Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Sometimes this really sucks

*From my former blog*

Zoey landed herself back in jail Sunday evening. Her reluctance to control her temper is really biting her in the ass! We had a detention hearing yesterday, to see if she would remain in detention or come home. A unanimous decision by therapists, social workers, Mom and Dad (that would be us), and the judge means she'll be there until her next hearing scheduled for October 6th - so about 2 weeks. Everyone on her team is planning out for the worst case scenario, that she will need to be placed into a residential setting like a group home or mental health facility. This is pretty hard to swallow. We knew that ultimately, this would be a possibility. I just didn't imagine it would be so soon into our placement. The basic game plan is that she'll come home after her next hearing, she'll have another chance to prove she can make it in our home and in the community, but plans will be in place that if she commits another crime she will be removed from our care and put into a more secure environment. This is just breaking my heart because it doesn't have to be this way!!!! No one can figure out yet if she is capable of controlling herself or not. Her mental health issues are so complex and so compounded on top of one another that she has everyone involved in her care scratching their heads. Here's the deal...sometimes she controls it, sometimes she clearly doesn't and there seems to be no rhyme or reason to when she does well and when she does poorly. So maybe the times she acts appropriately is just a fluke or maybe she really can control her impluses and understands the consequences of her actions - nobody can tell for sure! Dan and I have done everything we can think of to get her under control, we've had about a 50/50 result.
If she has to live somewhere else, we'll still be her parents. That won't change. But what I'm having alot of difficulty with right now is facing the severity of her mental health issues and developmental delay. She demands to know why we place the limits on her that we do, so we make her face her "stuff" and it's making her hate us. The only alternative to what we're doing seems to be to let her do as she pleases, there seems to be only extremes with her. I feel so confused as to what to do with her. Her therapist is recommending intensive attachment therapy and my gut is kinda telling me that is the way to go. At attachment therapy, it's very intensive, like everyday-for-several-weeks intensive, and in your face. It might be a chance for us to just get it all on the table, tell her "look! You are NOT in control here for these reasons - duh, duh, duh and that's how it is and we're not going anywhere, this is your life now." At this point, I'd be willing to try about anything to wake her up. There are still some options for us to try. But in the end, if she either can't or won't participate in her own recovery, either can't or won't reach for something new and healthy, there will be nothing left for her than to remain where she is mentally and emotionally and that will mean some kind of facility for her for the rest of her life.

I knew it would be hard, but this is really a bitter pill to swallow and sometimes, this just really sucks!

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Forgiveness

*From my former blog*

Forgiveness has been on my mind quite a bit lately. Zoey's done a lot of things, said a lot of things, that have had me questioning - can I forgive, should I forgive, how do I forgive and why? I've said before in this blog that in order to do what I am doing, which is parent a survivor of abuse and neglect, you need to be willing to absorb some of it. Later caregivers of these kids end up being abused in return. It's what these kids know, it's how they learned to live and get their needs met. As twisted as it is, it is what it is. Actually, not to get off topic but, there is a term for this. It's called inducement. As it applies to adoption, as the child subconsciously begins to attach to new caregivers, they also subconsciously try to make you feel like they feel. The reason? By making you feel like they feel, they begin to process their traumas, to heal their wounds. It's slow. God is it slow. But what ends up happening is eventually they begin to realize that you are strong enough to walk through their trauma with them. Feelings are allowed to surface, to be talked about, to get worked through. By enduring the abuse these kids hurl at you, you're showing them "I'm strong enough to stand the ugliness of what happened to you, and I'm strong enough to love you anyway and I'm strong enough to stay with you until you're strong too." It's quite genius I think. The ultimate in self defense strategies - only attach to someone capable of helping you survive and ultimately thrive. Part of it is also just learned and self serving behavior, but underneath that lies inducement - "Are you strong enough to stand this ugliness within me?" And really, we all do this. We all induce one another to feel as we feel. It's an act of our subconscious generally. What I've found, and what I learned from the expert that taught me about it initially about a year ago (before we were in process with Zoey) is that inducement can radically change when you bring into the conscious level. Confronted with what's really going on allows people to make new choices in their attempts to be accepted by others. The possibility for finding out "Hey, this person does accept me and all my imperfections!" exists without making others feel the force of those imperfections. But that takes a hell of a lot of inner strength and confidence to have faith in that, once you know you were doing it, to cease doing it. If only because inducement provides proof. "Well if I just abused this person and they're still here, that proves that they're strong." And the darker and deeper one must be strong against, the darker and deeper the inducing must be. My ability to withstand Zoey's abuse must be equal to the amount she endured, minus any mercy she herself provides. No more, no less.

So as she attaches to me, as she tests my strength against the darkness inside of her, she needs me to feel like she feels. Only I don't. I've got a lot of tools shielding me from ever feeling that defeated, that damaged. One of those tools is forgiveness. She has made attempt after attempt to reject me, to destroy my well being, to destroy my desire to be her mother. Vile, disgusting things spew out of her mouth (and her eyes, too, actually) and it would scare the hell out of me if I let it. For a small built, 15 year old girl that at times regresses to child-like characteristics, she is capable of hatred so intense it actually feels a bit demonic. That's pretty creepy. But I don't believe in demons. I believe in Zoey - again interchangeable with zoe meaning life, love, and God. There's no demon in there waiting to jump out and devour my soul. It's just a kid, with more reason than anyone I've ever known to be the way she is now. Given her circumstances, it all actually does make sense. How can we expect her to act any differently until she has reason not to? In fact, I'm surprised there's anything left for us to work with! Which once again demonstrates the unbelievable power of the human spirit. Clearly our girl has a will to live or she wouldn't have made it to us.

Knowing why she acts the way she does and says the things she says doesn't make it painless though. She called me a slut the other day and a part of me wanted to shout back "if you ever call me that again…!" but I didn't have an ending. What - I'd slap her silly? Nope. Not my style and someone else probably beat me to it. Call her a slut back? Also, not my style and definitely already taken by figures in the past. I simply didn't have a way to top it, so I had nowhere to go but away from the power it had over me, I had no payoff for being mad. So I laughed. Me? A slut? Oh God if people only knew! I am and I'm not - which does exist by the way. I'm naughty and nice. But in the way she was using it - no way! So it was ridiculous and absurd, which made it worthy of being laughed at. There are other things she's said to make me feel "less than," things that have stung sharply, lines crossed that I'm sure others would have given up over…did give up over. But I stay focused on Zoey. There's life in there, there's love in there, God is in there! Someone must be strong enough to remember that about her until she remember's it herself.

In the mean time, I've set my ability to forgive on auto-pilot. What I mean is that I don't give a whole lot of energy to what she says and does, other than looking for successful means to curb her maladaptive behavior that is. I let it slip off my shoulders, take as little personally as possible, laugh when I came. I decided to love her when I made the claim and love leaves very little room for being offended. I do what I can to keep her accountable. She's felt a lot lately like I've been holding a grudge against her. I must be honest, with her abuse growing in intensity and frequency lately, it's been getting real hard to enjoy her company. I never know when a good moment will flip out into a bad one. I just decide beforehand that no matter what happens, no matter how big the offense, she's mine to love unconditionally, which includes forgiveness. I may need to involve the police but she'll always have me, she'll always have my love and my acceptance - as any child should.

All this thinking I did on this subject, which I plan to use for my book, led me to think about another in my life that I could forgive. A couple of months ago, two friends of mine and I managed to get tangled up in an argument that got, in my opinion, quite ugly. It ended up being really cathartic for me. I learned a lot about myself, as a friend and as a person in general, that empowered me in the end. I really struggled with this, though. I was very hurt by things that were said, but it also compelled me to stop thinking about writing my book and to actually start doing it. I made the decision to be a bit more guarded in who I talk to about my life and also to use a bit more scrutiny in evaluating my relationships with people, as sometimes friends aren't as close with you as you might like or imagine them to be. But sometimes, the opposite is true also. I thought the fallout of this fiasco would be a total loss, but to my surprise I got a text message in the middle of trying on clothes in the Shopko dressing room that made my day! An apology. An admission of acting badly. A request for forgiveness. Of course! Of course! I just wanted my friend back. I can see the imperfections and love people anyway. *shrug* That's if they're even imperfections anyway…more like just being human I'd say. I didn't know what to text back. I wanted to be graceful and serene, well that and jump up and down with excitement (hey, I missed these people!), but I just smiled. People act badly. We all do things that end up necessitating our need to even ask for forgiveness. But there's no growth in saying no to that request. I see it this way, if we want to keep moving forward, if we want to do that with companions, we just got to let the shit go. Of this I am certain. One time I was really pissed at my brother, but he was on his way home after being gone awhile. I was so happy to be seeing him again, but really pissed over a choice he had made. I didn't know what to do with that anger at him, the answer that ended up coming to me was this "just love 'em." It was so simple, but yet so profound. And so true. When you make the choice to love, you make the choice to let nothing stand in your way of loving - you let the shit go, hold onto love instead. After all, "he that cannot forgive others, breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass if he would ever reach heaven; for everyone has need to be forgiven."

Namaste, my friends, namaste.