Dayna’s Story
I was 27 when I gave birth to Dayna, April 28th 1977. Gordon and I left Brooklyn NY in 1976 for Massachusetts. I was just like any other first time mother, excited, nervous, and full of good hopes and dreams for my child. It was a difficult delivery and I had to have a cesarean section after eighteen hours of labor. My husband was a great "coach" and was the first to hold her. He called her "his little football" because of the way he cradled her in his arm. I caught an infection and was unable to even hold her for a few days. It was agony for me. I was in the hospital for a few weeks but finally got to go home with my new baby. We had many happy days and tough days too. She was so pretty, wide curious eyes eager to look at everything and anything. I remember being up every two to three hours nursing her and for a good two to three months I constantly felt exhausted. Gordon was a wonderful father, supportive and helpful in so many ways.

Gordon and I were lucky to have the opportunities to travel to several places because of his work associations and take Dayna with us. We went to Seattle, California and Virginia. Each time people seeing her would tell us how beautiful she was and remark what a happy baby she appeared to be. She acquired quite a bit of air travel miles before she was even 2 years old.

Eighteen months later, I gave birth to Jennifer, another cesarean section but this time things went more smoothly. We now were a happy foursome.

Gordon got the opportunity to work in California and although I wasn't too happy about it we relocated. We lived for 4 months in a rented apartment in Riverside but then bought a house in Anaheim Hills. Dayna had her special friend Angela, who she liked to play with. I spent several months building Dayna and Jennifer a beautiful playhouse, large enough to hold a child's table and two chairs. My neighbor's husband was in the construction business so I was able to get much of the needed wood and roof supplies to build it. It had a real wood floor, door, 4 windows with shutters, interior paneling and a real roof. I painted it red with white trim and a big rainbow on the exterior back wall and flowers on the front door. They played in it for many years as toddlers and later as a "fort." It contained two little pictures I hung on the interior wall and had the usual childrens dishes, pots, pans etc.

When Dayna was 3 years old, we noticed things were not quite right with her. Her behavior became a bit more difficult to deal with but we didn't think much of it. If we were ready to leave the park she would not want to comply and it didn't bother her when we said we were leaving and she had better follow us or she would be left behind. One time we actually got in the car and drove around the block without her with us right back to where we left her and you would think she would run after us in tears but it didn't faze her one bit. Then at age 5 she pulled out all of her eyelashes to my horror for no reason and continued to do so for the rest of her life. I took her to a doctor who wanted to give her benadryl medication to "calm her down" and I thought that was insane for a child and I dropped that idea fast.

I had her and her sister in all kinds of activities one could think of as they grew up, horseback riding lessons, day camp, sleep-over camp, softball, the yearly birthday parties at Chucky Cheese, slumber parties, swimming lessons, hebrew school, regular school, roller skating, bike riding, etc. like other children. We took many family trips. We once attended a family reunion from my side of our family at the Concord Hotel in upstate New York where she saw all of her cousins. She got to attend one of our family Chanukah Parties and had tons of fun with all of her cousins. We also took trips to Las Vegas where there was an amazing water park, hotels and tons of sights to see which she and her sister really liked, ski and snow related trips to Mammoth Mountain and Big Bear, a trip to Gold Rush Country with fishing, trips to Disneyland, Sea World, Knotts’ Berry Farm, Bates’ Nut Farm, apple picking up in Julian, and probably countless other things that just don’t immediately come to my mind.

Dayna did well in school up until the 8th grade. She was running straight A's, was articulate, loved to read and was very artistic. She had some real talent for drawing and a good ear for music. I would play my piano for her and Jennifer and she would be able to repeat series of notes I would play from hearing them but she didn’t seem serious about taking lessons. She showed some serious talent in writing, especially poems.

She managed to complete her religious training, which was quite an accomplishment, given her health issues, celebrated her Bat Mitzvah with friends and family and completed another Mile Stone in her life.

At school, Dayna was starting to have more and more problems. Her behavior was becoming more difficult in class, she was having trouble focusing and staying on tasks. She was taking longer and longer periods of time to complete tasks. I spent hours with her after school each day helping her with her homework and assignments. We were called in to speak to her teachers several times and even the principal once for getting into a fight in High School. She did manage to make the school's flag team and worked extremely hard at their routines, learning them incredibly fast. I would ask myself so many times, "if she can do things like this and was tested and rated so highly in her S.O.I tests, why was she having such a hard time at school?"

When Dayna hit puberty, her behavior got worse and her grades nose dived. We took her to therapy many times which was difficult enough getting her to even come. She started to hang around some friends I didn't approve of. Her behavior became more defensive and contrary. She would fly into a rage at times and often beat up on her sister, who would not hit her back and often would just go to her friend Leslie's house to escape Dayna's aggressive behavior. To my horror, I discovered that Dayna would actually cut herself on her arms and gave herself many scars. Her therapy continued on and off with little effect. One day, in an attempt to stop her from cutting herself, she came at me with a knife and punched me in the mouth. Luckily, I was still stronger than her and got out of the house, ran to my neighbor and called the police. Dayna was hospitalized at Mesa Vista where she was treated roughly, unbeknownst to us. Later when she was released, she was diagnosed with Scihzoaffective Disorder, (a thought disorder), Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Trichotillomania (eyelash pulling). She was prescribed different medications but in the beginning was not completely compliant. At this time she was 17 and 1/2.

She managed to finish High School after taking a final class during summer school at Poway High and was allowed to "walk the aisle" but didn't get her diploma until she finished the final course during the summer. Gordon and I did not attend her graduation because she didn't complete everything at that time, which in retrospect, I greatly regret. She managed to allow her eyelashes to grow back for her graduation pictures with incredible difficulty. Her pictures really captured her beauty.

Dayna would participate in "Live Action Role Playing" in Oceanside and Carlsbad as an escape from her torment. She made friends that seemed better than the ones she originally had. She was actually quite good in creating stories with these other "kids" and then act out the scenes. I would drive her and later, when she got her license, she would drive herself but would come home all hours of the night. Her sleeping habits became worse, her hygiene habits became worse.

She tried to get employment and was always successful at getting several but they all never lasted. She would have the same problems with focusing, staying on task, understanding the idea of a time frame and organizing. I thought I made a break through to her when she seemed to finally accept her disorder and try to live with it instead of fighting it. This was after multiple visits to therapists and doctors. I was finally able to get her Disability Status and with that, I hoped, would open doors to more avenues of help. Because she had turned 18, I could no longer cover her through my employer’s health insurance and had no other choice but to get her on MediCal. Her poor experiences with the state’s medical services, MediCal, just increased her mistrust of the doctors. The medications that she took had awful side affects and took long periods of time to view the results. They worked somewhat, but left her in a sort of “foggy state.” Due to the “rules” of getting her the largest possible allowance from the state, she could not live at home with us so I had to liquidate all the monies I had saved for her over the years, which I had hoped would be applied to a college education for her and looked for a place she could live. We rented a room in several different places over a period of time making sure it was safe for her but she had trouble taking care of herself overall. During this time, she met and made friends with Jason. They did very well together and became best friends. She was able to help him with some issues and he was able to connect with her. Eventually, they lived together in Escondido. I believe that Jason was the best thing that ever happened to Dayna. I know Dayna loved and trusted Jason. He was the most incredible, nurturing, patient person I had ever come across. She had helped him get out of a bad situation he was living in while in Oceanside and he helped her better deal with her issues. They were together for many years, 14-16 but Dayna never wanted to get married. She didn’t want to lose what remaining feeling of independence and control over her life that she had left. Jason was offered a position at Google, so with great hopes and excitement, they relocated to Silicon Valley. They lived there for about 6 years. During that time, Dayna became more and more isolated. She couldn’t adjust and had trouble making friends. Both of them became more isolated despite numerous calls, e-mails and texts from myself, Gordon, Jennifer and Dan (Jennifer’s husband, who Dayna actually introduced to Jennifer). The normal stresses from work Jason had just added to the stresses he as well as Dayna was dealing with. Jason did more than anyone could have even imagined to help Dayna’s condition. He was able to get her on his health insurance through Google. I was so thrilled because I thought Jason would be able to get such better medical care than I could with Medical, the bottom of the barrel for health coverage. Together they went through many different doctors. Dayna’s mistrust of doctors, given her past experiences with them, didn’t help her situation because she was never completely candid with them so they would be better able to help her. Jason even got her to a specialist at Stanford for her disease. She was being re-evaluated, so based on what she told her doctor she was only taken off her anti-psychotic drug but still on her other drugs for anxiety and depression. Over several months, Dayna’s thinking became clearer and she became more articulate and as Jason said, “sharper.” Even though Dayna’s previous medications somewhat had helped her, one of the side effects was a terrible weight gain. Eventually, she hit 300 pounds. With Jason’s help, he had gotten her on a medically supervised diet that helped her lose 100 pounds in less than a year. This was all out of pocket but Dayna’s quality of life for the last few years was worsening. It was hard for her to walk, her joints hurt from the excess weight and she was in a lot of pain, both mentally and physically. Her mental disease’s course, the stresses from it compiled with Jason’s stresses finally took its toll on their relationship. She no longer trusted anyone. Jason decided to leave Google and return to San Diego along with Dayna. He tried to assure her he would help her get an apartment and totally support her until she could get reasonably back on her feet, medically and financially but in her mind, she distorted that.

Out of the blue, one day, Jason showed up at our house in a terrible physical and mental state and looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks. At first I was shocked but at least I thought I could finally communicate with him and her! When he told me how bad things were and that he finally just had to move out for his own sanity, I panicked!! I was terrified because I knew there was a possibility she could take her own life if in a psychotic state! I still couldn’t get through to Dayna because she blocked my calls to her. Jason returned to Sunnyvale with plans to move back to San Diego. Dayna had even managed to hire a moving company to put her things into storage in preparation for her move back to San Diego. Without Jason there with her for any kind of reality check and isolated, she overdosed on her medications and drank liquor, which she never ordinarily had done. On the evening of April 1st. We received a call from Jason who was notified by the police that found her when they forced their way into the apartment from a neighbor’s complaint about cats howling from the apartment. We all were so devastated, to say the least.
I think I can understand what could have been what she was thinking. If she was taken off her medications, sure, she was clear again and sharp and intelligent but was psychotic and could not reality check. If she was medicated, she had to live in a fog for the rest of her life and deal with a weight problem, aches and constant pains, both mental as well as physical. Her disease distorted her thought processes. She believed Jason was abandoning her and she would have to deal with everything now alone.

She chose to just end her suffering. A part of me feels like it died with her. I am so distraught. So many people tried to help her. As her mother it is hard not to “beat myself up” telling myself there must have been something more I could have done; I thought I did everything I could have done but nothing helped. It was a terrible, terrible disease. It is so sad and so horrifically unfair that she went through so much. She was a good, kind, loving, nurturing person. She fought so hard and for so long with her illness. I think she just got tired of fighting. I must remember her, not the disease. I will always love her. I still and forever will never be the same.

Posted by Sherry Gordetsky