I know I haven't blogged in a while. I should as I need it. It helps me purge out the old to make room for the new stuff going on. Well, things are going pretty good around the house. Penelope has her ups and downs but then who doesn't. But as we all know, kids with mental illness have different ups and downs than those without. I would say, even with her setbacks, she is doing pretty well considering its the holidays.
I actually wasn't looking forward to the 5 days Penelope was going to be off school. With how absolutely needy she has been, I was already worn out. So I decided to embrace her neediness. Put off those things that are making her neediness a problem and just spend some major quality time together. The only issue with that is that I am hosting Thanksgiving Dinner. If it was just my parents coming over, I wouldn't have been that stressed about it. But my Aunt on my Dad's side and her granddaughter was coming. We haven't had Thanksgiving with my Aunt in so many years. But recently, I think due to the crappy economy teaching us how to value non-monetary things more, like family. Her husband, my Uncle, had just passed away like a month earlier. Her two sons were having Thanksgiving with significant others' families. Would would have invited her anyway but that made it that much more important.
I had given Penelope a To Do List. I made sure to include some fun creative tasks on it like making place mats for everyone with a Thanksgiving theme. And making a welcome sign on her portable chalkboard. But I asked her to clean the windows on the balcony doors and side windows, move broken down moving boxes to the storage room and take out the garbage. It was like pulling teeth and I don't think that was a ton to ask for. My Dad had to run some errands and decided to stop by and take Penelope with him, knowing that she probably was making my life more difficult. I needed the help but it was probably for the best. She was excited her cousin was coming as they are the same age.... physical age.
The dinner was really good and it was great to see my Aunt. Penelope and her cousin got along great in the beginning.. but then things went down hill after that. My Aunt came to me after checking on the girls in Penelope's room. "Penelope has a real sad face on right now. I don't know what's wrong." I went to check. Basically Penelope was hoping that her cousin, who is very small for her age and in a lot of ways does look younger, would want to play dolls with her. Penelope had even pulled her wood blocks out. Her cousin kinda played with her but really just wanted to just hang out and listen to music. During dinner, Penelope pouted mostly. She didn't eat much and wasn't interested in talking to much. Her cousin noticed Penelope's attitude but really didn't know what was wrong or what to do so she just didn't acknowledge it. As soon as Penelope could get up from the table, "to go to the bathroom", she went off and hid in the office to play with the cats. I found her and tried to talk to her. She knows that most kids her age don't want to play with dolls anymore but she doesn't understand why her cousin just couldn't do it anyway. She was upset with her for not doing what she wanted her to. Fortunately she didn't make a big stink about it and we were able to get through the evening somewhat unscathed.
After my Aunt and cousin left, my parents stuck around for a little bit. I had some news for Penelope. I had talked to my twin brother earlier in the day and he wanted me to wish Penelope a Happy Thanksgiving. When I spoke to him, it floored me. To break the awkward moment, he said "It must be my happy pills.. haha." I said "No. You have a lot of love little brother." (I was born first so that's my rub) But I was stunned and a little emotional about it. I'm not taking it as forgiveness. I will take it as it is. I'm not saying I want forgiveness for Penelope. I don't know if it's a forgiveable act, what she did to his family. I hope that foregivness is something considered for his own betterment.
I told Penelope and she just looked down at the ground and said softly... "Wow.... okay.." She was showing her guilty feelings in her response. Which is good. It was hard for her to hear that he said that. It is hard for her to accept a little lienency from her Uncle. A little later that evening after tucking her into bed, she said "I can't believe he said that..." I said "He is a good person." She said "And I am a bad person." I said "No. You are a good person who did a bad thing. A very bad thing at that. But there is a difference. I believe that your Uncle just wants you to heal and get better." She said "I want to get better." I said "And you are. Don't you think so?" She said "No. I don't think I will ever get better." I sat down next to her and we had a good talk about the different ways she is getting better and feeling better. She agreed. She just wish it was easier and quicker. Don't we all.
But I survived the 5 days Penelope was off school. It was a lot easier than I thought, since I embraced her neediness rather than allowing things to get in the way. We have reimplemented "Baby Time" from when we first started Attachment Therapy. Penelope has been using her baby bottle and her pacifier a lot lately from her previous stint of Baby Time. It's been almost two years. But she seems to need it and as we all know, you give them what they need (not necessarily what they want.) The idea with Baby Time is that the use of the pacifier and baby bottle and other baby items and mannerisms are saved for Baby Time (no other time), at which time she can have at it. If she wants, I will craddle her on my lap (the best I can a 5'3 13 year old.) I will read baby books to her, feed her, play with her. She can play with toys in the bathtub, suck on her pacifier.. whatever she wants. I just draw the line on diapers. But it worked the last time, to not have her act inappropriate in public and other times and designate it for a specific 30 - 45 minute period at the end of the day... and she "grew" out of it. Right now, with the holidays, she needs it again. I'm okay with that. If it helps her cope with her stressors in a more effective and appropriate way, I'm all for it. The idea behind it is that her trauma happened during this developmental time in her life so she didn't get these needs filled. She can't move passed this stage until those needs are filled.
Update on George and Harriet. I still feel like there is something George is hiding about Harriet. She hadn't communicated with me in over a month since where we left it - which is that she was going to set up a time to meet to discuss Penelope's sexual abuse and other events. She never set that time up. She did however email me yesterday saying "I know we are not getting along right now, but I need to know the address where to send Penelope's Christmas presents to." I found this interesting since I'm not sure that the issue was we weren't getting along. I guess she is pissed at me but I didn't stop her from doing anything. I don't know. I just feel like something is missing. I went online to see if she had posted any wierd facebook statuses or tweets. No facebook, but her tweets are stranger than ever. Her twitter persona is very Catholic Pro-Lifer. She picks arguements with people on twitter who are Pro-Choice. Usually she is very civil just very religious and pro-life. But she started tweeting how women need to keep their legs together and quit being sluts. But the wierdest one was the one where she is asking her followers (99% nuns and priests and very religious people) what to do about the fact that she wants to become a nun but is married to a devout Catholic. She says she just wants to evangilize God's word. Her extreme view has gotten more extreme. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with becoming a nun but from talking with Penelope's therapist, who has met Harriet on several occassions and knows her past, she feels Harriet has created this extreme persona to offset all the bad things in her life, but without acknowleding them. It's very unhealthy for her. Even more reason to keep Penelope away from Harriet.
George didn't take the plea bargain that the procescutor offered. He learned through the leader of his biker gang that there is an unwritten rule about bikers testifying against eachother, especially a rival gang. Something to do with the whole outlaw thing. You just don't help the police or something like that. Even though they have what they have on security video, a person has a right to face their accusor and the attorney's have talked and it was said no one is testifying. So he is hoping to get his charges dismissed. Not that it's still not costing him an arm and a leg. His bike never showed up. He said it was most likely in a chop shop within the hour. It was too custom for anything else. So he gets the insurance money for that. I have been having to take him to his weekly doctor's appointments for his back because the police still have his pickup truck. Last week, because of the holiday, my mom had to watch Penelope so I could take George to his appointment. But it took to long and I couldn't take him to get his hair cut because my mom had an appointment she had to get to. George through the biggest BIGGEST hissy fit that I was taking him home. "I told her that I had things to do....... Why did she make her appointment when I.....She knows I don't have any vehicle.... Doesn't she know how hard it is to be without a car...blah blah blah." I let him go on for a little bit and then said "And why is it you don't have your pickup truck?" (The police have it as evidence) He said "That's irrelevant." I said "I disagree with that so I don't want to hear about it. I took you to your doctor's appointment. If you don't like it. Tough Sh*t." He shut up. He just doesn't take any accountability for his situation. So he claims he didn't know that he was taking these guys to a fight. But he knew he was in an outlaw gang and he knew he was fleeing the scene of a crime with criminals in tow. "I'm just a victim here!" Whatever...
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Monday, November 22, 2010
Getting Settled
Finally! Internet. I just dropped Penelope off at school this Monday morning and am going to sit here and write before I tackle my day. We've been here for almost 3 weeks now. My mom hasn't moved in yet but only because we don't have the internet situation completely finalized. They came to install it and realized that this pseudo senior citizens home doesn't have any cable ready outlets and we will need to get permission from the HOA to access the attic to run wires and things like that. We have internet but it's a box in my dining room with another box that has a big cable that lays across the floor and runs into the living room so that we have digital cable TV. Got to have TV.
Oh, and we have a phone line - required for the TV or the internet or something, for some reason. But we don't have any phones. This is for good reason. Penelope would be calling everyone and anyone she had a phone number to at all hours of the morning or night when she felt the need. She would leave distressful phone messages that are alarming, if she didn't reach them. She would talk about how totally lonely and scared she was. Or how mean someone was to her - usually to the point the listener would question whether it was abusive or not. I'm not making this up. She's done this before, as recent as this summer at my parent's house. We were getting concerned phone calls. We had to remove the phones from the house in an effort to prevent undue stress on our friends.
I think the new-ness is starting to wear off for her. The first two weeks went very well and she seemed happy about things. Acting rather normal actually. Then this past Monday we were FINALLY having the closing. It was to be in the condo at 5pm. Penelope, with my approval, had asked the neighbor if she could walk her dog, who happens to also be named Penelope. It was a cute rambunctious small white dog. It didn't occur to me, for some stupid reason, to set parameters to this walk. I assumed, for some stupid reason, that Penelope would know that she shouldn't go far and shouldn't take too long. After an hour, the neighbor knocked on the door wondering if they were back. She had already walked around the building looking for them but didn't see them. I too was wondering what was taking so long but I wasn't as concerned just because I knew they were safe, just Penelope pushing the boundaries. But she has this woman's dog and she doesn't know us from anyone other than her new neighbors. I told her I'd go look for them. She said, politely, that she wasn't worried about my Penelope but concerned her Penelope had run off or something because she is so rambunctious. Penelope can handle this little dog. I wasn't concerned it was this, but I didn't want to go into the "Yeah I know I let her take your dog but NOW I'm going to tell you about the girl who has your dog." I figured she'd be back any minute. I had to gather the garbage bags to take to the garbage and on the way out I would get in the car and drive around. I called my parents, who were on there way for the closing, and told them the situation and to pick her up if they pass her. Shortly later, while I was walking to my car to go find the Penelopes, my Mom called from the Middle School where they found her with the dog. It was only about a half mile away but further than they needed to have gone. I didn't want to have this be the start of our relationship with our new neighbor, who also happens to be the Power of Attorney for the seller for the closing. I told my Mom "I don't want the neighbor to know about this. How are we going to explain this?" She then said "It seems it's out of our hands, she is up here too and is talking to Penelope and your Dad." Great! She said that the woman put her dog in the car and it seems Penelope is riding with her also. I just went back up to our condo to wait. Penelope and the neighbor and the dog came up to our floor and the dog seemed fine and so did the lady and Penelope. I don't know if she was being polite but the lady seemed fine. I tried to act like it wasn't a big deal - maybe it wasn't? I said "I bet your Penelope will sleep well tonight after such a long walk." The woman said "She probably loved it after me keeping her cooped up all the time in our condo." She said that Penelope can walk her dog any time. I'm thinking "Really??" Well, we will see about that. I do take responsibility for it because I should have set parameters for Penelope, where to walk her and for how long. It's easy to fall into that trap of treating a 13 year old like a 13 year old when they have recently started to act like a 13 year old. I had a lapse in judgment.
The next day was a busy day for us. Penelope didn't have school and my twin brother was planning on meeting our Dad over here to move up the rest of the heavy items from the garage. I wasn't here to see it because I had to attend a Parent/Teacher conference and then right after that go and meet with the woman who is going to help me start my own contract business.
The Parent/Teacher conference went well. It is an invite only based on if a teacher wanted to have a conference with you or not. Alllllll of Penelope's teachers wanted a conference. Even the school nurse was there. But they were all so warm about Penelope and just want to help her succeed. It was great to hear there openness. I thanked them for that. My experience with her 5th grade teachers really puts in perspective when we have a great group of teachers. Her 6th and 7th grade teachers have been awesome. Her 5th grade math teacher was awesome too - I just had to put that in there. Anyway, Penelope's biggest problem in school is probably socially. She doesn't like to do her school work and her grades reflect it, but it's all about her self-esteem which is greatly impacted by her social problems. We really didn't get into it, but it's what I've put together based on my conversation with them and with Penelope afterward.
Her Science/Social Studies teacher brought up the fact that he has a hard time getting Penelope to do her work. He said "It's not like she is mean about it. She doesn't even say 'No.' She will say "Okay" but then still do something else. Or she will say "It's okay the way it is." This is a common thing this year. She will have a project that has a short list of requirements to meet within the project and she will either not include all the requirements or do it in a completely different way and when her teacher says "It's great but it's not quite finished as you need to..." She will say "It looks finished to me" or "I'm done with it" and that's the end of it. Another thing she does is she refuses help. This is usually a means to avoid the work as she lies about how much of it is done or how she has done it. She had a paper due today in Social Studies that had a completely different version about a week ago. The class had all this research time and time in class to work on it. Her teacher kept offering to help her with it. Penelope kept declining saying that she had it almost done and she was excited about it and it was great etc. The teacher wanted to see it. Penelope didn't want to show it to her. The teacher insisted. The project was suppose to be a historical fiction story about ancient China. Penelope wanted to write about a Chinese princess she created. She copied and pasted 3 Chinese princess short stories that had nothing to do with eachother from the internet. The reason she chose 3 stories is because that's how much she needed in order to get enough to meet the number of pages requirement. I saw it at this Parent/Teacher conference. I don't even think Penelope read them or reviewed it to try to transition from one story to the next. Obvious plagiarism. Her teacher asked her "Did you write this?" Penelope said "Oh yes." Her teacher told her she knows of one of the stories because it's in their literature textbook. Penelope dropped her head down, obviously busted. The teacher talked to her about what decisions Penelope should have made that would have made her life a ton easier. With that, they began her project over again. With less than a week to go.
Another issue in school is that Penelope didn't want to work with anyone when she was paired up. Not that she wanted to work alone, it's just that she always had a problem with whomever she was partnered with. Lastly, she always turned her classwork and projects in late. What she turned in was good work, but she wouldn't get full credit because it was late. And that's if she turned it in at all. Her Science/Social Studies teacher said "Is this part of Penelope's ... thing?" Which made me laugh "Thing" being disorder. Then he said "Do you have any insight or suggestions on how to best help her?" I love that question from a teacher. I'm just the ignorant parent but not in this room. I said "The issue I'm hearing is related to her emotional immaturity, which yes, is part of who Penelope is right now. She still views things in absolutes. I can see her not want to work with certain kids because she sees their flaws. They either did something negative to her or she perceives something about them negatively. She doesn't appreciate that everyone has good AND bad qualities and that being different can bring something new to the table. For example, she knows that smoking is bad so she views people who smoke as being bad people. Not a good person with a bad habit. Also, she says every year that her goal is to get straight As. Which is great on one hand, but for Penelope, if she isn't going to get an A, she just isn't going to do it. Which then when she gets overwhelmed or feels like it's too hard, she very easily just gives up. And then of course, there is a part of her that just avoids hard work and wants to take the easiest route for things." All her teacher's found this insightful. I'm not sure how they are going to use this information to help her but they seemed to have a new perspective on how to address her. We briefly talk about other things, like Penelope's limp and whether it was gone. It was, once she learned that she wouldn't be allowed to play with her friend at her Grandparents if she was still limping - as she will be resting it until it's healed. We talked about her tardies and that I was hoping it was getting better but it it seems to be getting worse again. We identified part of it is that Penelope doesn't want to be around the other kids waiting to be let in to the school. I think this was a big insight to her tardies. Her language arts teacher pointed out that the library opens up early each morning and that she could go there. I don't think she will be late again.
Very good meeting. After that, I headed up to Joanne's house, the woman who is going to be helping me with my business. In all I will be helping her too. It's taken a few weeks to get this meeting set up. She has been very ill. She was starting to get sick when I worked with her at the Cemetery. She is only 66 years old but she talks about it like she is ancient. But I'm sure she feels ancient with all her ailments. She has a elbow that she had broken and had surgery on but it didn't heal right. So they plan to take bone from her hip to repair her elbow. But they can't do that surgery until they figure out why she was filling up with fluids. They had her on a steroid. Well, you can't have surgery while on a steroid. Then she told me they had her on some kind of breathing treatment that damaged her esophagus. That was part of the delay. She had come down with laryngitis and I couldn't understand her at all on the phone. And she was sick. She sounded better two weeks later but still hard to understand on the phone. She said that she that they determined she has permanent damage and her voice may not get much better. I hope so, my gosh. It's much easier to understand her person but most, if not all, her work is over the phone so her ability to communicate is greatly hampered. Plus, her speech seems labored and painful. I wouldn't want to talk much if I were her. She said she also has progressive heart disease. She's already had a heart attach a few years ago. She said "I'm not dying, but I'm not well either." No kidding. So for her, I am the person who is going to be her backup to help her with her clients while she undergoes more treatment. I'm perfectly fine with that. It will be my way to learn and start my business while helping the person who is giving me this opportunity. Eventually she said that she will want to turn over her accounts to me when she retires. She doesn't have that many as she is already partially retired. But then she also has talked to a CPA about hiring me as well as her daughter who is VP at a firm that using contractors for project work for clients. I mean how great is all this! Not her health but all that she has already done for me! I spent about 3 hours with her as she taught me how to use the software she uses for her work. I picked it up very quickly. She kept commenting on how quickly it was and that she already can tell that this will be good for both of us. She had me do the work for one of her clients that she gets paid $150 for. She jokingly said "You don't expect to get that $150, do you?" I said "Of course not!" But we talked about, even at my pace right now, learning it and doing it, that's already $50/hour. Once I've learned it, I will be able to get it done in an hour. Sweet!
After we were done for the day, I was gathering my things and she asked "Can I ask you why you have your niece?" She knew only that I had my niece and she became ill at which time I quit my job and then got that (crappy) cemetery job because it was the first job offered to me. But she picked up that I was in the wrong place and needed help finding my way - as she put it. I said that I don't mind at all, as I always want to share our story because I think it's good for people to know what happens to these children that is so preventable. I explained our history including the times Penelope tried to kill herself as well as how she has abused her cousins, but also about her treatment and the amount of healing and potential she has for growth and even more healing. Joanne told me that it's not something she talks about, and doesn't want to talk about it now. That maybe someday in the future we can sit down and she will be ready to talk about it, but she didn't use to only have two children. She had another son but when he was 17 years old, he killed himself. She said there was something about me that pulled her to me and now she knows what it is. That even though she couldn't save her son, that she could help me and Penelope. It took everything in me to hold back my tears as it is right now just writing about it. I gave her a big hug and just thanked her. I could barely walk out the door. If there was ever a moment of doubt in God, and I've had them in my life, this is proof to me of his plan for us. Everything we do in life has reason and a purpose. The reason I was to have that cemetery job, as miserable as I was, was in order to meet Joann.
I left her house feeling very good about life in general. I phoned both my parents and told them how great both the Parent/Teacher Conference and the meeting with Joann went. I left out the ending of my visit with Joann as that's between her and I (and us anonymously). My task is to get certified for the software she was showing me and figure out how to get Unemployment to pay for it. Unfortunately, unemployment won't pay for it. The certification is free, with membership to their Professional Advisor Program. The membership is $500. Ugh. But I digress.
The next day was EMDR Therapy and it went well. She did positive reinforcement with Penelope. She said what she wants to do is every other session would strictly be positive stuff as she has learned that sticking to the trauma every week for kids Penelope's age tends to get an avoidance reaction. I can see that. It's painful. She said that the reaction Penelope had at the previous EMDR, which I guess I hadn't posted on here yet, was normal for EMDR. The goal is to take her to the edge but not to let her go over. Penelope was working on the event of her rape when she was about 6 or 7 years old. She became very scared than immediately defensive/aggressive with the therapist. Angry with her for making her think about it. Penelope had done EMDR on other negative events in her life but nothing of this magnitude. I wasn't expecting Penelope to act that way but understood and just let the therapist lead. It was hard not to get upset myself knowing and witnessing how hard this was for her.
Her therapist told me that she plans on working on trauma with Penelope's parents next week. I'm excited by this because I think it is so important for Penelope to process this trauma in order to be reunited with them and continue to heal. She asked if I had a problem with it being the week of Thanksgiving. I told her that I am concerned being that Penelope has trouble with holidays overall but I also know she has been doing much better this season than before. But overall, it's been my big concern, how to get Penelope through the holidays. So I have mixed feelings.
Thursday she had Attachment Therapy and neurofeedback. The nuerofeedback again went really well, a new all time low again. In AT we just talked about how hard we see her working and how we are all here to help her - to reinforce the message from her teachers and the healing she gets from the hard work she does. At the end of therapy she started to complain of feeling really sick to her stomach. Her face had a flushed look on it and she felt nauseous. We ended it and the AT gave us a small garbage bag, just in case. I sent Penelope to the car to lie down while I paid for the session. When I went to the car I caught Penelope in the beginning of the vomiting. Found a dumpster, dumped the bag and somehow drove the hour drive without her yacking in the car. She had passed out.
I kept her home on Friday. She felt a ton better but was depressed. Depressed all weekend actually. Not sure if she was really sick or what happened. Can neurofeedback do that to you? I know I can get headache nauseous at the drop of a hat and neurofeedback would do that to me I would think. Anyway, all weekend she reverted back to babyish talk. She was stressing out. It's that paper that is due today. We had already talked about us working on it together. Still stressed her out. It stressed her out to the point that she wanted to quit school - or at least this school and she hated the fact that we moved. She has no friends "I'm the nerd at school, Mommy." She claimed that she wasn't stressing about Thanksgiving, interesting enough.
One thing is the house went to hell in a handbag this weekend. She was very VERY needy all weekend so little got done. Plan is to have the place ship shape by the time she gets home. Hopefully a clean organized house equals a clean organized mind. I know it's calming to me. And if Mother is happy, children are happy - right? I need to get her back on track so she continues to have good days.
Oh, and we have a phone line - required for the TV or the internet or something, for some reason. But we don't have any phones. This is for good reason. Penelope would be calling everyone and anyone she had a phone number to at all hours of the morning or night when she felt the need. She would leave distressful phone messages that are alarming, if she didn't reach them. She would talk about how totally lonely and scared she was. Or how mean someone was to her - usually to the point the listener would question whether it was abusive or not. I'm not making this up. She's done this before, as recent as this summer at my parent's house. We were getting concerned phone calls. We had to remove the phones from the house in an effort to prevent undue stress on our friends.
I think the new-ness is starting to wear off for her. The first two weeks went very well and she seemed happy about things. Acting rather normal actually. Then this past Monday we were FINALLY having the closing. It was to be in the condo at 5pm. Penelope, with my approval, had asked the neighbor if she could walk her dog, who happens to also be named Penelope. It was a cute rambunctious small white dog. It didn't occur to me, for some stupid reason, to set parameters to this walk. I assumed, for some stupid reason, that Penelope would know that she shouldn't go far and shouldn't take too long. After an hour, the neighbor knocked on the door wondering if they were back. She had already walked around the building looking for them but didn't see them. I too was wondering what was taking so long but I wasn't as concerned just because I knew they were safe, just Penelope pushing the boundaries. But she has this woman's dog and she doesn't know us from anyone other than her new neighbors. I told her I'd go look for them. She said, politely, that she wasn't worried about my Penelope but concerned her Penelope had run off or something because she is so rambunctious. Penelope can handle this little dog. I wasn't concerned it was this, but I didn't want to go into the "Yeah I know I let her take your dog but NOW I'm going to tell you about the girl who has your dog." I figured she'd be back any minute. I had to gather the garbage bags to take to the garbage and on the way out I would get in the car and drive around. I called my parents, who were on there way for the closing, and told them the situation and to pick her up if they pass her. Shortly later, while I was walking to my car to go find the Penelopes, my Mom called from the Middle School where they found her with the dog. It was only about a half mile away but further than they needed to have gone. I didn't want to have this be the start of our relationship with our new neighbor, who also happens to be the Power of Attorney for the seller for the closing. I told my Mom "I don't want the neighbor to know about this. How are we going to explain this?" She then said "It seems it's out of our hands, she is up here too and is talking to Penelope and your Dad." Great! She said that the woman put her dog in the car and it seems Penelope is riding with her also. I just went back up to our condo to wait. Penelope and the neighbor and the dog came up to our floor and the dog seemed fine and so did the lady and Penelope. I don't know if she was being polite but the lady seemed fine. I tried to act like it wasn't a big deal - maybe it wasn't? I said "I bet your Penelope will sleep well tonight after such a long walk." The woman said "She probably loved it after me keeping her cooped up all the time in our condo." She said that Penelope can walk her dog any time. I'm thinking "Really??" Well, we will see about that. I do take responsibility for it because I should have set parameters for Penelope, where to walk her and for how long. It's easy to fall into that trap of treating a 13 year old like a 13 year old when they have recently started to act like a 13 year old. I had a lapse in judgment.
The next day was a busy day for us. Penelope didn't have school and my twin brother was planning on meeting our Dad over here to move up the rest of the heavy items from the garage. I wasn't here to see it because I had to attend a Parent/Teacher conference and then right after that go and meet with the woman who is going to help me start my own contract business.
The Parent/Teacher conference went well. It is an invite only based on if a teacher wanted to have a conference with you or not. Alllllll of Penelope's teachers wanted a conference. Even the school nurse was there. But they were all so warm about Penelope and just want to help her succeed. It was great to hear there openness. I thanked them for that. My experience with her 5th grade teachers really puts in perspective when we have a great group of teachers. Her 6th and 7th grade teachers have been awesome. Her 5th grade math teacher was awesome too - I just had to put that in there. Anyway, Penelope's biggest problem in school is probably socially. She doesn't like to do her school work and her grades reflect it, but it's all about her self-esteem which is greatly impacted by her social problems. We really didn't get into it, but it's what I've put together based on my conversation with them and with Penelope afterward.
Her Science/Social Studies teacher brought up the fact that he has a hard time getting Penelope to do her work. He said "It's not like she is mean about it. She doesn't even say 'No.' She will say "Okay" but then still do something else. Or she will say "It's okay the way it is." This is a common thing this year. She will have a project that has a short list of requirements to meet within the project and she will either not include all the requirements or do it in a completely different way and when her teacher says "It's great but it's not quite finished as you need to..." She will say "It looks finished to me" or "I'm done with it" and that's the end of it. Another thing she does is she refuses help. This is usually a means to avoid the work as she lies about how much of it is done or how she has done it. She had a paper due today in Social Studies that had a completely different version about a week ago. The class had all this research time and time in class to work on it. Her teacher kept offering to help her with it. Penelope kept declining saying that she had it almost done and she was excited about it and it was great etc. The teacher wanted to see it. Penelope didn't want to show it to her. The teacher insisted. The project was suppose to be a historical fiction story about ancient China. Penelope wanted to write about a Chinese princess she created. She copied and pasted 3 Chinese princess short stories that had nothing to do with eachother from the internet. The reason she chose 3 stories is because that's how much she needed in order to get enough to meet the number of pages requirement. I saw it at this Parent/Teacher conference. I don't even think Penelope read them or reviewed it to try to transition from one story to the next. Obvious plagiarism. Her teacher asked her "Did you write this?" Penelope said "Oh yes." Her teacher told her she knows of one of the stories because it's in their literature textbook. Penelope dropped her head down, obviously busted. The teacher talked to her about what decisions Penelope should have made that would have made her life a ton easier. With that, they began her project over again. With less than a week to go.
Another issue in school is that Penelope didn't want to work with anyone when she was paired up. Not that she wanted to work alone, it's just that she always had a problem with whomever she was partnered with. Lastly, she always turned her classwork and projects in late. What she turned in was good work, but she wouldn't get full credit because it was late. And that's if she turned it in at all. Her Science/Social Studies teacher said "Is this part of Penelope's ... thing?" Which made me laugh "Thing" being disorder. Then he said "Do you have any insight or suggestions on how to best help her?" I love that question from a teacher. I'm just the ignorant parent but not in this room. I said "The issue I'm hearing is related to her emotional immaturity, which yes, is part of who Penelope is right now. She still views things in absolutes. I can see her not want to work with certain kids because she sees their flaws. They either did something negative to her or she perceives something about them negatively. She doesn't appreciate that everyone has good AND bad qualities and that being different can bring something new to the table. For example, she knows that smoking is bad so she views people who smoke as being bad people. Not a good person with a bad habit. Also, she says every year that her goal is to get straight As. Which is great on one hand, but for Penelope, if she isn't going to get an A, she just isn't going to do it. Which then when she gets overwhelmed or feels like it's too hard, she very easily just gives up. And then of course, there is a part of her that just avoids hard work and wants to take the easiest route for things." All her teacher's found this insightful. I'm not sure how they are going to use this information to help her but they seemed to have a new perspective on how to address her. We briefly talk about other things, like Penelope's limp and whether it was gone. It was, once she learned that she wouldn't be allowed to play with her friend at her Grandparents if she was still limping - as she will be resting it until it's healed. We talked about her tardies and that I was hoping it was getting better but it it seems to be getting worse again. We identified part of it is that Penelope doesn't want to be around the other kids waiting to be let in to the school. I think this was a big insight to her tardies. Her language arts teacher pointed out that the library opens up early each morning and that she could go there. I don't think she will be late again.
Very good meeting. After that, I headed up to Joanne's house, the woman who is going to be helping me with my business. In all I will be helping her too. It's taken a few weeks to get this meeting set up. She has been very ill. She was starting to get sick when I worked with her at the Cemetery. She is only 66 years old but she talks about it like she is ancient. But I'm sure she feels ancient with all her ailments. She has a elbow that she had broken and had surgery on but it didn't heal right. So they plan to take bone from her hip to repair her elbow. But they can't do that surgery until they figure out why she was filling up with fluids. They had her on a steroid. Well, you can't have surgery while on a steroid. Then she told me they had her on some kind of breathing treatment that damaged her esophagus. That was part of the delay. She had come down with laryngitis and I couldn't understand her at all on the phone. And she was sick. She sounded better two weeks later but still hard to understand on the phone. She said that she that they determined she has permanent damage and her voice may not get much better. I hope so, my gosh. It's much easier to understand her person but most, if not all, her work is over the phone so her ability to communicate is greatly hampered. Plus, her speech seems labored and painful. I wouldn't want to talk much if I were her. She said she also has progressive heart disease. She's already had a heart attach a few years ago. She said "I'm not dying, but I'm not well either." No kidding. So for her, I am the person who is going to be her backup to help her with her clients while she undergoes more treatment. I'm perfectly fine with that. It will be my way to learn and start my business while helping the person who is giving me this opportunity. Eventually she said that she will want to turn over her accounts to me when she retires. She doesn't have that many as she is already partially retired. But then she also has talked to a CPA about hiring me as well as her daughter who is VP at a firm that using contractors for project work for clients. I mean how great is all this! Not her health but all that she has already done for me! I spent about 3 hours with her as she taught me how to use the software she uses for her work. I picked it up very quickly. She kept commenting on how quickly it was and that she already can tell that this will be good for both of us. She had me do the work for one of her clients that she gets paid $150 for. She jokingly said "You don't expect to get that $150, do you?" I said "Of course not!" But we talked about, even at my pace right now, learning it and doing it, that's already $50/hour. Once I've learned it, I will be able to get it done in an hour. Sweet!
After we were done for the day, I was gathering my things and she asked "Can I ask you why you have your niece?" She knew only that I had my niece and she became ill at which time I quit my job and then got that (crappy) cemetery job because it was the first job offered to me. But she picked up that I was in the wrong place and needed help finding my way - as she put it. I said that I don't mind at all, as I always want to share our story because I think it's good for people to know what happens to these children that is so preventable. I explained our history including the times Penelope tried to kill herself as well as how she has abused her cousins, but also about her treatment and the amount of healing and potential she has for growth and even more healing. Joanne told me that it's not something she talks about, and doesn't want to talk about it now. That maybe someday in the future we can sit down and she will be ready to talk about it, but she didn't use to only have two children. She had another son but when he was 17 years old, he killed himself. She said there was something about me that pulled her to me and now she knows what it is. That even though she couldn't save her son, that she could help me and Penelope. It took everything in me to hold back my tears as it is right now just writing about it. I gave her a big hug and just thanked her. I could barely walk out the door. If there was ever a moment of doubt in God, and I've had them in my life, this is proof to me of his plan for us. Everything we do in life has reason and a purpose. The reason I was to have that cemetery job, as miserable as I was, was in order to meet Joann.
I left her house feeling very good about life in general. I phoned both my parents and told them how great both the Parent/Teacher Conference and the meeting with Joann went. I left out the ending of my visit with Joann as that's between her and I (and us anonymously). My task is to get certified for the software she was showing me and figure out how to get Unemployment to pay for it. Unfortunately, unemployment won't pay for it. The certification is free, with membership to their Professional Advisor Program. The membership is $500. Ugh. But I digress.
The next day was EMDR Therapy and it went well. She did positive reinforcement with Penelope. She said what she wants to do is every other session would strictly be positive stuff as she has learned that sticking to the trauma every week for kids Penelope's age tends to get an avoidance reaction. I can see that. It's painful. She said that the reaction Penelope had at the previous EMDR, which I guess I hadn't posted on here yet, was normal for EMDR. The goal is to take her to the edge but not to let her go over. Penelope was working on the event of her rape when she was about 6 or 7 years old. She became very scared than immediately defensive/aggressive with the therapist. Angry with her for making her think about it. Penelope had done EMDR on other negative events in her life but nothing of this magnitude. I wasn't expecting Penelope to act that way but understood and just let the therapist lead. It was hard not to get upset myself knowing and witnessing how hard this was for her.
Her therapist told me that she plans on working on trauma with Penelope's parents next week. I'm excited by this because I think it is so important for Penelope to process this trauma in order to be reunited with them and continue to heal. She asked if I had a problem with it being the week of Thanksgiving. I told her that I am concerned being that Penelope has trouble with holidays overall but I also know she has been doing much better this season than before. But overall, it's been my big concern, how to get Penelope through the holidays. So I have mixed feelings.
Thursday she had Attachment Therapy and neurofeedback. The nuerofeedback again went really well, a new all time low again. In AT we just talked about how hard we see her working and how we are all here to help her - to reinforce the message from her teachers and the healing she gets from the hard work she does. At the end of therapy she started to complain of feeling really sick to her stomach. Her face had a flushed look on it and she felt nauseous. We ended it and the AT gave us a small garbage bag, just in case. I sent Penelope to the car to lie down while I paid for the session. When I went to the car I caught Penelope in the beginning of the vomiting. Found a dumpster, dumped the bag and somehow drove the hour drive without her yacking in the car. She had passed out.
I kept her home on Friday. She felt a ton better but was depressed. Depressed all weekend actually. Not sure if she was really sick or what happened. Can neurofeedback do that to you? I know I can get headache nauseous at the drop of a hat and neurofeedback would do that to me I would think. Anyway, all weekend she reverted back to babyish talk. She was stressing out. It's that paper that is due today. We had already talked about us working on it together. Still stressed her out. It stressed her out to the point that she wanted to quit school - or at least this school and she hated the fact that we moved. She has no friends "I'm the nerd at school, Mommy." She claimed that she wasn't stressing about Thanksgiving, interesting enough.
One thing is the house went to hell in a handbag this weekend. She was very VERY needy all weekend so little got done. Plan is to have the place ship shape by the time she gets home. Hopefully a clean organized house equals a clean organized mind. I know it's calming to me. And if Mother is happy, children are happy - right? I need to get her back on track so she continues to have good days.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
New Home
Posted it from my comments. Finally have temporary access to a computer.
Thanks Mary! I'm sorry there isn't an actual post but my computer is still packed away so I'm blogging from my phone. It won't let me type in the post box but it will let me comment!
We have actually slept at our new home 3 nights now. Most of our furniture is in the condo but the rest, with a majority of our stuff is still in our garage space two flights down. My moving crew consisted of myself, my 68 year old parents and my twin brother. Thank goodness for my brother because if it wasn't for him, well.. We'd probably be sleeping on the floor. My Dad has been a huge help as well but I don't want him to do too much. I'm afraid he's going to over exert himself and keel over dead. My brother could only help for a few hours and it wasn't enough so we are trying to get him back maybe this weekend. Penelope can't be here when he's here obviously so it was helpful that it was during the week while she is in school. Penelope would just have to spend that time with grandma this weekend.
Penelope is doing fairly we'll, I think, with the move. Her only acting out, if you want to call it that, is that our first night here, she skunked the entire night. Skunking is what I've named it because it's like how a skunk sprays as a defense mechanism. Some kids, probably a lot, with RAD will pass gas as a way to keep people away from them. These kids tend to have upset stomachs anyway, just from being so anxious all the time. Penelope has always been a gassy kid but she would purposefully ask to sit on your lap and be lovey, then fart. Behaviors like that I've labeled as skunking. Well she had the whole condo stunk up. I have never seen a worse case of gas. Despite that she loved being in her new room and went to bed fairly easy. After the second night, she said she hadn't slept that good in a while. So that is good. She is overall doing okay. We have a couple things we are working on. She is still limping from her knee injury. But limping onlu occures when convient. She has been given the heads up about needing to rest it this weekend if it's nbot better by then and she wants to play with her friend at my parents' house. I told her "Not if you are not healed all the way.
The other thing is she has been lying about her homework and has gotten behind on her reading. But both issues she be resolved this weekend.
Update on George - there is a settlement offer on the table from the prosecutors office. He can either plead not guilty and continue forward, accept a felony 5 (least serious felony) with time served or a misdemeanor that could require up to 6 months of jail time. A felony on his record would make his life much harder so I don't know what he is going to do. Then, he also owes his attorney a certain amount of money by the 15th. I spoke to him a couple nights ago and he was really worried about that. He is trying to sell his motorcycle which is the only thing of value he has. He joked about how he wanted to figure a way to wreck it for the insurance money but he doesn't know how to do that without wrecking himself in the process. Well the next night, he met a friend for dinner and his bike got stolen. I don't buy it but whatever. He's already filed the insurance claim.
Harriet hasn't contacted me so I guess whatever Geoege said to her made her go away. I'd really like to know. Anywho. I thought you would find this interesting. Harriet posted a link to this on her facebook. Penelope was diagnosed with ODD. http://offthegridnews.com/2010/10/08/is-free-thinking-a-mental-illness/ I find it interesting how Penelope is viewed as a victim of brainwahing and overdiagnosis by me instead of what is really going on here. I also find it ironic that this is coming from a psycology major.
Thanks Mary! I'm sorry there isn't an actual post but my computer is still packed away so I'm blogging from my phone. It won't let me type in the post box but it will let me comment!
We have actually slept at our new home 3 nights now. Most of our furniture is in the condo but the rest, with a majority of our stuff is still in our garage space two flights down. My moving crew consisted of myself, my 68 year old parents and my twin brother. Thank goodness for my brother because if it wasn't for him, well.. We'd probably be sleeping on the floor. My Dad has been a huge help as well but I don't want him to do too much. I'm afraid he's going to over exert himself and keel over dead. My brother could only help for a few hours and it wasn't enough so we are trying to get him back maybe this weekend. Penelope can't be here when he's here obviously so it was helpful that it was during the week while she is in school. Penelope would just have to spend that time with grandma this weekend.
Penelope is doing fairly we'll, I think, with the move. Her only acting out, if you want to call it that, is that our first night here, she skunked the entire night. Skunking is what I've named it because it's like how a skunk sprays as a defense mechanism. Some kids, probably a lot, with RAD will pass gas as a way to keep people away from them. These kids tend to have upset stomachs anyway, just from being so anxious all the time. Penelope has always been a gassy kid but she would purposefully ask to sit on your lap and be lovey, then fart. Behaviors like that I've labeled as skunking. Well she had the whole condo stunk up. I have never seen a worse case of gas. Despite that she loved being in her new room and went to bed fairly easy. After the second night, she said she hadn't slept that good in a while. So that is good. She is overall doing okay. We have a couple things we are working on. She is still limping from her knee injury. But limping onlu occures when convient. She has been given the heads up about needing to rest it this weekend if it's nbot better by then and she wants to play with her friend at my parents' house. I told her "Not if you are not healed all the way.
The other thing is she has been lying about her homework and has gotten behind on her reading. But both issues she be resolved this weekend.
Update on George - there is a settlement offer on the table from the prosecutors office. He can either plead not guilty and continue forward, accept a felony 5 (least serious felony) with time served or a misdemeanor that could require up to 6 months of jail time. A felony on his record would make his life much harder so I don't know what he is going to do. Then, he also owes his attorney a certain amount of money by the 15th. I spoke to him a couple nights ago and he was really worried about that. He is trying to sell his motorcycle which is the only thing of value he has. He joked about how he wanted to figure a way to wreck it for the insurance money but he doesn't know how to do that without wrecking himself in the process. Well the next night, he met a friend for dinner and his bike got stolen. I don't buy it but whatever. He's already filed the insurance claim.
Harriet hasn't contacted me so I guess whatever Geoege said to her made her go away. I'd really like to know. Anywho. I thought you would find this interesting. Harriet posted a link to this on her facebook. Penelope was diagnosed with ODD. http://offthegridnews.com/2010/10/08/is-free-thinking-a-mental-illness/ I find it interesting how Penelope is viewed as a victim of brainwahing and overdiagnosis by me instead of what is really going on here. I also find it ironic that this is coming from a psycology major.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Moving Day
Okay, the other thing that has been going on is that we are finally getting down to Moving Day. Actually, it's going to be Moving Week but hey, at least I only live like 1 1/2 miles away from our new home. I have really been procrastinating on the packing. I don't know if it's pure laziness, my wishing we weren't in a situation where we have to move, or what I've been hanging my hat on as of late "The closing keeps getting pushed back so why live out of boxes until we can tie this down?" Well, we still haven't closed. We were suppose to yesterday afternoon. We even had it down to a specific time of the day versus the usual "either Thursday or Friday" that we've been getting for the past 3 weeks. But I guess the title company doesn't actually do their search until the very last minute and something came up. Well two things came up.; 1) the property owner hadn't paid her November HOA fee and, 2) she had an unresolved lean on her property. No big deal. My parents had one too. It seems those can happen under your radar pretty easy. But as long as you get the paperwork filed that corrects it, no biggie. So, as a compromise of sorts, we now have the keys to get in even though we don't own the place, in exchange for handling the November HOA fee for her. We got the keys last night.
I've been packing. It took forever to find free boxes from stores. But I have a ton of them now. I don't know if it will be enough for all our stuff, but again, at least I only live 1 1/2 miles away if I need to recycle them. Penelope's room is about 95% packed up. That was the ONLY room I could get her to help me with. One of the issues I'm dealing with her on is that she fell in gym class and banged up one of her knees. It's fine. But she is totally milking it for alllllll it's worth. I did the whole "stay in bed all day with your foot elevated" and it worked for that day. But then we have stuff to do! And I don't have the time to have her in bed all day again until AFTER we move. So I have Ms. LimpyPants moaning and groaning. My Mom told me the story about her father when he was her age going skiing and breaking his leg. She didn't believe him for over 24 hours when he complained about the pain and even made him take the garbage out. I said "She is faking it Mom. I've verified that she doesn't have a broken bone. I've seen her walk and run without any problems - as long as there is food or fun involved." So, Papaw is coming to pick her up so I can get some things done. It's late now but whatever relief would be great.
But honestly, other than that, Penelope is doing really well right now. We had a bit of a breakthrough in trauma therapy. Because of the "lie" about the boy kissing her in school, we were able to approach her sexual trauma. Penelope does have a problem knowing what is real and what isn't because of her trauma so I don't consider it a lie as much as I consider it fantasy her brain conjured up because of her trauma. She did some EMDR work related to at the last trauma therapy session. It's only one time but I think it's a beginning and a couple of days later we went to attachment therapy and she at her neurofeedback or "brain training" as we call it and her therapist was very impressed at how low her brain was able to keep her trauma waves down. Very good stuff! She is doing overall well. I see anxiety with the move but no acting out and we haven't had extreme crazy lying. There are still lies of course but so much improvement for now. So much to go but I'm going to revel in what I can. And you can see Penelope's perspective lighten as well. She feels the positive benefits of facing such horrific feelings head on and experiencing those feelings vaporize. That's the best way I can describe EMDR work. Maybe, and here I am being all hopeful again, that her experiencing the positive benefits will continue to break down this wall to her trauma and allow her to face it in therapy. It's going to be hard. I want her to face what she has done as well of course. It's related to her trauma too. She needs to be able to face it to become stronger than it and not do it again - I would think. What a long road we have in front of us.
But I see a light at the end of the tunnel. Positive breakthroughs in therapy. A new home. Wonderful and supportive parents (grandparents) that we are finally able to work together with. And help to a perfect self-employed financial situation for me that will be best for Penelope and I and make us not have to be dependent on my parents anymore. But that's for another day. I have to get back to packing!
I've been packing. It took forever to find free boxes from stores. But I have a ton of them now. I don't know if it will be enough for all our stuff, but again, at least I only live 1 1/2 miles away if I need to recycle them. Penelope's room is about 95% packed up. That was the ONLY room I could get her to help me with. One of the issues I'm dealing with her on is that she fell in gym class and banged up one of her knees. It's fine. But she is totally milking it for alllllll it's worth. I did the whole "stay in bed all day with your foot elevated" and it worked for that day. But then we have stuff to do! And I don't have the time to have her in bed all day again until AFTER we move. So I have Ms. LimpyPants moaning and groaning. My Mom told me the story about her father when he was her age going skiing and breaking his leg. She didn't believe him for over 24 hours when he complained about the pain and even made him take the garbage out. I said "She is faking it Mom. I've verified that she doesn't have a broken bone. I've seen her walk and run without any problems - as long as there is food or fun involved." So, Papaw is coming to pick her up so I can get some things done. It's late now but whatever relief would be great.
But honestly, other than that, Penelope is doing really well right now. We had a bit of a breakthrough in trauma therapy. Because of the "lie" about the boy kissing her in school, we were able to approach her sexual trauma. Penelope does have a problem knowing what is real and what isn't because of her trauma so I don't consider it a lie as much as I consider it fantasy her brain conjured up because of her trauma. She did some EMDR work related to at the last trauma therapy session. It's only one time but I think it's a beginning and a couple of days later we went to attachment therapy and she at her neurofeedback or "brain training" as we call it and her therapist was very impressed at how low her brain was able to keep her trauma waves down. Very good stuff! She is doing overall well. I see anxiety with the move but no acting out and we haven't had extreme crazy lying. There are still lies of course but so much improvement for now. So much to go but I'm going to revel in what I can. And you can see Penelope's perspective lighten as well. She feels the positive benefits of facing such horrific feelings head on and experiencing those feelings vaporize. That's the best way I can describe EMDR work. Maybe, and here I am being all hopeful again, that her experiencing the positive benefits will continue to break down this wall to her trauma and allow her to face it in therapy. It's going to be hard. I want her to face what she has done as well of course. It's related to her trauma too. She needs to be able to face it to become stronger than it and not do it again - I would think. What a long road we have in front of us.
But I see a light at the end of the tunnel. Positive breakthroughs in therapy. A new home. Wonderful and supportive parents (grandparents) that we are finally able to work together with. And help to a perfect self-employed financial situation for me that will be best for Penelope and I and make us not have to be dependent on my parents anymore. But that's for another day. I have to get back to packing!
Harriet and George
I haven't blogged in a little bit. A lot going on but also, I've changed my blog over to private because of Harriet. I tried to do it a few days earlier but it didn't stick and I wanted to make sure no more posts could possibly be read by her. I think it's okay and if so, I plan to make my blog public again so others can follow it but for right now, I'm just playing it safe.
About 1 1/2 weeks ago, I received an email from Harriet with the following.
"I just found out what happened in with that boy touching Penelope. I heard that George didn't even know until months after Penelope had been in therapy. Why was I never told? I'm beginning to think that a lot has been kept from me. I think it would be a good idea to allow Penelope to start communicating with me. It has been 2 years.I was told in the beginning of all of this , that it would only be a few months. I am truly ashamed that I have let it go this long. Please respond to this e-mail as soon as possible."
I never told Harriet about Penelope's rape. Do I have some guilty feelings about that? Yes. Harriet IS Penelope's mother. Do I feel I made the right decision in not telling her? Yes. Not all decisions that have to be made, especially when it comes to this dynamic, are clear cut. Harriet and her mother have made in clear that they do not believe that Harriet did anything that damaged Penelope in any real lasting way. She will admit that leaving Penelope at 2 1/2 years old hurt Penelope but no more than any other kid with parents get divorced. She feels that the worst thing she did was leave Penelope with her horrible father, George. George was a bad father, but in the beginning, better than Harriet. Penelope at least went into daycare and was being fed and looked after during most of the day. But she was "damaged" before this and that trauma continued for quite some time.
So since Harriet and her mother's perspective is that Harriet did nothing to cause the problems that Penelope has and is living with, it's all George's fault. George and Debbie's (the short term step-mother) fault. Harriet's mother has come short of accusing George of sexually abusing Penelope. I don't think she is completely off her rocker to have this impression as I have had, and still wonder, the same thing. But see, if they were given any validation or confirmation that their feelings are warranted, my fear is that Harriet would try to get custody. They feel because Penelope's behavioral problems didn't really escalate until after Debbie's participation in Penelope's life, it's really all her fault, along with George since it was under his watch. It's a blame game for them. I know who did what, for the most part, and I'm protecting Penelope from her father and her mother. Neither one of them should have any right to make decisions on her behalf. Neither one of them understands, or wants to understand, the trauma they both have caused this child or how it affects her daily life and thinking. If they are not willing to understand it, how in God's name would they ever be able to make good decision for her. I just don't want to give Harriet any reasons to try to intervene with Penelope. I have always said to her that George has not been a good father either and Penelope has issues to resolve regarding him as well, but she has never asked for specifics nor have I have given them. Maybe not telling her these things is going to ultimately do that but I will just have to deal with it the best I can at this point. Because the information comes so slowly and we still really don't know the details, I wasn't going to put myself or Penelope through whatever reaction Harriet and her mother would have with every new breaking news release of information. Can you imagine melodramatic Harriet's reaction to being informed of every time Penelope discloses a little more of her trauma? In order for Penelope to feel safe enough to disclose her trauma, she NEEDS Harriet to stay out of it!
Do I have guilty feelings for not giving Harriet a chance at having the right reaction? Yes, but it wasn't worth the risk. I'm happy to continue to feel guilty about it.
Well, this email came two days after George's bail hearing lowering his bail to an amount that my parents said they could afford to pay to get him out of jail. However, the closing on the condo kept getting delayed for this or that reason and they can't pay the bail until after the closing. My dad wasn't allowed to talk to him the day of the hearing so George was ready to be bailed out when my dad couldn't. The next day he found out and from what I heard, went ape-shit about it. As he's told everyone, he spent 21 days in jail. I can just see the scratch tally on his cell wall. My dad had to borrow money from one of his best friends to get George out of jail, which happened the same day I got Harriet's email. Coincidence? I don't think so.
But he denies denies denies it. I told him "I won't be mad if you told her, I just need to know what was said! I have damage control to do now." He claims "I didn't even know that you waited a couple of months to tell me." I said "I didn't, it's wrong. I didn't tell you right away but the delay was only maybe a couple of weeks. And only because Penelope wouldn't tell me anything unless I promised her." He said "Why would I tell Harriet?" I said "I don't know, complaining? Complaining about me? I don't know." He said "No!" like that was ridiculous. Yeah okay. Our dad told me he told George to cut the crap as we know he did it and gave him a ration of shit for it but he still denied it to him as well.
I had to respond to Harriet with something so I said:
"I think we need to meet. I'm not sure where you are getting your information. But I'd be glad to tell you what we know and what I think has happened to Penelope in her past. Are there things I have withheld from you? Yes, but not what you’re implying. The last time I told you something that demonstrated how sick Penelope is, you told your Mom and at some point had Penelope being committed to a mental hospital soon. Then shortly later I found out from your Mom you were in drug/alcohol rehab. I haven't told you all that Penelope has done and how truly sick she is because I want you to focus on your own health for her sake. When you both are strong enough, I want you to have a relationship. I have talked to both her therapists (up in and her trauma therapist in ) about you and Penelope communicating via email or however and no one feels she is ready. She is making a lot of progress in trauma therapy even though we haven't really touched any specific traumas yet. It's hard to explain. Google EMDR for complex PTSD and Google Reactive Attachment Disorder if you haven't already. Or talk to one of your professors.
I didn't think it would be this long either but I don't think any of us knew what road we were heading down. I have given up my life, career and personal identity to give Penelope a chance at a normal life."
Nothing I wrote in there isn't true. Except I wasn't told by her Mom, but her MIL. I couldn't remember. She had responded that she was never in drug/alcohol rehab nor have had any reason to and that she talked to her Mom and she never said anything. I had to verify my memory with George. It was the MIL that told me. And we don't know if she actually went in or not, but Harriet's husband and MIL were pushing for it. Harriet doesn't know about my conversation with her MIL and I gather her MIL didn't say anything to her about it because it would have caused some real problems between Harriet and her MIL.
Anyway, I had to ask again about meeting and she said she wanted to meet but had to wait until the beginning of the month (Nov) and find out what her mother's schedule was for her to come up. I hadn't asked to meet with her mother and I really don't want to. She is the one that came out and accused me of writing the letter that Penelope wrote to Harriet telling her how she feels. She felt it didn't "sound" like Penelope. Harriet has her so snowed about her lack of parenting with Penelope that she comes into conversations like she really knows what is going on and already has her mind made up as to what a horrible person I am. I don't need that crap! So I've enlisted Penelope's trauma therapist in this meeting. It will be a 2nd opinion for Harriet and her mother since they have met with the attachment therapists. Penelope's attachment therapist said that was a great idea as it will also help the trauma therapist have a better understanding of what she is dealing with by meeting them - as it did her.
However, when I spoke to George the 2nd time, verifying my memory about the rehab center, he said he didn't think it was going to become an issue with Harriet. I asked if he had talked to Harriet since he's been out and he said "A couple of times." He claimed she never mentioned finding out about Penelope's abuse to him either time. He said that he gave her this guilt trip about how hard it is for him right now, that he just can't deal with anymore drama and stress right now... I said "Why would she care about how stressed you are right now? She doesn't care! That doesn't make any sense. This is the same person who threw you under the bus when you were in jail and told me you had called her collect and wanted her to send you pictures of girls to you in jail." He said she wrote him a letter telling him to call her and when he did, it wasn't collect as he used a calling card and that he told her how they each got a fan letter in the mail from some guy and how they joked they wished it was women sending their naked pictures. I believe that because it actually makes sense. He's a pervert, I know, but why would he tell Harriet to send girls pictures to him in jail?
Anyway, his story doesn't make any sense to me. He said that Harriet does throw him under the bus but she has this thing about him, like she always has to know she is good standing with him. She calls him all the time for stupid stuff that he claims he tells her, "Shouldn't you ask your husband about that?" or "Shouldn't you be telling this to your husband?" I can see this being true knowing how she is, but I'm still not buying that his non-specific guilt trip would make her rethink trying to meet about Penelope or continuing to have an issue with this revelation. But then, here it is, a week into November and I haven't heard from her. Nothing.
I still don't buy George's story but I need to know what went down. What are these two up to? What is Harriet up to? I don't care about George. He is controlled by my parents and his legs were cut out from under him with this whole jail and biker gang thing.
She is doing things to try to be the better parent, and I commend her for the effort but I do think she is going about it all wrong. When George went into jail, a few days later she wanted to know if she could talk to Penelope or write her. So that was something she wanted shortly before she "found out" about her abuse. However, he grounds to ask were that she is now in school and is trying to make herself a better role model for Penelope. Also, she recently "follows" me on my Twitter account (which I never use and only used to use it to follow other people like celebs and news shows). Her Twitter account is 100% Catholic. Her profile says "Catholic mother and wife." She has many followers and follows many people. They are all priests and nuns and other Catholic inspired Twitter accounts. She tweeted that she was afraid she'd fail her one psychology class if she revealed her true feelings about abortion and birth control and gays. Oh God, I pray to you that she is on birth control.
The ironic ? hypocritical ? thing about this Twitter "persona" she has created is that she herself has had an abortion. She herself has had a same-sex causal sex thing (while she was married to George). I don't believe that makes one gay but it's that the whole thing against gays from the religious perspective? Anyway, her favorite movie is the Rocky Horror Picture Show. She had joined a satanic cult even. I'm not saying someone doesn't have the right or shouldn't try to become a better person and put their past behind them - but they have to own their past too. She is acting like it never happened.
I told Penelope's attachment therapist about this and she said that Harriet is trying to rectify being one way by becoming the extreme opposite. But it's not real. It's a facade. It doesn't address her real problems, and actually it can make her sicker. Ugh.
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