Continuing SA Saga

I have met with SA 3 times for family sessions since I last posted about him. He is still down in Tulsa in a Residential Treatment facility. Hopefully, he will stay in a facility until he turns 18 or longer. The 1st week hubby and I went down, his therapist decided she couldn’t keep us safe, so we only talked to him by phone. He was very angry so I was glad he wasn’t in the room. She suggested I find a longer term residential placement and even get a CINS (Child in Need of Supervision) court order if I needed to. She felt it was hazardous to my well being for him to ever come home.

Week 2, we went down and he had a new therapist. Therapist #1 was afraid of him. He had threatened her one too many times. We now had a larger male therapist. He informed us of SA’s diagnosis’s, Schizoaffective Disorder, RAD (Reactive Attachment Disorder), Antisocial Personality Trait (can’t have the full blown disorder until 18), and Narcissistic Personality Trait. These are NOT happy things to have. Actually pretty scary. Antisocial Personality is the old Sociopath or Psychopath. He told us this was the combo of Serial Killers, not that SA would do that but he could. We did meet with SA, but had a burly guy outside the door, just in case. SA had been threatened with isolation if he acted up so he was fairly docile. It appeared to be a good session. It even seemed like SA listened and interacted.

This week I went down alone. Hubby couldn’t make it. I was pretty fearful, but go I must. Had the male therapist again. He is good, I am glad SA has him. SA was in a bad mood and mad at his therapist. He wouldn’t interact. Kept banging things on the chair and wouldn’t look up. Kept his hands over his face most of the time and refused to talk. He finally got fed up and walked out. I can handle walking out. That is a far better scenario than throwing chairs at me or attacking me. I hate being afraid of him, but at 6’4” he could do serious bodily damage to me and I have a strong desire to survive.

I am trying to find him a longer term placement. Where he is at maxes out at 4 months. Where he was the last 2 times – they can stay for years, if necessary. Unfortunately, they won’t take him back. Too many new issues. I do have him on a waiting list for a facility down in Oklahoma City. They have a CD (Conduct Disorder) program. He might be a bit beyond CD but it is at least something. Of course, SA says he doesn’t want to go because it is lock down and the boys and girls are separated. I just need to call and make sure that he is still on the waiting list and that they can take him soon. I will not relax until he is in a longer term placement. I live in fear of some yokel down in OKC making minimum wage deciding, “He hasn’t threatened to kill his mom in 3 week, we should send him home.” That is what happened last time. I just can’t do that again. Bottom line I just can’t live with him ever again.

Continuing Saga

I was talking to SA the other night on the phone and something about him trying to kill me came up and he made the statement that he has tried numerous times. Don’t ya just love it? OK – my mind went a little weird. All I could think of was the couple of times in the last month or so that I had such bad stomach pains that I thought about going to the ER. Random knife in the stomach pain. No vomiting or such – just stabbing pain in the night. Was he trying to poison me – did he put something in my food or drink? I have no idea. Doubt if I could get an honest answer out of him, if I tried. He is a pathological liar. Truth doesn’t pass his lips unless it is self serving. I asked him if he had tried to poison me – he said “no”. He said he had broken into our room at night with a knife to kill me but wasn’t sure why he hadn’t. He said the next day he had knife cuts on his hand, so he knows it happened. OK – I really don’t think this happened. Tho it appears that in SA’s mind it did. I am more inclined to think he tried to poison me. But regardless, the whole thing has made me a bit freaky. This is a child I can never live with again. He has been thinking about killing me for over 2 years now and I am tired of the stress and fear.

I have no idea how this is going to play out. My plan at the moment is to get him into a long term psy facility when he is finished with his acute placement. I know there is a long term RAD (reactive attachment disorder) program in Tulsa and a long term program for sexual issues down in OKC. He will be 18 in 9 months and 7 days (but who is counting). I just know he can never live in my home again. I can NOT take that risk. It really is sad.

Thank Heaven for Inpatient Facilities

I have been struggling lately on what to write. I have kept journals all my life, I love to write. But then no one sees a journal. It feels safe to express myself. But with all that is going on in my life right now – I would love to put it on my blog. But what if someone gets upset and I end up making things worse. I know there is a balance. Just not sure where the line is.

Our youngest is back in the hospital. He has been home from the hospital for 2 ½ long months. He went in last weekend. The week before he was admitted, he blew up in family counseling and went storming out almost breaking the door at the Mental Health Dept. SA’s therapist decided, after talking to him, that neither his sister nor I was safe around him and that we should give him some time to chill out. He willingly went to the local Shelter to have some time to regroup. OK – maybe not totally willing once he found out they have rules and regulations there. But he went. After a couple days there he wrote a letter to the director of the shelter. Basically the letter is a homicide/suicide letter. The premise of the letter was that he would kill me, his mom, given the chance but that he would kill himself first to keep from killing me and then he would come back blessed. He is a seriously mentally ill child.

Needless to say, his therapist and the shelter director agreed that he need to be placed inpatient ASAP. In the midst of all this we found a lot of hard core pornographic magazines in his room, a child porn video on his computer, LOTS of stolen items in his room and 2 more notes about killing himself. It is always fun, NOT, to have to have a sheriff (we live in the country) come to you house about the child porn. And to try once again to figure out who all the stolen items belong to. Still have no clue on lots of them. Most of the clothes belong to his sister tho. Go figure – she is size 7 – 9 and he is 6’4” 215+ #s. Not quite a good fit.

After 2 days of calling places to find an acute bed for him in a psy hospital, I was finally able to find one in Tulsa. It must be a bad time of year – all the beds are full.

We took him down there. He didn’t want to go but we asked the shelter staff to call the police, so he decided to cooperate. I drove in a car behind, just in case I needed to call for help. We did not have the “infamous letter” to take with us since it was the weekend and both copies were locked in offices that could not be accessed. SA was quick to say that the letter was something WE just made up. Tho during intake at the hospital he insisted he was NOT suicidal but that he WAS homicidal. He wasn’t hesitant to say he had tried to kill me in the past. He told numerous people that he was homicidal. He almost seemed proud of the fact. The whole thing unnerved me. I was quite relieved when they admitted him and I felt – for the first time in 2 1/2 months – safe. I don’t have to carry my pepper spray around – yeah!!

It is sad when you love someone so much that you would do just about anything to help them but realize that sometimes love just isn’t enough.

Slaying the Dragon of Distrust

SA, 16, has been home almost 3 weeks now. He just got home from spending 9 months in a residential treatment center. It was his 3rd time gone in the last 26 months. He was only home about 3 months each time between stays. SA isn’t a bad kid, just one with lots and lots of issues from his prior life.

SA has lots of initials after his name: RAD, ODD, PTSD, ADHD, etc. He wants me to trust him. It seems to come up daily, sometimes more often. “When are you going to trust me?” When can I do this or that? He always says “that was in the past!” Meaning his stealing, lying, threatening, etc. Yesterday would even be considered past to him.

How do you trust someone who has burned you so badly in the past? How can I even think about not locking the bedroom doors after having so much stolen? How can I not walk around with pepper spray in my pocket after him trying to attack me plus all the threats to kill me? Plus all the breaking and entering and stolen stuff I have found in his room over the years? How does a person learn to trust someone again after being so violated over and over? I know it will take good, acceptable behavior over time. I, also, know I may never trust him again. It is so hard because my “mommy” heart wants to trust but my logical mind says “no way”. So, we continue on the journey of growing SA up.

STRESS

Stress has been my constant companion for the last 20 years. I get up with it and go to bed with it. It seemed to arrive and attach itself to my life the day my oldest adopted daughter, LJ arrived. What a pistol she was. For 13 years not a day went by without her picking a fight with me within 5 minutes of getting up. Sometimes physical but always verbal. There was nothing I could do to make it stop.

7 years after LJ’s arrival, KA arrived on the scene. He would scream 1 – 5 hours a day at the top of his lungs. Yep, that was fun. Fortunately that only lasted a few years. Then a year after KA, SA arrived, jolly little hyper guy that he was. Extreme brand of hyperactive. He was happy enough, he just didn’t sleep. On a good night he would sleep 2 – 3 hours. So you can see life was never dull at our house. Add to this home schooling and you can just imagine how STRESS arrived and took up permanent residence.

As the adopted kids got older, their issues got bigger and scarier. Mental illness and RAD was running rampant. Heck, right now SA, 16, is living in a residential treatment center a couple hours from out house.

Needless to say, I have stress to the max. Even went thru a period of panic attacks and super anxiety. Ended up a few times in the hospital thinking I was having a heart attack but it was actually just stress that had pushed my blood pressure up. Not FUN!!! One time my blood pressure was 230/130. I was a stroke looking for a place to happen.

The cool thing is that right after the last ER visit I found a product that I honestly feel has saved my life. I started drinking Limu Plus and my panic attacks and anxiety are a thing of the past. If I feel them coming on I just drink another ounce or 2 of Limu Plus and calm right down. I love the stuff. I don’t know if it would work for you like it did for me but I think it is definitely worth trying. And heck, there is a money back guarantee. For me, I feel I would either be dead or disabled with out it.

I don’t have a clue what is going to happen with SA. I don’t know where he will be living 6 months from now. I have no idea whether he will ever be safe to come home or not. But I know I can handle it without having any panic attacks or disabling anxiety. Plus my blood pressure will stay down and normal. Yeah!

So, if you can’t get rid of the stress, you just have to figure out a healthy way to manage it. Because life just goes on and on.

Until next time,
Charyl

A Mom I Am

I am definitely a mom. There is no way to get around it. Have been for over 40 years. I have 8 children and 4 step kids. Yep that equals 12!!! Life is definitely full for us.

It didn't start out to be like this. I had my 1st child my 1st year of college. It seemed like he would be an only child since I got divorced soon after he arrived. But 10 years later, I found myself married again and expecting #2. She was actually due on his 10th birthday. Go figure. But laid back as she is, HJ arrived a month later, weighing in at 10# 4oz. Then they just started arriving every 2 years. TA in '81 and JA in '83.

OK, some arrived by adoption. Adoption was something I decided I wanted to do when I was 12. I was adopted and decided I wanted to give a child the same opportunity that I had. I never wavered in that conviction. Finally in 1989 the time was right and we adopted our daughter LJ, who is #5 in the line-up. She came as a little 3 1/2 year old bundle of energy. My dream had finally come true. But bubbles burst and reality sets in. Things were not the way I had dreamed. LJ didn't adjust well, and of course I felt it was my issue not hers. I also thought it could be because she was the only adopted child in the family or the only black child. I had a lot to learn.

2 years later we decided to add to our family. I had always wanted a large family. Plus, I thought maybe another adopted child would help LJ settle in. So, PJ arrived. PJ was a sweet 3 1/2 year old. She settled in and adjusted in a couple weeks. LJ, of course, was still unsettled and fighting me every step on the way. The next few years were extremely rocky. Never a peaceful day. The older kids hated the stress and commotion, but life went on. My husband at the time was in the military so I was a "single" parent a lot of the time. What a life. Not one I would want to do over.

But life continues, we got out of the military and settled in the midwest. One day, out of the blue we received a phone call that PJ had a brother, and would we like to adopt him. Definitely not on my agenda but after much discussion we decided to give it a try. KA, age 5 1/2 came the summer of '95. KA was either introverted and scared of his own shadow or bouncing off the walls. Take your pick. About the time we got him settled and on the right medicine we received a call that KA's foster brother SA needed a new placement. Since K and S had missed each other that year we decided, again, after much discussion, to bring him home too. At this point in 1996 - SA was 4 1/2, KA 6 1/2, PJ 9, LJ 11, JA 13, TA 15 , HJ 17 and JS 27, out of the house and married with a child of his own. Life never settled down. It has now been 12 years since SA joined our family and I have not had a stressless day yet.

To add to the confusion, my husband and I divorced and I was left to parent the 7 kids myself. Actually this was a better situation since my ex had a hard time dealing with the kids and all their issues. I think he definitely got the easier end of the deal.

A couple years later, I connected with DL an old school friend who I had known since we were 8. We grew up 2 blocks apart in San Diego. We never dated tho he had written me a few love letters in grade school and even gave me a ring in 5th grade. OK it was out of a cracker jacks box, but it was the thought that counts. We were married in 2000 and I am now the proud step parent of JA 39, PM 21, KM 21 and LM 18.

I always wanted a large family but I never dreamed it would come about the way it did. Life is like a box of chocolates – “you never know what you’re gonna get."

To see more of my family check out my web page http://www.abandcs.com/

Have a wonderful day and we will chat soon.
Charyl