24 hours ago, those words meant something totally different than they do right now.

Ash was with The Ex this weekend; it was his normal weekend. But they were planning to leave for a week-long California trip on Tuesday, so she wasn’t going to come home tonight like she normally would. I wasn’t looking forward to her being gone. At the same time, though, I hoped she would have a good time.

The trip is now off.

Tim burst into the bedroom this morning to wake me because The Ex called him. Ash had apparently called a suicide hotline during the night, and two crisis counselors were at his house. Still not quite awake, I understandably started freaking out. And I couldn’t get out the door fast enough. I don’t even know exactly how long it took me to get to my child, but it wasn’t very long, I can promise you that.

After talking with Ash, The Ex, and the crisis counselors, we chose to make a decision on what to do next until after speaking with Ash’s therapist. My first thought, though, was to put her back inpatient. After all, my job is to protect my child, even if it means protecting her from herself. When the therapist called, she agreed that we needed to err on the side of caution, and at least get Ash assessed. So, we took her in.

And she was admitted.

I can’t tell you just how much I hated writing those words.

I also think there is more to this than meets the eye. Ash says that she has been hearing voices for the past few months, and they have been telling her to hurt herself. Funny, how she hasn’t mentioned any of this to me, or her father, or her therapist. In fact, she has been telling us the exact opposite. Plus, the timing seems too coincidental to rule out completely. I think that, again, there is something she doesn’t want to face, or talk about, and this is how she is handling it. Not the best way to go about it IMHO.

So now we wait. We wait to find out about her treatment team. We wait to find out just how much she is willing to work to get better. I wait to find a time when I can try to get the truth out of her. And I wait for The Ex to explode because he gets his little feelings hurt, which I’m sure will happen.

In some ways, dealing with Ash’s hospitalization last year without The Ex was a lot easier.