After nearly three years, it’s over. The dust has finally settled, literally and figuratively.
The younger of the two kids we’ve been raising packed her things, jumped into her mother’s car, and left. There were no dramatic goodbyes or tears. Barely a 'see ya'.
The custody battle is finally over, the house is quiet, and everyone keeps saying to me, "You must be so relieved."
Oh, most definitely. But I'm not at peace; unfortunately, my body still hasn't fully processed that it’s finally over.
Cortisol is still hanging on, which is just…lovely. My eating disorder demons have been a joy to navigate.
Still, I push through it, but the body really does keep the score.
Every morning, I used to wake up preparing for battle, each day another test of patience, boundaries, and endurance.
You can’t explain what it’s like to raise a child who doesn’t trust love unless you’ve done it. In her mind, if she could make you the enemy first, she’d never have to risk being hurt again.
People love to romanticize ‘healing a traumatized child,’ and I get it, I really do. It sounds noble, cinematic even. You picture some sort of tearful breakthrough with fierce hugs when all your patience pays off.
But life ain’t no movie, is it?
It takes a Sisyphean level of effort to earn a half-inch of progress while being someone’s scapegoat for years.
We were warned ahead of time that taking all this on wouldn’t be easy. But we prepared for the worst and hoped for the best, armed with therapist notes and good intentions, convinced that love and structure could fix it.
We anticipated a period of rough adjustment, followed by processing, and eventually a life of relative normalcy—a life they deserved.
What we didn’t anticipate was how deeply the dysfunction ran.
