My daughter is apparently getting out of jail soon on probation. Normally that would be cause for celebration however I am furious with her. Not just peeved…teeth grinding, smoke coming from my ears, eyes shooting flames angry with her. Instead of using her time in jail (jailed since April 2016, sentenced since August) to reflect, repent, change and step out of the jail transformed, my interactions with her over these last months have shown another caterpillar will be leaving, rather than the gorgeous transformed butterfly I had hoped to see.

How can a jail inmate still cause trouble from within jail? Easy. It’s called a phone. I wanted to be the supportive mom, I wanted to encourage her to use her time to become someone different than the pathological lying, scheming, conning, and thief persona that she has been inhabiting. Because I believed she was pregnant (spoiler warning, she says she wasn’t) with her 4th baby, I wanted to make sure the baby ended up well loved and in a good home. I mean, who would say they were pregnant if they weren’t? She would. All through the summer I was talking to her by phone about the pregnancy and her plans for the baby.

Somewhere in October, getting close to the time she would likely be delivering (she would have likely delivered early), she called me and said that she wasn’t pregnant, that she had miscarried in April. She said she kept up the façade because she wanted the ex-fiancé to still pay attention to her. They had ended their relationship by July but she continued on in the “pregnant state” with us, her parents. It’s not like I could possibly know with her in jail. When I saw her at the sentencing in August, the loose fitting jail clothes and chains covered any signs.

I was shocked. We finished the conversation and I got off the phone. I thought about what she had said for several weeks before I thought how I wanted to react to it. She lies then thinks that life goes on and everything should be fine. It’s not fine to be lied to, conned or swindled. I told her on the phone that I wanted proof that what she was telling me was the truth…rather than the other possibility that she had the baby, made other adoption plans then just said she wasn’t pregnant to keep me from knowing any details…it would be a form of “power play”.

Because of the months long deception, I felt she needed some kind of “adult time-out”. I told her on the phone that I would stop talking on the phone to her for a period of time to let her know that it was NOT OK to carry on this deception with me. I told her I would still write to her and I would eventually talk with her again. In the meantime, I let her know that confirming the validity of the “no pregnancy” by giving permission to her jail case worker to talk with me would greatly help in my processing through this latest betrayal.

Oh my. She has refused to give permission to the case worker to confirm what she said. My daughter has an amazing ability to turn situations into a “poor me, I am the helpless victim here and my mom is not talking with me.” Finally I lifted the talking ban just because of the complete lack of understanding on her part. She kept writing and saying to her Dad and case worker in jail, “What kind of mother doesn’t talk to her daughter”, completely missing the point of the time-out for purpose of behavior change.

Thus my fury at her. She causes enormous hurt then acts like the victim. She is going to walk out of jail thinking that she is the poor little girl, misunderstood by society…especially her mom. Really???

She is going to a faith-based halfway house. I wish her well. I think she will try to act like a butterfly for a while but eventually the caterpillar character will come through. Unless that halfway house helps her change, I predict she will be back to her old shenanigans soon. The 10 year sentence is still there though; assuming she walks in a few weeks, my understanding is that she will still be on probation for the remainder of those 10 years.

Ok, hopefully I have processed some of my emotions through writing this and can arrive at a place of more emotional peace. I fully realize that fury rather gets in the way of love and to be honest I struggle in my feelings toward her right now.