I've been gone a while. Partly because Blogger is now blocked on my work server and I don't have the time to log on at home, and partly because things have been changing so fast that I don't seem to know what's happening from one month to the next.
For starters, both Whiz Kid and Little Bear are no longer kids or little. Both are bigger than me now, by a noticeable amount. Whiz Kid reminds me so much of his dad in good ways, and other family members have remarked how much he looks like that side of his family. His voice changed almost overnight and he's developed a remarkable singing voice; he took vocal lessons over the summer and has stuck with chorus into high school, where he's currently a freshman. He's discovered Dungeons and Dragons, and it's nice that he's now old enough to hang out after school with his friends and be picked up on my way home, instead of being unable to participate in after-school clubs due to transportation issues. He's writing their next campaign, admins a few online servers and is working on writing music. I'm very proud of him in general; if only he could get his language more civil, I'd be ecstatic. He also had his first real date a few weeks ago.
Formerly "Little" Bear has been much less depressed this year than last, and although his grades have suffered tremendously from lack of follow-through on homework, he's making some improvements and remains the funny kid in his social circle. He tends to gravitate toward the class clowns and spends a lot of time on the Xbox; the main impact on his grades came when I started taking the controller to work with me so he couldn't get on until I was home. Neither of the boys talk about their dad any more. He's just a non-topic for them; they're moving on with their lives without him, which is painful to see but healthier for them under the circumstances.
I split up with the guy I was dating just before Thanksgiving last year, and that was for the better all around. He was fun to be with, but that's all there was to the relationship; and when it became obvious he was cheating on and lying to me, I decided to end it rather than confront him. The fact that he didn't protest at all confirmed my suspicions. For a short time I tried to find someone else, but the Princess was starting to show some concerning behaviors and I decided there wasn't room in my life for another person. It was a good choice. Her issues have turned out to be much more serious than I expected, and that has consumed most of the year.
It started with our last visit to their dad at the end of August 2018. He told me he was being transferred to another facility farther away, so I decided to take the kids one more time while he was still close enough for a day trip. His manner and behavior that day was very bizarre, and towards the end of the visit when the boys asked him about writing to them (his letters and cards had stopped the previous year), he told them he couldn't write because he'd been banned from pencils and pens due to sharpening them and stabbing the pedophiles. I was angry with him for saying this in front of the kids (plus I didn't believe it), and told him he should worry about the mote in his own eye before going after the beam in someone else's. He replied casually, "You mean like my schizophrenia and the fact that I hallucinate about smashing my daughter's head with a hammer?"
Everything seemed to slow down suddenly and I felt like my breath stopped; I just stared and then said that no, I was referring to all the people he had hurt and it was hypocritical for him to get righteous about the crimes of others. I didn't bother with the additional thoughts rushing through my head, about how he was supposed to have gotten effing fixed in prison and be taking his effing meds and not have these hallucinations any more; it had been six effing years and all this time I had been keeping the kids in contact with him hoping he would be at least medicated enough to have some small relationship with them when he got out. But no; evidently his frequent claims to be trading his medications for drugs were actually true, and all my commitment and support up to this point had been for nothing. I silently debated whether to tell the guards about his comment, but it was nearly the end of our visiting time and I knew that we would not be coming back. I decided I didn't want the kids' last memory of him to be having him dragged out fighting.
I called Little Bear's counselor as soon as we got home and asked her if she would object to my not taking the kids to visit any more. I'm not sure why I thought she might object; I guess I hadn't fully let go yet of the belief that the boys needed him in their lives even if he wasn't a positive influence. Of course she said that I should absolutely NOT take them back and made sure I was planning to report him to the prison authorities, which I did the next morning. Not long afterward the prison went on lockdown for a while, and it seems that during this time he had his parole hearing and was GRANTED PAROLE despite his threat, which I can only assume never made it to the relevant authorities. They did talk to his psychiatrist, however, because when he called me the following weekend just before the lockdown, he was furious that I had reported him and said that I shouldn't make him out to be someone who was dangerous to children, because that would make him a target there. He also accused me of overreacting by ending the visits, and didn't seem to believe I was actually going to do so. He explained that he had told me about his hallucinations (as if his remark had been purposeful rather than conversational) so that I would have the information I needed to protect her; otherwise he might, quote, "start choking her in the visiting room one day."
I realized in that moment that there was no point in saying anything else. He is more than just not normal. He's permanently, fundamentally irrational on a level that I have no power to address or mitigate, and it goes far beyond drug addiction. The reality of the term mental illness began to sink in. He ceased to be my children's troubled father and became the psycho who wants to hurt my child.
I reported those statements to the prison as well, and when I heard that he had been approved for parole, wrote a long letter to his prison counselor after making several unsuccessful attempts to reach her by phone. Nothing was ever acknowledged. I went back to court and had my custody paperwork changed to say that I have sole legal AND physical custody, instead of the previous arrangement where physical custody would be as agreed upon between ourselves. He was angry about that too. His home plan was to live at his father's house on the other side of our school district. It was inspected by the parole office and denied. His dad made some changes and asked them to reconsider. They were vague and noncommittal. His mother started raising hell with them and hounding his parole agent to re-inspect the house. I started getting very, very frightened that they might actually allow him to come and live within walking distance of us; we live in a house that is surrounded by darkness at night, and where he visited weekly as a teenager and lived with us for two years prior to our separation. I asked his dad what precautions they would be taking to ensure that he stayed where he was supposed to, since his dad works 2nd shift and would not be home at curfew. He wasn't aware of any. I spoke to the State Police; they suggested I file for a PFA and ask to have it include our whole township, although everyone seemed in doubt whether I could get a PFA prior to his release. But the feeling was that it couldn't hurt to try, so I did. Previously someone had told me I could sign up with the Office of Victim Advocates to get more information. I signed up. I spoke with someone there a couple of times, and then the 3rd time - around the same date I filed for the PFA - I got someone who had been there for a while and knew more about the system than my previous contact. This person told me I could write to the Parole Board and request a geographical restriction to forbid him from residing in our school district. I did so immediately. It was approved so fast that they must have just been waiting for a reason to say so. Not only did they ban him from residence in the district, they also banned him from being in our township at all. So he had to wait for acceptance into a halfway house, which was approved in June and he was released at the end of July. He's still out despite continued drug use and being absent from roll count one morning, although they did put him on an ankle monitor for that.
Meanwhile, as the 2018 holiday season approached and the kids had gone a few months without seeing him, the Princess started asking questions. I tried explaining that he wasn't safe and wasn't doing what he was supposed to do, and we wouldn't be seeing him any more for now. She became increasingly agitated and depressed even as Little Bear was coming out of his depression; I think the situation had opposite effects for them. In January she talked to her dad on the phone for the last time, something I regret having allowed even with my supervision on speakerphone. His self-pitying BS was completely inappropriate for a 7-year-old to deal with. Her behavior deteriorated throughout the day and culminated in destroying her glasses with a pair of scissors. I had been taking her to Little Bear's counselor, but I decided to switch her to an EMDR therapist. That therapist recommended we get a psychiatric evaluation; we had one in March without significant results. Her therapist continued to express concern, and the sessions were not progressing well. The last week of the school year, she told a classmate that she wanted to kill herself. I took her to the ER and they referred her to a two-week outpatient program.
She spent the summer under the closest supervision my parents and I could give. I had given up the child care subsidy the previous year because the only covered summer camp program in our area had deteriorated substantially, and with Whiz Kid being old enough to legally supervise, I had decided it wasn't worth it, not knowing the future. Too late to change that now. She did karate for a few months, paid for by my godmother. I searched extensively for a group program for kids in her position. The grief groups didn't feel they were the right fit for a child whose parent was still living. The groups for kids with incarcerated parents were focused on facilitating communication, which wouldn't help her situation. The groups for kids with addicted parents focused on teaching them coping skills and recognizing the signs of a parent acting out on drugs. This last led me to search for Nar-Anon groups that allowed kids. I found one at a church not far away where child care was provided and an NA meeting would run at the same time. We decided to try it out, and it's been wonderful. She loves going and I've been able to find support and a place to vent about things I really can't talk about to anyone else. I wish I had started years ago.
As the school year approached again, the district made arrangements for a reentry evaluation during the first month that would be used to establish an IEP for her. The reentry specialist was able to get us a second evaluation with the psychiatrist, who I'd been trying to reach unsuccessfully. We went for the evaluation on a Wednesday after being seen by mobile crisis twice in the previous few days. It didn't go well; the psychiatrist and the Princess were both irritable and confrontational to each other, and the psychiatrist infuriated me by telling her that if her dad ever did get better, she wouldn't be able to see him anyway unless she could get her behavior under control. !!WTH? They offered to give us an inpatient referral then, but I was afraid to send her away in case something bad happened to her; I was hoping to manage it with medication and outpatient therapy. They wrote me a prescription for pre-med lab work but made no promises about medication. When we left, the Princess was angry with me for not allowing her to go to "the sleepover place." I tried to explain that it wasn't a fun place and I was afraid of something happening to her. She responded with: "Mom. I have had to deal with a lot of problems in my life without you. I can handle this."
Well, I thought to myself, she is just as different from me as I am from my mother; and just like my mother with me, I've realized that I don't actually have a clear concept of what she needs in many ways. I decided that if something happened again in the meantime, I would let her go. It happened the next day. The school called me; I took her to the ER again, she was admitted and was transferred to an inpatient psychiatric facility the following day.
I think the week she spent there is probably the hardest week of my life so far. I'm fortunate to work for a company that had both the ability and the willingness to let me leave early every afternoon that week to beat rush-hour traffic for the hour drive to the facility so I could make the visiting time each evening. They started her on meds, and after a week she was released and referred back to the outpatient program for another two weeks. When she returned to school, the reentry evaluation was started again and we were referred for another evaluation for wraparound services and medication management outside the school. That is still in progress.
Meanwhile the meds are working well, and she's returned to interim family therapy sessions with Little Bear's counselor until the wraparound services kick in. With the medication to help break through the barriers she has had against talking about her dad, it's become clear that she has inherited some of the biological components of the mental illness that he and his mother both display.
Everything looks different in my life through the lens of these two realizations: that their dad is never again going to be a part of their lives in any way, however minor; and that my daughter's emotional struggles go well beyond a temporary depressive episode triggered by this fact. This is something she will be dealing with for the rest of her life. This is something that will keep us here in this town, in our school district, living in this apartment next door to my parents, where she has the support and the supervision and the services necessary to get her safely from this point to adulthood - and hopefully beyond.
Every evaluation/intervention/medical person that we've encountered on this journey has prefaced their comments upon meeting me with a little spiel about how smart she is and what a good mother I am. At some point it just makes me want to scream. I know that they mean well; I know they want to encourage me with the positive things they see before we discuss the negative things; I know that they want me to keep my hopes up and not feel discouraged. But I know by now that I'm a good mother and that my daughter is smart and amazing. What I want to hear is whether that will be enough to guarantee a good outcome; and of course, no one can speak to that. The future is yet to be revealed. Her intelligence and beauty, and my commitment to getting her all the help that's available, will stack the deck in her favor as much as it can be stacked; but this isn't a game I can rig. Smart and beautiful kids with good parents still succumb to mental illness, to addiction, to crime or depression or suicide. There's nothing I can do to ensure that she doesn't. All I can do is pray and keep doing everything within my power to minimize the chances.
For 2020, I'm just hoping for a bit of smooth sailing and that we find the right services to give our lives some stability for a while. I know it won't last, but a year of relative calm would be nice.
