Latest Tactics

The first week of intensive was interesting. After our initial session, DD then had two consecutive nights of teen only sessions, then we returned on Thursday. How delightful it was to see how much she bonded with the two juvies, and to see the joy she took in running and laughing down the halls when they were all sent to pee in a cup for a random drug test. Oh, and the new lingo she learned, it was such a proud moment where we felt like we accomplished so much.

Not.

We sat through another three hours of BS with this crew, only the Juvies and us. The other families were not there that night. After the break, DD again sat across from us, next to her new "friends" and DH said, "No, you come sit over here by us." All three girls attacked him. The other parents were still in the hall, but the therapist got to witness this fine exchange. DH got pissed and said, "No, we are the parents here. We make the decisions here--not you. We are here so she can learn how to live with us, not you, so she needs to come sit over here." To which one of the juvies snarled back at him, while pointing to the other juvie "Well, you're not HER dad, you can't tell HER where to sit!" To which he replied in an eerily calm voice "I don't give a shit where you two sit, I wasn't talking to you." DD moved back over by me.

The two juvies then took over the rest of the session, whining that they wanted to go home, finding excuses to leave the session, over and over again until the therapist said no more--but they still pushed. Once DD figured out what they were doing, she went from extremely engaged in the discussion to a full physical and social transformation. She slid down in her chair, her head fell to one side, and she stopped talking --- realizing her new buds wanted to leave, so she better act that way too. They won. The session ended at 8:15 instead of 9:00. They were in control.

The following Saturday morning, we took DD with us to the other side of town to attend a parent training in a theory that I have long avoided. It is called Beyond Consequences. DD and others were with a kid-sitter and we, the parents, were in a conference room upstairs. The basic theory is that there are only two real emotions, love and fear, and based on that we know that all bad behaviors come from fear and nothing else--no manipulation, controlling, plotting, etc. So consequences should only be the natural consequences, not contrived, unassociated punishments. Our trauma-surviving kids are behaving strictly out of fear, so we should just hug them and love them unconditionally no matter what -- unless their behavior is dangerous. On the other side, when we get angry and lose it, we are also acting out of fear, so we can not help regulate our kids if we, ourselves, are not regulated.

That said, the training was helpful. No miracles or anything, but a few tidbits that did indeed help. The training was done by a couple of women, one a friend of mine, an adoptive mom and teacher who is newly certified to teach this theory. They did a great job, but we all agreed it was a lot to cram into a three hour session and we are all waiting for the next scheduled session. To me, this training is more realistic and should be one of maybe many theories taught to potential adoptive parents, to give them an arsenal of possible tools to use to save all parties involved.

One of the big tidbits I gained was the "aha moment" of I know this kid better than ANY of the specialists we have seen and that I need to stop letting them have control. I think we have suffered more damage at the hands of some of these specialists than we would have if we had sought no help at all. With this new confidence in what I know, we quit the intensive program. I had a couple of hours of conversations with the group therapist, and while she politely disagreed and argued with me, she eventually understood what I was saying. She gave me a couple of references and we actually have an appointment with a very well-renown Psychiatrist on the 16th. He requires all kinds of info from us before seeing her, which while it is a pain in the tush to gather, makes me feel much better about how he will decide about meds and treatments. I am impressed already. I hope I remain impressed.

The other tidbit--probably unintentional--is that there is NO WAY OUT. We have to make this work. We are not alone, and we by FAR do not have it as bad as some. My analogy there is--if you saw my pants leg burst into flame, you would probably scream "you are on fire" and not just say, "oh - yeah, I see the flame, but it isn't that bad yet. It is only your leg." The end result is still the same. I would have lot of pain and a lot of rehab in my future. So, bring in a special needs kid. We have varying degrees of issues, but the end result is the same--we all have a lot of pain and a lot of therapy ahead. The state is not going to take back this kid. Why would they? They are the ones who set us up to fail in the first place. They know exactly what is going on, but challenging and even destroying families is a hell of a lot easier and cheaper that trying to actually help these damaged kids.

So, we are trying not to react to DD. We will respond to her, but not react. And where we are capable of doing so, we try to let only natural consequences occur. Not one thing has changed with DD. Not one. She is exactly the same, but we are not letting it rule our home. We still have to make constant alterations to our usual plans to anticipate triggers and her behaviors, and we are still pretty hyper vigilant ourselves to preempt any problems, and that will likely never change. We just have to figure out how we can all survive this with the least amount of damage to anyone--her included.

I am finally reading the Beyond Consequences book. The letter from the female co-author was painfully familiar to our experience, but my eyes still gaze over some of the extended descriptions in the chapters about love. Maybe I will get better at absorbing some of the details of the theories as we move forward, but some of it just gets nauseating at times and sounds too woo woo and stops making sense to me. I guess that is my fear still at work.