The last couple of weeks have left me wondering about alot of things including my competencies as a parent. Just how good a parent are you when both your kids are damaged? Ok - so Ronnie is not my fault but reality is she is not 'neuro-typical'. As for Emma, the rational part of my brain says that this behaviour is something she has chosen and that it is not about me but rather herself. But the emotional part of my brain says 'that's all very nice, but you must have screwed up somewhere for her to think this is normal'.
I am so angry at her for putting us throught this. How dare she behave this way and be so selfish as to think that this would not affect us in any way. Who does she think she is? She thinks she is so unloved, unimportant, insignificant; that she always gets the short end of the stick because she's 'normal' and her sister is handicaped? Grow the fuck up!!! Does she have any idea of the sacrifices we have made for her? Does her sister get to take dance classes? Does her sister get to go to movies and buy clothes and hang out with friends? Does her sister get to take karate classes? Does her sister get to hold us hostage to her fucked-up emotions and whims? Does her sister make me uncomfortable in my own home? NO to any of these.
We have bent over backwards to try to make things as normal as possible for kiddo and that is still not good enough. In fact, we've probably neglected some of Ronnie's needs (i.e. fun) to placate her sister and ensure that she is not forced into a public situation she doesn't want to have. And this is the thanks we get? She cuts herself and then has the fucking balls to tell me it's my fault and to deny total responsibility for it???
I'm at a loss and have no idea how to deal with this anymore.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Up and down and around
So it's been a couple of weeks and kiddo has met with the social worker twice so I thought I'd give a bit of an update.
I spoke to the social worker last week and she seems to think that things are going well; that kiddo is doing the work she is asking her to do and that she's responsive. She's not just sitting there like a lump. At the end of the meeting las week, she asked kiddo if she wanted to go back and kiddo said yes so I think that is positive. Even kiddo is starting to make little jokes about it.
On the downside, we've had a couple of outbursts relating to "I'm a horrible person, I'm a failure, I'm never going to amount to anything...". In fact, one of the outburst was "I thought I was done with this and didn't care anymore - why am I caring?". We try to handle these as calmy as possible and give her positive feedback, like "you are not going to be an expert ukelele player in one week, it's unrealistic to put that burden on yourself". I'm not sure that our positive images are working but we are trying.
We had another outburst on Sunday and again we tried to turn it 'realistic'. I'm realizing that positive is not the right word; we are really trying to help her see that she is placing unrealistic burdens and expectation on herself and becoming disappointed because she can't reach her goals. It's not her goals that are unrealistic, its her expectations surrounding her goals. Again, you cannot expect to be an expert ukelele player in one week.
But she is a fantastic actress; we thought the situation was diffused but she went ahead and cut herself that night. I know because I found the evidence in her pjs and in her diary. I've refused so far to read it but stumbled across it last week and she's marked when she has cut. Sort of opened it yesterday morning and say the notation 'and now I'm going to go cut'... Didn't make me feel good let me tell you.
Anyway, we spoke to the social worker about how to handle and her first reaction was 'CRAP'. We were to call her out on it (which we did) and see if she wanted to talk about it (she didn't). In fact, kiddo completely shut down and refused to talk about it. In her opinion we were humilating her by talking about it and that she was never going to say the word, blah, blah, blah. I have to admit that I'm a little pissed that she's trying to blame us for this. I know we screwed up but I didn't put the razor blades in her hand - she made that decision on her own and she will need to deal with the consequences of that action.
I spoke to the social worker last week and she seems to think that things are going well; that kiddo is doing the work she is asking her to do and that she's responsive. She's not just sitting there like a lump. At the end of the meeting las week, she asked kiddo if she wanted to go back and kiddo said yes so I think that is positive. Even kiddo is starting to make little jokes about it.
On the downside, we've had a couple of outbursts relating to "I'm a horrible person, I'm a failure, I'm never going to amount to anything...". In fact, one of the outburst was "I thought I was done with this and didn't care anymore - why am I caring?". We try to handle these as calmy as possible and give her positive feedback, like "you are not going to be an expert ukelele player in one week, it's unrealistic to put that burden on yourself". I'm not sure that our positive images are working but we are trying.
We had another outburst on Sunday and again we tried to turn it 'realistic'. I'm realizing that positive is not the right word; we are really trying to help her see that she is placing unrealistic burdens and expectation on herself and becoming disappointed because she can't reach her goals. It's not her goals that are unrealistic, its her expectations surrounding her goals. Again, you cannot expect to be an expert ukelele player in one week.
But she is a fantastic actress; we thought the situation was diffused but she went ahead and cut herself that night. I know because I found the evidence in her pjs and in her diary. I've refused so far to read it but stumbled across it last week and she's marked when she has cut. Sort of opened it yesterday morning and say the notation 'and now I'm going to go cut'... Didn't make me feel good let me tell you.
Anyway, we spoke to the social worker about how to handle and her first reaction was 'CRAP'. We were to call her out on it (which we did) and see if she wanted to talk about it (she didn't). In fact, kiddo completely shut down and refused to talk about it. In her opinion we were humilating her by talking about it and that she was never going to say the word, blah, blah, blah. I have to admit that I'm a little pissed that she's trying to blame us for this. I know we screwed up but I didn't put the razor blades in her hand - she made that decision on her own and she will need to deal with the consequences of that action.
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