation with her therapy, with the very real possibility of needing to move on to a residential facility if no changes are seen in the near future. That would be heartbreaking, and honestly, I can't even process that right now. Hopefully, I won't need to.

Right now, we need to see some specific things with her therapy. I'll post about that another time, since I don't have time to get into it right now, and I want to get this posted. The important stuff here is that we are nearing the end of outpatient therapy, if we don't see some of the things we need to see. The next step is residential placement. We're not talking crisis hospitalization, like she's been through before. We're talking about longer-term placement. (Residential is a minimum 30 day placement, though it's often longer.) If that was going to be the best thing for Hope, we would do it. We'll do anything for her. I pray that it doesn't become necessary, though. 

I'll come back soon with more specifics. In the meantime, we appreciate all prayers. Please join us in celebrating the mostly ordinary days we're currently experiencing, and pray for progress and healing in the areas that are still very concerning. Blessings to you all! <3