I watched dust swirl in the sunlight shining through the sliding glass door; a beautiful Texas day. Wispy white clouds floated across a perfect blue sky. Spring and summer were my favorite seasons, and we had just moved from one to the other. My son was in his room and my daughter, Libby, lay on the couch, headphones on, playing with her phone. I was curious about what she was doing, and because of a parental control program I’d installed that gave me insights into her phone, I knew I could check later.

My own phone rang, loud and echoing through the open family room. It was Libby’s therapist calling in for her weekly session. I spoke to her for a few minutes, about the beautiful day, about Libby—the polite chit-chat of two utter strangers with nothing in common but our one mutual concern: the mental health of my child. I was grateful for her call. It had been a tough week.

Libby’s behavior was spinning out again in a now-typical pattern: increased outbursts and back talk; refusals to participate in the household; deteriorating personal hygiene. Without knowing Libby’s medical history, most would see these as typical, hormone-driven behaviors of a thirteen-year-old racing toward adulthood. However, Libby’s past three years had included almost two dozen mental health hospitalizations for schizo-affective and bipolar affective disorders, as well as five cases with Child Protective Services to ensure proper treatment. We recognized her current behaviors as signs of an approaching storm. I shared the latest with the therapist: the fight over chores and bathing a few days earlier, the tension since, and Libby’s steady withdrawal from the family since returning home in March from a year and a half in an institution and a foster home.

I walked over and handed my phone to my daughter for her therapy session. We effectively swapped places and devices. Libby left the couch with my phone, running upstairs to my bedroom for some privacy, and without thinking, I took her place on the couch and picked up her phone, which had gone dark.

It was a quiet moment.

Until a chime broke through and I woke from my daze. Libby’s screen lit up with a message on an app I’d never heard of or seen before. The message came from someone called Slenderman and read: “I can help you.”

Curious, I opened it to find out what Libby had asked for help with.

Libby: “I want to kill my mom. I think I’ll do it in her sleep.”

I don’t know how long I sat there trying to comprehend the words. I knew them all individually but could make no sense of them when arranged in this order. Kill? My mom? In her sleep? Help you?

My heart pounded in my chest and my ears. My breath whooshed back into my lungs as I scrolled down and found similar messages going back three months, almost to the moment she returned home from her last discharge.

How did Slenderman intend to assist my daughter in killing me? Why did he want to? And, oh yeah, who the fuck is Slenderman?

I found exchanges from others as well, faceless strangers encouraging Libby to murder me.

The weight of the betrayal sank into my stomach like a lead ball. Child Protective Services had said she was fine, she was stable. She had fooled us all. The child I’d loved and nurtured and guided and protected and fought for with all my strength wanted to end my life. In my sleep. My mind filled with visions of Libby lying in bed beside me. The countless nights I’d let her sleep next to me, to help her not be afraid at night. To help her feel less alone. And the whole time, she was plotting my murder. Using that subterfuge to get close to me at my most vulnerable moment.

She could have killed me any one of those nights. Why hadn’t she? Maybe she chickened out, wielding a knife inches above my throat but unable to slam it down or slide it across. More likely it was her nightly medications that forced her into deep sleep.

I became aware of my son’s voice. “Mom, are you okay? Mom, what’s wrong?”

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak, my tongue seemed swallowed whole, my words lost in the utter annihilation of learning what I thought my life to be and who I believed my daughter to be. I wondered if I was asleep now. This horrendous nightmare couldn’t be my life, couldn’t be real life. The juxtaposition between past and present created a dissonance that kept my breath hitching in and out of my chest.

Then the present rushed forward to fill every space around me. My mind raced, considering options as to what to do next. I called my husband from my daughter’s phone. We spoke in urgent whispers, seeking each other’s guidance through the terror and panic. His voice, warm and calm and soothing, pushed a small amount of the fear aside allowing me to think more clearly. We came up with a plan.

“There’s no question. You must admit her,” he said. “Take her back to the facility. She is a threat to your safety, to our son’s safety.”

His words hurt my heart, but they were true—Libby had become dangerous. We’d always known this was a possibility, but I had fooled myself into thinking I was the one person she would never harm because of how much love I showered on her.

I closed my eyes. Ever so slowly, the fear of what this all meant was pushed aside and replaced with all the things that needed to be done. “I’ll need to get her to pack a bag. Should I bring our son? He doesn’t need to go through this yet again, does he?”

“No, he’s old enough to stay alone for a few hours.”

“What do I tell him?”

“The truth. Or at least part of it, for now. Otherwise, he’ll just be afraid and anxious. I’ll talk to him,” my husband said, and we hung up.

A feeling of determined control filled me, and I focused on the business at hand, a skill I had learned over years of dealing with Libby’s mental health crises. Pack a bag, assemble her meds, bring the phone as evidence for the facility. Food and drink for the trip. My heart still raced but I no longer felt pressed by chaos. Our son’s phone rang and he moved away, talking in quiet whispers to his father.

Upstairs, I demanded my phone from Libby, then explained to the counselor I would be admitting Libby again. I hung up the phone and faced my daughter, who looked shocked and confused atop the bed on which she intended to murder me.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“You need to pack a bag. I’ve seen your phone.”

Her face fell and twisted with familiar rage. But there was something new, a hatred I’d never seen before. Her eyes hardened; her face became rigid. Darkness took over her features, twisting them. She couldn’t keep quiet, the words tumbling out like some sick waterfall.

“I want to watch you bleed,” she said. “I want to slit your face open.”

I ignored the horror, the imagined ripping open of my body, the too-real ripping open of my soul.

I listened to Libby describe her desire to cut me, slash my throat, stab me in the heart, mutilate my corpse. Her wish to do the same to my son and her father. How she fantasized about it and planned it out every day, all day.

I focused on packing a bag and then rushed her to the car, keeping my face and reactions neutral, trying to give away none of my terror and overwhelming sorrow. But I couldn’t stop myself. I had to know. I heard myself ask the questions, my voice sounding hollow and distant to my ears. Her hatred seemed to fill the car, suffocating me.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because I hate you,” said my daughter, my sweet baby.

“Who is Slenderman?”

“He’s my friend. He’s going to help me.”

“When?”

She looked at me. “Soon,” she said. I fought to push down the scream rising in my throat.

At the facility we’d been to so many times before, we went through the screening process, then sat in the waiting room, surrounded by strangers. Libby flitted from one person to the next like a cheery butterfly, engaging in breezy conversations. She watched cartoons and laughed. She looked like any normal, happy teenager. She didn’t belong here.

But beneath that happy exterior, in the deep interior of her mind, heart, and soul, was something I had never seen before. Was it evil? Or the deepest and darkest recesses of her mental illnesses? How could anyone tell the difference? How had we lost her?

Had I created a monster? But this was my child! How could I ever think of her in those terms? A million questions with no easy answers. There was no solace in this cold place filled with strangers.

Libby came over to hug me, as if nothing had ever happened. I shied away. Guilt swept in. This was my child, who I was supposed to love unconditionally. Could I love a would-be murderer? Was she capable of the things she talked about?  Uncertain of the answers, I knew I couldn’t let her hurt our family.

I was frozen in a sterile realm, waiting for someone to beckon us to the world beyond the double doors, where I hoped my daughter would find herself again. Find sanity and reason. Healing. A world I had turned to countless times before to help me navigate Libby’s rage and delusions and paranoia and hallucinations.

Memories filled my mind. Looking into my baby girl’s eyes for the first time. Watching her play with our puppies. Seeing her run and laugh through bluebonnets in spring. Cuddling in bed together, watching cartoons and movies. Skipping with her at the park and laughing as she came down the slide. A million hugs and kisses before bed. A million I love yous.

I sat in that waiting room, surrounded by people but feeling more alone and lost than ever before. I longed for the reassuring arms of my husband, the warmth of his touch, the security of his love. I needed an anchor, something to ground me amidst the swirling emotions, unanswerable questions, and terrible pain. After three hours of waiting, I went numb and sat staring at the bright white wall ahead of me.

I focused on every blink, and then I began counting them. When I reached one thousand, I started over. Over and over again, visualizing the numbers on the wall. I didn’t speak or look at anyone. I barely breathed, trying to find respite from the chaos inside.

When they called Libby’s name, instantly I knew I would not pass through those double doors with her. Not this time.

In that moment, I knew our life paths had split forever. I wanted to hesitate but couldn’t. Somehow, in those three hours of sitting, I’d made a decision I didn’t even realize I was debating.

Libby ran up to me, smiling. I told the nurse it would just be her. Libby’s face dropped, confusion written across it. But she didn’t argue or question. Instead, she hugged me and said, “I love you, Mommy.”

I wondered if it was true, then hated myself for thinking it.

“I love you, Libby.”  I meant it. I loved her despite the pain and the terror and the swirling emotions. But I also knew it would be the last time she would hear the words. We were broken beyond repair. I hugged her and made myself let go. I watched her skip into the secure waiting area beyond, oblivious to what the future held. It felt so final.

I sat in my car in the bright sunlight and let the tears fall, my sobs filling the car. I screamed and pounded the steering wheel, raging against it all, not caring who saw me. I closed my eyes and let it all come out, an agony so deep I thought I might rip apart.

After fourteen years of loving Libby and ten years of fighting for her sanity, I knew, with every ounce of my being, I’d lost her to mental illness. When the tears dried and my breath calmed, I put the car in drive and went home. I sat in the driveway, raw and exposed, and watched the sunset.

The apartment door opened, and our son stepped out. I took a deep breath, then another, and watched him walk toward me. He looked so small, as if hunched over, the streetlights turning his red hair a yellow gold. I wondered how I would protect him from a world that had helped twist his sister into his would-be murderer.

He too was a victim of her mental illness, put second always to a crisis. All family members are, especially children who are forced to experience the constant threat or manifestation of trauma.

I rolled the window down. “Hey, sweetie. You okay?”

“I’m okay. Are you?” The worry in his voice pricked my heart. Tears welled but I swallowed them back, trying to be the strong mother he needed.

“I’m not okay, but I will be.” I said, as we walked inside.

I learned that would be true. A week after admitting her, we found a seven-inch butcher knife hidden under my bed. Family therapy sessions—the few she would allow—revealed that Libby was determined not to talk about the circumstances that led to her admission. Instead, she used the sessions and phone calls to torture me. She used school computers to cyberbully me on social media through fake accounts, telling me to kill myself and that she hated me. After fifteen months, CPS determined Libby needed permanent care for ongoing psychosis and the state took custody of her until age eighteen. She hates me for reasons I cannot begin to understand but have had to learn to accept.

Some days I wake up and lie in bed, blinking in the early rays of the day, warm and content. Everything is right with the world. My son and husband are in their beds. Libby is in hers, down the hall. Then it all rushes in. The pain and loss. Libby. The reality she’s no longer with us. And a new day begins. It turns out, some wounds last forever. But I’ve grown stronger. I’ve learned to accept the grief now part of me.

Jane Gabriel is a happily married mother with two special-needs children from Florida. She is a nonfiction author, entrepreneur, mental health advocate, and public speaker who worked as a personal injury paralegal until 2020, when she left to pursue her writing and advocacy full-time. Jane has struggled her entire life with mental health issues – particularly childhood trauma stemming from incest, which caused disabling PTSD and lifelong depression. With the birth of her daughter, Libby, Jane learned how profound a mother’s love truly is and began a new journey, one of selflessness and evolution. When Jane recognized that Libby was struggle with mental illness, she devoted her life to understanding the web of genetic factors contributing to her daughter’s illness, as well as the relationship it had with her own history of abuse and mental illness. Jane is now committed to being a voice for the voiceless and has dedicated her life to helping others heal through education and advocacy. Combining her talents and expertise with her experience as a survivor and mother, Jane Gabriel is a beacon for anyone struggling with mental illness. You can learn more about her at http://www.janegabriel.net