Trauma and Coping and Therapy

As I written before, Penelope has been disclosing a lot in attachment theapy. A lot of this has been prompted by her sexual compulsions and, what I believe to be, her emotional raw-ness from the court case. She has been very regressed. Her one attachment therapist feels she has taken many steps backwards. I believe she has take many steps backwards in some ways but also many steps forward. Yes, she is questioning the trust and her attachment to me, and I do think her ability to attach has been hampered. But I also believe that we have made great strides in her ability to attach and those strides will give us traction during her dealing with her trauma.


The way I few this is we need to make sure she has, and is willing to use, her coping tools. That is the big focus in truama therapy - and it makes complete sense. Making sure she has the right tools. That her chosing in how she decides to cope are not self-harming or destructive. For example, she has scratched and picked at the skin on her legs to the point she has soars all over her legs. If it wasn't high humidity and in the 90s almost every day, I'd put pants on her. But there are other things too from a behavioral side.


But part of my job is also to provide her the support she needs in order to make the right decisions and help soothe her. When I'm not with her, then it has to be Grandma or Papaw. She trusts Papaw and knows he can handle her so usually anything he does that upsets her, she tends to settle down pretty quickly. He's never put her into a state of rage. Grandma on the other hand, it doesn't take much for Penelope to go into a fit of rage. She knows Grandma can't handle it, and Grandma falls into the "traps" Penelope sets up. Penelope knows how to push her buttons and Grandma bites back and then it's WWIII in the house. Grandma is throwing up her hands (showing Penelope she can't handle her) and Penelope is locking herself in a room or closet talking about hurting herself. I just wish there was a way to teach Grandma or give her the strength to do this. My dad things she just won't even try. And honestly, it looks that way. My mom is so self-involved and so defensive.

She lies and deflects. One day I had come home from work and Penelope was all aggitated and full of attitude. Figured out she was upset with Grandma. Grandma had brought up Harriet in a conversation in the car traveling and "wouldn't shut up about it" saying bad things about her and it just made her sad and upset and then angry at Grandma for bring her up. About a month ago we had a similiar issue and it was agreed that the topic of Harriet was off limits unless Penelope had questions. I asked my mom if she had had a conversation with Penelope about Harriet and she said "No. Of course not. Is that what she said? She is mad at me and is trying to get me in trouble" and walked off. Right after she walked off, Penelope came back in the room and said "I heard everything she said and she is A LIAR!" and walked off. Great. So I followed her into her playroom and told her that "We are going to all sit down and talk about this because we can't do these side conversations. We need to resolve this" not taking sides. She came out and sat in the living room. I asked my mom to come in when she was done in the kitchen so we can "resolve this." When she came in I repeated what happened but also set the rules of no yelling, no meanness and only facts on what happened and feelings about it. I asked my mom to tell us what the conversation was about. She went detail by detal of the conversation they were having in the car but then said how she brought up Harriet and said things about how she didn't take care of Penelope the way she should have and things like that. I asked Penelope if she agreed with Grandma as to how the conversation went. She agreed. So, my mom lied. So we reiterated that the topic of Harriet is off limits. My dad, who was also there, brought up the fact that he has brought up Harriet in conversation and it doesn't make Penelope upset then. Penelope said "I have a special relationship with Papaw." That pissed off Grandma. I said "And you don't with Grandma? Why?" And Penelope started saying how feels about Grandma. That she feels Grandma only cares about herself, and her work. That she says she is going to do something with her and then doesn't. None of this was going over well with Grandma. She sat there with her arms crossed and jaw tight waiting for her turn to rip into Penelope (wasn't going to happen) and Penelope started to get worked up too, maybe seeing Grandma's body language and maybe as a preemptive strike starting saying mean things about Grandma being lazy and never wanting to do things for herself. I told Penelope not to be mean and name-calling is mean trying to keep in productive. Didn't matter though, by the end of Penelope letting out her feelings, Grandma was so pissed off she couldn't speak. But we ended it with "Grandma does love you and didn't mean to hurt you. It wasn't intentional. No more Harriet discussions. I was pissed that Grandma lied. Then, after Penelope went back into her play room, my mom actually said again that she didn't talk about Heather. My dad and I just looked at eachother like "Whaaaat?" Seriously. But how do you get someone who can't even recognize or acknowledge her errors to not do it again? She even said "I don't understand why she is mad." She does that with all of us.

One day she had rented two movies for all of us to watch but after watching the first one it was 9:30 and too late to watch the second one. She wanted to watch it anyway. I asked her to wait until the next night so we could all watch it together. She reluctantly agreed. Then, that night she got busy with phone calls and wasn't done until 9:00. My dad and I had just finished saying it was too late to start the movie. She came in "So you ready to watch the movie?" We told her it was too late being 9pm. She said "Well, I'm going to watch it anyway." I asked her NICELY "Can you wait until after Penelope and I go to bed (within the next 45 minutes) ? That way I don't want to watch only half of it then have to watch the other half later?" My mom immediately became adversarial. "I wanted to watch it ..." My dad chimed in "WHY DO YOU HAVE TO ALWAYS ARGUE WITH EVERYBODY?!" and walked out to the patio. His statement was not just responding to this situation but an overall fed up "ness" with the constant arguing. But his yelling wasn't necessarily the right thing either.

This was the same night that Penelope got her birthday card from Harriet. I previewed it first, but she knew it was there and wanted it. It had 13 dollars in it, since she was turning 13 years old. It was a "My dearest daughter" type of card. She was good about the keeping things simple "I love you.... Mommy" on the inside. She does try to keep herself from acting out because she knows she reacts. She was like "Oh, okay." and tries to be like no big deal. But it's when she lets that guard down I guess. Anyway, we had dinner and everything was fine. She went upstairs to watch cartoons before bed. Shortly after was when the blow up happened about the TV. I ended up just going and cleaning up the kitchen and heading to bed early.
When I went upstairs to get Penelope and I ready for bed, I noticed the door was shut. Two of the cats were sitting in the hall staring at me and then looking at that door like "Something going on in there you should know about." I noticed a note on the door and another one that had been pushed out from under the door. Great... Here we go. The note on the door said "YOUARE A BITCH <--Yeah you (my first name instead of Mom) This is my room now. Get your own room!" The note under the door said "I HATE YOU BITCH" While I'm reading these notes I can hear Penelope inside saying very calmly "I am safe now... I am safe now.." That freaked me out. I did know what she had done. I realized she had baracaded the door closed. I shoved my way in and found her under the skirt of her night stand. I sat down and asked her - very calmly - "What's going on? Of course you are safe. You are here, with me. But I see you are mad at me for something. What are you angry about?" She said very calmly, almost with relief, "Oh, I'm not mad. God spoke to me. He told me you are dangerous and I need to not be with you anymore. That you will hurt me eventually." I said "Penelope, God wouldn't say that. He put you in my possession to take care of you and protect you." She said, now a little concerned "Was... it the Devil then?" I said "No sweetie. I believe it was a part of your brain that is reacting to the nice birthday card from Harriet. That it has you scared thinking 'Why should I trust Mom to not hurt me like all those other people in my life who shouldn't have? What makes her so different? She'll do it. So I better push her away and try to hurt her before she hurts me.' Does that sound about right?" She agreed. She then started to cry and say that the card was very upsetting. Specifically the part that says "I love you." She believes that she loves her but "not the way that mattered." Now that in itself is an improvement because before she considered any statement of love from Harriet a flat out lie.

The thing is though, learning about Dissociative Disorder and how it translates into a person's every day behaviors has really opened my eyes. I'm not trying to be an alarmist but just point out to my family "This is why she is acting this way!" After this incident, after she had answered "Yes" to the question "Do you sometimes hear voices," after realizing that there has been times in the past where she has made statements about something or someone told her that she should run away or do this or that. I always thought that it was her not taking ownership in her feelings. But who knows now. I've said things like "She goes into fantasy world" - yep, dissociative. But after this I had to know more. I need to know where we are heading. What does all these mean? Is this the bad to get to the good or is this just all bad? I need it explained.

So I took off work and went to her attachment therapy appointment with Penelope and my parents. I needed to speak to them - 1) because I haven't been to an appointment myself since I started my new job and i need to be updated and have questions answered I can't seem to get clear through my dad, and 2) to maybe try to address the issues at home that exacerbate these problems. I know Penelope has disclosing a lot and I need to hear from them directly how things are. I also know that school time will be here before we know it and Penelope is just a mess. Now I can see why some families decide homeschooling is beneficial. She is so smart. Very creative and has a lot of potential. She just has so much to overcome to tap into it. I wish I could I just have no idea how being a single parent. If my parents were able to be that rock for me, I'd figure out a way.

Anyway, the head attachment therapist agreed that Penelope has probably been more Dissociative than we realized. That she is severe, just shy of Dissociative Identity Disorder. That her Dissociative probably comes and goes and is probably the most severe it's ever been right now. We do need to monitor these voices. I'm glad she said what she said to confirm the significance of Penelope's actions/disorders in front of my parents. I'm hoping it will help them be more agreeable to following my lead on how to help her at home. I even asked "Is there anything we can do at home to help her cope better with all that is going on?" That was too vague about trying to get her to address parenting techniques as she went into Penelope needing a conversation about being allowed to be "sexual" - due to sexual compulsions. She went on for a little bit about that. I won't elaborate but it had to do with self-satisfying methods and all I could think of is "But we share a room right now!" But I know it needs to be address, but as I told her... "I have absolutely no idea how to address that." She understood. We will deal with that next time. And hopefully she and the trauma therapist can get on the same page and we can go about it through trauma therapy too.

The other other thing noteworthy about the therapy session is how I totally pissed off my mom. Well, we were running out of time and Penelope comes first. I brought up how turbulant life is at home. The therapist asked what was the worst thing, and I said "Grandma and Penelope's relationship." My mom went right into how Penelope does this and that and the therapist said "She's being manipulative huh? Well, we will have to talk to her about that." And my mom went on how she gets on her about being on the phone too loud and gets right in your face to ask you a question. "Not respecting boundaries. We can talk about that too." I said "It goes both ways. You have to respect her boundaries too." I brought up the lie about not talking about Harriet. How it crossed a boundary and then she lied about it. My dad brought up how it's just Grandma that can't do these things but it's because of the lack of trust. My mom said "I can't be perfect like you two!" I said "No one is asking for perfection, just some help!" The therapist brought up the testing, how Penelope is testing her conviction. Her trustworthness. I said "Right or wrong, but you have to pass it. You can't let her push your buttons. It's hard. Somehow Dad passed. I barely survived. And now it's your turn." My mom defended herself about the lying, saying she didn't lie but she was just being very general about Harriet. My dad said "No, you lied." So he was in the doghouse too after session. So the therapist brought in Penelope and told her how Grandma didn't lie to her to hurt her feelings, she didn't mean to lie. Tired to make light of it saying that "When you get old like us, your memory gets bad." Just the fact that the therapist was telling Penelope that Grandma lied had my mom visably upset. But she bit her tongue.
My dad told me the next day how we were both awful people and she was thinking of moving out. But, she hasn't and that was almost a week ago. I don't want her to be miserable. I don't want Penelope and I to be the cause of marital problems between them. I just need her to be MY mom and help me.