The Letter from Rue’s Mum
Here’s what’s going to happen: Your daughter is going to be funny, and smart, and outgoing. You’ll see it instantly from a young age. She’ll be charismatic and make friends easily. She’ll be kind and sensitive, maybe too sensitive. She won’t be an easy child. She’ll struggle.
And in turn you will struggle to understand her. Understand what is going on inside her head.
The Night terrors that can’t be interrupted. The times after dinner where she’ll just sit at the kitchen table, and count the kitchen tiles over and over until she hyperventilates. The Fight to hold her in your arms, to tell her it’s okay. To calm down. The kicking, the screaming, the anxiety of being harmed. The transitions from day to night, from home to school, from meal to meal. Of loosing her mother, or father, or little sister. Of being alone. The panic attacks, the mood swings, confusion, disorganisation, and all that rage, not just at you, but at herself.
And the tough part is you’ll feel as helpless to help her as she does herself. You’ll make mistakes. Small ones and big ones. You’ll look for help from people who aren’t helpful. Or who don’t actually understand what’s happening. And the guilt will never leave you.
But if you remain calm and patient, if you listen closely you’ll begin to understand her more. The counting, the repetition, the need for symmetry. That you kiss her left cheek before bed you have to kiss her right cheek, and her forehead then her chin. That it’s about balance, stability, the need to organise her feelings and thoughts, so she can breathe easier.
And there will be moments of relief in her and in you, moments that feel so normal and calm and rewarding that you’ll find yourself praying they last forever. Even though she’s only a child and all the hard parts are yet to come.
And at the age of 16, she’ll overdoes spend 4 days in a coma, and you won’t know if she’ll live or die. But when she wakes up she’ll get the opportunity to get clean, to become a different person, a better person.
Here’s the toughest part. No matter what you say, or do, or wish the decision will be all hers, and all you can do is hope that she gives herself the chance she deserves.
blakekathryn
kaledo-art
annaxmalina
dededos
