Saturday, June 27, 2009
Warning! Patches Letting Me Know She is Mad
This is a minor episode with Patches, the video is about 23 minutes. This is after she had kicked my bedroom door a few times with the baby sleeping on the other side. When I approached her she began kicking my leg and I had to turn her around by putting her arm behind her back. She claims this "rips her arm off" but truly doesn't hurt her. It does protect me from her throwing me down the stairs again, punching me, or any of the other lovely things she likes to do when she is angry. She also had been punching the front door glass with her fist and then tried to punch my DH as he opened the door. You will hear her typical rants about how she hates me, wants to live with anyone but me, how she hates the kids, how she wants to die, and how she belongs in jail. Most of you hear the same crap at home. Those of you that aren't used to hearing this from your loving children, beware. I may sound harsh when she talks about killing herself or that she hates me but I know her really well. I have learned by trial and error what response from me gets what reaction from her. I love her dearly and try to help her regain some control of herself with as little damage to everyone and everything as possible. At the end, she let me hug her and she followed me in the house to take her meds. She is currently doing her chore without a bit of attitude.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
16 comments:
I couldn't even watch the whole thing - it is what I'm living every day with my son. He screams ridiculous things at me, yells as loud as he can (for the neighbors benefit I'm sure) that HE IS SO HUNGRY - WHY WON'T I JUST LET HIM EAT???? anything and everything that he thinks will get a reaction. Our new rule is that he must go outside to yell, and of course I have to go out with him or else he bangs on the door (dents everywhere on my metal door). So now I make sure I take him to a very public spot in our yard (clear view of the road and our extremely nosy neighbors) so they and the rest of the world can see him tantrum while I sit on the lawn chair and stare at him. I used to try to hide all of his disabilities so that others would not view him so harshly - until he started blaming me for absolutely everything, now I want as many witnesses as possible. I am not going down because he can't regulate himself. Don't you love how she hates everything and everyone and "doesn't care"?? I get so tired of that....
It is very sad to watch. Ultimately, it is trying to use logic on an illogical person and all that does is frustrate you. I don't think we will ever truly understand what it's like to live in their heads.
Oh, my. I've been following your blog for over a year and was too shy to post a comment. But, after watching the entire video, I need to let you know that you are truly an angel sent from heaven for Patches and the rest of the kids. God bless you.
As a long time reader..who usually only lurks, I would NEVER question you or your parenting.
You are a wonderful mom to wonderful kids...and thats all I have to say about that.
Laurie
That's so hard to watch. She's such a hurt little girl.
You do an amazing job showing her that you will still care for her no matter what her behavior.
Hunny, you are my hero. The pain your darlin' daughter shows is incredible, and you are an incredible Mom to recognize that in her and be able to calmly without EVER raising your voice talk her down is just incredible. It takes a special somebody to be that kind of Mom, and that Mom is you. Wow. My older sister was just like Patches as a child, sadly our situation did not end well. My sister is still hard to go through to these days and she is now at the ripe age of 29 years old, yet still has fits much like Patches displayed in this video. I know this is an older post, but I wanted to leave a comment anyway. Hope your evening is going better than the evening displayed in the video. God Bless you, DH and all your children.
Wow, a little too close to home. I couldn't watch all of it (mostly the screaming at the beginning), but I took tips from everything you said.
I can't work all the angles you did. My daughter has grandparents in another state that apparently tell her they would always take her in. I'm constantly hearing, "I'm running away to my real family." I know they couldn't get a homestudy approved (not that they applied), but I don't want to damage her relationship with her grandparents.
You are a great mom!
Mary in Texas
I want to personally thank all of you for being so supportive. I was more than a bit nervous about airing our dirty laundry. Like Lisa said, I don't want people to be too harsh on Patches so I hide her really bad stuff. I now send all the kids to the front porch when they start getting aggressive or violent. I am no longer concerned with the neighbors, they understand and are supportive. The police have taken it upon themselves to drive by regularly. I'm not sure if that is for us or the kids. LOL
Joni and Jess, Cyr has already expressed she will not be helping with Patches when she gets older. She claims she has already served her time before they came here. I worry endlessly about Patches' future. Michael and Ruthie, too.
Mary, we have a relationship with their aunt, uncle, and gparents, too. This was a constant threat from the children in the first year. They told me they were going to live with them. It is hard to break it to a child that this is not an option without being mean. It hurts, period. I was honest and direct with them. "They were given the first option to take you and couldn't or wouldn't. That's all I know and if you have any questions about it you need to ask them." I shared the issue with their family and helped them organize their answer before the child asked them. It comes up now that they want to live with their former FM. We have a wonderful relationship with her and I am honest about that, too. "She loves you but knew you needed a stronger mom than she could be. She can't have a child that is so violent living with her 2 sm children." It is the truth, plain and simple. Sometimes the truth hurts and I believe they deserve to hear it. I think it can be done w/o them feeling unloved and unwanted. If nothing else, they are loved and wanted by me.
You can't use logic when a child is this distraught. She's lost it and words won't reach her. She's terrified and out of control.
I feel a great deal of sympathy for her. When she's this upset it's not the time to talk about taking care of the dog.
Actually, you are wrong. This is the one thing that gets her motivated. We have tried everything and the only thing she seems to care about is the dog. She claims to hate the dog but will get it together hours earlier when we discuss how she needs to treat the dog and be responsible for her. When we talk about how what she is doing is abusing her, it hits home. The AT is one that noticed it and encourages us to "discuss" it with her when she is angry and losing it. My point is, it works for her. Maybe it wouldn't for most others, in fact, I can't think of another child we have that it would.
I am a long time reader as well who usually doesn't post but after watching this I just had to tell you how impressed I am with how you deal with Patches and the other children. Your ability to calmly talk her through this episode always being clear that she has choices and holding firm to the consequences of what will happen when she chooses to do certain things is great. You are an incredible woman and these children are so very blessed to have you fighting for them every day no matter what.
You are amazing. That's all I can say.
(Well, that and your voice/accent is adorable and totally makes me want to move down South. lol.)
oh my gosh that made me wish you were my mom (and I like my mom, at least now that I'm grown up and we don't live together!).
I am learning to be a CASA and hope to adopt from foster care in the future and this video is probably worth bookmarking...I bet I'll need to review it a LOT in the future!
First of all- you rock!
Second- I have a son who is 5 with bipolar disorder. I've been reading Michael Schofield's blog about his daughter, January and I followed that to here. His child is the first I have ever read about that slept as badly as my son did.
When your daughter said she would kill herself and you just told her you would love her even though she did that and she couldn't do anything about it- I was laughing. Not because it's funny in a conventional way. But in a "I've SO been there" kind of way.
Bridget, I'm glad you got a giggle and thank you.
Hi there,
I too came here by way of Michael Schofield's blog. Watching your video was much like watching my own child. It's so hard, and unless you've lived it, you can really not understand what it's like, and tonight, I feel a little less alone in my journey to help my son heal. I hope to read more of your blog when I have more time.
Take care,
Dawn
of course its not funny at all, but i do get a chuckle out of some of your comments to her, trying to keep the humour in the situation... "how about an evil stepmother? can i be an evil stepmother?" lol
youre such a star <3
Post a Comment