You Don't Live Here

I won't pretend to know how it is in your home. Maybe your husband gambles or you secretly chat with an old boyfriend on Facebook or you fear your youngest is bulimic. I won't pretend to know anything about the shit that may be going on behind your closed doors. So, please, don't pretend to know about mine. Don't say, "Oh, teenage girls can be so awful!" or "Typical teenager!" or "This too shall pass." Don't say that crap to me, because you just don't live here.

The truth is, I'm filtering what I'm telling you anyway. You think I want anyone really knowing what's going on? The screaming, the throwing, the doors slamming, the pure venom spilling from my own daughter's lips... You think I really want you to know?

In our house, just as I once did with Emma, I cuddle with Ben and Becca every night, saying the Lord's Prayer and "God Bless..." Recently, after Ben fell asleep, Becca wanted to talk about the day's events. It had been another Sunday devoted to Emma's fits, demands, and manipulation.

"Momma," Becca whispered, "Why was Sissy yelling?"

"She was just mad, Boo. Don't worry."

"But, Momma, she was scary."

"I know, baby. But she was just mad at Mommy and Daddy. Don't worry." I pulled her closer to me.

"Momma, why did Daddy get her legs?"

"Well, you know how sometimes you and Ben-Ben have to go in time-out, when you're being naughty? Sissy just needed to go in time-out."

"But why did he get her legs, Momma? She was yelling."

"She, just, well, she didn't want to go in time-out. So, Daddy had to take her to time-out. Just like sometimes I pick up you or Ben-Ben and take you to time-out. She was mad and didn't want to go. She's just bigger than you or Ben, so Daddy had a hard time picking her up."

"And you took us out, Momma? You took us out of your's room? When Sissy was yelling, why you took us out?"

"Bec, just don't worry about it, okay?"

"But why did me and Ben-Ben have to be locked in our's room?"

"Daddy and I just didn't want you to watch. She was being naughty and we didn't want you to see, okay?"

"Sissy was mad at me and Brudder? Was her mad at us?"

"No, Boo, just Mommy and Daddy. Don't worry about it, okay? She was just being naughty today. It's okay."

She snuggled her little head deeper under my chin, closer into me, tighter in my security. I couldn't make it go away. I couldn't erase the memory. I couldn't ease the fear.

You don't live here. You don't have to tell Becca the same empty words, "It'll be okay. Don't worry." Words I've said time after time after time.

We've had to make choices, Is this rule worth a fit? Will this consequence bring about a change in behavior, or a temper tantrum that will last all day? This year, I don't take Emma to school in the morning. She has to ride the bus. She rides the bus because last school year, at least three times a week, she would chase my car, throw her body at the hood, stand behind me so I couldn't back up. She'd open the door before I could take off, throw her shoes inside, and run back to get more things. "I'm ready! I'm ready! I'm ready!" she'd scream, though she was still in her pajama pants, hair uncombed, pills still lying on the counter where I'd put them out for her.

I'd like to say that I stayed calm all these times, that I stopped the car and set her shoes out, then drove away. But, of course, I didn't. I screeched the brakes. I screamed, "You don't even care if you are making me late for work! You lie in your bed until I put my coat on, and then you want me to wait for you! I am sick of this! You cannot treat me like crap and expect me to wait for you!" All true words, but falling on deaf ears, as she and I both ran frantically around the car, tossing backpacks and shoes out and in the car, hearts aflame, lungs burning. So, this year, I don't wait at all. I tell her goodbye, and I hope she makes it out the door.

She makes it out, but often wearing things I've told her not to wear, often leaving her pills on the counter, often not taking food for her lunch. The difference is I am no longer in the scene; I've passed that on to her bus driver, a man who "won't even stop if he sees me running down the street."

I know what you're thinking. Didn't you sometimes wear stuff your parents didn't want you to wear? Didn't you sleep in and miss the bus? Yup. I certainly did, just like many teenagers. The difference is the extremity of the situation. The frequency of the number of times she is running behind, the intensity of her tantrums, the complete inability to learn the next day from the episode the day before. Tantrums with Emma are like Groundhog Day--repeated in the same sequence day after day--but she doesn't learn the lessons. She doesn't connect staying in her bed with running after the bus, doesn't see how throwing herself at my car and screaming at me might make me upset enough that I don't feel like saying, "Have a great day. I love you." Occasionally, she may apologize for the tantrums, but it always feels perfunctory, as though she's trying to unlock my "mad" mode, not truly understanding how she has had an effect on my day, my mood, my heart.

You don't know this, though, because you don't live here. You haven't been here as we took her to a psychiatrist for the first time at age seven. This must be a medical problem, right? You haven't been here as we visited the esteemed counselor my dad recommended, who told us, "I don't think I can help you at all. Her intelligence level is so high, but her emotional interaction is so low. I think she's manipulating me when I'm talking to her." You haven't been to the countless visits to the adolescent behavior specialist. It must be a pattern of behavior, right? He's a fantastic guy who works and works and works with her, but sees the same rut of behavior that we do. You haven't sat with me as I've read the books, the articles, listened to the Total Transformation CDs. You haven't helped as we taped sheets to the refrigerator, the bathroom mirror, the walls in her bedroom, with plans and diagrams and lists and questions... all to return seemingly back to where we started years ago.

You don't live here, and so the Emma you see... She's the survivor. She's figured out how to function out there, how to look right, because you don't have to accept her. You don't have to love her. You could say, "What a bitch," and walk away, so she's got to follow the rules out there. The Emma you see gets all As, says hello to teachers in the hallway, will offer to help at Sunday School or take down your bulletin board for you. The Emma you see has a few friends, loves cheerleading, and is a fun babysitter. She may occasionally say something completely out of the social norm to you, but it's infrequent, and not hostile, so you can pass it off as a teenage mood. The Emma you see is the one her teachers call "a good kid," and try to give her second and third chances on things. I like to think of that Emma as the Katniss (see Hunger Games, one of Emma's favorites) of society, doing what she needs to stay alive.

But, just as you don't live here, neither does that Emma. She has to bottle it up, "white knuckle it," we say. So, at home, she doesn't have anything left for us. She can't take the mental energy to think "What did I do? How did Mom see it? What did Mom feel? How did Mom react?" Instead, we continue the same power struggles day after day, a tornado of Eric, Emma, me, and the Littles being slammed against the walls and ceilings of our home, crashing to the ground in agony.

We had to stop the storm. We couldn't keep doing it, putting everyone in our family through it, day after day. It had to stop. And so, on Sunday, we made the hardest decision of our lives that will be the best for everyone. We sent Emma to live with my parents, about an hour away. We'll still see her, talk to her, have her visit. But she no longer sits at our dinner table each night, or walks out with bedhead on Saturday mornings, or blares the radio in our kitchen inspiring a Hall family dance-off.

It will be good. It will be great. It will be the best for every single person in the end (except maybe for my parents, who now, in their 60s, are raising a volatile teenager.) It had to be done. This, or boarding school, it had to be done.

But, as my principal said yesterday, I am not myself. I am not okay. I've lost my child. My daughter is not with us. I feel like one of my limbs is missing, and the ache in my heart has spread throughout my chest, down into the depths of my belly. I keep picturing rocking her as a baby, holding her tiny hand as a four-year-old, pulling her onto my lap when she was six. How did we get to this? It's never been an easy road with her, I suppose I could have always seen this coming, but I still anguish nonetheless.

So, maybe you've got problems of your own, things I could never know about, because I don't live there. But, you don't live here. So please don't act like you know what we're going through.