Calmer Waters

Two warm days, and Julie's mood is sunny too.  She has survived another week of being a day patient at the hospital, and coped with picking up some of her studies and home tuition again.  This weekend saw her going to rehearse with a local orchestra, and shopping in town, both activities that were still quite difficult a few weeks ago.

Joe and I are tentatively coming out of high alert.  It gets a little harder each time we fall back into crisis - it is sometimes easier to remain hyper vigilant.  But you can't remain permanently on alert, and it does Julie no favours if we do.  We have to keep trying to move back to something like normality. 

This week was the first week in months that I felt ready to leave Julie on her own in the house for short periods of time - perhaps fifteen minutes while I picked up her brother from school, or twenty minutes while I tackled some jobs in the garden.  Joe sent her off on an errand on her own in town and met up with her again ten minutes later.  Occasionally she goes up to bed on her own now, and we only check on her after twenty minutes.  It is quite a well-rehearsed process, easing off on the supervision and checks and gradually stepping back.  We have done it repeatedly in the past, and so far we have always had to reverse it again not so long after, when she promptly fell apart.  But some day it will hold and she will manage on her own for a little bit longer.  Or perhaps she will surprise us all and actually start to assert her independence.  What wouldn't I give some days for a stroppy teenager and the odd slammed door!