I Want To Tell You About My Worst Day

Note: Today I'm taking a break from the usual RAD writing and am sharing something I've submitted to The Mighty. This post discusses the struggles I went through with Oldest when she was younger. It was incredibly hard for me to write, because in it I admit to one of the worst parenting moments of my life. 

Even though this article does not discuss RAD or trauma issues, I think it relates to the struggles we go through as trauma parents. The frustration and sadness I currently feel when facing Middle and Little's challenges compares significantly with what I felt as a young single mom on my "worst day." 

As parents, we have good days and bad days. And then we have our worst days.

My worst day came in the summer of 2009. My three-year-old daughter and I had just returned from a disastrous trip to Wal-Mart. She spent the entire trip tearing clothing from the store’s racks, pulling my hair, startling fellow shoppers with random screams and reaching into the purses of anyone walking by our shopping cart. At checkout, she threw everything she could reach, and then spilled my purse onto the floor. As I scooped my belongings back into my bag, one lady decided to scold me for my child’s out-of-control behavior. “You need to tame that kid,” she snarled. “Or someone’s going to do it for you.”

Oldest fell out of a cart at Wal-Mart on a different ill-fated shopping trip. We never had any luck at that store!

Then, on our way out of the store, my daughter soiled her diaper. When we got home, my daughter dumped her crayons out onto the floor and broke them. When she refused to clean them up, my patience evaporated entirely. I screamed at her for acting up at the store, for making a mess at home. I sternly put her in her crib, yelled at her to take a nap, and slammed the door as I stormed out of her room.

My daughter burst into tears. I joined her with my own sad sobs.

Something was “wrong” with my daughter, but no one knew the cause of her problems, nor how to fix them. She let loose with ear-piercing screams roughly a million times every day, getting us kicked off buses and ejected from cabs. She refused to wear her leg braces and wouldn’t take more than a few steps before reverting to a crawl or demanding to be carried. She couldn’t communicate well because her speech was delayed, so our days were filled with meltdowns. Doctors diagnosed her with failure to thrive and questioned whether or not I drank during my pregnancy. They said she would never walk unassisted, never talk, never be able to function independently, that she was “mentally retarded” and “autistic.”

She hit, bit, pulled hair, and head-butted me constantly, and her aggressive behavior wasn’t limited to me… the babysitter I’d most recently hired quit when my daughter bit her son hard enough to break the skin. My job was on the line for lack of childcare.

Again.

When my mom came home on my worst day, I told her how disappointed I was with my life. I wasn’t supposed to live with my mom at my age, but dropping out of college and leaving my daughter’s mentally ill father left me with few options. I wasn’t supposed to be a victim of domestic violence and I wasn’t supposed to be a 26-year-old single mother.

But I was.

I was exhausted and frustrated and on my worst day, I said out loud the unspeakable thought that had been bouncing around in my mind ever since I’d left my daughter’s father.

“If I’d known it was going to be like this and that I’d have to do it as a single mom, I wouldn’t have gone through with this.”

 ******************

My daughter has 9p Deletion Syndrome, but I didn’t know that on my worst day. The genetic tests needed to detect small deletions like hers didn’t exist yet. All I knew that day was that everything was falling apart. Something was “wrong” with my kid, and I didn’t think I could handle it. I felt so hopeless, back then. Our prognosis was bleak – I didn’t see anything good in our future.

How could I have known back then that I would come to accept my daughter for who she is, exactly as she is, once I let go of my preconceived notions of parenthood? That, eventually, my daughter would defy the odds and learn to walk unassisted and even manage to jump and jog on her good days? That she would learn to read sight words, write simple sentences and calculate simple math problems? That her amazingly cheerful personality and joyful approach to life would fill me with happiness and brighten the lives of everyone she meets?

How could I have known that I would meet a wonderful man and that he would work hard to help my daughter be the best she can be? To help me be the best I can be? That he would become my husband and adopt my daughter? That she would gain a brother and a sister when a judge granted my husband custody of his children? That my stepchildren would be diagnosed with mental disorders and that my daughter’s loving personality would help us get through our family’s hardest days?

 How could I have known that I would stop thinking of her struggles as though they were the end of the world? That today I would regard them as mere bumps in the road that might be overcome with some hard work? That I would accept the issues that can’t be overcome with empathy and understanding instead of self-pity and depression? That over time I would morph into a competent mom and that people would even come to refer to me as a good mother?

Last night I looked at my daughter and I was so consumed with love I nearly burst. I can not believe that at one point in my life I actually regretted becoming a mother when I ran into unexpected difficulties in raising my daughter. My face gets hot with remorse just thinking about what I thought and what I said.

So, why did I write this? Why did I decide to share this awful moment with the world?

I wrote this because I felt so alone on my worst day and I want to tell parents who are having their worst days: You’re not a monster for feeling hopeless. You’re not alone. One way or another, we all get through this parenting thing. Don’t give up. Things may turn around in unexpectedly wonderful ways.

And you wouldn’t want to miss that, now, would you?

That's right. Doctors said she would likely need a walker or wheelchair forever. A few years later she climbed a mountain!

This post is also available at my new website Trauma Mama Drama.  If you enjoy reading my blog, remember to update your feeds, emails and bookmarks with the new link, because eventually I will only post updates on the new site's blog.