Learners Permit Drama

So hard to believe monkey butt is even old enough for this.

She turned old enough to get learners on December 29th.  At that point, she was in the "I need to be a kid longer and not ready for this" phase. We told her no problem, we'd never push her into it, she'd do it when she was ready.

We didn't even mention she'd already sweet talked us into a car, lol

Earlier this week, kiddo says "Momza, I'm ready to test now", so I agree to get off work early and me, her and daddy-o would go.

Her dad and I fought over it.

He said "Why do YOU need to get off work for this? I'm capable of taking her"

I said "I know you're CAPABLE of taking her, but this is a big deal and I want to be there for her"

Then when I take the time off, he wants to go too, lol, apparently he recognized it was a big deal and wanted to be involved in that memory too.  If he thought it was a big deal, I still don't know why he thought it was weird I thought it was a big enough deal to go, lol

We're past that though.  Here's what happened:

The hubs brought kiddo over to my office and we left from there and took kiddo to get her learners permit. (she missed 1 question and it was sign, so we have to take her back in 15 days, you can not miss any sign questions and pass)

I got so upset though. We got there with her birth certificate (and with adoption, at the time of adoption, original certificate is sealed and a new one with same number is issued with me and hubs as parents).  Part of the reason they do that is so adoption can be kept just like biological kids and no extra paperwork, blah, blah, blah.   Turns out it’s an exception. Of all the oddball things, when she was 4, her birth family got her an ID card at the DMV, so we started filling out paperwork and they already have her in the system----as a S (birth name). 

So, they tell us to go home and get her adoption papers to prove she went from one name to ours, since in their system she doesn't have our last name.  The kicker---she wasn’t a S when she was adopted. She was a M by the time we found her, because she had been adopted before.  Thank GOD for good lifebook.  Between monkey butts stuff and the file we got when we adopted her, we were able to come up with copy of her S birth certificate, court docs showing S rights terminated, copy of M adoption papers, copy of M  birth certificate, copy of M  termination papers, then our adoption papers and birth certificate. PAIN IN THE BUTT!!! Part from her stuff, part from ours.

Not to mention, very triggering. No wonder she missed a question, she had to have that trigger of going thru memory lane 5 minutes before testing.  L

oh, and the boy she just had broken up with showed up right after us to take his test. He missed the same question, they're back together, but that was making her nervous because he sat close and they weren't back together yet.

eta: the first person was way rude about her medical history (application requires what you're taking meds for), second person didn't even bat an eye.

Holiday Triggers

Off and on we've experienced kiddo struggling during various holidays.

She's done so well over time that it's not always the same one or the same reaction, but there is generally obvious anxiety, even if it doesn't result in meltdowns.

Sometimes it does result in meltdowns, but whether those occur or not, I try to be sensitive to those holiday triggers that are all too common for trauma kids.

Acting out isn't a behavior problem though, it's a way to communicate the fear and turmoil they're feeling. It's difficult to articulate and many times, the child doesn't even realize the holiday is what triggered the problem.

Fathers Day and Mothers Day have been 2 of the harder holidays for kiddo.

It's logical though.

Imagine being a little kid and while you're still little, your father leaves.

Fast forward a year or two and the abuse starts.....your mother isn't able to keep you safe.  Eventually Social Services steps in and removes you from the only mother and father you've ever known.

Hard enough even if you stop there.

Now picture you moving to a different home. You're told you're safe there.  Abuse starts a year or two later.

Now you've lost the next set of parents you had.

Of course by the time you end up with your forever family, you're just waiting for the other shoe to fall.

Not only do you worry about if they'll always be who they say they will and if you'll always be safe, but you're expected to be all nice and stuff for fathers day and mothers day and give them gifts and love.

No! Why would somebody with that background trust it.  Why wouldn't they think with pain to the past and mothers and fathers day trigger those memories of the past, the mothers and fathers that weren't able to be there for them.

One year for Fathers Day, we made the mistake of going to the beach for the weekend.  Oddly, it wasn't intentional to schedule it for Fathers Day, but just landed that way.

It was horrible.  Total trigger city.

Vacations were difficult early on. Kiddo thought she didn't deserve good things happening to her and vacations were a stressor, worrying if she was behaving well enough to deserve all that fun. Add to that, the knowledge of Fathers Day.....already there is distrust of men in general, now you are suppose to pretend that everything is normal, that you haven't lost so much before this point, that you don't remember the good moments with the past families....you pretend you don't remember the bad moments with the past families....both hurt in their own way.

The next Mothers Day, I had to constantly remind myself not to be upset with her.  She didn't wish me a Happy Mothers Day. She didn't make me a card or anything. It was just another day. I wanted that normal day that a mom usually has, but demanding would be useless and meaningless.  Waiting and not having an expectation would help and be healing for her.

Now, time is creeping up and she's mentioned being away of Mothers Day around the corner.

With the healing that's gone on over the past year or two, it'll be interesting to see how she handles that trigger.

I'm not mentioning the day though.  I am preparing myself and telling myself not to have expectations, even though she "says" she's making something for me.

The first Mothers Day here, the adoption wasn't final. We were sorta in our honeymoon stage, meltdowns, but not fully attached yet at that point. Regardless, I'll treasure that card she made that said I'm the best mom ever.

While she said what she thought she should at that point, I'm accepting the challenge for that to be what I am to her.

We're now attached, but she still has insecurities.  It may be a long time before we have a complete year of holidays and no triggers, but that's okay.

I will understand and accept my childs feelings.

I will also realize there is no right or wrong way to celebrate a holiday.  ie. Christmas....we use to love to feed the hungry on Christmas. Kiddo is triggered by crowds and noise, we changed that tradition. We used to visit family on Christmas. We stay home now. It's just for us.  We have zero expectations of a "perfect" day.

Guess what? When we decided it was okay not to be perfect, that's exactly what the day is!! Maybe not perfect in other peoples eyes, but perfect for us.

Learning Issues

Kiddo has struggled off and on in school ever since she got here.

Her trauma brain has her ADHD, PTSD and Anxiety all interfering with being as successful as she can be.  I know she has the ability to learn and is smart, but she shuts down at times that affect her grades.

This year has been worse and I just realized core classes were in afternoon this year and electives in the morning. The last couple years, the electives were in the afternoon. It's possible the ADHD meds are starting to wear off at that point?

We can be doing something totally unrelated to school and her come out with the origin and what she learned in school relating to it, so I know she has the capacity for learning, but needs help with coping and not letting anxiety rule.

We have our 2nd meeting with the school tomorrow and another lined up for Wednesday.

We also need to make an appointment with a doctor.  From all I've read it seems dysplaxia could be a probable cause in addition to the trauma.

Known school triggers

• ·         Homework  (from being demeaned in her past)
• ·         Loud/Stern teachers (perceives as anger, which causes her to shut down)
• ·         Being singled out frequently (even if it’s not bad, doesn’t like classroom attention on her, will self-sabatoge after frequent positive highlights) Life as a foster child meant don't draw attention to yourself. It doesn't result in good things.  Sexual abuse means "rewards" for being "good" and triggering that part of her.

 Kiddo brought home a math paper and asked me why her answer was wrong. Upon reviewing it, it definitely wasn't wrong. It turned out she had written the question down wrong, transposing the numbers.

She has a hard time transitioning from one thing to the next.  After reviewing grades more, the grades she's struggling with are the assignments at the beginning of class.

She gets overwhelmed with alot of material at once. When she can focus on a few questions at a time, she doesn't stress. When it's alot of questions (test time, SOL's), she shuts down.  

Organization--poor child has a chaotic brain.  She forgets to turn in assignments she's done and teacher has refused assignments with pages out of order.

With our investigation into symptoms, it seems likely she has Dyspraxia.

Many kids with dyspraxia also have speech issues (she was formerly on IEP for speech and improved)

Warning signs at her age:

• lTries to avoid sports or gym class (she used to make up injuries and asks for notes to get her out of pe
•   Takes a long time to write, due to difficulty gripping pencil and forming letters (very slow with writing, has odd grip and letters are made oddly)
• Has trouble moving objects from one place to another, such as pieces on a game board (not so much her on this)
• Struggles with games and activities that require hand-eye coordination (has improved dramatically)
• Has trouble following instructions and remembering them (I see this at home, we cannot give her 2 things to do, one WILL be neglected)

 Dyscalculia:  basic math skills and has to think things thru even on low level math prior to doing things….ie. math puzzles at Pizza Hut, frequently uses hands to count even now)

·         Dysgraphia:  very messy handwriting, writes letters in odd manner, holds pencil in odd manner and has history in file of not being able to hold pencil properly even with instruction)

·         ADHD: on highest dosage ADHD meds and was diagnosed approximately 8 years ago

Kids with dyspraxia many times have speech issues, including pitch and volume. She previously had issues with pronouncing words, but definitely still has the pitch/volume issues. She can go from mumbling to yelling, even when happy.

They also become overwhelmed in groups and struggle with sports, which creates issues making friends because of anxiety.  Definitely her. She quit both soccer and softball after not being able to get in the group because she wasn't great at sports.

Difficulty with writing technique. The girl is an amazing writer.  I wish she'd create a blog. Her writing always either entertains me or makes me cry, depending on the theme. However technique, is another story. Her letters aren't formed property and she's unable to hold pencil properly.

Other clues include: temper tantrums, easily distressed, eating with fingers, immature drawings, pencil grip, use of scissors, preferring adult company (ie doesn't invite secondary friends over, if bff can't come over, prefers momma to secondary friends or alone time), sensitive to noise, dislikes being touched, slower response time, limited concentration.

So, while it could be trauma based only, there are enough similiarities to where we want her tested. If it's something that can be done to help her succeed, we need to get the ball rolling before high school.  She'll be in the tech program next year and our hope is it will make it easier because of combined classes, but it also has more independent study, which she needs work on.

There is enough going on that it's not 100% clear what the problem is. Our goal is to get to the bottom and get this fixed. She wants to be a nurse when she's older and she will definitely need to boost up the grades to do that without so much struggle. 

·         

Diet and Exercise

I left work early to take kiddo to the doctor.  The doctor raked us both over the coals about kiddos weight.

She asked kiddo "Do you like being fat?"

Kiddo said "Yeah, kinda"

I'm so glad kiddo was honest.  She prefers not being in the spotlight, protects her from sexual abuse in her eyes.

Then the doc said "I think you should lock up the food at night since she does well during the day and not at night"

WTF?  Why the face? (as kiddo would say, but we know the real thing there)

I lost it, totally flipped.

I told her that absolutely under NO circumstances was going to happen. I also said that was the worst thing I could ever do to that child.

We've gone a long way towards developing our bond and trust that we will meet her needs.  Locking up food would trigger her PTSD at a MINIMUM.  Worst case scenario, our attachment and trust would go backwards. Not something I'm willing to risk.

Kiddo and I decided together that we'll work on keeping her active.

I do worry about her weight and food issues. It's obviously deep.  I'm not, however, willing to risk attachment for it.  Mental health is at LEAST as important as anything else.

So, those out there that have had kiddos with eating issues, what did you do?

Her therapist released her, but while she thinks she has an eating disorder, she doesn't seem to think it's trauma related. I totally disagree.  The middle of the night is when fear can set in and she forgets the coping skills.  She's fine in the day.

We provide tons of healthy stuff to munch on anytime she wants it.  The problem is the binging in the middle of the night.

Doctor suggested we never bring anything bad in the house.  How do you do that though? I get the no bringing chips and cookies in.  However, she has been known to get into raw dough, boxes of noodles, etc.

I'm also not willing to shame her.

First home she lacked due to lack of resources combined with selfishness of the bio mom and boyfriend.

First adoptive placement, they locked the food up. I have ZERO doubt in my mind that that had even a worse effect on her food issues than the initial problems.

Wishing I knew how to best help.  Mulling this over.

It's a Hard Knock Life

That's my earworm of the day

We went to see Annie on Broadway last night.  We love doing shows like this as a family, but this one was beyond excellent.

The kids were amazing, the show was well done and well, the story is close to my heart.

Like Warbucks finding Annie, we found our "Annie" at age 11 shortly before Christmas as well.  Our kiddo, like Annie, has a beautiful head of red hair.  Our kiddo, like Annie, would feed the stray dog before herself.  While our kiddo wasn't in an orphanage, she was in a residential treatment center, not with a family and both roommates with friends and bullies.While it was for Christmas, it was also adoption day and she got a puppy for her adoption, just like our kiddo did.

Yeah, kinda hit close to home.

Kiddo didn't seem to get triggered. She was sad when the dog had a threat of being put to sleep (both of us), but I cried like a baby when they thought they'd found Annies parents and Daddy Warbucks wasn't going to be able to adopt her.

A couple things I noticed prominently that I may not have focused so much on if I didn't have a similar child.....

When Daddy Warbucks wanted to give Annie a locket and tell her he wanted to adopt her, she was wearing the locket left by her parents.  He didn't know it was a special locket and she screamed and started running off because she was mad at the idea of taking it off.  She did, however, tell him quickly why when asked.  I told kiddo she could take a lesson from that scene, that like Daddy Warbucks, we don't always know a trigger, but we will always try to make things right when we hit one.

Daddy Warbucks was so good about letting her love her parents, even though he wanted her for his own daughter and moved Heaven and Earth to make her happy.

In the end, when the fake parents showed up, I think deep down Annie knew.  She was struggling with leaving Warbucks and when it came out they were fake and her birth parents were dead, she embraced Daddy Warbucks and they of course, no doubt, will live happily ever after, with a few trauma moments behind the scene that we will never see.

The toughness, willing to run away to get into a good situation, her protectiveness over the little one in the show and her willingness to believe things could be good again, all qualities of our kiddo.

So yeah, while it was amazingly done and lots of funny scenes, it was also a tearjerker for me and meant a ton.

We didn't take a friend to this one, so the money we would have used on a ticket and meal for friend went to extra souveniers for kiddo.  Spoiled a ton!!

Cost of our night:
price of 3 front row tickets to the show
price of dinner for three in upscale Mexican place
a near midnight night on a school night
a ton of gifts, but

THE QUALITY TIME TOGETHER AND DISCUSSION.....PRICELESS!!!!

WOW!! What a weekend

Thursday we drove 4 hours to see our niece graduate Friday morning.

We got there and found out that the graduation had been moved to Saturday and nobody had bothered to tell us.  Our niece said her mom had said she'd told everybody.

Fortunately, kiddo didn't get too wonky.  Normally a change in schedule or appearance of rejection would have her off the wall, but fortunately not this time (so far)

We had dinner with our niece and came home Friday morning instead of after graduation.

There were no extra rooms in the area, we had teacher scheduled to come out and babysitter for the dogs only thru Friday  night.

Hubs and kiddo both think it was intentional.  It may or may not have been and honestly, whether it's intentional or not, I'm just glad we got to see our niece. It was obvious she had no clue we hadn't been updated.  I'd have been mad if we drove 4 hours each way and didn't even get to see her.

Why intentional? Hubs and sister in law do not get along at all.

The positive is that we avoided the trigger of crowds (graduation) and loud people (sis in laws family).

The negative is this schedule change last second, combined with mothers day weekend could potentially blow up.  Trauma kids can act out big time mothers day weekend. Some because the first moms were abusers, others because the first moms didn't protect them from their abusers.

As we were driving down the road, when it was hubs turn to drive, I was checking my messages and I'm very concerned that baby sis's placement is getting ready to disrupt. I hope they'll keep trying.  We have respite scheduled for next weekend for them, but it's sounding like it may not make it until then.  I really hope it doesn't disrupt before then. Kiddo is looking forward to this visit so much.

One placement disrupted the day before our adoption was final and little sis didn't get to make it.  If another disruption is right before they get to see each other, this will add pain for our daughter.

I am hoping that they'll postpone making a decision and let us see if we can make some progress with her, show her that her big sister is fine and not acting out, coach her a little and help her be calm, eliminating at least one stressor.

Fingers crossed, praying, join me in whatever you'll do.

PTSD

I worked for 26 years at a competing company to where I'm currently employed.

Last April I put in my notice and jumped ship to a "sane company".  The culture here is so much more pleasant.

Initially I was reminded of the early, good and positive days at my prior employer and loved it. Now I just love it and rarely think of my former employer.

At the first of this month, I had to draft an action plan on what I was going to do in March and how I would achieve it.  Yesterday, I received a quick note saying "I see you're up 79K for the month, what growth do you anticipate by month end?"  It's a very normal request and nothing weird about it, just positive management, recognizing a decent number and asking how good it will be by the end of the quarter.

I sent back my well thought out response with what I would achieve and why.

I received a response back a few hours later and when I saw I'd received an e-mail from this guy (upper management), I was temporarily triggered, remembering the e-mails from my prior employer that no matter what was going on, was always negative, despite whether the results were positive.  I had a sense of dread to open up the e-mail.

When I opened the e-mail it was very positive and just said "I believe".

Upper management was letting me know he believed in me and my plan.

As I sat there with my heart rate slightly elevated for a moment, I realized, if I'm still triggered almost a year later by weird things like that, why would I not understand that my baby girl will still be triggered by things that seemingly have no reason to trigger her? Why would I not understand that she had 11 years of turmoil and instability? Of course deviations to the normal day would trigger her. Of course if she doesn't anticipate a positive response, she will assume that any response will be negative.

I am reminded to show compassion, repeat positive feedback constantly and let her eventually (in her own time) realize that our positive treatments are genuine and she doesn't need to wait for the other shoe to fall, just as I can trust my present employer to not be a nutcase like the prior one.

Avoiding the Past

After the last few sibling visits, I realized we were totally wrong for even considering adopting the baby sis. The more I see them together, the more I understand that they probably would trigger each other horribly and we'd see bad regression.

They enjoy seeing each other. They worry about each other. They love each other.

They do NOT need to be together though. S's eyes dilated beyond belief (the fight/flight, anxiety, excitement), pulling Kiddos's arm off nearly, Our daughters's distress, all of it was more obvious than normal this last visit. Kiddos's PTSD was triggered at Thanksgiving and again at Christmas. I don't usually see that during visits.

October-December, we had 3 visits together, that's way more than normal.

Kiddo moved in in December 2012.

Her first visit with baby sis after placement with us was April 2013, then June 2013, November 2013, December 2013, March 2014, May 2014, June 2014, August 2014, October 2014, November 2014 and December 2014.

I think they're too frequent now and we need to back off. As the frequency escalated, so has kiddos's anxiety.

Two recent signs of this:

I was sitting in the bathroom talking to kiddo while she was getting ready for school before winter break started and cuddling the kitten. I said something about my mom and she told me to not talk about my mom in front of the cat, it would make the cat sad and maybe she doesn't want to think about the past.

This weekend S called Kiddo and we missed the call. Kiddo refuses to call her back. No reason and I'm certainly not pushing it. I think it's obvious she's not ready for that right now, but still....I wish I had a crystal ball and knew how to handle things like this.

Sometimes our kids just want one family and would prefer not to see things from the past that are reminders of past neglect and abuse.

Kiddo has been a tad wonky since Thanksgiving. With these things, I wonder if it's because of the escalating visits.

She no longer even pulls out her life book.

I'll take the lead from Kiddo, I think instinctively she knows what she needs, I just wish she was a little more obvious about it sometimes, so I didn't feel like I was barking up the wrong tree later. Her body knows what she can handle and she may not be able to process these things at this time and stay healthy.

Even worse, it's hard because I know S is the opposite and needs more time with her, especially now, but our #1 priority is our kid and we have to protect her first.  We'll do what we can for S of course, but we have to do that around what must be done for our own child.