failure aftermath: me

I feel like I will start with how it all happened for me. It will be the most thorough retelling that I will be able to provide.

On her 18th birthday, my oldest went to school and never came back. She went to school, had us barred from the building and removed from all her school things. Legally, she could do that.

She had an appointment that day and I went to pick her up and was accosted in the parking lot by the principal and the school therapist. This is how I found out. They could not just call me and let me know. They acted like I was going to have some huge explosion or something. I just quietly got in my car and left.

I drove home and called my mom at work. I cried and screamed and wailed. I was a mess. My partner was taking our other kid to another appointment and I waited until he got home to tell him what happened. I did not need our younger daughter to learn of this during the school day.

I went into clean up mode pretty much after that. Tried to cancel all her appointments, but they would not listen to us because she was now 18 and we could not cancel her appointments. She never attended those appointments. They tried to bill for missed appointments and I told them she was 18 and had to pay her own bills. That was a really weird situation for a while.

I honestly did not think this would last. I thought once people saw what she was like, she would eventually run out of options and have to come home. I decided to wait patiently. My therapist was really impressed and proud of me for being able to keep that cool of a head.

It was not the first time she ran off. It was just the first time that people were not scared of the police getting involved.

She is still gone. She is still not taking care of herself. We will get to that story another time.