Phhbbt!

So Wednesday night we took Kitty to the psychiatrist. I asked him about possible bipolar disorder (Bear has it) as her moods are swinging hard. It's so confusing because it could be hormones, starting school, biomom giving birth, but who knows! She is so angry and defiant sometimes, but it's just out of the blue lately. We had moved past this, but maybe it's just time to revisit it. *sigh*

So the psychiatrist said we have to get her tested by a psychologist. No worries, I called the one who saw her a little over a year ago. He doesn't take our insurance. I called the insurance company to find someone who does. They couldn't find us in the system! They would say, "Oh here you are!" and then say it would be the account through my husband's former employer, or they found Kitty, but under her birth name, or they found Hubby, but couldn't access his account. My favorite part? They switched us to another person who was very nice. She said she'd found Kitty, but for some reason she wasn't associated with any account and they had her last name wrong. She is fixing it for me, but it will take 5-7 business days to get it correct and be able to tell me what our benefits are! *sigh* I love insurance!

So after getting off the phone with the insurance person it was time for Bear's therapy. We started with the "Pumpkin Patch incident" and the Ipod borrowing incident. As usual, he was telling the truth and someone else "misunderstood." The therapist got Bear to admit that he lies, steals and is sneaky, and that he should not expect us to have a lot of trust.

Hubby approached the knife issue in an interesting manner. He said, that following the conversation we just had, he knew it was going to be very difficult for Bear to tell the truth. That he wanted Bear to stop and think before he answered Hubby's questions and be sure it was the truth. He then asked if Bear felt threatened and unsafe by anyone in the last few months. Bear said he felt threatened by some kids at school and that he always made sure he was near a teacher. Well, we know he has PTSD. Hubby worked his way around to dicussing what Bear was doing about it - whether or not he had any weapons (at this point I'm sure Bear knew he was busted) so he admitted to the knife, but claimed he gave it away (but the boy may not have heard him say he could keep it). Basically he tld the truth, largely, but I sincerely doubt it was completely.

So the question was why hadn't he told us. Well that was because we weren't around enough of course and never listen to him! When he tried to talk to me I "didn't listen" and "spend too much time on the computer." Hubby was "always working" and never does anything with him. The therapist said this was a recurring theme in their sessions. Bear said his foster brothers had never talked to him and his foster dad was always too busy (this is funny because he always says he wanted Hubby to go hunting and fishing with him like foster dad always did!). Bear said the reason he wanted to be adopted was to have a family that would spend time with him. He started crying and talking about how he wanted to spend time with us.

Am I a horrible person that it didn't really move me? The therapist asked, again, how much time I spend on the computer. I told him I usually go on the computer about the time I put the littles to bed (about 8:30) - this is less time than I used to spend, in fact I deliberately started putting it off until then after the last time I got fussed at by the therapist (before, I would get on as soon as I was done with dinner because the kids were all just sitting around watching TV). Bear tends to corner me in my computer cubby about 5 minutes before bedtime and talk for about 10 minutes after bedtime.

Today, Hubby and I talked with Bear and the therapist about how he always wants to talk on his schedule instead of ours. He didn't think it was fair that we only wanted to talk when it was convenient for us! Impasse. I mentioned that I'm available for hours before bedtime, but he's off doing something else. The therapist said he needs to join in the activities - helping with dinner? And that bedtime is a vulnerable time and I needed to stay off the computer until after Bear goes to bed.

So tonight I come downstairs from tucking in the littles, and Bear and Hubby are watching ESPN - not interesting to me (or really to Hubby, but they're together). So I got on my computer. 10 minutes later Bear hunts me down in my study - the boy has the attention span of a gnat. We talk for about 5 minutes about whaat he wants to do with his day off tomorrow, and then he decides to go to bed early. I don't want to sit around waiting for him to have time to talk to me. I don't want him to feel totally ignored either. Not sure how to handle this.

Now the really fun part. I'm getting on my computer later so it's later when I get done with my e-mail, blog reading, forum reading, and blog writing. Now I get to go upstairs and take a bath. Lets hope it's not after midnight again. Maybe if I get more sleep I won't actually need the mood stabilizer!

Sweet dreams!

Mary