Summer of 08......

" Dear heavenly father what is wrong with my child? Please make her stop....what do you want me to do?" This is the prayer I prayed (more like screamed!) for over thirty minutes while I sat on the floor of my mother's bathroom holding my daughter in a death grip so that she couldn't further hurt herself. I didn't know what was wrong with her...what was going through her mind. She wouldn't talk to me or even look at me....She just screamed and cried and banged her tiny little feet on the bathroom floor so hard that they began to bleed. I didn't know what to do...I wanted to shake her as hard as I could to make her snap out of whatever it was she was going through. It took all the strength I had to hold down my then three and half year old little girl. We continued like that for almost an hour....I was on the verge of calling my grandmother's priest to come over and expel this demon that I swore took over my child's body! She finally exhausted herself to the point of becoming limp in my arms....I just cradled her and tried to talk to her but she would say nothing. I looked in her eyes and saw confusion, like even she didn't know what was going on....Her eyes were blank and almost lifeless....that was not my Jaylyn!! These "meltdowns" (that's what I called them) began to happen more frequently and over the smallest thing.....they would happen anywhere! home, school, stores.....she was like a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. I was literally walking on egg shells around her scared that I may do or say something wrong to set her off. The looks and stares that people would give me were UNREAL! I would just cry because I felt like a failure...like I couldn't handle my three year old. I knew what people were thinking; I could see it on their faces. I was like a lost little puppy dog walking out with my head down and tail between my legs...like I had just lost the most important battle of my life and really I had. A couple weeks went by since that god awful night and Jaylyn was NOT getting better or coming out of this liked I hoped she would. She began to hit herself....and I'm not talking little swaps here or there it was full fisted, as hard as her tiny body would allow her to and she always aimed for the head. I remember first getting scared and I would just cry myself to sleep most of the time because I didn't know what was happening to my daughter.....I had no one to talk to because no one understood. They thought it was a lack of discipline on our part or she was just doing this to get her way. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs!!!! ( and there were quite a few times that that's exactly what I did) My tears finally dried up and my fears turned to anger. I was tired of crying, tired of watching my daughter self-destruct! I was MAD!! I wanted answers....I wanted to know the why, when, who, how, where and everything in between! If you did not have a MD behind your name you were NOT allowed to give me advice about MY daughter. No one was allowed to put in their 2 cents...I had become a nightmare. Dare someone stare at my child with that same look of disgust that would have defeated me.....I was a mom on a mission! I was my daughter's BIGGEST ADVOCATE!!!!