Hurt People Hurt People

Hurt People Hurt People. One of my friends on FB who advocates for pro-life issues posted this today and I thought how well it correlated to my day.
We've cancelled Christmas for Tabitha. There, I said it. If you feel the need to come over and punch me, be my guest.
Upon cleaning out Tabitha's room to:
1)purge old books/toys in preparation of Christmas
2)do a deep cleaning
3)pack up toys to go to attic for bad behavior this week
we came across not one, not ten, but numerous dolls/toys/animals that had been destroyed.
Now, when I was a kid I wrote on things and cut dolls hair and generally practiced being as artistic as I could on things, but the key thing is I still enjoyed those toys. I cut Barbie's hair but it made her more of 'mine' that I had placed my mark on her and I enjoyed her more. Same with cabbage patch dolls bearing frankenstein-ian scars and dolls who got whore-ishly applied permanent makeup. Misguided, yes, but I never tossed these toys out after adulterating them, I was more endeared to them.
Tabitha refuses to see any intrinsic value or sentimentality assigned to her toys. Special things we've bought her on vacation at Disney World, trashed, sliced, cut, gutted. Special toys her grandparents bought that we've had countless conversations about their 'specialness'... same treatment.
We boxed everything salvageable which was one small bin and put it in the attic. Her room is a bed and a few books, placed out of reach so she can't harm them.
I know it's a RAD thing and the FB form is loaded with hundreds of people in this world who are parenting similarly challenged children. This is typical behavior for a RAD sufferer.
The worst thing is the guilt. The guilt you feel when other people hear one fraction of the story and make you feel completely inept.
It's not about us. We suffer all the more because we yearn to give then normal. We yearn for them to be able to handle normal, for them to desire it for themselves.
Jacob was doing so well yesterday through the process, we went through his books and toys too to make a huge donation to charity and he was great.
So great, I told him he could stay up as late as he wanted playing Mario. We had just bought him a Mario costume at Wal-Mart and he stayed in costume and played all night, a treat I would not mind giving him on the weekend, he is 8 after all.
This morning I open the door to tell him to take a nap prior to Church and find not only did he stay up all night, he refused to go to the bathroom and so his room smelled like a men's restroom, with little puddles spread across his room and once he helped clean it up I found where he had squirrelled away the costume and the soaked undies, trying to hide something we already knew occurred.
It is examples like that that prove that as much as we try to give them 'normal', to look past their RAD and want nice things for them, they can not handle it. Tabitha, who isn't even our food-sneaker had mounds of food refuse stuck behind her bed, along with animal voice boxes, stuffing, beads from the animals "guts". Her carpet had been drawn/scraped with crayons. She had shoes hid where the laces had been removed, after telling me the shoelace necklace she was wearing had been a gift from someone at school. The lies have no end.
The amount of disregard, the blatant lack of remorse. Their stoic expressions when confronted with these revelations is maddening.
I feel for those misguided parents whom decades ago tried that form of therapy where the older children were 'reborn' through physical ordeal. Children were hurt and I think one or two were actually killed through it, but I completely understand the concept of trying to free the child of their past and trying to get them to be see themselves as a new person. I am hoping the baptisms will do this for them.
We spoke with Fr. Liam yesterday and their baptisms will be after a set of classes to help them understand the sacrament. Because they are older children, they will be taught and instructed in the meaning and importance and I love that. I am looking forward to see if these classes will help them at home too.

Roll With It

You gotta roll with it
You gotta take your time
You gotta say what you say
Don't let anybody get in your way
'Cause it's all too much for me to take

Don't ever stand aside
Don't ever be denied
You wanna be who you'd be
If you're coming with me

I think I've got a feeling I've lost inside
I think I'm gonna take me away and hide
I'm thinking of things that I just can't abide

Entrapment

Sometimes, you just gotta do some 'framing'. After almost a month now of Jacob getting up in the middle of the night, even with his 'nighttime' medicine, I had had enough. Saturday morning I woke up and the lights were on. I let the dogs out, went to the restroom, and noticed the laundry room mess was staged in a different type of mess than when we had went to bed, so I peeked around the corner and there was Jacob.. squatting by the litter box. Fortunately he had had a therapy session last week where we went over this several times. So we went through the day with one kid ineligible for treats, which was hard.
This week we also had to put Tabby back into formal therapy, her processing skills were being pushed to their limits and her inability to form opinions was worsening. The therapist saw that point proven several times when his questions came back with "everything", "nothing", and "good" answers.
So, Saturday night I set up a cunning trap where I put a flashlight on the edge of the bathtub. Sure enough, Sunday morning the flashlight had moved. Jacob eventually confessed to taking it to his room and reading all night with it, but said "How did you know? It was where I found it?!"
Well, because I know exactly where I had placed it, and he had missed the mark by about 2 inches.
It didn't make me feel happy to have to do it, but it has been so many nights in a row I had to show him his number was up.
After Sunday school we ate around the table and shared some Bojangles. We started cleaning up the house.. it was such a dusty mess!
We then went to Wal-Mart to shop for the week.. and Tabby had a tantrum because we told her to wait on picking out candy since the elderly woman infront of us had decided to double back for a Mars bar. Tabby melted down super quick over being told to just wait.

This is my lovely weekend.

Traumatized weatherman

Jacob has been traumatized. The storms. He has been emotionally tied to weather patterns. Every raindrop, grey cloud, or sound of thunder sends him into a fit of questions and panic.
Today when I picked him up he stated "I've been watching the weather channel and the wildfires in Arizona may lead to blackouts in Texas"... showing me he was even anxious about our upcoming trip to OK and TX.
His classmate who was hurt so badly during the tornadoes is having a homecoming party Saturday so we went to the toy store to find a gift. He also saw a segment on him while watching the weather channel. Jacob was not very involved in picking the toy out, but I know he was listening to every word between us and the staff at Learning Express.
He's been obsessing over seeing his classmate, even begging to go see him in the hospital.
On the drive home he tells me he had said a prayer to God that 2011 will stop being so terrifying.

Day of the basketcase and biological war

I slept until 3. That was good, I think.
Aggie barked and woke me up, prompting a pee-run.
Managed to get back to sleep at some point, woke up grouchily and showered.

Jacob 'spit up' into his bowl of Cheerios. See, his therapy appointment the day before was disastrous. He shut down and admitted to the therapist he was no longer listening or participating in the conversation.. rather rudely.
When he gets in his funk of bad behavior, everything becomes a trigger.
Saturday he intentionally pooped on himself while we were out, having to divert back home and get him his second shower of the day 'because he wanted to'.
So, we were discussing that with the therapist. It was an inclusive appointment and Tabitha and myself were in the room, although not participating in the discussion between Jacob and his doctor.
At one point Tabby gets the magnadoodle off his toy shelf and scrawls the message "don't poop on yourself!!!" and shows Jacob. Ugh.
The therapist was unhappy about it, then finally Jacob acknowledged his behavior was 'not cool' and deserving punishment. We had taken his TV plug cord away for a week. Fair, we all agreed.
So this morning he was coming off of that and his 'spit up' he was calling 'throw up' was sending me all sorts of red flag warnings about it being just another of countless instances where he uses his bodily functions to control the situation.
When I confronted him on this, guess what... he did a full fledged stomach emptying vomit to prove me wrong.
Except I know he can do this on command, and when faced with staying home with me he recanted and said he was, in fact, fine. He wanted so desperately to go to the sitter. No fever, no bellyache... just pure biological manipulation.
I had an eye appointment first thing, so I dropped Tabitha off with the sitter and dragged Jacob on my morning errand.
The infected thing residing in my eyelid will require a salve, and a course of pills. As the doctor is explaining this to me she warns that the pills CAN NOT be taken if pregnant and advised me to make 100% sure I wasn't before getting them filled.
Damn.
She had no clue about my emotional trauma that is fertility. It wasn't her fault. But I did become a basketcase as soon as I left her building. Internally, of course, to Jacob I was just his boring Mom driving him around town when he'd much rather be with the sitter.
Because no matter how much I didn't show it, the idea of having to buy a pregnancy test is completely harrowing to me. Back when we were actively trying I carried them around with me, lol. But very soon after getting married and having the exploratory surgery and the doctor telling me there was a 'snowballs chance in Hades' chance, you grieve and move on.
I have been taking birth control pills for a few years because that is the only way with the PCOS, endometriosis, and endosalpingiosis I could ever regulate my periods.
Still, when you ONLY have that 0.00000001% chance and you believe in the Lord's Will, you can't just ignore the doctor's words. So, I sucked it up and bought a box of pee-sticks. They were out of the single packs so I had to buy the 3 pack.. I wonder if I can donate the other two to charity, LOL.
Even admitting there is a 0.00000001% chance made me reel. I had already promised to God my baby saint names before beginning the test. That's how awfully consuming the emotion becomes.
Sorrowfully, and utterly predictably, it was negative. It had been so long since I had to even live through that type of anticipation that my heart hurt.
So, after freaking out over that, I headed to KIA to get the car fixed. Turns out the cd player that went kapooie is 3k miles out of warranty. Really?! Yeah, no one told us our 60k mile warranty didn't exactly cover everything. Hmmph. Another bump. Got car washed and vacuumed, then I got a little sick to my stomach and headed home, hoping to go to work later in the day.
Once home I finished up watching Pillars of the Earth (fantastic), and had to cleanup another biological mess. The new dog had yet another seizure and it was BAD. Poop, pee, slobber, and 'glandular spray'. Ugh.
I picked up the kiddos and headed to CVS, where my prescription had not been filled yet, even though they had received it around 6 hours prior. Double damn.
Came home and watched TV and settled with Matthew on Long John's Family Chicken pack.
Tabitha is not listening to any of our words tonight and acting whiny... but that's pretty normal after Jacob gets negative attention, it becomes her turn.

Finally, a good clip.

A simple plan

So, I'm off all medications.
After the storms came and we went so long without power, my only thought was to secure the kids' meds. In the process of all the chaos I just stopped taking my meds.
I've felt great.
I saw the Dr. today who was supportive of me coming off of them. Between him and the other Dr. I see it has been 1.5 years of coming on and off new meds.. countless prescriptions it seems.
Came to terms with just having chronic pain and dealing with it. I'm to go a month without meds, get some bloodwork and maybe start over on something just for the pain.
The prevailing theory is pain is psychological, but all of the depression, nerve, etc. pills did not a thing. I knew that.
My roller coaster moods have been a sincere reflection of the the kids' own behavior. They have a good week, I have one too. It is severely hard to have a plan to parent in a certain way and then watch the train get de-railed every week. So much so that I have found support and validation online.
See this article.
So, things have been good with the kids, we have our smaller issues, but they have shown us a small willingness to modify their behavior and we have relaxed a little on rewards and given them more room to mature.
So, while the Dr. was a little dismayed I just stopped the med concoctions cold turkey, I didn't have any adverse effects. Just got to see how little all those expensive drugs were doing for me.
Sometimes you've got to speak up for your own body.