Where do we go from here..

I haven't blogged in a few days and it's mostly because I am just completely exhausted and depressed. And I'm tired of being miserable. Completely. Penelope is doing well at school but at home, not so much. She gets angry with me very easily. What am I doing to provoke these bits of anger? Reminding her to do her reading. That's about it. Oh, and mornings just were awful this week. Her morning routine has slowed significantly over the past couple of weeks and she received her first tardy for the year on Wednesday. She was upset by it, which is good. But she was too upset, overly upset. The word "Stupid" litters her vocab when she is upset. "Stupid time.. stupid bell.. Stupid shoes..." It was her shoes fault. Then she was mad at her teacher for not allowing her to be late. She claimed she was walking into the room when the bell had rung but he made her go to the tardy desk. Good for him! His actions will save her from many tardys. But she has been still cutting it close the last couple of days. Today she had 3 minutes to get into the building and into her classroom at the back of the building up one flight. It took her 30 minutes this morning to put her clothes and shoes on. She still had to eat breakfast, take her medication, brush her hair and teeth and get her stuff to leave. All those take more than 30 minutes at her pace. I've been trying timing her as a game for her to see how fast she can do some of these things - specifically getting dressed and taking her meds. She has 5 pills she takes and it can take over 15 minutes for her to take them. Timing her has turned out to not be a good option. She feels rushed and gets so angry! The last two mornings it's ended up in tears. She is not controlling her emotions at all at home. After she finally gets calm, she will feel guilty and sad that she was so angry and mean. We talk about it, but it hasn't prevented the future meltdowns. I think some of it is related to the fact she hasn't been doing her reading and she feels behind in it. She is letting her tutor down and herself down. She tends to punish herself alot.
I haven't talked to anyone in my family in a few days. Ususally my mom calls me at least 2 or 3 times a day. I sent her an email two days ago about a conversation I had with Penelope. See, she wanted to tell me something but didn't want to get Papaw in trouble. I had to promise he wouldn't be in trouble. And, he isn't, even though it is just so discouraging. When we were over my parent's house on Sunday, Papaw took Penelope with him to go pick up food for dinner. What I gathered from Penelope, it didn't sound planned, but Penelope got to talk to George on the phone. It sounded like George called Papaw, and Penelope heard her dad's voice and said "Hi Daddy!" and George yelled back "Hi Penelope!" and then Papaw asked Penelope if she wanted to talk to him. Of course she did. So Penelope tells me this.. and starts talking about "Daddy" and how she misses him and she has a big hole in her heart from not getting to see him. That when she had got to see him over the summer, the hole started to heal (while she regressed) and the hole is starting to grow back. She started talking about him possibly getting married again "He has a picture of a girl on his cell phone but he says she is just a friend." She made a point to stress that when he said "She is just a friend." He said it in a way that sounded like it wasn't true. But that she doesn't want him to date anyone but in the same breath if he gets married, she would want to live with him. She is very confused on this topic. She also talked about how she didn't want to live with him and Debbie when they got married, she wanted to stay with me. I know for a fact that isn't true. George had the conversation with Penelope without my knowledge or even a discussion of it, asking her to come live with them. She was going to have a family with two brothers. Of course she wanted to go. But now, because of how abusive Debbie was to her - Penelope's consistant statements about Debbie beating her with a wooden spoon on a daily basis, which by the way Penelope talks was more harmful than the fact Debbie kicked her out of the house at 9 years old.
But to hear her talk about how her heart has a hole from not seeing George, and how she thinks about living with him, and after what my dad did, and after my twin brother telling me his is "tired of waiting" and "isn't been long enough" almost two weeks ago - the last time I've talked to him, after I've sacrificed so much to help Penelope, specially my career - and now feeling Penelope is stable enough that I can go back to work but struggling to find anything, listening to my mom complain that how she doesn't have money to go on vacations, and how I'm crimping her style (since my dad is supporting Penelope and I right now) but still spending $300 at the hair salon every 2 months, eating out constantly, clothes shopping, "investing" in her realtor business... and then the conversation with my dad that soon I will have to consider selling my house and moving out of our community. These are Penelope's roots - something she needs for her healing. I feel like such a failure. I sacrificed so much to help her to my own detriment and now it seems to hers as well. I feel like, maybe I just can't do it anymore. And the thing is she IS doing so much better. The things I've done for her and the resources I have found ARE working. All the doctors and therapists, appointments and the hospital stays and research and books and people I've found to help her. All the hurdles and arguements and fights I've had to deal with - to protect her. But here it is, all ready to fall apart. What's the saying? A dollar or day too short? My family seems to be telling me they are done with it.. but they don't live it. My parents have seen it and can't handle it and say that they could never do it. So they are thankful that I am doing what I do for Penelope - but now, it's too much.. I feel like I'm the only one left fighting to save her. But I can't do it alone. I've told them that. I need them. This was what we decided a year ago when I quit my job. Did we think it would be a year before I could be back to work, no. But there were no guarentees. A lot has happened since then. The economy totally tanked and it's not like there was a lot of positions at my level of expertise in my field to begin with. And Penelope took her toll on me. I was a mess, and to an extent feel still a mess where I didn't know if I could even hold a job. My own anxieties and coping abilities are just.. well, let's just say it's not uncommon for moms of kids with RAD to get what is called secondary PTSD. I defintely feel that. It's better since Penelope stopped being violent and I finally get sleep at night. I just need a break. Not a break from Penelope but a break in life.
I talked to the attachment therapists about all this yesterday and they want to have a family meeting. They feel that Penelope has come so far. When Penelope came into the room they talked to her about how far she has come. It's been 11 months since we started with them with the two week intensive therapy - 3 hours everyday for two weeks. They told her that when she first came to them, on a scale of 1 to 10, she was at a 2. She now is a 7 or 8. She runs from 6 -8. The 6 is when she isn't doing well and 8 when she is. She asked if she is suppose to be a 10. They said no, not all the time. But to have 10 days. To run between and 8 and 10. It would take another year to get her there. They told her that it didn't take a year of hurt to make her feel this way and it won't take a year to help her heal. A 2 to a 6-8 in 11 months is remarkable. They know how hard Penelope has worked to get there. They know the sacrifices and hard work I have done to get her there. I told them I just need that bridge to get us to the other side so we can move on and make it.