Holiday Help

Deborah Hage is a great resource for children with trauma issues. Check out this link to a helpful article she wrote - Holiday Help for Your Family.

Communication

Bear and I have been having issues lately. I'm resentful for having to play detective and dedicate so much energy to him. He's angry at me for "holding a grudge," and not trusting him enough to allow him freedoms.



Due to only having one car (and secretly wanting Hubby to get a little therapy/ support too), Hubby usually attends my therapy sessions. Most of the time he catches a nap on the floor (he's so cute when he snores), but he does participate sometimes. The last couple of weeks we've talked a lot about Bear. My therapist has treated both Bear and Kitty so she knows them fairly well.



As mentioned in the previous post I am operating on an empty love tank and am trying to find ways to handle this. Bear is the biggest drain on my time and energy, and I'm an all or nothing kind of gal, so I've talked a lot about cutting him off (see the post "I quit"). This upsets Hubby because he sees it as reacting the way I have with "Puppies" in the past and it doesn't seem right to him. I remind him that I haven't actually cut Bear off, but Hubby is upset because he feels that Bear knows my feelings about him.

(this is not one of my "Puppies", but I wanted to show you why we called them that. They always have "Puppy Dog Eyes" and look like kicked puppies.)


I would argue with this, because:


a) I'm a pretty good liar actress, and I have never once told him I don't like him very much or admitted my feelings in any way. Bear had no clue that we were talking about not allowing him to return while he was in Meridell. The fact that we didn't and "never gave up" on him are VERY important to him.


b) Bear is horrible at interpreting other's emotions and body language. It's part of his cerebral dysrhythmia, C-PTSD, and RAD....


c) I haven't actually changed my behavior toward him ...yet? I'm still checking up on him, forcing him to talk about his feelings and doing detective work.

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At therapy a couples of weeks ago, Bear was "fussed at" by his therapist for isolating himself from the family. So when a couple of days later Bear told me he wanted to stay after school to do some volunteer work for JROTC on Monday I told him no.
He already comes home between 6 and 7 pm two days a week because he does PT (physical training with JROTC) after school and has a leadership role. He's also been leading the students needing PT makeups on a third day. That would have been 4 days where we pretty much didn't see him at all. So I also told him he couldn't lead the makeups anymore either. He was not thrilled.

(This is not Bear's PT group, I just wanted to give you a visual!)


When Bear didn't come home on time, I called Hubby and told him I was pretty sure Bear had done the makeup PT even though I told him not to. He had. Hubby, Bear, and the JROTC Colonel had a long talk about "communication." Bear of course claimed that he didn't know I didn't want him to do the makeup. I knew he did it deliberately. Hubby and the Colonel gave him the benefit of the doubt.



With his new attachment therapist, Bear has been increasingly negative about family. This may be because that is the therapist's focus so it keeps coming up, or it may be because we're there and he wants to hurt us because he's mad about having to be there and having fewer freedoms, or it may be he's always felt this way and been keeping it to himself. I don't know. All I know is he keeps giving the therapist mostly one word answers. Getting him to communicate with us has often been like pulling teeth, but he seems to be working harder than usual at it.



Bear's "homework" the week before had been to write about a time when he remembers being happy. He wrote about his favorite memory. Fishing with his Grandpa - before age 5. When pressed this was the only happy memory he had. The therapist asked if Bear had any happy memories about our family and Bear just shrugged (now we're down to NOT answering with words! *sigh*).



Finally the therapist asked what is happy or good about your relationship with your mom (Me). Bear eventually said, "Well, I know she cares about me..." The therapist started to say something, but Bear interrupted, "but she always holds a grudge against me."



The therapist asked why Bear said something nice, but then "took it back." Bear didn't understand.



The session was of course past over at that point so we had to leave. I'll post about the long conversation Bear and I had in the car on the way home and in a parking lot in my next post.

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Thought for the day:

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"Don't put the key to your happiness in someone else's pocket - keep it in your own."

Where did that come from?!

Finally received Kitty’s neurological test results, yea! They don’t have a summary so I’m having trouble interpreting everything (boo!), but I’ve got a call in to the therapist at the residential treatment center (RTC) that did the testing.

Monday I decided to try going back to work full-time (I’ve been home every day when they get home from school) to help Kitty regulate since her return from the RTC). She seemed calm, past any honeymoon stage, and we hoped it was her meds finally working. Tuesday night though we went to therapy and all the old issues were back (threatening youngest son, hating Grandma…). I kept staring at her wondering where this was coming from! It was as if the last 6 weeks hadn't happened. Well, there was a slight acknowledgement that what she was saying wasn't OK, but it didn't stop her. She obviously believed every word. So today I go back to being there after school.


We have been slowly taking Kitty off Lithium because of the side effects and the fact that it didn’t seem to be having any effect on her. If her behavior improves because I’m home, then we can assume it’s not the Lithium. If it continues to go downhill then we will have to assume she needs the external regulation, and decide what to do from here. I don’t actually do anything with her when I’m home (I sit on the couch and work on my laptop). It’s apparently just knowing I’m there and in charge that comforts her. Also, her little brother is able to stay home when Grandma goes to pick up the girls after their school gets out so our daughter has much less interaction with him, and Grandma doesn’t have to protect him from her – I will experiment later in the week with ways to see if that’s what’s causing the issues and how to fix it.




I also apparently need to be home for Bear too, even though he is never home. At therapy last week, we talked about how much Bear is isolating himself in his room and decided he needed to cut it out. Instead he's arranged to have after school activities every day.





We'd agreed that he could volunteer to lead PT (physical training for us non-military types) for the JROTC after school. It was a leadership position that we thought might be good for him, and we assumed it was fairly well supervised. Now we're realizing that just like at home, Bear assumes leadership means yelling at and telling others what to do, so that lovely behavior is being reinforced, and there doesn't appear to be any/much adult supervision at all. Plus, we assumed it would be one day a week, but agreed to two. Now he's also running a make-up day. So he's not getting home until sometime between 6 and 7 Tuesday through Thursday.





He's supposed to have mid day meds at 4pm. Obviously that's not happening and the other day he forgot his morning meds. When Grandma mentioned he wasn't getting chores done, he was rude to her. When I backed her up and mentioned one thing he hadn't done was make his bed, he angrily said that was my fault because he has no sheets! Excuse me?! How is it my fault? He's NEVER told me he needs new sheets.





Apparently his sheets are "messed up," and when pressed he admitted it was because he was falling asleep with gum in his mouth and it was falling out on the sheets. Have to say I think this is bull. I guess it's time to go search/ organize his room again. I know he's wearing the same 2-3 outfits over and over without washing them. He claims that is because he can't find any other clothes (he's incredibly picky). Occasionally he'll ask me to mend something, but he asks me at 9:15pm (bedtime is 9pm) and needs it done for the next day. So I'm assuming he's wearing them anyway. He layers so it's not like anyone would notice.



One possible reason for Kitty thinking it is OK for her to boss around Ponito is that she sees Bear bossing around everyone, and thinks this is her inalienable right. She would love to boss around Bob, but now that Bob is bigger than her I think she has given this up. I'm not sure how to intervene and let everyone know that Bear's behavior is not OK. When he did it in front of us we let him know in no uncertain terms that it was not OK, but there's not a lot we can do about the fact that he does it when we're not around. Even Bob "parents"/ bosses around Ponito, and he is standing up for himself. This is what makes Kitty think he's evil - he won't let her tell him what to do. He refuses to be her "dancing monkey" like she remembers her younger biosisters being.





To end this on a positive note. Ponito won an award last week at school for being conscientious, helpful, and going above and beyond in his volunteer duties helping kids get in and out of cars before and after school. Kitty won an award this morning for "Performing on Target" (gotta love the No Child Left Behind crud). Not that I'm not happy she won an award, but she didn't do anything! I don't have a picture of Kitty yet (forgot the camera as usual so a neighbor took pictures for us), but here's one of Ponito.

On the fourth day of New Year

On the fourth day of the New Year my daughter gave to me, four good things from therapy
three half-hearted "I love you"s
two five minute conversations,
and 7 hours of waiting blearily.

Kitty’s happy as a clam. No school catch-up work, no chores, fried food, white bread and noodles, frequent sugary treats, sodas, TV shows/channels she’s not allowed to watch at home, bedtime that’s 2-3 hours later than her normal time, ditto with morning wake up time, therapists who don’t know her issues so they can’t make her address them, no parents, no siblings, no Grandma, lots of crazy teenagers with whom to have superficial relationships...

Apparently this outweighs the few downsides. Bed as hard as rocks, a roommate who apparently isn’t interested in being friends, new BFFs who leave after a couple of days, girls who get into screaming fights that make your chest hurt and you can’t just walk away, and the “wrong kind” of hairbrush (provided by the hospital).

I on the other hand am a bit of a mess. Hubby is overwhelmed and I wasn’t even sure if he was going to get out of bed this morning. He was so out of it, he made me very nervous. I hate it when he doesn’t talk to me. It always makes me feel like it’s something I did. Of course it made me more sensitive and when he commented that I run away from stress it really upset me. I see it as not getting all worked up about something I can’t do anything about and focusing on the things I can change. Which means all the financial stuff falls entirely on his shoulders, because I have no idea what to do when we don’t have the money to pay for something (like payroll, taxes, insurance, getting the car fixed…).

When we got to the hospital I felt SOO nervous about the family therapy session. I’ve heard so many parents talking about how they get blamed for their child’s problems, plus I knew Kitty is probably acting totally normally (because of the lack of usual stresses). Luckily we were able to talk to the therapist individually before Kitty came in and were able to talk about what we are already doing. I was upfront about our expectations – if they can cure her, great! But all we really expect is a safe place for her to be while they muck with her meds. The therapist seemed to appreciate my realistic expectations.

For the remainder of the session we decided to focus on a “safety plan.” The therapist asked Kitty why she was at the hospital. Kitty said she needs to “get better.” We talked about how upset she gets when asked to do things and the therapist tried to get Kitty to list some things she could do besides escalate to a situation like what happened on New Year’s Day. Kitty said she could go outside and talk to the dogs (something that works well, and we often have her do when she needs a break). But sometimes that’s not an option, and when the therapist mentioned this, Kitty instantly dissociated and wanted to leave. This happens in therapy a lot, and in fact last time we were in AT my “homework” was to help Kitty realize how often she dissociates. So today, I pointed it out to Kitty and tried to help her come back to the discussion, but she couldn’t make it back.

She was feeling “criticized” because we were holding her accountable and it was too overwhelming for her. She has never been able to handle “criticism” well, although she’s getting better about recognizing her reaction to it and handling it. It used to be if someone walked in and said, “Who left the butter out?” she would instantly have a meltdown. Now most of the time she can handle that plus 2 or three directions to actually put the butter away, and wipe the butter off the counter, and wipe the butter off her face, and the handle of the door… I know, I know, it’s not really criticism, but that’s how it feels to her.

4 good things came from therapy.
1) I feel better about how I’m doing in handling Kitty in therapy. Even though I could see mistakes and areas where maybe I should have backed off a little, the therapist said we seem like really great parents.
2) Hubby got to sit in on a therapy session for the first time and see how they work.
3) One of Kitty’s recent complaints is that she doesn’t want to talk about her issues in front of me, which means she’s recently started claiming she’s forgotten everything about her past (I attend Attachment therapy with her – because it’s “attachment” therapy! Plus I attend EMDR therapy to make sure she actually stays on topic and works on her issues instead of dissociating and talking about random crap – the EMDR therapist doesn’t know her well). She drug this out again in therapy, and the family therapist said that as a teen she of course has issues she doesn’t want to talk about in front of Mom. *sigh* I don’t remember if it was she or Hubby that mentioned maybe having half a session be individual sometimes. Now THAT I can live with. I don’t want her to be able to triangulate us, but I do want her to have a chance to talk about things without me there (with a therapist I can trust to not allow her to throw her family under the bus).
4) Now the therapist has a little better idea about Kitty’s issues and has basically told us that we have the right goal for Kitty’s time in the hospital (stabilize meds, send her home).

Bad things about today.
I think Kitty’s issues with Hubby/men seem even more evident.
I talked to the nurse at the hospital and they are taking Kitty off the anti-depressant again, which is fine, but they are not making any other med changes and that’s what caused her to be there in the first place!
Hubby and I are still not in a great place with meeting each other’s emotional needs. Bob is still sick and apparently Bear is vomiting.
I spent 2 hours doing laundry in Kitty’s room (8 loads at least!) and I’m still not done.
I cleaned out the kid’s bathroom last night (found tons of empty shampoo, body wash, cleanser bottles; 4 empty caffeinated soda cans; a Tic Tac bottle half full of empty capsules from Bear’s Amantadine med – which he denies all knowledge of, and all the stuff I had pulled out to get rid of) – he put back because Grandma took them home while we were visiting Kitty and I hadn’t had a chance to get rid of it all yet.

Attachment therapy comment

"Have you ever thought that you might not have the relationship you want with your children because of the therapy and parenting methods you are using? Attachment Therapy is not lawful in Texas. It is denounced as abusive by the American Psychological Association's Division on Child Maltreatment and by APSAC. These organizations claim Attachment Therapy is not appropriate for any child and advise child welfare workers to investigate where it is used as "suspected abuse." While Attachment Therapy gets a lot of word of mouth and Internet space, you aren't going to find any reputable journal publishing research recommending it. Quite the contrary. And EMDR hasn't been shown to have anymore benefit than just talking to a therapist. This is quackery -- expensive quackery. Your family has been exploited by it. You should know that any of your children treated with Attachment Therapy will have grounds to sue you and your husband on reaching age 18. - Linda"

I wanted to address this comment.

There are many different methods of attachment therapy. The therapy we use is not "holding therapy" or "rebirth" therapy - which are the controversial therapies where some of the children have died. In fact I do not know anyone that uses rebirth therapy anymore. My children are not forced to stay in their rooms for long periods of time, or even do strong sitting (a yoga pose that is supposed to be very helpful). We focus instead on understanding their behavior, reassuring their fears, loving them even when they are abusive (but not letting them hurt themselves or others), keeping them close (often line of sight supervision), and helping them work through their pain.

When we first got our children they were 11 and 13. We had never heard of RAD, and had very little knowledge of attachment disorders, despite my being a licensed LMSSW (social worker). On adoption.com I found the special needs forum and they gave me a LOT of great information and advice.

Our first therapist was a female talk/play therapist. It was not a good match and the kids did not respond. We decided to try attachment therapy and looked for a male therapist for our son, but couldn't find one that took our insurance. We found a good "talk" therapist for him that "gets" him and holds him accountable. At 15 and with RAD (among other diagnoses) I do not see a big need for attachment therapy for our son (although I use many of the techniques I learn with his sister when I can). I think it is "too late" in his development to expect him to truly attach to us. We of course continue to mentor (and of course love) him and show him what a healthy family looks like. Now that he has received treatment for his bipolar disorder he is able to stay stable enough to function in our family. I still hold out hope that we can access and help him heal from more of his "issues" before he leaves our home.

For our daughter we found an attachment therapist who was willing to take us on despite the fact that she wasn't covered by the children's insurance. At the time, we thought the children's adoptions would be soon so she waited until our daughter got Texas Medicaid. One and a half years later our daughter was adopted and this amazing therapist is finally getting paid! She is absolutely amazing!

At the beginning of attachment therapy we experimented a little with having my daughter lie in my lap and make eye contact. She couldn't handle it and couldn't do it. We have had to restrain my daughter (not holding therapy), but this was using the techniques I was trained in by our adoption agency and only to keep our daughter safe from hurting herself.

Attachment therapy has mostly consisted of helping our daughter learn who she is really angry with (biomom and her abusive men) and keeping her attachment to me a focus and priority. Eye contact was something we worked on a lot - it took a long time. We worked our way up to Kitty allowing me to touch her and sit next to her. At the end of two years, Kitty will still not let me hug her in public, but she will occasionally actually seek me out for affection, helping her with injuries and problems, and has developed some trust. Even though she said in therapy that she doesn't trust me, and this hurts, I do believe that she was mostly being dramatic. I know she doesn't trust me as my biokids do, but she is able to admit now that I have her best interest at heart.

Because of my adopted children I have developed discipline methods that I find to be better and safer then the methods used by many of my friends with "normal" kids. My children are NEVER spanked. We work on concepts like restitution, behavior management, writing skills, family and friend relationship development, and other life skills. We do "time-ins" instead of "time-outs." My children would have no ground on which to sue me for abuse.

As for EMDR therapy I have undergone this myself, and disagree with you completely. There are many things about our body that science does not have an explanation for - this does not mean that it is not true. I have watched my daughter address issues in EMDR therapy that we have previously (attempted to) discuss in talk or attachment therapy - which she was not able to handle and began a fight, flight or freeze reaction (both my kids have severe PTSD). In EMDR therapy she is able to talk about these issues without immediately dissociating or completely losing it. I'm not saying EMDR is a "perfect cure," but it has definitely helped us make advances and work through issues that she previously couldn't handle. My only wish is that I could combine her AT who knows her VERY well (but after 1 1/2 years of helping Kitty address things that upset her appears to occasionally inadvertantly set off an episode just by triggering a memory of past sessions) with her EMDR therapist.

I know that there is more that I could be doing to help my children heal (as evidenced by my amazing friend Lisa), but I have to balance their needs with that of the family as a whole. I also know that they are severely "damaged" children who came to me as older children - which makes healing even harder for them. I am doing my best to help them as much as I can, considering the difficult circumstances that they have grown up with. I will never give up on them, and I know that while they will never trust or love like my bio children can, I have to believe that I make a difference in their lives.

School work at work

So the first day of Kitty going to work with me is over. I presented it exactly as I planned (so glad I wrote it down), and it worked exactly as planned. I told her she had the choice of going in the FAIR Club with accompanying writing assignment, or I could give her another chance. Ironically as long as she thinks she is getting away with something else she accepts the consequences easily. She came to work with me and behaved well.

Unfortunately I do think that her ADHD med is not working very well. By mid afternoon she was incapable of doing more school work (yes, I did take her for a long walk to burn off some energy - today I will wear better shoes!!). I can see why the school is having trouble with her. She could not stop talking! Plus, she obviously does not understand the vocabulary. I'm not sure how she passes her tests.

Yesterday Bob and Hubby came down with stomach flu. It started out by being dizzy and nauseous for several days and then Bob started vomiting. Hubby hasn't started the vomiting yet. Today Bob feels annoyingly better, but now Bear said he feels awful and didn't sleep all night. Kitty has complained off and on, but I'm not sure I believe her yet.

Since we're down to one car I left everyone at home while I saw the doctor (I'm seeing him monthly while we stabilize my meds for bipolar disorder). I got fussed at for gaining weight - this is the most I've weighed when not pregnant, not having seen my gynecologist in 3 years, not exercising and not sleeping. *sigh* He decided not to increase my mood stabilizer since I seem to be OK, but I did request an increase in my anti-depressant since my life sucks** right now.

Someone asked why Hubby doesn't attended attachment therapy. We were told Kitty needs to bond to me first, then we could start adding others. Her attachment to me is finally established, but still very tentative. Having her with me more has really helped. She holds my hand (when there is no chance someone she knows will see us) and doesn't say mean things about me as often (this is a huge improvement). She's even complimented me once or twice, and cuddles with me during lunch at work.

Staying home with her is just not an option. She can barely focus when there are few distractions (like at work) and knowing that the TV, dogs, toys, etc. is right there would be too much for her I think. Having Hubby in the next office over is a required threat too (haven't had to use it this time, but have in the past). Plus, I really need to be available at work. Even though most of the time there is nothing I need to be doing, the rare times I am needed, no one else can do my job (new client meetings, writing proposals for existing clients...). Plus, Hubby wants me to start doing a little more in the way of marketing.

** Taken from one of those silly survey things that get sent around.
17. Current worry? Hubby wants to lay off several people at our company because we can't afford to pay them (and we don't agree on who), he also wants to stop paying half of their health insurance (we have less than 10 employees so apparently we don't have to do this). We borrow $10K a month from my parents just to get by (for the company). The house is falling apart and infested by Carpenter ants, and the bathroom at work is leaking(luckily we have two). My work computer died this morning (Good news! Kitty just realized she'd kicked out the power cord, plugged it back in, and now my computer works!). My car is dead and Hubby's car is making weird noises. We've been driving without car insurance since August. Bob is throwing up at Grandma's house. Kitty is at work today and Hubby hates that. We had to have a serious talk today with the sales guy because we don't think he's making enough sales calls - but the market is down so it probably won't make a difference. Hubby is waiting for several calls about jobs he probably won't get, doesn't want, and doesn't have time to do because he's got work to do here. We haven't gotten paychecks in almost a year and Christmas is coming. My nephew, we promised to pay for his college, is graduating this year. We owe all the staff at least 2 weeks of salary, one of them a whole month and one several months and they all want the money before the end of the year. I haven't had my annual gynecologist appointment in 3 years and something's not quite right with my armpit. I was told to get a biopsy of my thyroid done immediately, and it's been about 6 months (don't have the $1500 co-pay). Something is triggering Kitty at school and I don't know what. Gotta figure out how to get Kitty the school help she needs without throwing her back into regular classes in public school. Gotta take Kitty to two different therapy appointments a week. In Sunday School yesterday morning I realized I still have not figured out how to put my faith in God. My meds are not helping. Hubby won't take meds and I don't know how he can possibly be even functioning. I have to finish sewing Bob's dress for Christmas pictures next weekend. I volunteered to make 24 pies for Thanksgiving. And this list is depressingly long and it's not even complete!

Kitty Therapy

The original plan for Kitty's therapy was for her to go to EMDR therapy for the Summer and then go back to attachment therapy. She was having a lot of issues with her PTSD (post-traumatic stress syndrome) and dissociating and meltdowns. We watched a video of how EMDR works and it basically said 2-3 session and the person was able to process the event(s) without the emotional turmoil. So I have been pushing the sessions to get Kitty to address her biggest triggers/ issues.

I talked to Kitty's attachment therapist about setting up appointments again, and she asked if I had talked to the EMDR therapist about it. Well, no, I'm a big e-mail communicator and the EMDR therapist is not, plus she's a super busy person. She reads this blog sometimes though! So tonight, I/we pushed Kitty through another session (we've been alternating difficult with easier sessions and tonight was scheduled to be a tough one), and then sent Kitty out of the room for a talk.

Oops! Basically the EMDR for a single event (like a rape or car accident) is 2-3 sessions. For long-term trauma and abuse it could take more like 2 years. Guess which the therapist was predicting for Kitty?!

Kitty is much better. She no longer obviously dissociates when we talk about birth mom or her abusive men -before, she wouldn't answer and would focus on anything else in the room, would change the subject, would walk/run away, and even got violent. Now she stays put, and only sometimes says, "I don't remember."

I was very interested in working on Kitty's somatic issues with the attachment therapist (something we were just starting when Kitty switched to EMDR therapy), but according to the EMDR therapist Kitty is not ready yet. That basically her lack of awareness about her body (not sensing hunger, food on her face, not caring about body odor, not being ticklish, actually inviting others to hurt her by pinching or hitting her to prove that it doesn't hurt her...) is part of her dissociating behavior, and that when she is (much) further along we'll see a dramatic improvement in her awareness of her body.

So now I'm thinking it would be great if I could see Kitty's attachment therapist to help and support me in continuing to provide the therapeutic parenting and deal with attachment issues, while Kitty and I continue with her EMDR therapy. The only problem is that the attachment therapist is not on our health insurance. She would be paid through TX Medicaid which of course I don't have. I'll call her today and see if we have any alternatives.

Squeak!