Competincy Evaluation

Penelope's evaluation was this past Friday, scheduled by her new Probation Officer. I wasn't planning on going. I found out from the "PO" that I did not have to be there, just someone who knows her social history. But, after I told my Dad the good news - that he could take her, he asked me to write down her social history. If you haven't figured out by now, I'm very detailed. I'm always afraid to miss something or not paint the verbal picture that accurately portrays a situation. To try to save time, I copied and pasted stuff from this blog. But then it was heading to be 18 or 19 pages long by midnight Thursday night. So I figured I would cut it down in the morning. My brain was fried between working late, my house situation, and all this court stuff. It didn't help that Penelope struggled going to bed that night so I couldn't even really start it until 10:30. I finally get to sleep around 1:30 myself, and then Penelope was up and down, which caused me to be up and down all night. She was struggling. I was too tired to get up early to finish the social history and with how Penelope was doing, I felt like I needed to go to the Evaluation too. This is her chance to show the court that she is not mentally healthy to go through this. I was more concerned about how this whole court process would affect her but as I've learned, the purpose of establishing competincy has to do with her due process rights - being able to understand the court proceedings and aid her in her defense. I don't think it would be difficult for her to learn about the court proceedings, but she is too much of a mess to help her defense.



My dad met us at our house and because we had about 2 hours to kill, we went to breakfast at Frisch's. Penelope was bouncing off the walls - singing, getting up and down, going to the bathroom, being very informal with the waitress and trying to be her new BFF, just acting like a basket case. What a mess. I was so stressed I was miserable. So was my Dad. It was hard to watch her like this. Manic almost.



We got to "20 20" and Penelope was pretty scared. She insisted Papaw hold her hand walking in. A nice woman was the receptionist and she gave us a gold coin to lock up all of our belongings in a cube locker before we were allowed to enter through the metal detector to go back to where the evaluation was to happen. Penelope told the receptionist that her Papaw is a retired police officer and he used to be in the Army. I didn't really understand why she was telling her that, until she told every person we had to speak to while we were there. Goodness! Someone wants everyone to know that she should be treated special or not messed with or her Papaw would take care of them. Of course Papaw just rolled his eyes.



Penelope and I were called in by the Psychologist to his office/meeting room. We sat at a big conference table with her and I on one side and him on the other. He first asked her basic questions about Penelope's family, where did she go to school and what type of classes does she take, her treatment, meds and things like that. Then he started asking questions to Penelope about court and has she seen court shows. He asked questions about what she thought certain court terms meant or what the person's role was in court - such as who decides if your guilty or not, who is on the other side, what does guilt and not guilty mean, what is her role in this. She did okay with those answers even though she spent the entire time twirling in her seat and using such a baby voice or mumbling it was hard to understand her. Then he asked "Do you know what a plea bargain is?" And Penelope just looked at him .. then said "A flea market?" Um, no... a Plea Bargain. He then asked her how she thought she should plead. She said "Guilty." He asked her what she thought would happen if she was found guilty by the judge. She said she'd not get to live with her family, be taken away and put in a foster home. That's not going to happen but he just went on "What else could happen?" She said "Go to jail" and he nodded like "yep" and he said "Which would happen first?" She said "Jail, then put in foster home." He said "What else?" "I'll never get a job." He asked "Anything else?" And she couldn't think of anything else. Then she yelled "I just wanted to know what it would feel like, okay?!" And spun her chair so her back was to him with her arms crossed. She talked to him with her back to him for a couple of minutes before I intervened. I made a point not to intervene or correct her. You are evaluating her, here she is in all it's glory. It was really hard to watch. I just wanted to break into tears. A couple of times I had to look away towards this whiteboard on the wall. I acted like I was reading it. I caught the doctor looking at my expression, which had to be tragic looking. I am very easy to read. The worst was after her thought process went into that dark place of "What will happen to me" and she announced she didn't want to be there, that the place was scarey and she wanted to leave. She was polite about it but still. Throughout the questioning he was taking notes on a form that must have listed the questions. Next to that paper was another form that had a list of things and next to them it said "Yes No Marginal" and the only thing he circled was "Marginal" on some of the lines. At the end, the doctor asked me if I thought Penelope could stand trial. I couldn't speak but just shook my head no. "NO.. PLEASE!" is what I was thinking. He then just said "Me neither.... very immature."


That's a good thing but I didn't know exactly what this meant. Now what? Will she have to attend classes so she can become competent? He said "very immature" so that's not an intelligence issue. I told him how she is in regular classes with behavior accommodations. She typically gets As & Bs but not right now. So is this it? Can't worry about that until Monday, when the Competincy Hearing is I guess.





I feel like I need to document what else is going on at this time. I will start with before the PO showed up at our house on Wednesday. My dad likes to check my mail and there was a card that said my mortgage bank had an appraisal done and the foreclosure auction will be held late next month. I knew it was coming but now we have a date. This really put me in anxiety mode. I had recently corresponded with my assigned account manager a few times but when I told her I was commission based at my new job and I wanted to know what options are out there, I haven't been able to get her to respond or call me back. My mom had said she would take care of finding out for me since I have so much on my plate. After the meeting with Penelope's PO, my mom was here to take Penelope to her house for the evening. She wanted to talk about my foreclosure. I asked her if she had called and after some called out evasive answers, she admitted she hadn't. I just determined that I should have known better and need to own my own problems. She wanted to talk about what to do but I needed to get back.I told her to call me but not with Penelope around. She called me while I was still pulling out of the driveway. Really? Seriously? I ended the call quickly.
I went back to work before I left for my evening appointment. I made the appointment with a friend of my Dad's that I've known since I was a little kid. If anything it would be practice, but he's a caring guy and maybe I could get a sympathy sale out of him for being a newbie sales person. I had found out on the way over that my mother was suppose to watch their 3 year old grandson that they have guardianship of. They asked my parents to watch him so they could spend the appointment with devoted attention to me. How nice, right? My mom said she wanted to take him and Penelope to a nearby playground. I liked that idea though I was feeling a little nervous having Penelope near a toddler. But there shouldn't be any concern being completely monitored in a public place. When I got to the house, my mom's car was in the house. I figured she was just running behind getting the grandson. Nope. She decided they were going to play in the yard and walk around the neighborhood. they kept coming in and then the boy fell and scraped his knee a little bit wanting his grandpa. When he finally felt better, Penelope wanted him to go play out in the back yard. But my mom was tired and wanted to just sit with us inside. You know, leave Penelope alone with a little boy. Obviously my dad's friends didn't know about Penelope's charges. I kept trying to descreetly get my mom's attention, ready to just end it all and get Penelope and leave. But, with a roll of the eyes, she went outside with the kids. By this time, it had been like 2 hours and I hadn't gotten into the sales pitch yet. My mom came in with the kids and that was it for me. So I ended the presentation and after listening to my dad's friend's wife give me constructive critisism about what I did during it. I probably looked half pissed half devistated during her comments. Mainly because I wasn't given the opportunity to do some of the things she said because I had to end it. But also because here I am sitting in another appointment that I wan't going to sell and I needed the sale. It just sucked. I kept thinking "this sucks!" After we we're done, it was late and we still needed to get home for bedtime. Penelope then asks loudly "I'm hungry! Can we now have dinner?" It's going on 9pm on a school night and home is 45 minutes away. Is she serious? She hasn't had dinner which meant she hadn't had her pills. I was pissed! My mom says, we were going to grill out for dinner. Too late now mom! I told her we had to go home. I was so mad. I called my dad and just told him that she never left and Penelope hadn't been fed or medicated. "I'm done!" it's just too much. I started to cry in front of Penelope which I try never to do. I couldn't stop and she got upset too. She can't deal with her problems, and she wants to take on mine. I got it together but Penelope was already alarmed. Great.

Thursday morning my mom called me at work and told me she called the number on the card that shows the auction date and learned that I wouldn't have to be out of my house for close to 3 months after that date. The person also said that since my loan is an FHA loan they weren't surprised my bank won't work with me. Something to do with insurance on an FHA covering interest or something. I appreciate her making this call. Honestly, it hadn't accurred to me to call. But I could tell it was my mom's way of apologising. I know she doesn't do any of this stuff to be mean. But why can't she just help me? Can she take a day off of being a realtor and be my mom? Last week she asked me what I wanted and I told her to save my house. She recommended that she go ahead and put interior pics on the listing page and told me to scrub the wall in my basement. I had to ask her how those things will help me save my house. She wasn't listening to me, just being a realtor trying to sell my house. I need her to be my mom. After she told me what she found out, she started repeating it, fishing for praise or some kind of acknowledgement. I couldn't give it to her. Still mad. She couldn't just apologize. It's not something she will do. She just said, "you know I love you." "Yes mom.." It's just why does she have to make things harder than they already are? I'm trying to make this job work.