Sunday, April 29, 2012

In a Funk of Junk

Definitely in a non-writing funk around here.

Baby Sunshine! has been in the hospital for a work-up of why she stops breathing at night. The Good?News is that they didn't find a reason. 

Also, we are in the process of getting my 15 y.o. daughter into therapeutic respite.
I don't have much to spare. Give me a couple days, okay?
But I will attach a portion of the e-mail I sent to the respite mom (and my good friend), who already knows my daughter and my family intimately. She was asking about both my husband's and my own perspective on what's up with my girl.

See if it resonates. Let me know if you have any thoughts I need to hear. 

"..."
Hi there,
I wasn’t very articulate answering you when we talked, ‘and then the neurologist walked in’. (Sounds like a joke, but I may be punchy.)
Anyway,
T’s perspective as he explains it: We adopted these kids, and thus signed up for a fair amount of crazy. It is not fair to pass them around just because we are sick of them (meaning me). He goes on to talk about how can we advise anyone else? And how do we think we can do respite for others? We certainly haven’t figured out how to help kids. And he’s wondering, ‘how long can a person stay at the level of 0 freedom she requires. So he just feeds 'fun food' (in their minds), because it is 'healthier'.  But they take it as a win and play eating games (yes still!). Basically, he's feeling like it’s all kind of useless because they don’t seem to change anyway… 

My perspective:  I am NOT sick of K. I am sick of watching her seem to get sicker and not helping her. I am sick of having all of these kids in the house and not having one that I can send or leave in a room without knowing that it is unhealthy or unsafe. I am sick of feeling like if I could just reach out in the ‘right’ way, I could help her, connect with her heart. I am sick of wondering, “Is she really doing as badly as I think, or is it just ‘15’ I’m intolerant of?” (Maybe both.)
I am grieving the fact that it may be a long time before she lives here again. I will miss her (the tiny part she has granted me!). I am sick of worrying about the fact that she slides by because she is not as ‘in your face’ with her stuff as others…and then watching her get rewarded for “trying” by T. when she has a day or moment when she acts less crazy. To me that reinforces her entrenched giving-to-get mentality. 

So my bottom line and T’s too, is that we will send her to you to squeeze in the hopes that she will give a little and lighten up. But really, fearing that she will be violent, run, or stay stuck and we will have to look at RTC. (And WHERE does she really fit in that? Asperger's unit =too soft, regular unit =  kids too 'hard', sexual misconduct unit = ???)

To me, it is intolerable that she stay home floating along and not addressing her issues in any real, continuous way. I am actually willing to give up on the connection stuff a bit to focus on her historical sexual acting out behaviors. She NEEDS to get that worked out a bit before 18, more than anything it seems to me.

So since we do not agree, we will still send her because, 
1) he is sick of having it come between us and, 
2) it is obvious we need a break as evidenced by the fact that we cannot come to some agreement on the whole thing.

How’s that!

I am thinking of you all, just have to get through this moment and then I'll be back. 

(And please don't worry, because I am confident that all of this is in God's hands and He will prevail - we are just having a bitty crisis of confidence in ourselves.)

Let me know what you think.


Update: Well she's there. All she did was smile as she got her suitcase out of the car and say, "Thank you, Mom!" like three times! So weird. No sadness at all. Reinforces my suspicion that she has been working to get back to respite for a while. Oh well, then it's good for all!

1 comment:

  1. I sure wish I could reach into her and squeeeeeze her hard little heart! Maybe soften it up some! My love and sympathies to y'all...her included!

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