Changes

I know, I went off the grid for a while. I'm sorry. I feel like I've abandoned my online community which has always been supportive and a huge resource of information. I needed to disconnect. It wasn't a conscious decision but I had some personal initiatives I needed to really focus on. My main goal is to become financially independent. I started my business and had worked many hours getting certified, establishing a website and beginning a marketing plan. But the later part I wasn't hitting very hard because I had been promised clients from the person who lead me into starting this business. She talked about retiring and transitioning her clients to me. Plus she has connections - there was no concerns about not being able to have plenty of work. Well, that hasn't panned out at all. I'm disappointed but still forging ahead. I stepped up my marketing and through a progression of doors, I now have a great job completely unrelated to my business!
Now, I still want to have my business, and actually still need it. The doors I started to go through were placement agencies that specialize in what my business is in. The goal was to do project work for their clients. The problem I was running into is lack of experience in the software I became certified in. All my other skill sets needed measured well. Anyway, I had several meetings and the last person I met with called me the next day with an opportunity that had arrived on her desk during our meeting. Based on our conversation, she wanted me to consider it. Initially, I was hesitant. How could it possibly keep me going in the right direction. But the idea of accepting this job to supplement my business income and get me some kind of income now while I build my business kept outweighing that concern. But I didn't really want to go into a situation where I'd be temporary. That has been a hurdle in any position I've applied for in the past. I would feel underhanded if I went in and then left for something better later. So, I've worked my business model around so that I would go to this job during the (school) day and work my business in the evenings and weekends. I was looking for a part time job that would enable me to meet Penelope's one on one needs such as being the one to take her to school, pick her up on most days and attend all therapy/doctor appointments. Getting that flexibility will also give me flexibility with my business as well.
So I accepted the job and it's turned out to be great! More than I thought I'd be able to find in the form of benefits and compensation (on a part time level). Initally, it was a 23 hour/week job. I get to determine what hours I work and from where - home or at the office. The position is assisting the VP responsible for public policy advocacy of a huge non-profit. She said I'd meet lots of community and business leaders and elected officials and it would be great for my business. Sounds great right? Well, then my boss - who tells everyone how awesome I am (embarassing!) petitions me for 32 hours/week. With the flexibility, no problem. She even talks about full time, which I said was doable but ONLY if I still have the option to work from home when I need to. Still no problem! The problem is she doesn't have the budget for this position to be full time. But she wants me to be full time - for me! So I can get health insurance benefits and get tuition reimbursement. She is really pushing me to go back to school. Because she doesn't have the budget, she has talked another department in to sharing me so that I would work one day a week for the other department (that is related to my business) and get full time benefits. Her ideal for me is to have a professional position on her team - and she only hires candidates with master's degrees - or in school to get their master's. Okay, I know.. that's really getting away from the business - but let's talk about that. Did I tell you that some of the public policy initiatives she advocates for are close to all our hearts? They are related to our children's special needs. I don't talk about Penelope with her so I have to bite my lip alot but I get excited about what work I do related to these initiatives. It just tells me that the road I took to get here, even though it wasn't straight, it was intended. Plus things like getting employer contributed health insurance and employer paid tuition? Hello!? Things that were pipe dreams.
All this and it's only been 1 month!
Penelope has been doing pretty good lately. We still have our challenges for sure but she has really learned to self-regulate which has helped a great deal. She is completely off her meds and I think she is doing better than ever.
Looking back, I think our success over the last few months has been strictly with being very hypersensitive to where her limits are. Prioritizing expectations. Not requiring them all at once. Slowly adding to her norm and let her adjust to each step. I thought maybe I was letting her get away with too much, enabling her. But patience is what she needed, something I can lack when it comes to Penelope. I push but lightly. I try to keep my pushing within her limits but ground gaining at the same time. If I push to hard, we get setbacks. Cleaning and chores is something that I have decided to back off on for the time being. Another thing is making sure to identify issues that could/should be handled by someone else and "outsource" them. Homework has been an issue for a while. I tried to let it be her issue, but then she just let it pile up and overwhelm her. I tried to make it a requirement but then she just lied about what her homework was and there was really no way to check it (we tried). Plus she started blaming me for "making her" do her homework. Not owning her choice to do it in order to get to watch TV. One week I took TV away from her for breaking a big rule and she stopped doing her homework. Why do you think she stopped? Because she doesn't get to watch TV so there is no point in doing homework. So I threw up my hands and "outsourced" it. Now, she is doing it. Her teacher has put in place incentives for complete homework assignments - beyond a good grade. Good grades are not immediate enough of a reward. Tardies are way down because she gets to listen to music while she works on assignments on Friday during one of her bells if she has no tardies for the week. That was huge for her. Also, she goes to a homework room after school to do her homework, which keeps her in the school mindset. When she gets home, she is ovewhelmed with the distractions just waiting for her - tv, food, pets etc.
She is less mouthy at home now. She brushes her hair and her teeth regularly. She is making her own breakfasts. She even is starting to help out with some chore related tasks - as long as she doesn't perceive them as chores or cleaning. We are getting there! Adding on a little at a time so at a certain point she is going to look back and go "What was the big deal?"
We have even decided to back off to every other a week attachment therapy and neurofeedback. We are still going to trauma therapy as often as we can. She still has some serious issues to deal with. One of the more prevalent issues she is dealing with is her dysfunctional relationship with the male gender. On one hand she is obsessed with boys but then on the other hand, she is afraid of them. She is looking for love, but is attracted to power. The boy she crushes on is a trouble maker and bully. He has been mean to her even but she only sees him as perfect and wonderful. She wants to be with him so badly that for almost a month she had her therapists and family believing that they were dating - full of stories about time they see each other at school and the wonderful things he says to her. It was hard to know if it was true. Her teacher did some PI work for us and said that it doesn't seem like it's true. Her stories were so dramatic, we had to know for sure. It turned out it was completely false and she was just living in a fantasy world she had created. She wanted to know what it would feel like to be his girlfriend so she imaged it and lived there in her head when she was at home. But she knew it wasn't real, just a person she'd rather be so played the role. We had to bring her around to refocusing all that energy in reality. She still does a fantasy thing saying things about how he gives her attention that I'm sure he doesn't. But that talk has lessened as she becomes more independent and doing more for herself. She talks a lot a LOT about the boys in her class, but mostly about how she is mean to them. She came out and said that she has rules. Rules that will never change, so don't try. If a boy is mean to her, she has to be mean back but worse. If a boy hurts her, she has to hurt them worse. Boys need to be scared of her in order for her to feel safe. She talks a lot about how mean she is to boys but in the same breath will talk about how she thinks they like her and want to be her boyfriend. I'm not sure where that comes from but her Dad was like that but in reverse. Any girl that said "Hi" "Boo" "Hiss" had the hots for him in his eyes. I always made a point to keep my friends away from him because he'd act like an idiot around them.
Anyway, the concern is that her feelings about the male gender is going to end her up pregnant. She is looking for acceptance and love at all costs.
The other big issue we have is she has developed a compulsive eating disorder. Pretty much always been there but over the past couple years, it's just escalated. Her father has a severe eating disorder and it's killing him. Growing up with her dad it was either feast or famine. Her mother starved her, her father fed her fast food breakfast, lunch and dinner, her step mother punished her by withholding food (and other things)... Penelope lost a lot of weight during that 6 months. If she was offered food she didn't eat, because she was afraid that her step-mother poisoned it. With me, I've tried to allow a certain amount of comfort food but mix in or do healthy versions of it. It hard to teach her proper eating when at the age of 8 when I got her, her favorite food was "the food at BP" when you were looking for an answer like "Italian." You stock the house full of fruit and vegetables but she'd rather starve than eat that stuff. She has added certain healthy foods to her acceptable food list but we continue working on that at home. I've bought some books for now on compulsive eating. Her AT has talked about down the road referring her to center that helps with eating disorders. She likes the approach at home for now since we are focusing on other issues right now. Things that can help with the reasons she has these compulsions.