Akila has not raged yet, but has had several issues of verbal aggression and non-compliance. Last night, she had a 45 minute issue over not wanting to sleep in her room because of spiders. The program manager went through her entire room looking for spiders, showed her that there were none, read to her, rubbed her back, played the same game that I do many nights (although, often, I am doing it after she has been raging on and off for a few hours and I am mentally spent!). She said she really thought it might get physical. Akila did cry and sob on and off during the 45 minutes, and cried her self to sleep. She was perseverating on wanting to sleep in the TV room on the futon with the overnight staff (one staff is awake all night and one staff sleeps). Obviously not a choice.
After the team meeting, I picked Akila up for an appt. with her Psychiatrist to look at med changes. Akila was not happy as she had in her head that she might be coming home as we have been telling her that the team talks about that at our team meetings. I told her she isn't coming home and we will meet to talk about it again in two weeks. She was bummed. Then, at the Dr.'s office, she got annoyed. She never likes sitting there while we talk about her horrible
behavior.For the next 4 days, they are going to stop her ADHD meds and watch for behavior changes. And then next Monday, we will probably start to taper her off of her mood stabilizer. Once she is off of all of them, we will probably introduce some new ones. The Dr. said it is really nice to do this while not having the "family factor" in play. I totally agreed with her. As a matter of fact, we might be looking at extending her 45 day stay if we need more time to work on the meds.
After the appt, I was going to take Akila to finish her school shopping. We were driving right by the hospital where our friend Elijah and his mom Julie are staying, so we stopped by to see them. Akila has been asking about Elijah on the phone and has been sad that she could not visit him the last two weeks, so I was glad we could fit in a quick visit- and I could hang out with Julie every day and not run out of things to talk about!
Then we went shopping, and it went really smooth. Praise the Lord!!!! I was hoping we would not have a meltdown or close call like we did last weekend. The hardest part, was when it was time to go, walking to the car, Akila got really sad. Throughout the entire time I was with her tonight, she would on and off talk about how much she hates it at the crisis home and "stretch the truth" and say that a boy is choking and hitting her.
She told me this on the phone last night, that he had hit her. The program manager told me today that she was with Akila the entire day yesterday, from after school til bedtime and that the boy did not even touch Akila. He did a few days ago say that he was going to, but has not. But in Akila's mind, he said he was going to, so she now has it in her head that he has. I told her that she was stretching the truth, and she then said that he pulled her coat. Oh the slippery roads with these FASD kids and the false accusations. How can you ever trust them? It is a hard one, if there is ever a legitimate issue, it is probably going to be overlooked because of all of her lies. Sad.
The entire way home, which thankfully was short, she was sad, crying and upset. She did not want to go back there. When we got back, she said she was going to refuse to get out of the car. I told her that then I wouldn't be able to come back and visit often or be able to take her out on our visits. Thankfully, this worked and she got out.
Less than 30 minutes after I got home, she called sobbing. She has learned her lesson. I told her several times throughout the night that I can tell she hasn't by what her aide at school told me today. She has been showing a lot of attitude and rudeness at school. This is unusual for the first month or two of the school year. I am convinced this is not because of the current living situation. As a matter of fact, I think she would be worse at school if she were living at home right now. I told her that by the way she has been treating her aide, I can tell that she hasn't learned a lesson. So her new idea is that she is going to be nice to her aide for 2 days and then she can come home.
It is heartbreaking. I hate to see her sad, and I know it is confusing for her. I also know that if she were to come home today, we would be back to the same issues within a day or two. But oh boy does it pull at your heartstrings. It would almost be helpful if she were to call me a name or something. So now I am wishing for her to rage at the crisis home and call me names. Wow, I am a psycho mom!!!
1 comment:
I am glad she is showing some of her issues at the crisis home. Any documentation will help.
Post a Comment