Single Parenting

A few days ago, Jake and I faced the task of putting Winston's flea and heart worm meds on him.  Once Winston figured out what we were up to, the chase was on.  We tried everything, plying him with his favorite toys and treats, but to no avail.  Every time we managed to get our hands on him, he'd growl and bare his teeth.  Not remembering his Thunder shirt at first, Jake suggested suiting up with oven mitts.

 "Great idea!"  I told him.  "Spot me."  I instructed before climbing on my kitchen counter to access the tallest, seldom used, of my kitchen cupboards.  Jake stood beside me as I vaulted up on the counter just like I used to do as a child (not bad for a forty four year old).  I rooted around looking for the hand style oven mitts, but could only find one.  "Hold on, I think one of these square ones has a pocket.  That could work."

I handed my finds down to Jake.  He reached inside the square pot holder to try out the coverage and exclaimed, "Hey, why is there a coin in here?  Wait, no, it's a key.  What in the world does this go to?"

I stood on the counter looking down at him, puzzled.  "A key?"

It hit us both at the same time and Jake spoke first.  "Ohhhh...I know what this is from."

So did I.

Cory's medbox.

All of the sudden I needed to get down.  I reached for Jake's hand and hopped down, my head spinning with memories.

It's hard to explain just what it was like to raise a child with a major and chronic mental illness.  But that key brought it all flooding back in a millisecond.

The feelings hit first.  I remembered as I stood there, key in hand, eyes tearing up and Jake watching, just how scary and confusing the first year and a half were.  I knew very little about mental illness and didn't understand what was happening to my child.  I didn't know how to help her.  I didn't know why it was happening, but was convinced I must have done something to cause her to have these problems.  I took it all the way back to my pregnancy- when I should've left Bob sooner than I did and maybe that put too much stress on her growing brain in utero.

I must've driven the CMH nurses crazy with all my phone messages describing Cory's unfolding symptoms in detail and asking why the meds weren't working.  It took a couple of years before I realized the symptoms were par for the course for her illness and the best we could hope for was to minimize them.

Safety was the biggest concern as the voices Cory heard were constantly pressuring her to hurt herself, telling her to cut herself, jump off the roof, break open the med box and take all her pills.  Early on, I discovered Cory had hid a knife under her mattress and that's when I knew I had to secure all the sharps and all the meds. 

It became part of the daily routine to get the med box down from the cupboard at dinner time, take out the knives needed to prepare dinner, get Cory her meds, and then lock it up again.  I always had to guard the med box, locking it even it I had to go to the bathroom- that's how insistent the voices were to Cory.  I would keep my body blocking the med box as I chopped vegetables at the counter and right away wash the knife, dry it, put it back in the box, and secure it.

On one memorable occasion, Cory had gotten the idea that the cats were actually tiny humans wearing fur suits- that they took them off when she wasn't in the room and walked around in their human forms.  She tried desperately to catch them unaware and became frustrated when it never worked.  One evening as I chopped veggies, she reached around me into the silverware drawer and grabbed the corkscrew.  "Excuse me, Mommy.  I'm gonna  go open the cats now." 

"Oh honey, I don't think that's a good idea."  I said calmly and took the corkscrew out of her hand.  She pouted a bit and said, "Okay, I just wish they'd let me see them."

"I know you do."  Into the box went the corkscrew.

On another occasion, the voices insisted that she boil our dog.  This was so distressing to Cory, that she asked to go spend the night at her grandma's.  Between her sobs, she explained she loved Gizmo so much and she would never hurt him, but the voices were so insistent and they kept threatening to hurt her or me if she didn't do as they asked.

I don't know if I mentioned I was going this alone in the household with the two kids at the time.  I was quite pleased with me and Tim's separation which had been a long time coming, but could not understand how he could cut himself off from her so completely and at a time that she so desperately needed consistency, love, and support.  I had instantly become a single parent.  While Tim still financially supported Jacob and took him every chance he got, Cory was left with only my support and attention.

I will never forget how her face looked when Tim would come to get Jake for the weekend.  Jake would run to the door, his backpack ready, stuffies under his arm.  Cory would watch, her heartbreaking, as Tim didn't so much as look in her direction, let alone greet her. 

During this time, me and Cory's interactions with Bob were off and on.  He couldn't possibly be a support for her mental health when he was as unstable as she was and mistrustful of mental health care and medication. 

So I worked full time.  My parents cared for Cory during the day when she couldn't be home alone.  The nights were the hardest.  I'll never forget the nights Cory couldn't sleep because the voices wouldn't stop.  Sometimes, she'd get the idea that people were trying to break into the house.  When her delusions about the agents were at their worst, she broke down one night, asking me if I'd still love if she told me something really bad that she'd done.

I told her I would always love her.  She then shared that she'd stabbed an agent to death in the backyard and dragged his body into the house and hid it under the bed.  Between her sobs, she tried to explain it was self-defense for her and for the family, and that now the cops were after her.  She looked at me, her eyes wide, "Can't you smell his body, Mom?  It's so bad."

My mind just reeled as I held her, her body shaking with fear and guilt of something that had never happened.

So the key?  Well, with nights like those and the couple of times she'd wandered out of the house-once looking for her pretend fox and the second time because the voices told her to get out or they'd hurt her- sleep was hard to come by. 

Cory was always beside me, whether I was making dinner, taking a shower, or on the toilet.  The voices and visual hallucinations were worse when she was alone so she sought my protection during every waking moment.  When I locked up the med box, I hid the key in a different spot each time.  I had to because Cory watched carefully.  The problem with this was that once and awhile I'd forget where I'd put the key myself.  There I'd be, dinner needing to prepared, Cory's meds needing to be administered, and no idea where I'd put the damn thing.  I'd tear the kitchen apart to no avail.  On two occasions, I had to physically break the med box open and then go out and buy a new one to secure everything. 

One of the times I found the hidden key later one.  But one time, I never found it.

Seven years later, I stood there with that little silver key in my hand and relived it all. 

The thing that kept going through my mind was how strong my Cory Girl was.  She was amazing.