A Quiet Night

Ameri has not phoned since she got her twenty. That would have been about 4:00pm EST on Wednesday. She said that she had to check in at the police station. I received no replies from my faxes and voice mail messages to my police contact. Maybe some thing is working in the background of which I am unaware. Ameri so much wants to be seen as capable and grownup. The problem is a psychiatric phenomenon called splitting. I had not here-to-fore mentioned a name for Ameri's condition but when I Googled the term "splitting" the first return referenced the most recent diagnosis that she had been given in her last hospital visit. That is Borderline Personality Disorder. Many people have an idea that someone just sits around and makes up conditions and then gives them a name; not true. The descriptors for conditions are the result of years of observation by psychiatrist and therapist who make scientific (rational) observations, then report those observations in papers to their peers and then reach definitive conclusions about how one particular condition results in a behavior and how it is alike or different from similarly observed conditions or behaviors. That's what science is. Someone observes. That someone reports. Someone else observes and agrees with the original observations as stated or suggests that additional components were observed. It is an endless refinement of observations that results in the description of categories, types, and magnitudes of observable descriptors.

So, we have always known that Ameri's early experiences had done much to wire her brain and body intelligence in ways that manifest behaviors in the emerging self that are not within the confines of what one would expect to see in conventional child development. Ameri displayed attitudes, behaviors and emotions early on that were identified as troubled. Not just troubled, but disturbed. She was a demanding infant. She was toddler that frightened some. Her personality and disposition became frozen in a state commonly referred to as the "terrible twos". That is essentially where Ameri is today. She is stuck in the "Terrible Twos". She has a woman's body and a brilliant mind. Her behaviors and ideations coupled with the concepts of splitting result in a very troubling condition now called Borderline Personality Disorder. There are at least three major sub components but I will introduce those later.

I must go back in time now and tell of Ameri's life from three months and three weeks to approximately seventeen months. I have mentioned Grandma Lilya in a previous post. When Ameri's mom, Avril, disappeared it was necessary for Lilya to take custody of Ameri when she was released from the hospital. Ameri is now essentially a new born that has survived out side the womb for three months and three weeks. Lilya take her home to an apartment that she shares with a boyfriend. His name is unimportant because he is one of many. Ameri thrives in her new home. There is of course a dynamic in this care that may be one of regret and possible redemption. Lilya's daughter, Avril, has turned out as she has because of something missing between the mother daughter relationship of Lilya and Avril. Lilya is now going to do her best to not repeat the mistakes she thinks she made with Avril. At first Ameri is well cared for and well tended. She has the cutest baby-doll clothes. She has toys as become appropriate and she is the center of attention among the bobes and enchanted auntie type alta kakas (term used in the best sense - not as a slur) that live in Lilya's apartment complex. As she develops and becomes more troubling, the interest and attention from the outside wanes. Lilya find that it isn't as easy any more to get out and be able to have a dependable baby sitter. Her boy friends find that their once enthusiastic Lilya has lost a certain spark of attraction and then there is that beautiful screaming child making it impossible to enjoy any intimacy or even the ball game on TV. Lilya's social life goes into a slump.