Kitty's visiting hours are 12 to 1 and 5 to 7pm. Wednesday and Thursday we had appointments at the hospital so saw her at times other than visiting hours. Friday though we had therapy appointments across town during her visiting times so didn't get to see her or talk to her. She was very upset by this.
Kitty called the house to talk to us in the evening, but we of course weren't there. She got hold of Bear. I don't know what she said to him, but he was pretty upset by it. He claimed she asked a lot of questions that he couldn't answer (being asked questions bothers him a lot anyway). One of them I know was when she would be released. Bear has been repeating often that Kitty is not ready to come home and should not be released.
Attachment therapist (AT) therapy
Our first appointment was with the attachment therapist. She has been working with Kitty for over two years. We talked about ways I can help Kitty when she is feeling that someone is taking things away from her or that we love the biokids more than her.
Kitty is chronologically almost 14 (her birthday is Monday), but of course because of her issues and trauma she is developmentally only about 4 years old (when she's not in a meltdown of course). She'd gotten up to about age 6, but has been regressing a lot lately. Of course the biokids are much "older" and have many more responsibilities and privileges. Kitty feels this is incredibly unfair (as do the biokids -for different reasons of course).
Kitty is always telling me that the difference in the way we treat the children means I love them more than her. I anguish over trying to explain it to her without making her think I am putting her down. I find myself trying not to treat the other children special in any way and keep things "fair." Which of course is NOT fair.
The AT gave me some insight into my feelings and some words to use... the gist of which was a lot of sympathy and reassurance. "That doesn't feel fair does it?! " She also suggested I lighten up a little. For example, I haven't been allowing Kitty to watch a lot of movies because they trigger issues. She suggested I start allowing them, but only with me there to help regulate her. To stop the movie if she is getting upset and help her calm. To sit with her, possibly even in my lap.
We talked about some alternatives to help Kitty. One thing I suggested to reduce her stress level was to pull Kitty from school and homeschool for the rest of the school year. Hubby thinks Kitty will make me insane (OK, more so than I already am!). The AT thought there are a lot of advantages to his plan, including reducing Kitty's stress and reestablishing the bond with me. We'll need this to be the recommendation of the psychiatric hospital though or the school will not allow the homebound tutoring we'll need. Plus this way we can blame it on the hospital to avoid Kitty's resentment about being pulled from school being directed toward me/us. We haven't been able to get hold of anyone at the hospital to request this though.
We also talked about Reiki and tapping. The AT is very interested in Reiki (and has plans to become trained in it). She thinks it would be wonderful for me, Bob, and other members of the family, but is concerned about using it with Kitty as it involves laying down (might cause issues for Kitty), but more importantly she is afraid that it will help Kitty open up. Just like EMDR seemed to have opened a big can of worms for Kitty (that she is still unable to process), we're afraid that Reiki would do the same thing. I did go ahead and pick up a book about it at the Half Price Bookstore tonight.
2 comments:
I am sorry things are so tough. One talk I had with my M that helped him when he would pull out the "it's not fair" argument, was I told him he was right, it was not fair and maybe we should make it fair. So we told him that thousands of children had no toys and he had lots, so to make it fair we should give some of his toys to those children. We told him the same about toys and such. We also told him that since so many kids in the world don't have television we should get rid of ours or not let him watch it. Stuff like that. He got mad and mentioned his siblings. I told him that they were not the ones complaining that things were not fair. (of course they do sometimes but not constantly like he does) We also talked about kids who can't hear or see or get out of bed. I told him if he was really concerned about things being "fair" we would work on that. He got pretty upset and said he only wanted things to be fair for him, not all the kids in the world, LOL. Anyway, now when he starts I ask him if he really wants me to make things fair and he stops right away. If only other issues were so easy to handle, LOL. That one actually came out of desperation and I was surprised it worked.
Thinking of y'all.
Just a FYI...Reiki doesn't have to be done laying down. It can be standing, sitting as well.
Post a Comment