Contract

Jorja went to school without her phone today. I picked her up from play practice around 6:00. As we were driving home she asked when she could have her phone back. I told her that I didn't know, that I was still super mad. I told her I didn't trust her anymore, because right now I don't. Jorja was not happy. At all. Let's back up. I have written about how Jorja suffers from panic attacks. They usually are caused by two things. One, she worries that her friends will stop talking to her. I hate this one. I want to tell her that that is crazy, that it would never happen. Except it has happened. Three times. With three of her best friends. In less than a year. The second thing that causes her panic attacks is when she feels that she has disappointed anyone, usually me. Well, she has been struggling these last few days. I punished her anyway. Actions bring consequences. Mike and I talked to her tonight. She was crying in the piano room. We talked to her about things that needed to change. We wrote a contract of what needed to happen and what she needed to agree to in order to get her phone back. She signed it while laying on her back with her head under the piano bench. That was actually funny. She is allowed to have her phone at school, but before she gets it back at home I told her that Isaac needed to sign a contract too. She is annoyed at me. I don't really care.

Note: Jorja is a great daughter.

I added things that we have never had a problem with because I was super mad. 

Looking for Masks

Pretty exciting day spent doing dishes and laundry. I did go with the boys to diving. I haven't done that in quite awhile. Stockton was looking fantastic. Jorja was alone most of the day. She stayed after school for her improv thing. Her theater partner Tess came over and they worked on their scene. They are supposed to perform it tomorrow. When I got home Jorja was laying on her floor wrapped in a blanket. I tried to get her to talk to me about her day. I was excited to hear how the improv went. She asked if we could go to Zurchers to get a mask for her costume. Jorja and Tess are burglars. We looked around Zurchers forever. They had red masks, white masks, silver masks, blue masks, yellow masks. Basically any color except black. That was frustrating. We bought silver masks. Hopefully that will work. Jorja begged me to drive home. She did great, but I was a wreck the entire time.

Once we got home I asked Jorja if she had found out if the freshman student government wanted to do gingerbread houses and what time. I need to start working on them. I'm hoping they can do it this weekend, because that would be the easiest time for me. Jorja hadn't asked them. She is scared to because she thinks they don't like her. I asked her to just send a message on GroupMe. If they say yes, they say yes. If they say no, think of a new plan. Well, that put Jorja into another panic attack. It is frustrating to me because she seems to get these attacks when she feels I am disappointed in her. I wasn't disappointed, I just needed to know if I need to bake all day. I could see the attack coming and I said, "Jorja, don't." That just made it worse. Then I did something that made it even worse. I told her to please stop, that she is making me feel like a horrible mom. Yep. I said that. I meant it too. You would think I yell and scream and insult her with how bad her attacks are. I don't. I never raise my voice. Jorja's eyes fill with fear, she starts gasping for breath and I don't know how to help bring her back down. I grabbed water for her to drink. That worked before. It didn't work this time. She couldn't swallow. I heard Mike come home from Cyber Monday. I ran upstairs to get him. I came down to find Jorja on the bathroom floor. She was hyperventilating and sobbing, "What is wrong with me?" Jorja hadn't had a panic attack for one month. October 27th was the date of her last one. I was hoping she was through with them. Guess not. I wish I knew how to help her.

Temple, SLCC, Lunch and a Bit of Panic

Today was a long day. It started early with getting Stockton and Jorja ready to go to the temple. The youth were going as a group today. Jorja went with the first group at 5:30. Stockton thought his group was meeting at the church at 6:00. He was in a hurry. Right as he was leaving he realized a car was behind the jeep. Matt borrowed our car yesterday, so they were put back in different places. I ran out to move Mike's new car. It was quite dark and I was hurrying. I backed up right into my van. Oops. All three cars happened to be in one long line. So, that wasn't awesome. Stockton ended up waiting for 45 minutes at the church. He was supposed to be at school at 8:30 for Academic Decathlon. He missed that, he barely made it to school on time with today being late start. Not a great start to the day.

I picked up Stockton at school after his first period. We went down to SLCC to meet with his advisor there. The meeting went great. Stockton was happy. He said, "Every other time I see how much work I have to do to get this degree. This time I saw how close I was." Yep. It's looking pretty nice right now. She had a few things we needed to do. Stockton's AP scores were never sent. He needs to apply for graduation to SLCC. He also needs to start the New Century Scholarship application. It sounded so simple when she was talking to us. Tonight Stockton and I worked on the first two things. Both were completely confusing. For example, we have to fill out every single AP class on both of the first two forms. There were only six slots on each form, but Stockton has passed eight AP classes. We made our best guess as to how we should do this. I hope we did it right.

I got Mike a gate sticker for his new car. It will be nice to go through the resident side to enter or neighborhood. Especially since lately they have been writing down license plate numbers.

Suzanne picked me up and took me down to Oh Mai. A bunch of us were meeting there to celebrate Becky Johnson's birthday. That was a lot of fun. Karen Trost gave me a ride back home. It was nice to talk with her one on one.

I asked Stockton and Jorja to take the bus today. I dropped them off at school since they were running a bit late and I wasn't sure how well the van would do today. As Jorja was getting out of the car I said, "I have faith in you Jorja." She has never made it to the bus yet. Well, she didn't make it again. I didn't see her message that she missed the bus. Luckily she found Will and got a ride home with him.

Jorja and Mike made chicken cordon bleu today. They made them nugget size. They were really good. Preston convinced Mike to send his around on the train.

Jorja had a hard day today. She has a lot of anxiety. When she gets worried about something she can't get it out of her mind. Today she was worried that her friends were going to stop talking to her. Nothing happened to cause her to worry about this, and it wasn't just one friend that she was worried about. I didn't handle it well. I was getting frustrated. I had a ton of stuff to do to get ready for Lake Powell. Shannon had been trying to get ahold of me all day to talk about things for the trip. I kept putting her off. I was frustrated with Jorja worrying about this stuff because it is crazy. She has so many friends. She has more friends than all my other kids ever had combined. It's nuts that she is the one that worries about this. Jorja could tell that I was irritated, and that didn't help anything. She kept saying, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry." I tried to help her, but her mind would turn everything I said around to make my positive comments into negative comments. I was so frustrated. I finally walked out and told her I was getting her dad. That was the wrong thing to do. In my mind I thought I was helping. Mike is much calmer than me and is able to talk Jorja down, when she really starts to struggle. I brought Mike down a few minutes later, but by that time Jorja was in a full blown panic attack. I stayed out of the room and Mike worked with her to get her breathing back to normal. I don't know why Jorja has had these panic attacks. They are scary. I think her first panic attack was at Matt and Sam's house, the day Katlyn told her she didn't want to be friends anymore. She said she woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't breathe. She was trying not to wake up Anne while she struggled. I guess I can see how Jorja would worry about her friends not talking to her anymore. Katlyn was her best friend for a few years and then instantly they weren't friends at all. I think she just worries that it will happen to her again. I also read that once you have a panic attack they start to come more frequently. I also was thinking about how Maysen has a hard time with textures and taste. The doctors told me that everything was amplified with her so mild tastes were strong. Maysen still only likes bland food. She said to me once, "I wish I liked food, I really do. I just don't." She doesn't have an eating disorder or anything, she just doesn't have a wide variety of foods she will eat. She also refuses to wear jeans. She can't stand them. Different things like that. I started wondering if Jorja was similar, except with her feelings. Are her feelings amplified? Are her worries? I really wish I knew how to help her.

Isaac called at the end of Jorja's panic attack. Mike was in the room with Jorja and I was out in the hall holding her phone. I debated wether I should give it to her. I ended up bringing it to her because her friends help calm her down. She was breathing normally by this point, but it was obvious something was wrong. I think it would have been better if I answered the phone and let him know what was going on, but I didn't. Anyway, Jorja was able to fall asleep breathing normally. She still was shivering hard though.