Walking the Fine Line

It's been an interesting month. After not hearing from Lynn for almost a week, we opted to report her missing once again and she was located via Trooper and brought in to the station. I retrieved her and we headed home. Beyond all logic, I then allowed her to spend the Thanksgiving Holiday with that same "friend" with whom she was hiding out (after spending a good amount of time chatting with the girl's mom who admitted she had been "buffaloed" by Lynn's story that her parents were out of the country and had locked her out of the house). The weekend, out of state,  was bumpy on her end and nice and quiet on ours; and then the return home was also complicated and rocky but in the end she was back in her bed on that Saturday for the first time in over a week.

The school week has been tense, and as remarked on by one of the team members, I really am constantly "walking a fine line."  I allowed her to go to a friend's house on Monday after school  -against my better judgment but knowing I need to give her some breathing room. Tuesday she asked to stay after to participate in Chamber Singers and after 3-4 adults worked to make that happen she skipped and lied about skipping. Wednesday, after a call from school saying she had been suspended for cyber bullying -  she agreed to go to group with one of her new friends. Showed up late for pick up with her new "posse" telling me all about the group, and yes, she lied about going. So today I am crossing the line on the other side and pulling back the plan for her to try Unified again today (fully expecting that she would  skip that as well) and told her she needed to take the bus home. Do I expect her to follow through? Nah, not really. She will likely gazelle.

I've pushed the team to schedule LIT. We desperately need a back-up plan.

Gazelle Revisited

And she's gone again.

Gazelle

"Well, you knew she would gazelle." replied our post-adopt  worker upon hearing about Lynn's latest disappearing act. At first I was annoyed. Felt like the situation was being taken just too lightly - like she really doesn't understand the effect this has on me. But it's growing on me. Gazelle as a verb. I knew she would gazelle. Hmm.

Houdini

My little runaway pulled her Houdini act again over the weekend. No trigger. No issues. No communication. Just gone. Received a text from the bio Aunt that she was spotted in the city with her bio mom again - with a friend heading to the Vape store.  After a weekend of reveling she deigned herself to message me late on Sunday saying she was at the neighbor's house. I admit to a little act of passive aggression and refused to respond to her directly after nonchalantly just re-entering life assuming all would just return to normal. Our neighbor agreed to keep her for the night and she managed to make it to school the next day but then again did not appear home and bedtime was nigh. At about 8pm  I received the following message, "can I come home or are you going to be mean again?" Wait. What? How does you disappearing for a full weekend with no trace translate into me being mean? How in the world does  one parent a 17 year old who is engaging in high-level risky behaviors but still has the thought processing of a toddler?!

Snap

You know how a rubber band can stretch and stretch and stretch until finally it has just stretched so much that it snaps? Yup. I'm there.

She's My Little Runaway Part Two - Or "What is Your Problem?!"

Yup. Again. Is that 6 or 7? I've documented but I've also lost track. This time she disappeared and ended up at a party. Typical teenage poor choice right? Except the party was three days ago now and we still haven't seen her.  She did reach out via Facebook Messenger yesterday. When she found out that she was officially listed as Missing and that whomever she is with could be charged with harboring a runaway. "What is your problem? I am coming home tomorrow so I'm not a runaway." Actually, no.  You aren't coming home tomorrow. You can't just saunter back home like nothing happened and expect that life will just go on as it always has with no recourse or consequence. I'm so tired.....

She's My Little Runaway

Phone call from school mid day on Wednesday -  Lynn checked in to Chorus but then when she found out it was a sub, she left the building. I didn't hear from her again until late morning on Thursday.

This was actually her 5th official runaway episode. I know. Because I 'documented'. That's really all the advice there is out there when you have a chronic runner. Document. Document. Document.  What else can we really do? I am seeing a little bit of a pattern though, now that I see it written down and have spent some time to think it through. My generally frozen girl opts for flight when she has to face the consequences of her poor choices. I guess there is some positive to that - that she is actually feeling some remorse. But the results are still completely unsettling; especially when the choices she makes when she is "on the run" are always amped up even more on the poor- decision scale. And, yes, she may have experienced her own logical consequence effect of a sleepless night in the school dugout (yes, that's actually where she ended up, after climbing on to the school roof with a bunch of 8th grade graduates!), but that sleepless night belonged to me as well. .

And yes, it was another positive sign that she got herself back to school the next day and reached out to me to apologize and own her behavior, but now not only do we have to start work on rebuilding that trust foundation yet again, she may have completely destroyed her already very tenuous connection with her dad, because now he is not only fed up, he is angry because he sees how her choices are affecting me.

Fight, Flight, Freeze.........