Ortho Appt

"Let's take a wait and see approach," the orthopedic guy told me this morning regarding Chuy's ankle and Sabrina's knee.  X-rays ruled out breaks, which is always nice, and that he didn't immediately order MRIs indicated his feeling that it'll all heal with time.

"Aren't you Joe's Mom?" the medical receptionist had asked me, leaving me always unsure how to answer.  Hoping he hadn't dumped her or anything I just kind of meekly nodded affirmatively.  Turns out she knew him and all my kids in that age range.

Driving back home my heart did its happy dance to see Daniel's jeep here, it's his bachelor party weekend, heavy on the sports, a Braves game tonight, the UGA game tomorrow and possibly the Falcons game on Sunday with a great group of guys he's known for a very, very long time.

The Braves are red hot right now, unbelievably so.

An administrator had informed me that my kid with a history of provoking others to anger, to red hot rage even, as he cruelly digs deep in order to emotionally cut folks to the bone, he's done it to me a million times, he did it at school more'n once this week, even after being corrected by another administrator.

"Do what you have to do, I fully support the consequence," I reassured the A.P., who likely hears all sorts of denials from parents as in, "My little Johnny would never act like that."

At home this teenager claimed the Principle, the Assistant Principal, the teacher, and the victim were all lying.

I took their side, they have no reason to lie, so he promised me he'd go tell horrible lies about me in revenge.

"You won't win this," he threatened.

Wow.

He won't be the first one to lie about me.

It's deeply distressing, folks tend to believe a manipulative kid, reason #10 million that I've pretty much withdrawn from the human race, preferring the company of my dogs.

I'm not agoraphobic due to fear, I'm severely socially withdrawn due to being severely battered emotionally for such a very long time period.  I feel little hope for the world.  It seems cold and cruel to me.

"I have a dent in my people skills," a blogger, a fellow big adoptive family mama stated on Facebook.  She took the brunt of extreme criticism by those who couldn't do what she'd done, nor would anyone have wanted to do so...thus outsiders and their ludicrous suspicion regarding mothers like us who chose this life.  It's unbearable sometimes.

Dr. Mandy had just read Beyond Consequences, enthralled with the jist of it, a little put off by the Pollyanna tendency to suggest the dad just got to sit quietly and eat ice cream with an unconsequenced rager after the dust had settled.  The real reality would involve broken windows before the ice cream.

And really?  To consequence someone who is neurologically impaired?  Is that fair?  The wiring is broken folks.  It's not the kid's fault.

Dr. Mandy has long counseled a huge number of clients like this, but what she took away from it was how emotionally wounded and fractured kids are, how so severely traumatized in early childhood that statistically it'd be impossible not to look at every kid as having a degree of an attachment issue on some level.  Not full blown RAD, but, at the very least, a logical fear of attachment to anyone else ever after enduring all they'd endured.

One of my sons, who simply can't be consequenced, has a deep fear of abandonment based on his history of broken attachments.  "Well, Mom doesn't really yell exactly, it's her tone that sets me off," he'd told her in regards to any words spoken sternly by me that addressed behaviors that were unacceptable.

I'll buy that.  I know that both he and his brother are extremely emotionally demanding, yet totally unable to hear my words that are only spoken in order to help them function better as adults.  Simple stuff like, "Stop hitting others."causes him to fly off the handle, screaming again that I always blame him when I'd just seen him do it.

The one who provokes others doesn't comprehend AT ALL that someday someone is gonna reach the end of their rope and pummel him.  I've spent all these years protecting him from that, but I won't be there when he's an adult, and if he doesn't change this one specific behavior, all his relationships will be toxic.  As it is he only keeps friends for a very short period of time, shouldn't that be a clue?

But if I correct, or even address this behavior, he falls apart, and accuses me of, I dunno, everything.

Bottom line is I can't 'parent' him properly.  "Why do you tell me what to do?" he'll scream at me.

"Because I'm the parent, you're the kid," I'll quietly answer, and he doesn't comprehend that this is how the world functions, he goes into flight-or-fight mode, determined to beat me down verbally with very ugly words.

He's sadly right.  I won't win this because winning would involve him changing, him not hurting, not provoking others.  I cannot even get him to understand what he is doing so this behavior will not change and I will not win.  He'll never comprehend that winning would help him.

I will continue to take him to therapy.

I questioned Dr Mandy since I'd made a blanket statement that therapy conceivably won't 'fix' oppositional defiant disorder.  She agreed.

It could do so, at some point, on some level, if the person was deeply committing to changing, but this is a deeply ingrained conduct pattern that might take decades to make any bit of progress, by it's very nature, the oppositionalism flies in the face of all logic and subsequently would defeat the purpose of therapy.

Because she's not an emotional threat, as is a mother, because she's worked with my family for a very, very long time, she is able to make inroads.  I likely won't see much improvement during their teenage years, but with time and maturity as they absorb all she teaches, there will be progress.  I have one who sometimes still quotes a therapist we'd used some 20 years ago.

Another grown kid, Yolie, sent me this quote yesterday from an article she was reading, "In fact, a 2005 study conducted by Casey Family Programs found rates of PTSD in young people formerly in foster care to be more than twice that of U.S. war veterans."

Wow, no kidding.


PTSD Information & Treatment
By Harold Cohen, Ph.D. 
17 Feb 2006
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a debilitating mental disorder that follows experiencing or witnessing an extremely traumatic, tragic, or terrifying event. People with PTSD usually have persistent frightening thoughts and memories of their ordeal and feel emotionally numb, especially with people they were once close to.

PTSD, once referred to as "shell shock" or battle fatigue, was first brought to public attention by war veterans, but it can result from any number of traumatic incidents. These include kidnapping, serious accidents such as car or train wrecks, natural disasters such as floods or earthquakes, violent attacks such as a mugging, rape, or torture, or being held captive. The event that triggers it may be something that threatened the person's life or the life of someone close to him or her. Or it could be something witnessed, such as mass destruction after a plane crash.

Most people with posttraumatic stress disorder repeatedly re-live the trauma in the form of nightmares and disturbing recollections during the day. The nightmares or recollections may come and go, and a person may be free of them for weeks at a time, and then experience them daily for no particular reason. They may also experience sleep problems, depression, feeling detached or numb, or being easily startled. They may lose interest in things they used to enjoy and have trouble feeling affectionate. They may feel irritable, more aggressive than before, or even violent. Seeing things that remind them of the incident may be very distressing, which could lead them to avoid certain places or situations that bring back those memories. 

My PTSD is bubbling up within me as I type, I think I best go weed.