Losing Hope

Cheyann has now been away from home for fifteen months and there is truly no light at the end of the tunnel. It has been a summer full of phone calls reporting self- harm incidents, suicidal attempts, running away and now aggression and attack towards staff. We have tried various pharmaceutical options, all kinds of therapy, mindfulness, CBT.. just about everything we know to try in the world of trauma, but no real change is happening.  When she is "level" she is still connecting with us, talking of the future and her desire to be a forensic scientist or a writer, loving to read and wanting to ride motocross, and even connecting with church friends,  but then a day later she is enraged and out-of-control, a feral badger. Her latest foray into the black abyss not only brought her back to the ER, but bought her a ticket out of her current residential placement with no real options for next steps. Luckily the stupidity of the Mental Health system in our area let me feel angry for a time so I didn't have to drown in the feelings of despair I might otherwise have been led through. Of course, teams are meeting to "discuss" next steps.. but truly, I am losing hope. It became sadly clear to me just how desperate a situation this is when both of my 20- somethings when they arrived home this summer after a lengthy time away both shared with me that they didn't expect she would actually be alive any longer by the time they had returned home,  and both honestly wonder if it would be better for her if she were on the other side of the veil now. The struggle is so immense.