Spring Break Nearly Broke Me
Oh, it was a week. A week filled with ups and downs, smiles and frowns. A week filled with calm and chaos, peace and frustrations. A week filled with laughter and tears, hope and hopelessness. I never knew so much could fit into just one week, but it can. Let me rewind a couple of months so you are all up to date.....
We started Gillian on CBD and THC oils a couple of months ago (I will go into all the details on this decision in a later post) and she has become a whole new person. Seriously, the change has been dramatic and beautiful. She sleeps through the night now, her anxiety levels have dropped drastically and all of those tantrums she was throwing....gone. She doesn’t throw them anymore! Peace has been restored within her body and within our home. It’s been beyond wonderful. Everyone has been happy and there’s laughter in our family again. Amazing beyond words. (I really will get into all the details in another post, I promise. ;) ). I was excited for Spring Break with Nolan and Gillian (Emma’s spring break is this week so she was at school all last week) and to actually be able to do stuff with Gillian now that she was this new, enjoyable person.
On Monday we went to Target. Don’t all things fun start with Target?! Ummmm....YES! The kids got to pick out snacks, treats and lunches for the week. This included for Nolan Lunchables, Hamburger Helper stroganoff, Doritos and Mountain Dew and for Gillian Limon chips, root beer and Lunchables. Good healthy stuff! We rarely let them buy junk so this was a special treat. We walked all around Target for over an hour and everyone was happy and having a good time. This was a miracle in itself because, honestly, I have not taken Gillian out to a public place like this for months. It had become so disastrous and we’d end up having to leave after 5 minutes so I just stopped taking her. This was a breath of fresh air. We sang songs and had a dance party in the car all the way home (Emma was glad she had to be at school. Lol). Yep, this was going to be the best Spring Break ever! On Tuesday we hung out at home all day and played. Another great day! Before Gillian went to bed Tuesday night we talked about how we were going for hair cuts in the morning and then going to the movies. She LOVES Cortney, who has been cutting all of our hairs for a decade, and was so excited she was going to get to see her. She slept great Wednesday night just like she had been doing for the past two months.
Wednesday morning I got the kids up to get ready to go get hair cuts. I gave Gillian the oils just like I have for the past two months. She started acting anxious. She didn’t want to go get her hair cut. She started shaking just like she used to. I got her showered and dressed and made her a protein drink to drink on the way. She didn’t want it and threw it in the sink. “What the heck is going on?!”, I thought to myself, “This is not our normal anymore.” By the time we got to Cortney’s she was in full blown tantrum mode. I spent the next hour trying to calm her down while everyone got hair cuts. She refused to let Cortney cut her hair and instead spun herself around in the chair while spitting on the floor.
I started going over everything in my mind that had happened in the past 24 hours, trying to figure out what had her so off. When we left the hairdressers Gillian was asking if we could go to the car wash. “Of course!”, I responded, hoping that this would get her back on track. Nope, didn’t work. Now she was mad that we were going to the movies. I figured that once we got there she would be okay. We got our popcorn and water and settled into our reclining chairs. For the next hour and a half she told me about a thousand times that she wanted to go home. The movie finally ended and home we went. The rest of the day consisted of tantrums and tears. She threw the tantrums and I cried the tears. I was just beginning to exhale after our years of hell with her. I was just starting to feel like a normal human being again, why was she reverting back? I went to bed Wednesday night just assuming that she would be back to her new, wonderful self in the morning. We probably just had an off day and that’s okay, I told myself. Tomorrow would be great again.
I could not have been more wrong. Thursday was worse then Wednesday. In fact Thursday was worse then any of the bad days we had had before. The tantrums were bigger then any she had ever had. The yelling was louder, the stomping was more fierce, the spitting was nonstop. It was horrible. I couldn’t even get her out of the house. Nor did I really want to take her out of the house. I became a hot mess. All I kept thinking and texting my husband was, “I cannot go back to this life. I will have to find a home to put her in if she is going to be like this again. I can’t do this again. My body can’t do this again. My emotions can’t do this again. My other kids cannot go through this all again.” I was falling apart just at the thought of her going back to her old self again. It was not pretty.
Thursday night I messaged with the guy who runs the dispensary where we get the oils from. He had me up her dosage for Friday and told me to get back to him. Dosages we’re upped but there was no change. I was feeling hopeless. I thought, “this is going to be like every other medication we have done. They work for two months and then they stop working. What do we have left to try with this kid? Nothing! We have nothing!” Oh the thoughts just kept racing through my mind and then I started yelling at God, “why would you do this God! Why would you give us a taste of a peaceful child and a peaceful home and then just take it all away?! You have the power to just make her better so why won’t you just make her better, already! I’m not asking you to heal all her disabilities, I just want you to take away her anxiety and give her peace in her body. That’s it! That’s all! Is that asking to much?!” I was angry and I wanted to stay angry but the radio was playing worship music and God was trying to talk to me. I didn’t want to listen. I just wanted to be angry at Him for a little while. But His voice broke through my hopelessness and I heard Him ask, “Don’t you remember all My truths, child? Don’t you remember how I work all things together for good? Don’t you remember that I will never leave you nor forsake you?” Ugh, yes, I remember all of that, God. Can I just be mad though? “Well what would be the purpose in being mad?” Nothing really. I just want to be mad...... I always love these conversations with God. They only happen when I really need a good, swift kick in the butt because I’m being so stubborn and pig headed, but I cherish them and remember them every time they do happen. I was still feeling angry and hopeless but I was also clinging to God’s promises and remembering that He is a good Father and He does love me and He really loves Gillian. And I may not see the purpose in the chaos right now but He’s working out something amazing that will glorify Him.
I texted my community people and told them what was going on and asked them all to pray for Gillian and to pray for me and my attitude. I could never do this life without the community of amazing people that God has placed in my life. I messaged back our friend at the dispensary Friday night and he had me up the THC a little more and then mentioned that there was a full moon happening and this could be part of the problem. Sounds weird right?! But it’s totally true. Seriously, ask any special needs mom you know and she will tell you that her kid acts up when there’s a full moon. Remember when we had the red moon a few months back? Oh my word, these kids were awful that week! Not really sure what causes the full moon to have that kind of affect on them, but it does. So I was feeling a little relieved when he reminded me of this. Friday night I sat on the couch with Chris and just cried. Poor guy got a lot of tears on his shoulder last week. My anxiety had kicked backed in (it had been doing so well the past month) and I literally felt like my skin was crawling. I wanted to just pull my skin off. This made me sad thinking about Gillian was probably feeling the exact same way except she didn’t know how to communicate that to us. How scary it must be for her sometimes to be in her body. I know how she feels but I also know how to talk to others about it and how to talk myself through it, she doesn’t and that breaks this mama’s heart into a million pieces.
Saturday we started seeing a little improvement in Gillian. She was calming down and not throwing any more tantrums. She woke up with a stuffy nose so she spent most of the day laying on the couch. I’m sure her whole body was exhausted from the last few days. Mine was.
I was selfishly worrying all day that she wasn’t going to be okay for Easter Sunday. Our plans were to go have breakfast at my sister’s house, followed by going to Church, and then lunch at my in-laws. I had been looking forward to this day for awhile now and in the back of my head I kept thinking that she was going to ruin it and I was going to end up at home with her all day. You can send my Mother of the Year award to house. LOL I woke up on Easter Sunday at 5:30. My alarm was set to go off at 6:15 so I laid in bed and just prayed for the next 45 minutes. “God, please bring peace back to Gillian. Please just let her be okay today so the whole family can be together and enjoy the day.” I kept sayin that over and over and over again. I got Gillian up at 7:00 and she was in a pretty decent mood. Yay! We talked about how we were going to Auntie’s house and then to our new Church and then to Gramma and Papa’s house. She was a little apprehensive about it all but we just kept pushing forward. We got to my sister’s and she was in a great mood the whole time! When it was time to leave for Church she didn’t give us any trouble. When we got to Church, she walked right into her Sunday School class with a smile on her face and didn’t even bother to turn around and say goodbye and when we were at my in-laws she sat by me at lunch and put her arm around my neck and her head on my shoulder as if to say “I’m okay mom and I love you”. It was a beautiful Easter Sunday. It was an amazing reminder of the horribleness Christ had to suffer to get to that beautiful day of resurrection. I failed miserably during the few days of “old Gillian” this past week. I lost my hope, my patience and some of my faith. But Christ never lost me! He had His arm around me the entire time guided me forward through the crap and into the light. Even when I doubted, He just held me tighter.
Gillian isn’t quite all the way back to the happy, calm person she was the last couple of moths. But she’s no where near “old Gillian” and for that I am beyond grateful.