We’ve stopped Attachment Therapy. Somewhere along the lines, Penelope’s Medicaid was cancelled. I have no idea how or why. She is eligible based on her disability. I sign forms at the therapist office related to her treatment plan and progress that is for Medicaid. But I received call from the billing office saying that their last 6 months of bills were rejected by Medicaid due to no coverage. For 6 months. I haven’t received anything in the mail on this. Now I have to pay for 6 months of therapy on top of everything else I owe them.
This is not the first time this has happened in their billing office. Don’t tell me this far out that there is a problem. I can’t help fix it this far out! In the past it was issues that I had already resolved when Penelope was under her father’s company insurance and they were having company wide insurance problems and switching around every couple of months. Drove me batty. I thought that problem would go away when she went on Medicaid.
Now I’m trying to get her Medicaid reinstated but just like everything else, it’s a slow process. She is uninsured. I hate that! I can’t put her on my insurance because it’s past the 30 day window and my company’s insurance renews January 1. It’s not like I could afford it anyway. I looked into it and it would be 40% of my pay!
So, we stopped going to therapy. I’m just so glad we are at a place that we don’t NEED therapy for her. I don’t know how affective it was towards the end anyway. Penelope is in a much better place than she ever was. We still have a lot of areas to work on, but I feel like attachment therapy was greatly about putting out fires. When there are no fires, we spent are time being hypervigiliant – waiting for the next fire to put out instead of pushing on. To some extent it made me feel like a complainer, still coming to the couch with areas of need and concern. Not significant ones. More like issues with chores and school work and Penelope not doing anything until being prompted. Penelope just doesn’t want to do anything to help out. Period.
But I will say, it’s not because she doesn’t want to help out. She doesn’t think of it in those terms. I’m not taking it personally – very often. Doing anything at all causes her to get anxious. Sometimes it’s an excited anxious. Sometimes it’s a frustrated anxiousness. But she avoids anything that makes her anxious. I have to read her anxiety level and divert her attention and do things that are mood altering to calm her down so she can get through whatever it is she needs to do. In the mornings, I have to be silly and energetic to get her to feed off of my energy to get herself ready and to school. I’m not a morning person! When we do chores, I have to keep things fun and care free so she doesn’t stress out about having to do something she doesn’t want to do and just totally shut down. I’m not that kind of person and it wears me out!
She will be 16 this summer. Not sure our momentum towards self-reliance is going to get her there by the end of high school. She said “I know how to do these things. I just don’t want to now. But I’ll do it when I’m an adult.” I told her “It’s not a switch you just turn on when it’s time. It’s a life style. Habit.” Ironically, we were watching a movie later that evening and a similar scenario came on and the character said “It’s not like a switch you turn on.” Penelope looked at me with big eyes. Ha!
Once I get her back on insurance, I think I'm going to shop around for therapist that can be more like a life coach. If that's possible. It will be nice to have the break from driving an hour plus each way to therapy. I do want to say, I love our attachment therapist and will miss her. She saved our lives. I couldn't have done it without her.
