People ask how Madeline is doing all the time. She is doing fairly well. She is still in school and only begs me maybe once a week to homeschool. This is great progress.
Her intrusive thoughts currently all revolve around cheating, which is not surprising with school in session. (Did you write the answers on my pencils? Are the answers on the tags to my shirt? Am I cheating? Oh no, I need to change into a different outfit because there are answers on this one!)
It is sad and scary and sometimes a bit ridiculous bordering on comical all at the same time. She suffers. She is tormented. But she also recognizes the illogic of it all. She knows her brain is tricking her, that her mechanism for turning off irrational ideas is simply not working, but it is so real to her that she suffers all the same. There are set backs, and there is progress. And she is pushing through.
She was getting out of the car the other day, wearing a tank top and heading in to take a quiz when she stopped and looked at me, that wide-eyed horror stricken look I have come to know so well.
"Did you write the answers on my arms?" she asked.
"What?" I asked, exasperated. "That's silly. Just the OCD talking, Madeline. Move forward."
"You did! You wrote all the answers on my arms!" she exclaimed, emphatically.
"Madeline, do you see answers on your arms?" I calmly asked.
"No."
"Do you have a potion to reveal the invisible ink that I must have used to write the answers on your arms?"
"No."
"Then I would suggest you just wipe the invisible answers off your arms and get into school," I said, half amused with myself.
"You are so mean," she said as she rolled her eyes and exited the car.
Yes, yes I am.
What's worse is I wrote the WRONG invisible answers, kid!
(I swear, I am the worse mom for this job......or maybe, just maybe exactly what she needs....)
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