The Life and Times of CE

1:48:30 PM PDT
 

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10:19:23 AM PDT
Well if you like the puking story this one will really make you
laugh!!  Hope
> everyone is getting their humor on this morning because I have had
quite a 
> laughable few days!!
> 
> First off, like Leslie, I have felt like crap warmed over! I have
had a  huge
> stomach ache that has kept me mostly bent over or in bed in a
fetal 
> position. I finally got some meds but they don't work if I try to
eat something.  So
> for now, no food!
> 
> Yesterday I had a flash to call Mia's job (she just started working
at 
> Babies R Us, about one month ago). She had been leaving at 9PM and
coming home 
> around 2 PM. She said it was all nightime stocking, and training
sessions. So  I
> bought it for a while. She was also going to school, and was
getting  ready to
> go to a formal ($300 dress, $60 shoes, $90 earrings!) and I was OK
with  all
> of that. I had just been thinking these late night sessions were a
bit weird 
> for an 18 year old, but she was being very responsible about
everything  else
> and other than fighting off bronchitis was doing alright. But
something  just
> didn't sit well with me about this graveyard shift job. So I call 
> information, and get the store number and ask for personelle. I get
this guy  Mike on the
> phone and tell him I am Mia Echternach's Mom, and I was wondering 
how long
> the graveyard work was going to be going on. He asks me how I was 
feeling, and
> I thought that was weird, but said "good, and you?''. He told me 
that I had
> had a car accident several weeks ago, and apparently had been in a 
coma for 2
> weeks. (ROFLOL)!
> He said Mia told him I had just woken up yesterday~ After I laughed
my head 
> off I asked him about the "graveyard shift" and he said they had
never had
> one!!  Her hours were 10am - 8 or 9PM depending on the day. So I
said thanks and
> hung  up. Boy I was really glad I got out of that coma by then!!! I
call Mia
> on her  cell phone, and asked her about my car accident and the
coma thing, and
> she was  speechless. Then I told her to come home ASAP!!
> 
> First of all, all the formal wear is going back! Next she lost her
cell 
> phone, and third I was going to take her car away, but Dad overrode
that because 
> I havent been feeling well, and she does have to go to school.
Found out she
> has  been working for an all night "teen" dance club. No booze or
anything just
> cokes  and dancing, but an all night club. She has been doing their
PR work
> for the  last month, making $12 an hour, which is $6.00 an hour
more than
> Babies R US. So  she thought that was a good idea!! Don't tell
parents, lie, twist
> everything  around, get sick because she is up all night, and then
suck
> $500.00 out of me  for a dance. NOT!!!
> 
> So the old "needs an external brain" thing came into my memory (I
was so  sad
> because I thought she was really doing well~) and I thought we
really had 
> not been checking up on her enough, keeping track of her and what
she was doing,
>  and giving her too long of a leash. She is not ready to be
responsible yet.
> In  her own little upside down thinking she thought working the
club at night
> was a  good idea because she was getting paid better, but all the
other
> crucial  cognitive thinking about the lying, the playing, the
using, the
> manipulating,  was right out the window. She of course in her
inventive FASD way of
> thinking  managed to turn everything around on us, that we were not
good parents,
> that we  didn't trust her, that all of her cousins had done stupid
stuff when
> they were  18, she tried valiantly to turn all of her
responsibility over all
> of this on  us. But niether Dad nor I were up for discussion!!!
> 
> So here I am, 2 of my little angels that I thought were doing so
well, have 
> had the ugly head of FASD raised up again. Impulsivity rules, what
comes to
> mind  is what they do, and they have no compunctions about doing
really stupid
> stuff.  They just do it, and when they get caught, it is usually
our fault.
> 
> On a softer note, Lana did apologize in the ER, and she knew
immediately 
> when she became coherent enough to talk, that she would lose all of
her 
> privileges at the facility. She begged me not to tell them, but
with a maturity  level
> of a 9 year old, I knew she would try to hide all of this from
them. I 
> called the facility and told them all the gory details (puke and
all) and they 
> said bring her back.
> 
> So hear we are all with our little wonders, I guess my lesson in
all of  this
> is to not be so stupid to not be vigilant, not to expect too much
out of 
> them, because they are going to screw up if you are not watching!!!
> 
> Oh, and yeah I feel much better after have survived the come!!!! 
LOLOLOLOL!!
> You have to give her a little credit though, that was pretty 
creative lying,
> sounds like a good episode for a soap opera!!


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1:41:20 PM PST
 

I again have read everything you ladies wrote to me.  Sorry I did not reply
earlier.  I seem to be having more difficulty 'comming to terms' with the
RAD  FASD in Jewel then would seem logical.  Of course was it Elain that
said there is no right way to emotions.

I am not sure if you ever come to terms~ you never in your deepest heart of hearts want to let go of the hopes, wishes and desires. You don't want to let go of the lifeline that was keeping you attached to that boat which personified all the best qualities you saw in Jewel. It's a bit terrifying to let go, to let "all that might have been" float away, to know that you can't save her, you can't make her that perfect person you saw~ So you are left still hanging on, while she tugs, and pitches, and pulls every time she has a meltdown, every time she rages, everytime she doesn't understand even the simplest of things.
I dont want this... ok you can check that one off the stages "of comming to
terms," I went through it.  If I get a badge saying I went through the "I
dont want this" stage will it be over? " I don't want this" "I never signed up for this" "I never expected this" "I want this to go away" "I want my old life back" are all badges, steps, stages that we go through. And while she seems to be getting worse, going down, you are reluctantly walking up those steps, collecting your unwanted badges, your unfortunate trophies, your undesired awards. And as time goes by and you look behind yourself you realize you are coping, you are learning and you are making progress. Much faster than her progress though. Because you are OK, you are normal, you are wired to be successful, she is not~
What do i want?
I want a clean and orderly house, beautiful happy children, that make the
world a better place through their own good choices....  Guesss I can still
have all this.   You want to go backwards and recapture what you had before. You want to be in one of those movies where everything turns backwards, and all that was broken is fixed, and all that had fallen down is righted, and everything swirls and swoops and is sucked back up into that perfect time that you were comfortable in. You want that, and yet you are a realist, and so you are stuck. You don't want to go forward because that would mean acceptance of what you don't want, and you can't go backwards, you can't make things the way they were, and you don't know how to make things better now, so you stay stuck, in a molten emotional morass, where nothing will be solid, eveything keeps melting away~   Who says that the world cannot be a better place just because there is chaos. All of history reveals times of chaos before stability. You, we, she are all human, we are all capable of making changes, making things better, organizing that which is disorganized. And truth be told our damaged children are the banners, the beacons, the public announcements that you cannot treat a human being with anger, violence, neglect, abuse, and expect them to blossom and bloom like all the other well tended flowers in the garden. Our hurt children are that one straggly, wiry, wormy, mishappen plant that we spend a little extra time in nurturing it, wondering how to make it perfect. What do we do? It doesn't respond to the extra fertilizer, the watchful watering, the endless pruning. And yet we don't give up on it. Some would pull it up and throw it away, and explain to ourselves it is better to spend our time on those that are doing well, bearing fruit, blooming wildly. And yet, we keep going back to that straggely little life and choose to give it a little extra of our time, with no guarantees that it will survive, and no guarantees that it will be as beautiful, or as verdant, or as breathtaking as the rest in our garden. But as time does, it eventually rewards you. And your efforts, your attention, your care will bear fruit. Perhaps not as lush, as colorful, as abundant, but because of your attention, that sweet, mopey, seemingly worthless little life will branch out, and bud, and then blossom. In it's own way, the little runt of the garden, the one that took the most time, the one you told yourself you should of let it go will grow, and there will be a flowering that you never expected, you never expected to care, you never thought you would care. But you did, and you do, and you realize later that you saved that little scrubby little mite.
As I go through the 'commming to terms' I have a hard time dealing with the
mundane everydaystuff of keeping a 'clean and orderly home'.  Someone
outside looking in would say "why all the trouble.  you knew she had
'special needs' when you started this, there is nothing new here."  Or they
would say "special needs what special needs?" I guess I realise now that one
can never really know what another person struggles with in daily life.   This part of "coming to terms" is a transforming experience, it is a priorities shift, an emotional  paradigm that is passing from one form, state or level to another. Some of those things that were priorities before become not as important. In the life of a damaged child, love, nurturing, support, attention are what they will remember, not the orderliness of the house, the cleanliness of the floors.   Why all the trouble? Who knew what she would be like? Who could have guessed the open drain of attention she would be. No one saw it coming, no one~ Raising these children is a challenge few would take, and even fewer would understand. In everyones lifetime at one time or the other we cross paths with someone with a disabled child, someone challenged, or someone incapacitated. We look, but we look right through them, over them, pass them. We don't really know or care what a completely different life they have than our own. We try to be empathetic, or compassionate, but it is rather shallow because we really don't want to know what their lives are. It is too confusing, too frightening to know. Anyone who has not had a "special needs" child cannot even come close to
understanding their difficulty.  Jewel looks, acts, like any other child at
the playground.  But everything is backwards and upside down in raising this
child.
  When we bring these children into our lives, these children so difficult, so damaged, so unrelenting in their behaviors, we are somewhat cheated. Our reality is misrepresented, distorted, falsified, because they " look normal". "What could be wrong with this beautiful child". "They don't look like they have a problem in the world". "How could they, they are perfect?" And yet we soon find their disability is "hidden" , it lurks beneath  that adorable face, that false charm, that adorable personality. Perhaps their disability is the most incidious because no one can see it, so to them it doesn't exist. And we are left looking like liars, or whiners, or pity mongers and yet only we know the truth. We live it, we deal with it, we understand it, we know it, even if the world outside of our lives does not.
Do you think the Lord placed these children with us because he knew we had
"special abilities" to help these children with their "special needs".
Because, I can not see how even wonder woman could hold up to the
difficulties this causes and I can forsee it causing in the future. Some say God only gives us  what we can stand. God knows what you do not. God knows that you are frightened with the prospects of your life with this child, God knows your mixed emotions, your confusion, and even your worst hiddne secret, your hate. God understands that we hate what we can't understand. God sees we cannot relate, that we are angry at our own inability to accept. God knows when we hate ourselves for feeling out of control, robbed of our "other" life, hate a child. Who? We? hate a child, that could never happen and yet it leaches itself out of our thoughts, and strangles us with self hate and self loathing for thinking those thoughts. God knows and understands this is a human condition, and he knows it will pass, and you will find your center, you will begin to find your way.
When I am over whelmed and "just need a break" from it all.  I dont care
that Jewel needs attention.  But if I forget it then she is causing trouble.
If she cannot go 5 min without attention, how will I stay sane?  May the
Lord grant me with these abilities... You know how to find your own balance, and if and when that means walking away from Jewel when you are overwhelmed, you will learn to do it. And do it without self doubt, or guilt. She will still be there when you have found respite, when you feel like you can go back to her with a restfullness that is what you need to keep your sanity, your equalibrium.
Where would I be without you ladies who know and have gone through this.
I want to cheat and skim through the chapters of 'comming to terms'.  Cant
you just tell me the stages I will go through and I take 30 mins out and
experience each stage, and get it over with, and get back to a clean house? Jeanine   You can cheat~ You can just jump and make the leap, and pass over all the inertia, and hanging on. It's up to you to make that choice, to know when you are there. A lot of the "cheating" comes from our inner self, that says I am a compassionate person who will strive to understand this child, I am empathetic person who will make an effort to appreciate the good in this child, a person who will realize what I need to know.  I don't understand now, but I will let the understanding come.   We all makes those leaps, sometimes we leap and sometimes we crawl, but we all eventually make it. And a new order will come from your dedication, your tolerance, and your intuition~  
 

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11:54:42 AM PST
Hey Dede,   Yeah, I guess FASD is as good a place as any to start on my novelette. I suspected alcohol exposure with Lana pretty early on. The papers we have with the girls state the mother was an alcoholic, was always gone, sometimes for months, would come home pop a kid out and then leave again. Lana and Mia have very similar features, Anya is a total opposite. The social services papers we have on the girls has a couple short reports on the conditions of the house when they would go to check on this family (the neighbors would watch and call them). The father worked about 18 hours a day, there was 7 kids, with 3 older boys all mentally retarded to some degree, a middle daughter (at the time my girls were taken she, Vera, was only 10 years old) and my 3 girls all in a one room house. There were always booze bottles laying around, and on report stated said the "children were drinking from the liquor bottles". When the girls were taken they were 4, 2, and 9 months.   Many of you may remember we were adopting Mia and Anya, we knew nothing of Lana, until we made a trip over there. When we found out there was a 12 year old sister living in an orphanage for children with mental retardation (oligrephenia) and mental illnesses, we knew she would not survive to adulthood, so we just said we didn't care what was wrong with her, we would bring her home with her sisters. Getting Lana out of the Hellhole she was in, was part of why our adoption became so difficult. Russia didn't want "mentally defective" children adopted if they had spent long periods of time in the "c" orphanages, they are the worse orphanages, and they don't want people to know what it is like. In any case, I fought, and won and got her out of there.   She was a handful from the beginning, tried to run away from us in Moscow, was very aggressive at times, but then the rest of the time she was a sweetheart.   When they got here our school district did a psycho assessment on all of my girls with a Russian interpreter, and Lana was IQ' d at 72, Mia and Anya at normal IQ's. Lana was put into special ed, and she did pretty well, she really did and still does love school. I don't think she had more than a couple months of school all total when she was in the bad orphanage, she was there for 7 years.   We mostly had problems with her at home. She has always had this split personality. Quite cute and sweet on one side, and then aggressive, assaultive, mouthy (profane) on the other side. But I just dug in and researched my brains out trying understand what was the matter with her. Over the first 2 years she hit me, pushed me, rammed me, so many times she hurt my back and my shoulder. I ended up going into the hospital for a spinal fusion and got e-coli, almost died from that, was there for 4 months, had 6 debridments where they open you up and scrape and hose all of the infection out of you. But I digress.   When I finally got home, my business was going down the tubes. I was the owner, head designer, I oversaw everything, the majority of our clients were mine. By the time I got back,everyone had left, and my sister (who did not work for me) had been left holding the bag, nothing had been kept up not even our business insurance. In a twist of fate and irony, God intervened and my Gateway computer monitor caught fire, and burned my store down, also took two other stores with it. With no insurance they went after our house and everything we had. Fortunately all the lab work on the computer came back that it was the computer that caught fire, so everyone went after Gateway. During all of this Lana raged on. And Mia also began showing signs that something was just not right with her. By the time Mia was in the 7th grade she had begun running away, getting involved with the prurient types, becoming extremely hard to handle, we had to lock her in her room at night. She eventually got an FAE/ODD/ADD/bipolar dx. But the good news on her is she is now in the 11th grade, and doing fantastically. So there is hope for some of these kids.   By this time the stress was taking it's toll on dh, and he came down in flames when he got fired and was put on un-employment. So here we were living in the OC, on unemployment, with 3 special needs kids, one who was by all accounts dangerous at times. We had to go through 3 different attorneys groups before we finally got one that was capable of handling our BK, and not getting us evicted. So we managed by the hair of our chinny chin chins to hang on to the house.   By then Lana was now raging, melting down, mood swinging, and be assaultive up and down on a daily basis, always with the intermittent little pumpkin face sweetheart munchkin. The first hospitalization they did all the MRI', CAT scans, genetic testing's, blah blah blah, and they came up with nothing other than the standard bipolar, possible scizo affects, ODD. I told them outright she is alcohol exposed and was probably RAD,  and they were so stupid, naive, ignorant, they really didn't' know that much about FASD or attachment disorders. But I was able to get a "possible FAS" on her AXIS diagnosis before she got out. The did the behavioral therapies, group sessions, titrated her meds, saw a psychologist, psychiatrist, behaviorist, and then let her out. That was the beginning of the past 4 years, and it has been about the same ever since with her. I have fought with every placement she has had, getting them up to speed on FASD, RAD, post institutionalization, and got the ball rolling here in our county about these subjects. I also was made director of California Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Organization. We met in Washington DC, this past summer and I met with Diane Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Duke Cunningham, The Dashchles, Sam Donaldson, and many other senators and legislators about the subject of FASD, to begin legislation's for advocacy, awareness and prevention.   FASD is now on the national agenda, the surgeon general made a statement earlier this year that "no alcohol" is safe during pregnancy. Also the terms FAS/FAE/ ARND/ARBD were all synopsized by the surgeon general to be FASD (Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders) So the word is not legitimate. FASD is also now under review for submission to the next DSM.   The biggest prevalancy in the US and Canada for FASD is in and around the native communities where alcoholism is multi-generational. On many reservations you have grandparents, parents, and children all with FASD caring for each other. Since alcohol exposed brains and nervous systems are damaged, it stands to reason there is huge problems in family dynamics with these families. Most of the research over the past 35 years that surrounds FASD has been in Universities, clinics and colleges that are in areas where there are also native populations.   In the American foster care and adoption community, unless the child is of native heritage there has been systematic denial that kids coming from abusive, neglectful, dysfunctional, alcoholic/drug taking families would have FASD or attachment issues. It's the old head in the sand thing. So parents adopting domestically do not get much support yet, when it comes to the possibility that the child they are adopting might be alcohol exposed. Black children, mixed race, and kids from very poor demographics are becoming the second  most  likely to be diagnosed and admitted by social services that the child might be alcohol exposed. It's not much different for domestic adoptive parents than it is for international parents, you have to get your child and then begin the process of untangling what all of their issues are. But you can almost bet if the birth mother was an alcoholic or used drugs the child was probably exposed.  

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3:02:32 PM PST
"Ok, Mom, I am changing my behaviors. I won't swallow anything ever again." This she says over the phone, with her little adolescent voice,and her impassioned plea that she finally has control over her behavior. This as she currently has a battery making its way through her digestive tract,  that she took out of the facilities TV remote control device, and swallowed it. She who has a pathological problem with swallowing even the smallest of pills without, juice, or ice cream or something to help her get it down. Herein  is the rub of a person with two distinct power mongering personalities, and one little weak barely audible personality who tries so hard to keep the other two at bay. One part of her arguing with the other constantly, one trying so hard to survive the personality  grinding so hard to end her own life. And little Lana Svetlana Echternach,  caught in the middle really unware of why she does what she does, but always trying to make sense of it, and always making promises she can't keep and always being the victim of her own self. I feel so much for her, and yet I wilt with exhaustion knowing every promise from her is one she can't keep, every willing time frame to keep, every pleading promise to be good, to "manage her behavior", to "help herself" , to "be better" , is only the fragile commentary of a self not under control. A self with it's own ambitions to destroy, a self weak and unable to control it's own directions. A split self, a fragmented self, a weak self. Lana, oh Lana, will you ever be able to put all of your pieces together? I love you so~

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8:49:13 AM PST

Well the day pass started out pretty wonderful, with promise of having a fun weekend with Lana. We were going to Paris lake, taking Grandpa's speed boat, staying overnight at a hotel, eating out at restraunts. It was going to be fun. Lana hadnt been on a boat in a few years, she was excited and in good spirits, and in a very sweet and loving mood. The weekend started out great, we had to launch the boat ourselves, first time for the family with "12 left thumbs!!" It was fun, funny and hilarious, as the boat came sliding off of the trailer sideways and splashing into the water with a mind and life of its own. Of course we were the show of the moment with all the lake onlookers watching the harried father, and the bevy of incompetent, giggling teen girls all trying to take orders, be serious and laugh at the same time. Lana, usually upended by this kind of stress hung in their like a trouper and bucked up everytime Dad yelled orders to push the boat this way, or pull the pulley that way. As the day blossomed into a warm blue sunny lake day, everyone was actually getting along, Dad, Mom, Lana, Anya and Kelley, Anya's good buddy from soccer. Kelly's dad lives on a small boat in Long Beach, so she was very comfortable with all the splash and splatter, and quick maneuvers around the lake speeding along as fast as we could ducking and driving around skiers, little Seadoos, and all kinds and sizes of other boats. Lana did well, but I felt the slight tension between her and Anya and her friend Kelley. Lana doesnt share her sisters well, its either them or nothing, no sharing. But Anya can't tolerate Lana without a buffer, so Kelley was it. Anya was kneeboarding and the water was getting very choppy when out accross the horizon all we could see was a 180 degree panorama of black that was moving very quickly toward the lake, slowly overtaking the lake top and moving towards us like a black wall. At first we thought it was a fire, but as the water began to smack up against the boat, and it began to rain we realized the rain was full of sand, it was raining mud. We were in the middle of a rare desert storm that was careening right over the lake. As the black began to move towards us we got Anya in the boat and began moving towards a small island in the middle of the lake. Lana was showing signs of stress, fear, anxiety, but also resolve. She said she was scared, but she kept herself very much under control. As we arrived at the island we all jumped off the boat and slogged our way through the waist high water to the shore. The boat was ramping bow to starboard and port side to port side. I guess the stress of the "desert storm" as Lana has now and forever named it in her memory, was her first real trigger for the day. We waited the storm out on the island, and after it passed we had a long wait to get our boat up the ramp and out of the water, everyone on the lake decided to leave at the same time, so it was very slow going waiting out about 300 yards from shore, to get in the long line of boats approaching the docking area and pulling their boats in and leaving. When we got back to the hotel, Lana was stressed. She immediately snapped at me and said she was mad at Anya and Kelley, she refused to go into the room, so she sat outside in the parking lot, at the front entrance to the hotel. Of course no one knew what to do. Can't leave her sitting there by herself all steamed up! Can't get her to budge without a fight! So I told everyone to go ahead in and go up to the rooms. This began a long night of fighting, she argued and stormed outside and inside the lobby. Of course everyone in the lobby was looking, very odd to see a kid having a major fit with a harried mother in the front of a chandeliered elegantly appointed  hotel lobby. But there we were. We all tried to downplay her behavior and coaxed her up into the room. The girls had the adjoining room and Lana was in our room on a rollout bed. She didnt like that one bit!! She wanted her own room! "Not realistic Lana!"  but when was Lana ever realistic?! We all decided to go to a quaint little traditional Italian restraunt that was accross the street from the hotel. It looked small sweet and promising for a large plate of steaming good old fashioned pasta and a red and white checkered table clothe, and maybe a nice red cabernet to help soothe the burgeoning migraine. Lana did not want to go to the restraunt, it became a showdown either her or us, she demanded we all stay with her in the room, or we go alone. Feeling manipulated and stonewalled we left her in the room, hoping she would settle down and be calmed by the cool dark quiet of the room and the slow din of the TV in the background. Just as I stuck my fork into my bouillibaise, I got a cel phone call. Lana is at the front desk of the hotel and is ordering an ambulance. I ran accross the street leaving everyone at the table behind me. As I came into the glass doors of the hotel I could see Lana standing at the front desk. The concierge is all engrossed in Lana's latest drama. To her, this unaware hotel night clerk,  she could be dealing with a child newly in emotional teen turmoil and conflict, and she the newly appointed hotel angel of mercy, might be able to make a difference in this childs imagined angst ridden life. As I approached Lana she was in full panic mode. " I want to go to the hospital!!" I want an ambulance!!" I'm going to die!!" I managed to talk Lana down and get her to agree to go up to our room, to at least discuss why she needed to go to the hospital. Once we got up to the room, she admitted the minute we left the room, her "voices" told her to go to my overnight bag and take some pills I had in there for my back pain. The pills were Darvocette, mostly just Tylenol but with a small amount of narcotic. I went and looked at my bottle. Living with Lana has taught me to always count my pills, I have had to for safety and defense sake. I could see she had only taken 4 pills, although she was allegating 40! I told her "no ambulance! no hospitals! no paramedics! no drama!" I told her I know how many pills she had taken and it was not enough to kill her, make her drowsy and out of it maybe but she would live. She stormed, and cried, and flailed all around the room, but I was firm. "go to bed" "sleep it off, you will be fine, I am right here I will watch you all night". Dad and the girls were holed up in the other room waiting and hoping I could get Lana to settle down. Thankfully she did get drowsy, enough to get her to lay down. I watched her like a hawk throughout the evening, but her breathing was stable and easy and I knew she would make it to the morning. Sadly our weekend trip ended the next morning, we split up and I took Lana back to her facility, where they checked her in and she began a long diatribe to the facility staff about how she had taken 40 pills,and I would not take her to the hospital. Of course as usual,  it looked like I was an uncaring, unemotional bitch mother who did not care about her daughters welfare. Dad and the girls took the boat back to grandpa's and went home. Lana got to spend the morning with her emergency team and all  she needed to finish out her day pass with lots of drama, tension and attention~

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4:17:41 PM PDT

How have I changed so?

I cried today. Long hard, breathtaking sobs. Sobs from my inner self, my heart my soul, my life.

I cried when as I sat, the impact of how much I love my family overwhelmed me, smothered me emotionally, as if I could not breath between each memory of my children, our lives together, what they have brought to my life.

Almost as if drowning, the waves of feelings overtook me, feelings from deep inside me that who I am today, is only because of my children. That all the years of self development, self analysis, self awareness, self seeking was only scratching the surface of a self not yet bloomed, not yet fully formed, not yet really functioning until my children came into my life.

I wondered when exactly my gestalt began to slide from the world that revolved around me, because of me, to the world that I live in now. The world that is for them, about them,  and because of them.

Somewhere along the line, my "self" was not the center of me anymore but they were.

That what I wanted didn't really matter unless it was important for them.

That there was nothing I needed or desired before what was necessary for their happiness and their existence.

How have I changed so?

I am in wonder, in awe, in love.

When did the "I" in "me" move on?

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3:06:46 PM PDT

We took Lana out for the weekend Friday night. It was the first time she had been away overnight for nearly a year. We didn't take her because she "earned it" or had "progressed behaviorally" as she never has for more than a day or two ever. And there are no immediate expectations that she will anytime soon, Lana is Lana, she does what she does, she doesnt learn, or get better, so take her or leave her, it's who she is.

I stood waiting for her in the facility common area, the front reception room. The room with the big metal door to the right of the sign in desk. The door with a worn metal handle  mounted on a big block of wood and rows of locks beside it.  The door with the small window, where patients vagrantly walk on the other side, and peak out and smile, or wave a fingery scratchy little wave on the wired glass. I signed several documents for her  medications, and instructions lists on how, when, what time, how many, what doses for what. And at the bottom of pages to be signed was a typed single paragragh contract that stated that I understood she had been physically agressive and assaultive with staff only one day before, and that normally overnight passses would not be approved. So I signed that page too.

 She came into the front waiting room of the care facility with bags enough for 2 weeks rather than 2 days. Clothes, shoes, purses, sheets, bed clothes, radio's, cd's, as if she were moving away not going to a hotel for the weekend.  Circling around her, behind her, hovering within inches of her were her facility guardians. Staff members, behavioral managers, program managers, bag carriers. All assigned to the chubby little potentate with the quirky smile, and the mismatched outfits, who always seems to be running the show as if they were the patients and she were the boss.  Each one always anxiously smiling, with a look of veiled perplexity and faint fear about her.

Lana's a lot like a wild little animal, she looks so cute and cuddly, so approachable, so huggable, but she's unpredictable. Make the wrong move, say the wrong thing, blink the wrong way, and she might go off like a caged cat and everyone around her goes flying to the wall or to the ground with her. She'll bite, she'll scratch, she'll  fling her arms  and flail her body, and take 3 men down to the floor with her, everyone in a ball of mangling muscles,  sweat, bruises, gashes and abrasions.

With full knowledge and an odd mixture of nauseous anxiety and protective love, I signed all the waivers, and agreed to all the terms from the keepers, and took my curly little fireball out the front door into the sunshine.  And the first thing she does is run straight for the street curb.

Lana, Stop! Lana, come take my hand! Lana lets go to the car, come on sweetie.

" I just want to say goodbye to all of my friends Mommy" as she runs up to the van with the side opening door, pouring out fellow inmates coming back from a morning outing.

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12:03:42 PM PDT

"the staff is hurting me, a cabinet fell on me yesterday"

"Fatim told me you don't love me anymore"

"why do they say those things to me?"

"Fatim keeps telling me to hit myself with the cabinet"

"Fatim said "keep bleeding as much as you want, we are not going to help you anymore"

"I can't sleep at night, everyone is yelling, everyone is screaming"

"when I wake up in my sleep and I am crying "mom help me" they tell me my Mom doesnt love me anymore, they won't come to help you , they don't care for you"

"Randy, he's Mexican, he told me to hit myself on the head with the cabinet, I told them to leave me alone, and to stop hurting me, but they won't leave me alone. They took my CD's they help me relax"

"my head hurts, I am so confused, they told me to hit myelf on my head, and I did, and now my head hurts on the top"

"I tried to call you last night and they turned the phone off and they wouldnt let me talk to you"

"they took my fan, I think they broke it, they even took my pillows, I don't have anything left Mom"

"I told them to leave my TV, that it helps me relax, and they took it anyway"

"I scream for my Mom, and they tell me "your Mom won't help me anymore"

"Tracy, pulls my hair, when she restrains me, she hits me and makes fun of me. She has given me a lot of bruises. My foot has bruises on it"

"They are abusing me Mom~" "I tried to call you yesterday, and they turned the phone off Mom"

"I don't know what to do Mom, I don't want them to come and scare me again" "I am tired of all of this Mom"

"Caroline hurts me too Mom"

"I was crying and they tried to trick me, they told me my parents don't want me"

"they sleep a lot when they are watching me, they talk on the phone when they are supposed to be helping me"

"the PM shift are all mean, they all try to hurt me, there are a lot of girls that hurt me"

"Can you help"

"they took everything out of my room, my TV, my music, my blanket, my pillow, my chairs, my clothes. Last night, Fatim, Randy, Tracy, they came in my room, and they took everything, they took everything from me. Now I can't do anything to relax myself, my CD's are gone, my new headphones are gone. They hurt me really bad last night Mom"

Who help you baby? who do you trust there? " no one on the night shift. Yolanda, Marissa, Evaline, June and Larry are always nice to me, they have always been nice to me"

How about Clarrisa isnt she nice? "no not really, not always, she likes to shut windows on people"

"Tracy hits me on my face" "Fatim pushed me back onto the cabinet" "she tells me she doesnt care if I got hurt" "I try to scream Mom I need help, and she says "your Mom is not coming, she is not going to help you"

"the guys jump on my back when they are restraining me" "my back is really hurting"

"my behavior was good, until they started confusing me, then my behavior gets bad" "I hope my brain isnt damaged worse Mom"

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1:18:17 PM PDT

We just took Lana out yesterday for an all day pass, she did very well, but she was dressed top to bottom in long sleeves, and long pants and a jacket. I took her to a dress shop to get her some cooler clothes (it was almost 100 degrees out), and her arms, legs, belly are covered with scars, up, down, and sideways.

All self inflicted over the past 4 years, when she began the self injuring behaviors. Lately she also started head banging. She picked this up in the facility this year.  They told her they were going to order her a helmet if she didnt cut it out. So far that has stopped her. But she has plenty of other things in her self injuring repetoire~

Lately its been nose picking, she gets her nose bleeding so bad they have to take her to the ER to get it stopped.  

And once again~ she is supposed to be on "one-on-one/line-of-sight" supervision, within 36" of her at all times.......................NOT! They leave her to go to the bathroom, or go out of the room, or some lame thing, and she just goes after herself. She says she hears voices, I think it is perseverative, and attention seeking. In any case I just wish she would stop, she will never get out of the RTC, until she stops this stuff~

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