Things have actually improved every day since.
Today she went to school.
Around two-thirty we got a call. "LMS told another child on the playground to 'shut the f up' when called on it she said that her mommies said it was ok."
So we talked to her on the phone and she ended up in time out in school (because, duh, it's not ok), and she came home at the end of the day and was just... out of it.
She ranted and raved all night. Fifteen minutes an hour didn't help.
Thirty minutes an hour didn't help.
She was off all night.
No baseball, no playing, no sanity all night.
This morning we called the school and asked what happened.
They don't know but this is how she was when she got there.
We made it through dinner after she threw her snack and water across the room.
We gave her her meds and put her to bed with song but without story because she became physically assaultive after dinner.
This morning?
She was actually still going.
She spent 30 minutes in her room raging.
Then she came out of her room, we had to get her vest done so she could eat. So I held her hands with her back against me while she was vested. She yelled, screamed, bit my arm, and called me "STUPID MOMMY" Well, I guess I must be doing something right... Right?
Toward the end of her vest, she relaxed, kissed the spots on my arms where she'd been biting, and rubbed her cheek on my arm.
I put words to the feelings she had been expressing, "your seem angry because I won't let you take your vest off, you seem sad about something, it sounds like you are scared because you are starting to calm down and don't want to. It makes you angry that you feel safe when I hold you. etc, etc, etc..."
In talking to her teacher today (I had to drop by because we forgot her Clonidine in the milieu), they describe her as "very smart, very creative, very sweet little girl... but I can never be sure if she's telling the truth... her ability to lie seems almost... well, I hate to say it, but it's almost psychotic sounding. I've never seen a child this age able to keep her lies so close to the truth, but so incredibly untrue... I never know whether to trust her or not."
I just laughed and nodded. That's about right.
I'm tired.
School could be a problem, yes. A lot of children of trauma can't handle it. I mean, if you think about how overstimulating school is for the AVERAGE kid.. and then try to imagine how threatening it must be for a RAD kid. People trying to control you and competition and all kinds of people to lie to and triangulate and.. WOOOOOOO!
ReplyDeleteOf course, then what do you (what CAN you) do about it, that is the question? Because MAYBE you can homeschool, or maybe that is NOT a good (or possible) option. And sometimes even when it's possible, it's still not a GOOD option.. you have to know what you can handle, and being with a RAD kid 24/7 is no small feat. And your kid sounds like a tough little cookie (and you know I mean that with no offense.. I have lived with some tough cookies!) xoxo
Some day nothing works. Those are the days that I bang my own head on the wall.
ReplyDeleteCorey: We really, really have been thinking about homeschooling her. We really have. Then, this last week with the massive meltdowns, we realized that we need a break. Maybe it's wrong of us, because so many teachers say how unprepared they are for RAD/PTSD issues, because she is sneaky and conniving and manipulative... but, we NEED the break. We want to home school her. She is so smart and we could give her an outlet for that creative little imagination, we could teacher her more and more quickly than she will learn in kindergarten. But, we are both concerned that we wouldn't be good moms if we were good teachers. And we possibly couldn't be good moms even if we were less than optimum teachers. Heck, we're not even sure we're good moms and we're not even trying to be teachers.
ReplyDeleteWe broke and picked up the kindergarten enrollment packet yesterday... But then again, maybe something amazing will happen over the summer and she will want to learn from us, and we will change our minds and transfer her into the CO public-school homeschooling program...
I feel lazy because it looks like you have had quite a bit more of a party than we have, and look what you're accomplishing! You are a good mom! I don't think you probably hear that enough. But you are a good mom.