Roller Coaster Ride

I hate roller coasters. You know, mostly because they do all those things of which I'm terrified, like going super fast, going too high, whipping around curves, and flopping you upside down. The other thing I don't like, though, is you are completely out of control. You're strapped into this little car with a bunch of other idiots who have decided to place their fate in the hands of a complete stranger. As you zoom and thrash and flip, you can't make it stop, or even slow down. You can ask nicely, you can yell at the top of your lungs, it doesn't matter. That coaster is going on its course no matter what you do.

Lately, "raising" Emma can be described as a roller coaster, even more than raising the other two, even more than raising HER a few years back. I feel that tightening in my stomach, I get slammed as we whip around. I'm terrified, and I don't know how to make it stop. I can't control it.

I feel like every decision Eric and I have made--all the counseling and psychiatrists and books we've read and plans we've tried, all of it--are mere side shows. They haven't made an impact. They haven't slowed things down or changed the course. This roller coaster of Emma's life is still swirling and thrashing out of our control, and we can't stop it.

Last weekend, we went to my parents' cabin, and we were going to take The Kids (our three, plus our nephew and nieces) rafting down the river. Emma was staying home from church so she could clean her room.  So, Eric and I drove to my parents' house to pick her up. She hadn't started cleaning the room--she was sleeping on the couch. When I walked into their house, I realized how much she was resembling her birth mother, not in physical features, but in her behaviors. She was sleeping all the time. When she wasn't sleeping, she was lying on the couch watching TV. She had little motivation to get off the couch to get a job, to help around the house, to even hang out with her cousins. We were streaking down the hill at breakneck speed, and I couldn't slow us down. When we woke her up, saying we were disappointed she hadn't started the job, there wasn't even much of a fuss from her. She had given in to the ride, too.

As I have felt a million times before, I wanted to grab her and shake her. I wanted to scream, "Snap out of it!" But, honestly, I'm not sure she's ever been "out" of it. She's always had trouble with getting motivated, staying focused, maintaining the energy to see a plan through. Is this her destiny? Is her DNA so strong that we won't ever be able to change her course?

I want to maintain hope. I want to believe in nurture over nature, as I so thoroughly did fifteen years ago. But it seems the closer we get to the adulthood I am afraid of, the more she resembles the person I'm terrified she'll be. She says she wants to work for NASA as an astrophysicist and, oh, she's so stinking smart I know she could. But will she make it through college? Will she graduate from high school? Will she have her own place? Or will she be moving from the couch of one friend to another? How do we get her off this terrible ride? How do we get HER to see the value in reading the assigned book, putting away her clean clothes, setting a goal for herself and accomplishing it?

This past week was the crèche of the mountain and, without violating Emma's privacy, I'll tell you that she is receiving some intensive help right now. All we can do is pray it is effective. Pray she gets it. Pray that she can see to exit the coaster, with a calmer ride in her view.