Failure Aftermath: My youngest

As if this whole situation with my oldest was not a terrible thing for my partner and me to go through, we had to watch our youngest go through it. It was so painful for her to have the one person she had spent her life with just walk away with not a word.

My youngest absolutely lost control of her life for a good couple weeks after this happened. She used every resource she could think of to try and bring her sister home. While we were feeling like the biggest failures in the world, our youngest was sharing that fact with the whole world. It was absolutely nuts how quickly it spread and how out of control of my life that I felt.

She was even sending this horrendous photo of her sister to all her friends saying that “My special needs sister has gone missing and is in danger. Needs to be found now!” I am sure her sister did not appreciate any of that. She even reported her missing to the police! So, I had to deal with them coming to our door again. (This actually really freaked me out because I thought something terrible had happened.)

Her emotions were all over the place. At first she was upset and sad, largely feeling abandoned – again. She also had an outburst of anger about how this was all our fault and we needed to fix this. Crying every other time I saw her, she wailed about her loss to all that could hear.

Even now, months after the fact, she will still suffer from crazy mood swings. She flip flops over how she feels about the whole situation. (The situation post is coming.) My youngest is very confused and conflicted. She is definitely trauma bonded to her sister, even if her sister is not bonded with her.

Our youngest is quickly approaching her 18th birthday. She is facing a lot of pressure from her sister (and the situation) to run off from her home. She is telling us that she plans to stay, that she wants to stay. She says we are her parents and we want what is best for her and her future. I am absolutely terrified to lose her as well. Time is ticking and hopefully we will still be a bit smaller, but still a whole family by the end of the year.