Emotional Overload

"Thanks for coming to visit! I had a great time catching up 💜 goodnight."

After more than a year, we finally got the chance to visit with Cheyann yesterday in her new home state. We had a great 2-3 hours together, talked lots about hopes and dreams and future plans and relived some fun positive memories- and then I got the phone call this morning that she is back in the hospital after another major suicide attempt. I had let myself forget for a moment about this miserable diagnosis she is saddled with and just for a short time, just for a moment let myself believe she had healed. Even her text, above, was convincing. My heart hurt tonight.

Do We Still Have Those Crutches?

It is hard to believe I haven't posted since May. A LOT has changed since then. Here's the recap: Lynn blew out of her Florida gig. Not surprised. But sad. And she did it in classic fashion - engaging in a weekend-long binge of alcohol, drugs and sex in Alabama and then begging for a return bus ticket back to her bio dad's house after she was through. He said no. He was done. I found out she was back in Vermont from my sister who texted me on the 4th of July asking me if I knew that she was home - she had just seen her and talked with her at fireworks.  I had not known, but again - was not surprised. I was a bit surprised thought to find out that all of her bio dad's contact info was not working when I attempted to find out the details. It took me a week or so to track him down but then finally did and so found out those details. He is disappointed and sad as well - (and since he just filed for divorce and lost 2 of his 4 children back to the system since that time, I believe the 'Lynn wrecking ball'  did even more damage to his little family as well.) So sad. And so what now? Well, Lynn is  currently floating between three couches - one at a friend's house - who is still in high school,  one at her current boyfriend's (who just got out of a 2 week rehab stint and is also still in high school) and one at a neighbor's house. Still no health insurance, still no job, still no school, and still no services after being back for almost 3 months now. But she mostly answers my weekly communiques and still feels comfortable asking me for things. Why crutches? I don't even want to know.

And Cheyann. Well, interestingly she blew out of her bio dad's placement in Nebraska right around that same time frame. That bio dad became fed up with her constant cycle, of how he described, pot, sex, video games, rinse and repeat. When he began to put pressure on her, and her live-in boyfriend (that's a whole other story) to make some forward progress, they balked, and he said, fine - go. So they did. But not until they stole money from both him and a friend of his before getting on that Greyhound back to Massachussetts, and phoning SOS to a whole bunch of us en route crying poor and claiming hunger - even though they had left town the day before with both snacks and the $70 stolen cash in their pockets. They landed at the boyfriend's mom's house who threw them out before too long as well. So what now for her? Well, she and the boy are currently renting a room from a friend in Mass. Lots of drugging and drinking - which we all know because she posts pictures of her use regularly, and maybe working here and there? That one is unclear. She too will answer communiques from home mostly regularly and once in awhile will share with me that she is connecting with services there to get residency and a license... and I think that is true to a certain extent because she asks me for things like copies of my mortgage… (ummm.. that isn't going to be helpful for you when you live in Mass and we don't..)

It's a continuing long, long, journey...………………………………………………………………….