I have a random thing that I need to keep track of that most of you won't give a moments care to. Ella fell in the tub last night and bumped her nose. No mark but it is sore. We put ice on it and gave her a dose of ibuprophen. Today she found a spot of blood in her nose and went to the clinic. Emma has a hang nail that has gotten infected and I have been putting neosporin and a bandaid on it for 2 days. She, too, went to the clinic today. My DH was there for both visits b/c he went to drop things off at the office. Michael walked in looked very out of it. My DH asked him why he was there. (We have stopped letting the school give him his meds b/c the lady talks to him like a baby and I no longer feel I can trust them to have added contact with him. She tries to bribe him to be good at home.) He is just stopping by b/c he wants to and he likes the candy she gives him.
The kids are not handling things very well right now. Patches had a very rough night. She destroyed everything. I took pictures. It was very sad. I was impressed that in the middle of the fit she stopped to write a song about me. Of course, it was not something most mother's would like to hear about themselves but I was thrilled she was writing anything. LOL
Ella and Michael are still not eating very well. He is skipping meals completely, up to 2 a day. He is asking for his meds every couple of hours and Ella is asking if I can make her stomach stop hurting. She feels butterflies all the time. Michael, Ava, Ruthie, and Ella are not sleeping very well. For that matter, neither is Kiera. She is having full on nightmares again. It is awful. Michael and Ella are still begging to sleep in our room and are wetting nightly. Ava has had several accidents this week. Life is tough.
They have received an enormous amount of cards! They are so thrilled to check the mail. I took a picture of them opening the first batch. If you could have heard the screams. It was better than Christmas. They think they are famous and popular. Thank you all so much for doing that for them. It has been the only bright spot in a very dark week.
I have been asked by someone how to email me. On the left side of the screen there should be a photo of the kids and it says, "About Me". If you will click on the picture it brings you to my profile and a way to contact me. You may also add me as a friend on Facebook, if you tell me you are from here. I am no longer terrified to be found.
About Me
- Tudu
- Deep South, United States
- I am the mother of 10 children, 6 are part of a large sibling group we adopted through foster care in 2006, 2 are our grown foster daughters, 2 are from independent infant adoptions in 2001 and 2008. Every one of them have their own issues to work through from Schizo-Affective Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Complex PTSD, Reactive Attachment Disorder, Sensory Integration Dysfunction, ADHD, and Cerebral Palsy. Most of our children have been victims of sexual abuse by a close family member, most acted out sexually or exhibited predatory behaviors. We are currently trying to figure out where the trauma ends and mental illness begins in each of their lives.
9 comments:
I know you will probably die when you read this and I know you NEED the break that school gives you but...what about homeschooling for your kids? Or at least some of them. It might be a terrible idea with your kids. I obviously don't know them IRL so I shouldn't even be making a suggestion but it's just a thought. I am sure you have thought about it because you are a great mom that thinks of everything for your kids but just thought I would toss it out there. I am so proud of your kids and hope they recover from the horrible trauma of testifing soon.
You are an incredible woman.
I keep coming back to it myself. At the end of the school year 07-08, I had to pull Patches from school in April b/c of the school. It did not go well. SO many of my kids will do anything anyone else tells them but the very minute I suggest they try or do something, I am met with the most shocking determination I have ever seen. An great example is homework now, Patches lost her crap last night all b/c I suggested she read a book to her little sister that she adores. If the baby had asked her to read, she would have done it, as she did this afternoon but b/c I asked her she felt the need to destroy her room. I do not think it would be in their best interest to be home schooled, at least by me.
Oh Tudu, I'm so sorry thing are going rough. I have NO experience with this sort of thing, but don't you think this will continue until after sentencing and then things might improve? I got the box sent today. Sorry I couldn't get it out last week like I wanted. Just couldn't get up the strength. You and the kids are in my prayers. Stay strong!!
Kim Chrisman
I'm exhausted from reading your entire blog.
One thing that really disturbs me is the holding therapy, and forcing and coercing your kids to give-up control.
You're asking a lot, and not only that, I thought the idea was to empower children who have been abused?
The worst thing about being abused is not having control or power, so the idea is to allow then to have personal control.
This attachment therapy in whole, looks to me to be more about turning an adoptive or foster mom into "mama", more for the ego of the mom, than for the child in my opinion, than about making a child feel safe.
I could be wrong, but I know that I'm not.
Have you read the Wiki info? Or any of the opinions that feel that the therapy is not good?
(there is a lot of controversy as you probably know).
Not much info. about outcomes there either is there?
What is it that makes you think it really is the best thing?
Demanding obedience from children is something I never did raising my own.
And yes they themselves even resented me for that occaisionaly, I am their mom after all.
In fact my only childhood trauma was being physically restrained & forced by a doctor to submit because my mom was slightly muchausen's and luckily I survived that to have and raise my own children.
I vowed then,that I would never force my own children to do anything and they are grown now and I never did have to force them or physically make them do anything.
Ever.
I am proud of them and there never have been any issues except when one was using a protein drink that turned out to have steroids in it.
Thankfully it wore-off as soon as we ran out of the giant-size can of stuff.
I get that you are trying to do the right thing for them, but in light of the fact that some of them have now shown symptoms of severe mental illness, have you thought about changing your strategy?
Sex-abuse can cause problems, and future abusers, but it is not the worst thing that could happen to a person.-I don't know if that makes sense but there has been so much focus about the sexual abuse that your kids have suffered from, that so much of their behavior seems to be explained-away because of that, when you yourself know that there are children with severe problems like yours who have not been sexually abused.
I know that you are committed to this therapy, but I also can see that you are more firmly committed to your children's well-being.
So, I just thought I'd let you know that my kids turned-out fine and I never made them do anything-you might want to think about that-please.
I don't get the resentment about your children behaving well at school?
OK-I do get it because you explained why you have it for a few reasons and you seem to get it too, but knowing what you know, I would think you would encourage them to be on good behavior and spend as much time as possible in that "zone" unless there really is something inappropriate suspected.
So what if other people find your children lovavble like the school secratary?
Lastly, I think you spend waaaay too much time telling your kids that they are damaged goods and predicting what I'm not exactly sure.
I found your blog through Jani's blog and in my opinion they did the opposite, they spend too much time telling their child how she is the most important child ever, more important than their own health.
In comparison, you are 100 times more realistic, but frankly, after reading everything, I think you could do a better job of raising healthy & happy children.
(not just obiedient attached children).
You can write me off as just not "getting it", but it took me three days to get through your blog and it will take me a lot longer to forget about it (if ever)-I'm a little traumatized myself after reading what you & your kids have been through.
So I would appreciate it if you would give my comments at least a few moments of your consideration.
-Oh, one other thing. I noticed that your family seems to test positive for strep-pretty often.
Two things about that you may want to ask the doctors regarding the mental illness that I cannot spell.
I have seen scientific info. so your doctors should be familiar, that strep. can be associated with scitzophrenia/delusions.
The other thing is that many years ago I noticed that one of mine was more temperalmental than usual and the only difference was that they had recently finished an anti-biotic perscription.
I called the nurse to ask if going a little crazy could possibly be a side-effect from being-on or ending a perscription of anti-biotics and she told me absolutely not.
(I wanted to make sure never to use that particular drug again).
In the past few years, I have heard on the news and seen online that it has been reported.
So maybe I'm hoping that that little bit of info. might help your children?
You also know that some of the drugs you are giving your kids cause hallucinations while on them and when they stop taking them-right?
I can tell that you do your homework when it comes to your children, so I have hope that if anyone can help them recover you would be it.
You seem pretty narrow-minded and rigid I must say when it comes to the attachment/holding therapy, but I have faith that if it is wrong for them, if anyone can admit her mistake for the sake of her children, you could.
What I don't understand is how you could be so empathetic to their pain that they have suffered, and yet decide that the pain of being restrained is somehow different, better, not-as-bad, or worth-it?
If they tell you that it hurts them, it does. Maybe you are using a technique that doesn't physically hurt as much as it would or leave any marks, but physically restraining someone can hurt them even if you or some expert says it doesn't.
Your kids have said that you aren't a real mom, but maybe you can show them that you are one and admit or at least question that the restraint might not be right.
Because that's what a real mother would do and i think your kids need you to be one for them.
Not just a "perfect" mother because there is no such thing and I heard you tell your child that you wouldn't want a perfect kid in your video and you were right, so you must be convinced for some other reason that the treatment is good.
But you could be wrong about that.
I am certainly not one to be disrespectful, so I hope it's okay that I say something to "Anonymous" without offense being taken.
I really appreciate how touched you were by Tudu's family and the perceived parallels that you managed to work through in your own. I also see that you put a lot of thought into what you wanted to share.
I only want to say this, "Have you read the Wiki info?" does not really bode well for the acumen of one's informational sources.
I don't mean to say that one Wikipedia article was the source of your stand on the issue, but just not really a proper source to refer to when stating your case.
Just to be clear, your opinion is your opinion and this comment has nothing to do with your feelings about the matter(s) you brought up.
Please don't hate me !!
My comment is for Anonymous as well. How many foster children have you raised? How many foster children have you interacted with for more than a few moments at a time?
Until you have lived in the foster world, you have no idea what you are talking about. No, not all the kids are this damaged. Some just refuse to eat vegetables. My son learned to horde food in his closet at an early age. He has lived with us for almost 5 years now and I still find food in the closet, even though he is almost 18.
Sign up to be a foster parent, take the difficult kids, especially teens, and then start a blog to document your journey. It will be a wild and crazy ride. I guarantee you will not be the same naive person you are today.
It's exhausting having to defend yourself, enough said
Dear Anonymous,
It takes a coward to hide behind the name Anonymous. It takes an idiot to pass judgement without knowing and experiencing the facts. Those of us who are foster parents and/or adoptive parents to sexually traumatized and/or mentally ill children go through so very much. The divorce rate is sky high. We live in a tiny world where people, like you, judge us for taken the very children who would otherwise be left permanently institutionalized for life, never having even a minute second of an experience of what normal family is. Each of these children needs someone to advocate for them - and the system simply isn't built for that. Each of these children deserves love and support - something the government fails bitterly at. And finally - each of these children deserve a little bit of respect along with the brave people who step up alongside them to parent them.
Lady - you got NO IDEA what you are talking about. You prove yourself ignorant with about every word you speak. Either jump into these waters and take some of these damaged children and learn the life that TUDU, others and I live daily, or shut your mouth and at least support us.
Because what you wrote does more damage than just keeping your mouth shut!!!!
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