Denial, not just a river in Egypt.

Bear and Kitty don't actually know what RAD is, and they have very minimal understanding of their other diagnoses either (bipolar, complex-PTSD, personality disorders...) because they are in denial.

They think if you say "NO!!" loudly and often enough then it won't be true.

"I do NOT have C-PTSD!!!"

Adult: "How do you know?"

"I just DON'T HAVE IT!"

Adult: "Testing and your behaviors show that you do." (Actually I rarely argue with them anymore, we just keep plugging along, addressing the issues.

"Well, I DON'T HAVE IT!!! It's my body! I KNOW!!!!

Adult: "Do you understand what it is?"

"YES, and I DON'T HAVE IT!" (actually they don't know what it is)

Adult: "It comes from the abuse that you dealt with when you were younger. It's going to require work on your part to deal with it, but you've already come a looong way."

"I don't have it. I don't need therapy. I don't need to deal with my past. There's nothing to deal with."

Adult: "*sigh*"


REPEAT for EVERYthing, allergies, other diagnoses, bedtime, learning disabilities...


Luckily?! This time, Kitty is right. She doesn't have Celiac disease, but she still has food allergies. I told her this morning that she doesn't have Celiac, but the doctor recommended she stay on the gluten free, citric acid free diet.


Kitty said she'd stay gluten free, but she wants citric acid back. She "can't live" without ketchup. I told her we still had some experimenting to do with gluten (there's a small possibility that we just weren't paying enough attention and allowing her to have foods with citric acid - a really common preservative- even after we removed the more obvious foods. When we had to read labels for gluten free we caught a lot more of the citric acid containing foods. Never occured to me to check her favorite food -- butter!

Kitty tried to bargain with me. "I'll be gluten free, just give me back citric acid." She tried denying the citric acid allergy, but that was much harder since we have lots of proof of that allergy - years of mouth sores and tummy aches.

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Thanks for the heads up on the celiac testing. She'd only been off wheat for 5 days and the doctor said that wasn't long enough to skew the tests (but who knows!).

Kitty's celiac bloodwork did come back negative, but the doctor recommended staying on the diet if it was helping (which it is). Still, would be easier if for Kitty to understand this if she had Celiac. Right now she thinks she can bargain her way out of it, and we're already dealing with crying and meltdowns.

Today was Bear's "gotcha" day (officially adopted 3 yrs ago), and we always celebrate with sparkling grape juice... which has citrus. She went to bed early and didn't participate.

There's still a possibility that it's "just" an issue with citric acid, I can't believe how much food citric acid is in! Ironically, even the med I was giving Kitty for her chronic constipation has citric in it! We've found quite a bit of gluten free options in restaurants and at the grocery store, but I'm amazed at how many have citric acid. I've told her one more week of staying "clean," and then we'll try adding gluten back.


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Bear turns 18 tomorrow and I've spent most of the day trying to get his paperwork straightened out (18 is the age of majority in our state so they've cancelled his Medicaid because he's now an "adult," but it was supposed to be extended to 19 because he's still in high school and is still receiving adoption support.)