Mid-CenturyModernMoms

Two different stories, one hurting kid

I attend a support group for parents of 'difficult' adolescents. Which isn't really what it is at all, incidentally. All of the parents who attend this group have kids with some type of mental or emotional disorder. We have depressed kids, suicidal kids, bipolar kids, kids with rare genetic disorders, kids who just don't fit any mold. The thing all these kids have in common is that they've been hospitalized, many multiple times, because they were either a danger to themselves or a danger to others. Oh, and they all have parents who are tearing their hair out in frustration trying to figure out just what to do.

We're a fairly tight knit group of moms. We not only support each other in our quest to find the best care for each of our respective kids, we attend each other's school meetings, visits to special programs, and just to hang out and give each other hugs. In the short time I've been part of this group, I've made a good friend, and I've gotten a lot of great advice. It's really a fabulous support group.

So what's the but?

Today, for the first time, we had a dad come to our meeting. It wasn't a big deal that he was male, as we're all grown ups. He is a single dad and he introduced us to his daughter (figuratively) who is a hurting buckaroo for a variety of reasons. We all encouraged him to take certain types of actions, we listened to his story, we were more than supportive to him, we didn't scare him off, and he promised to return.

And the problem is?

Oy! Privacy. My favorite issue. His daughter and my son were in a program together. A program that encourages the kids to share their issues with the small group. What my son knows of this girl is not essentially what the father reported to our group. This makes me VERY uncomfortable. Because I know things about her that her father doesn't, from the things my son reported. But it gets even more uncomfortable. While my son was in this program, another friend of his who we'll call Dirty (because he is) was also at the program. Dirty and my son have known each other for years. Dirty and this man's daughter evidentially had it in for each other, and when Dirty came over during this time, he talked a lot about this particular girl. Now, I had no clue I'd EVER meet this girl's parent. They live hours away from us. Who would have thunk it? But damn... the girl who was a big topic of conversation in our house for weeks is this guy's daughter. Doesn't that suck?

I know I need to keep my mouth shut. I'm not completely idiotic. But I feel incredibly uncomfortable knowing some things that her father SHOULD know, but apparently doesn't. His daughter is in a lot of emotional pain for reasons totally unknown to him. But not to me. And if that doesn't bite, I don't know what does.

That's one of the problems with your kids being in programs. So much is shared, some of it the truth, some of it false, but a lot of it just plain painful. They're encouraged to get their pain out their, to acknowledge it and then move on. The groups help these kids to learn coping mechanisms, to recognize where their behavior comes from, and to be able to grow from their problems. Those are all good things. But the problem is that the kids gossip both amongst themselves, and they often come home and bitch about the other kids in the program. Which is exactly what happened here. My kid and Dirty weren't outing this girl. They were talking about how tough she was to deal with, and during those discussions, personal things were revealed.

So, here I am, brimming with information I wish I didn't have and not knowing what to do with it. Any advice?

SOUNDTRACKS by Jenny Gardiner

My teenaged son was hit by a car exactly one year ago today.

I was driving home after having dropped my youngest at a school right across the street from where my older ones attend, when I found out about it. Looking back I realize that probably right about the time I was dropping off one kid within shouting distance, the other was being launched across a parking lot by a Jeep Cherokee.

That morning, lost in thought, having no clue what I would soon learn, I almost didn't answer my cell phone in time when it rang, and luckily caught it before it bounced to voice mail.

"Look, Mom, don't worry, I'm fine," my son said, his voice jagged and hepped up with the high of adrenaline. "But they're loading me into the ambulance."

I've had my share of heart-stopping parental moments, including the time we put one of our kids to bed only to find her---out of nowhere---in the throes of a seizure twenty minutes later. That episode led to all sorts of eventual angst and trauma, things that have contributed to making me a stronger person, no doubt, albeit a stronger person with a more acute fear of all that could go wrong in my beloved children's lives.

The minute you hear such words uttered, what flashes before you is all that might be wrong that you don't know. That he won't make it to the hospital before he dies, and you'll never have the chance to impart those last important words, the I love you's, because who knows? Maybe there are internal injuries and then what?

Last week in our small town that's exactly what happened. A sweet, friendly, athletic 16-year old girl was leaving her neighborhood en route to school. She turned left when the light turned green onto a busy four-lane highway, not realizing that an 18-wheeler was barreling down on her, its driver in such a rush to make it to his destination that he ignored the laws and the fact that he was manning a moving missile and just kept on driving right through a red light shattering the lives of so many people instantaneously. They say this girl died in the blink of an eye, upon impact. Of course her parents and her twin brother will have all the time in the world to die slowly from the heartache hoisted upon them.

The tragedy of this story has revisited me again and again since last week. Perhaps more so because but for the grace of God, it could have been me getting that same phone call that child's parents received that morning. Those parents who, if they were lucky, only a few short minutes earlier had kissed their girl goodbye and wished her a good day.

It resonates too with me because this is the sixth such accident in our small town in half a year's time. Two teens we know were nearly killed right along that same road by red-light runners, in one case a drunk driver. And yet it keeps happening, no one seems able or willing to stop it.

We were so fortunate. While my son was pretty banged up, had lots of cuts, scrapes and bruises, and even ended up passing out in the ER once the adrenaline wore off, he did live to tell about it, even sort of becoming a legend for a few days at school: the boy who got hit then run over by a car (by a girl who was text-messaging and speeding and who has since had additional moving violations yet still has her license). He, at least, was able to garner a few laughs over it.

I, however, remain haunted knowing that he was all alone at that moment of impact, when the front end of that Jeep met his backpack--laden as always with 30 pounds worth of textbooks that probably absorbed some of the force and likely saved his life--and sent him flying. And he was alone precisely at that moment the car then drove over his foot, the added insult to injury. This knowledge just kills me: that he was there---and I was probably right across the street--- and I couldn’t help him in such a lonely hour.

These thoughts often plague me when I hear of others’ tragedies. Innocent victims, people just going about their lives when poof, it all changes. And all ultimately alone when they most needed someone---or something---to sooth them.

I realized something interesting shortly after my son’s accident, though.

We were at a party with several families, watching a slide show of our vacation on somebody’s laptop, with an iTunes playlist on as a backdrop, when the song Wonderwall by Oasis came on.

“Dude, that’s the song I was hit by!” My son blurted out to his friends with a chuckle. Because he was listening to his iPod when he was hit, he has a personal soundtrack--a theme song--to probably the worst thing to ever happen to him.

A soundtrack. We all have those songs in our lives that bring us back to good times: that first kiss, the prom, graduation, a wedding day. But in this iPod generation, where most everyone tunes in whenever and wherever they can, songs probably link to more and more unexpected occurrences in our lives.

That my son had a theme song to the accident sort of creeped me out at first, but it didn’t bother him. In fact he was happy to hear it playing that night, even though the last time he heard it was under, uh, less than ideal circumstances.

I can't help but wonder if that girl had a favorite song playing on the radio just before her life was snuffed out. If she was lost in happy thoughts, excited about a big game, or planning to shop for a Mother's Day gift after school. Was there something there that helped her when she needed it most?

I guess I’m glad that in his hour of need, music was there to comfort, and--like that backpack--to soften the blow a little bit for my son. For me, I don’t think I’ll ever hear that song again without my heart stopping for just a moment, recalling that most important time in which I couldn’t be there for him. But perhaps when he hears Wonderwall my son will remember to be happy he’s alive, comforted just a little bit by music.

Trading Places

There are no minors residing in my house right now.  I don't say children because my husband Thorn acts like a child most of the time, so I typically have 3 kids at home.

Rosie (14, NT) just left for the culminating activity of her Jewish day school experience, the 8th grade class trip to Israel.  She will be there for two and one-half weeks.  How blase these kids are.  They certainly were excited about the trip, but more for the ability to spend time with each other and their Haifa sister school friends, then about the idea of going to a foreign country.

Some of the moms are very worried about possible dangers over there.  I'll certainly worry if I hear that something happened, but until then, I'm just too burnt out from everything that I've been doing to get the proper treatment for her older brother.  Oh yeah, the correct thing to write is that I have faith in the tour organizer, in conjunction with the Israeli government, that the kids won't go anyplace dangerous.  The kids would moan about changes, but their itinerary WILL be changed if there is any hint of danger.

Rosie left early Sunday morning and tomorrow morning Abe (17, ADHD, PDD, miscellaneous other messed up diagnoses) comes home.  Abe spent the last 3.5 weeks in two different psychiatric hospitals.  I saw him this past Saturday and he does seem better.  But it's easy to be "better" when you don't have any pressures on you.

I have definitely lost what little faith I had in the mental health care system because they gladly would have just turfed him out of the hospital and back home with no supports in place, except what we had before- which clearly wasn't working!  I have certainly learned a lot about how to work the system since it seemed that I was the major player in getting him to an appropriate placement. We won't even go into the lack of official work that I accomplished at the office over the past 2 weeks.

It looked to me that they were planning on discharging him without any plan in place for his continued care.  Nor were they very helpful about recommending any followup treatment for Abe. So, I am working with the school system, who are very helpful, to get him into a residential school where his education (high level. but learning disabilities), emotional (low level) and behavioral (problematic) issues can all be addressed in a inter-woven plan.  But that takes time and some expertise in how to get the school system, our health insurance, and the state to split the cost of further treatment. It's all so horribly complex and because Abe isn't yet accepted into any state aid program, it's all fallen on my shoulders to be his social worker and advocate.

BTW, Abe came out of the hospital with yet another additional diagnosis: bipolar.  I hoping that it will allow him access to services which kept turning him down previously.

So Abe is home and will start going to a psychiatric step-down day program without academics while we waits to hear from the residential schools we've applied to.  There is a lot less stress on him since his sister isn't around and there's no schoolwork to be done.  However, there still is the Thorn, and he can be a huge trigger for Abe. Unfortunately, the Thorn is unable to control his own behavior very well, so it's questionable whether or not they can get along until Abe is placed.

I'm taking part in the trading places game, also.  I'm going away for a previously planned, long weekend.  There's work to be done there, but (sigh) what a relief to get away.

The detour continues

Abe's detour is continuing and I'm ready to kill J (husband, potentially to be renamed the Thorn). Abe is 17, a full-adult size, with a variety of issues: PDD-NOS (like Asperger's but worse), ADHD, non-verbal learning disabilities, high cholesterol & triglycerides.  Abe came home on Wednesday afternoon from his first-ever mental health hospitalization, but I'm not sure that anything was accomplished there other than some decompression time.  After a few hours at home, his sister Rosie (neurotypical) did something stupid, taunting him with Girl Scout cookies.  Do 14 year olds ever think?  Abe, who is on a restrictive diet because of his cholesterol and triglycerides became totally out of control with anger. Taunting him with food is just the button to get his rage going.  This time, he left me with a black eye, J with a bruise/bite and Rosie very scared.  So we had to take him back to the ER where he was transferred to another adolescent psych hospital. This time it is a different hospital and a very, very long distance away from home. We have hopes that these days away from the family will help him to become more stable and less aggressive.

The Thorn was totally gleeful to have Abe out of the house and said that it saved him filing a restraining order against Abe.  Thorn does not get that Abe is hurting as much as everyone in the house.  Thanks to Margalit, Abe is now on the waiting list at the very Prestigious Psych Hospital, which is much closer to home and specializes in kids like Abe.

Abe, fortunately or unfortunately, is demonstrating similar behaviors at far-away hospital as he would at home with Rosie.  It's good because the anger and aggression is what he needs to work on, but, it is oh so sad.  Abe has a difficult time with expressive language and tends to isolate himself rather than exhibit any social activity. Unfortunately for him, the hospital requires him to participate in groups and to be verbal with the staff and other patients. This is terribly difficult for Abe and makes him very angry.

Thorn and I each saw him (separately) over the weekend.  Abe kicked each of us out in under 30 minutes of visiting, and that's after driving 45-60 minutes to get there!  He didn't want to talk to either of us, so there was no point in staying. The hospital psychiatrist is starting to implement some of the medication changes that we talked about before the weekend.  I feel like my child is just one big, unregulated, barely supervised clinical trial on a random mixture of medications. It is so difficult to know what to do next for him. But at least right now he's safe, we're safe, and he's getting the help he needs.

The original idea of the detour was from the college admissions process, but right now I'm just worried about Abe dealing with life in the big world at all. College seems like it's far off instead of right around the corner.

Detour on the road

Posted by Ora

Abe is in the middle of a detour on the road to college- and I have no idea what shape this detour will take.  His emotions got so out of control that he had to be admitted to a hospital.  Deciding to do this was one of the saddest things that I had to do.  But I went to visit him over the weekend, and he seems to be much happier now.  And, surprise, surprise, the report is that he is talking in the therapy groups and also to the other kids.

Both sides of the family are highly supportive, although you know who ends up thinking that everything is my fault.  (If I can't remember everything that was told to me about this treatment, and he doesn't think about asking until one of his friends asks him about it!)

I'm waiting for a call back from the doctor, but so far nothing.  I wonder how long this detour will be, even though I know that it's for the best.