Thank You for the Candy Cane

Every year I re-experience the void of emotions that is Lynn as she opens gifts. Actually, it is more than once a year, because the same thing happens on her birthday, or any time she receives something from someone who gives it in love. I don't really know if it is because she just can't feel excitement or gratitude, or doesn't realize she can't show it, but the reality is that her deadpan expression as she quickly unwraps and puts aside her gifts without a single trace of a smile or word of thank you is not only unsettling, after 10 years of trying to help teach her a better way, it can also be enraging. And so another year goes by and I forget again until the next one. But this year was particularly poignant because of the addition of my grandson Enoch to the picture. As Christmas morning dawned and it was time for gift opening, Melissa and I opted to share the experience with one another via texting pictures so we could be together that way. Her first text: "He is taking Christmas morning slowly and sweetly. He focused on his candy for 10 minutes and now he is focused on 2 Leggo men (he still has 6 more to unwrap) and he has yet to open anything else."  By contrast, Lynn flew threw her gifts in less than 5 minutes and I honestly don't even remember most of what she opened because she had moved them aside before I could even catch up with what she was doing, and as usual she didn't remark on anything. I think I would have been able to stay at resigned, though, if not for the message from Melissa that came through minutes later with a picture of sweet Enoch on the phone. He was trying to call Jesus to thank him for his candy cane. Such a stark contrast.

Peanut Butter and Jelly

Sometimes you just have to find the humor before the difficulties just completely overwhelm you.!

Lynn is currently really struggling with stealing. Last week she was caught with an Ipod and a pair of pants she took from a peer. As part of her consequences she was asked to write a letter of apology to the peer she stole from. In the letter she attempted to explain why she had chosen to steal the items and stated that she was “jelly”, (which if you don't know is teen-speak right now for jealous.)  I was feeling particularly sensitive and vulnerable this time around, probably because this situation was the third or fourth serious breach of the week, and involved colleagues of mine, so I was not feeling terribly open to hearing her ‘excuses’,  and could actually feel myself getting pulled into a depression instead. My husband, maybe reading my mood, or maybe just being his sarcastic self, after being given the interpretation of the word jelly just looked at me stone-faced and said – “maybe she’d like some peanut butter to go with that jelly. It might even help her fingers to be stickier…”. The belly laugh that it evoked it me was much needed and helped me regain perspective. I'm sure there are those who will say that it is insensitive of me to laugh when she is trying to express her feelings, and maybe it is, but the laughter was so needed.

Cowabunga

I've never actually been surfing, but I imagine the experience must have some real similarities to raising attachment-challenged children. To begin with there is the whole balance thing. It is always a battle trying to balance the needs of everyone in a family to begin with. When you factor in the executive function and social skill deficits of the attachment-challenged teens the board becomes that much smaller. And then there is the difficulty level. Surfing is not an easy sport. There are multiple skills needed to be successful as well as overall fitness and endurance. Also true for parenting these teens. But perhaps the similarity most striking to me is the wave factor. You just never really know what kind of wave you are going to get - how high it is going to be or how strong, and you have to be constantly on guard because you just can not predict when they will appear, how long they will last, or how strong they will be. So, you balance, utilize all your skills, and ride that wave. And then, you can rest for a time; always wary but at some level of peace, until the next one. And pray that there is enough time between them for you to prepare.. and catch your breath.

Chilling

“it was the same dynamic that had vexed his family and  'service providers for years'. It was the challenge of a ‘person’ who does not want to be seen as having challenges, who manipulates for advantage, who suffers severe discomforts yet seeks to create discomfort in others, who deals with distress  and disintegration by reaching for ever more forceful means of control, and who harbors, beneath all these attempts at coping and containment, a chilling rage that erupts when they fail.

 This is a quote from a book I am currently reading that is a biography of a young man who ended up killing a young woman because of his mental illness. It is a chillingly close representation of Cheyann's profile. Chilling...

Georgia

And so the decision was made and Cheyann is now in a new facility in Georgia. It was a grueling few weeks as the team continued to meet and search for the logical next step. There was no right answer. In the process, Cheyann's birth father popped back onto the scene attempting to play knight-in-shining armor coming to the rescue, accusing us of not having her best interests at heart. I mostly ignored him but it hurt a little.  We went back and forth as to whether or not we would transport Cheyann down south or have at least familiar people do so, but in the end, her behavior was sliding so much that it was deemed a severe safety risk to even attempt it and a secure transport was hired. Cheyann refused to talk to me after our one uncomfortable visit at the Retreat, and then the day she was told what the decision was she finally called me so she throw some F bombs at me and let me know that when she finally was successful at killing herself it would be my fault. As hard as it was to hear that, in some ways the anger was easier to deal with than the sadness and despair. And now that the transport has successfully delivered her, we wait to hear from this new team, and start yet another leg of this journey.

 

The Tomato Plant

When Cheyann visited with us in May she gave us a tomato plant that she had been growing in the greenhouse of her residential facility. It was small, but green and healthy and showed the results of many months of hard work and caring. As the plant grew through the summer I noted that it was beginning to wither. I tried to move it to a new location to see if that might help. It might have, a little. Some new growth was noted but by mid August when many other plants were distributing fruit, the Cheyann plant was just starting to flower. I continued to nurture the plant the best I could - making sure it had water and light and moving it around as it showed need, and it helped....some. It is now mid September and the Cheyann plant has one very small green tomato just beginning and one other flower. The problem is - we will soon get a frost here in the North Country. And so.. the only thing left to do to save the plant is to move it to a greenhouse - and the only greenhouse that can reallyl accommodate this particular tomato plant is thousands of miles away......

Good News?

The email message was titled Good News. Really?  Given this roller coaster world we have been living in for the past I don't know how many years - I don't actually know if it is or isn't. The slide Cheyanne was in (that I last posted about in March) continued, and last month the residential facility where she had been making some decent progress decided they can no longer keep her safe. That isn't untrue. Her last suicide attempt was a major one involving rope, a closet bar and even an accompanying letter.  And there was yet another run- away attempt including a stolen and then broken bottle of wine and a joy ride in the car of an unknown driver - but it is still disheartening. I don't know why I had let my hopes rise again, but of course I did. And now... now she sits at the Retreat for the third time in 2 years waiting for her ticket to the next stop on this incredibly difficult journey. The hardest part is, she doesn't qualify for many of the offered locales. She is either too acute,  or not acute enough for any available treatment facility in New England (or her insurance won't cover it).  And so, unbelievably right now we are looking at a choice of either Florida, Georgia or Tennessee!! My heart hurts to think about it. Yes, she has been away from home for more than two years now, but she has always been close enough that I knew I could get to her with a relatively quick 4-5 hour drive - never fun, but do-able. To realize that she now needs to be thousands of miles away and relatively inaccessible is really hard to swallow. I can actually feel the fingers of depression pulling me down again! I really did want her to get a place where she could be closer to home, come visit more regularly and really be part of her family again - not send her farther away for fewer visits and no real chance of more regular connections. And so the email.  Good News! Cheyann has been accepted at the ________ facility in Savannah Georgia. Is it good news? Do we punch that ticket??

Hope Faltering.. Again

It has been almost six months since I have blogged, and for the most part it was a time of new hope.  Cheyann was doing really quite well in her new placement (aside from one rough spot where she re-disclosed an incident she "remembered" from her past that her therapist felt needed to be reported, so we had that whole DCF ride again),  but she was engaging in therapy, participating in yoga, clarinet, and the greenhouse, we had enjoyed many family trips and visits down and most recently she had even enjoyed a visit home to help celebrate her grandmother's 70th birthday. We had all really started to let ourselves think about maybe a return home, with all the accompanying range of feelings.. and then two weeks ago her SI incidents started up again. Our 3-4 incidents in 6 months suddenly turned into 4-5 in two weeks culminating in a trip to the hospital and a call this morning letting me know that she was being sent back to the Retreat. Back to square one........ Really....Big, big sigh.


So why the slide? It might have to do with the visit home. Perhaps being enmeshed in the family again was just really more that she could bear, even though the feelings were all happy and positive? Perhaps the feeling of loss as she had to leave once again was just a deciding blow? Maybe it's the anti-depressant they decided she needed to re-try. Maybe it's the work she is doing in EMDR - dredging up so many past traumas and just not knowing what to do with it all. And most likely, it's a combination of all of it. I don't know. I just know that the thought of doing it all over again is more than I can bear. I can only imagine how it feels to her.