Progress Report

Therapy went well last week and we don't have therapy again for 6 weeks, as therapist is very pleased with how well she's doing and the increased level of maturing.

A few signs of progress:

One example of being very open, a guy from kiddos school texted her and asked for nude photos, she said no and he asked if he could send her some and she said no (actually, she was a little more WTF on it all, but that's okay). She immediately blocked him, unfriended him and sent me the screen print.  We sent it to the deputy and the deputy went to talk to his parents.

At therapy, when kiddo was asked why she seemed calmer despite S going back to residential, she said "When I saw what she did unprovoked, I realized that I'm not responsible for what happens to her, she's responsible for her own actions and if she doesn't care enough to even try, it's not on me".

She asks for what she needs, instead of making us try to read minds and her blowing up later.  She even requested waiting awhile before the next visit, that she's feeling angry about this and needs some time.

She got nothing less than a B on her report card.

She tripped and had to be recasted and can't swim until just shortly before her birthday. No blowup at all. She recognizes it was her, not somebody else, that put her boot in the floor to be tripped over. She said if she's not swimming by her birthday, she still wants her friends over, that they can have fun and she'll enjoy having them here.  

One of her bouts of depression was from feeling bad about hurting our feelings and things she's said. She said she really cried hard later after we told her what she'd said during the blow up the day of her surgery.

We were talking on vacation and I was saying that you can't hold anger or get upset and sad at somebody that you don't care about, and she said she wasn't sure how she felt about my realizing that she cares for us.

She has started saying I love you, to BOTH of us on a semi-regular basis.

Of course, all this progress didn't come without a little set back. We had a few minor issues after therapy. Therapy provoked a few emotions, but over all, 2 steps forward, 1 back is still trending forward.

One set back was a "boyfriend" on facebook that she lied about the age of and she got sad and depressed when we said no to him coming to her party or him even being her boyfriend.  He has a reputation of being creepy from people we trust, so no way.

A step forward was when he said they could just keep their "relationship" a secret and not tell us and she told him she didn't want to keep things from her parents.

She got really depressed afterwards and that required some serious time in and xanax. When I asked what was wrong, she said therapy brought up some feelings. She said the depression and tantrum didn't have anything to do with the boy. I told her I thought it was because she was upset with herself for not being upfront with us and she's starting to develop a conscience. She said she wasn't admitting anything (laughingly) and said "bla bla" which is code for "I love you, but it's still hard to say".

She also came close to losing it at my nieces graduation because of the crowd, despite the xanax and started to get demanding about leaving early. We got it together though and had a very nice day.

She almost lost it on the way home and refused dinner, wanting to hurry and get home. We told her whether she ordered dinner wouldn't affect the time we got home because we were having dinner. She still refused.  We ordered ourselves extra and she ended up eating it later (our intention) and her mood cheered up.

All in all, I'm so ridiculously proud of this baby girl that I can't stand it.

Even my brother e-mailed me today to tell us thanks for coming and said "I guess kiddo can do okay with crowds as long as there are babies and animals, huh?"