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Post by toomuchlaundry on Jul 28, 2015 12:44:33 GMT
Hi all,
We're having a grim time with our two. Maybe we always have been. Certainly feels like it's been months and months and months now.
So, we have a bucket load of 'support' on paper...but all of it feels like a sticking plaster on a gaping wound that needs surgical intervention!
So, this is what we have:
School:
Full Statement for 1/SEN support plan, and evidence gathering for EHCP for the other. Great supportive staff. Nurture room. Attachment trained. Parents support group etc.
PAS:
Both of us seeing Adoption Specialist Psychologists
Theraplay
Occasional outings for kids organised by PASWs
Support groups
Support for us in Therapeutic Parenting
Anti-depressants for me. Supportive GP.
Package of money from local council SEND short breaks paying for holiday clubs (which is HUGELY helping today); swimming lessons occasional 'carer' hours on weekends etc.
Self funded cleaner.
Fab friends.
LM is under CAMHS. Tho we've only had 1 appointment so far; Psych we saw then has gone awol; so have all the notes! DH called them and got appt for friday!
LL has follow up appt with Paed next week. I've no idea where to start. I've lost the plot for explaining stuff.
So. That's a lot, isn't it?
Yet daily life is still carp. Both kids are horribly challenging. We are now having peeing on the carpet/in toy boxes/on toys, at least twice daily. Plus deliberate breaking toys, spitting, hitting, biting, the endless lying, stealing, rudeness, shall I go on...?!
Do we just have to ride the wave? Will it just all take time? Or do we have to accept that this is how life will always be? Will it? Were we just completely deluded when we took on these two?
Bear in mind I haven't had a single day alone with the children yet this summer (daddy home til today, they're at holiday club right now) so it's not just having more to cope with on holidays....
Thanks all.
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Post by corkwing on Jul 28, 2015 13:50:12 GMT
Hi, TML -
My personal opinion is that you're right when you say it's "sticking plaster on a gaping wound that needs surgical intervention".
What I'm trying to do is to stop focussing on the outcome for my kids. They may not get better/easier to live with. Trying to get them to change sometimes puts too much pressure on me and is too dispiriting and probably doesn't help our relationship very much. I'm trying to focus on "you are what you are and I love you anyway". And that's really difficult, particularly with years of Bryan Post, Dan Hughes, Holly van Gulden and all the rest firing solutions at me from every direction on how to get my kids to do this, that and the other.
I think that what our damaged kids need is way beyond what most of them will ever be offered and so they won't heal. I don't even know if they can heal. But I do know that if we don't love them then no one will and everybody needs love.
I can tell from your posts that you're providing that. That's an incredible thing to do and you're an amazing mum for doing it.
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Post by toomuchlaundry on Jul 28, 2015 15:14:34 GMT
Thank you, both.
Corkwing, wise words, as ever. I think we do need some sort of shift in our thinking, somehow. Tho right now I think hope of things changing is the only thing that keeps me going. Tho that hope is very small.
How would we feel if they never do? Doesn't bear thinking about.
Would we still love them? 1000%, but that's exactly what makes it so hard. If we didn't care it wouldn't matter.
We do feel that the unconditional love we're providing them, or at least trying to, is the one thing we're getting right, even tho we don't show it all the time. After weeks of 'bad day' reports at pick up time at school, I started saying explicitly: "whatever day you've had at school today, mummy and daddy always love you". I hope it's somewhere, somehow, starting to sink in.
My concern is always how to do any of this with more than one child. "Mummy and Daddy always love you" applies to both, and yet their behaviour is so corrosive to the wellbeing of each other.
This is so hard. I so love them.
x
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Post by flossie on Jul 28, 2015 16:26:00 GMT
Really feel for you, I struggle with one traumatised child and a well attached birth child....
ive certainly spent a lot of time recently telling myself, this is it, this is my life now, it's not going to change so I just need to get on with it. After 15 months of therapy, countless hours spent reading and practicing therapeutic techniques I can't see much changing...
i do feel like I'm grieving sometimes for the family I thought I was building and then comes the guilt...I hate that I feel disappointed in a way, more guilt as I know it's not my childrens fault....
i know this is of no practical use to you, just sending empathetic hugs!!
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Post by toomuchlaundry on Jul 28, 2015 16:58:30 GMT
Bless you Flossie. Thank you for the empathy. Sending some back!
What's really hit me is that in the past 9 months we've been approached about 2 birth siblings, and had discussions about whether we should be assessed to take them on. Both times it was a clear 'no way'. Totally right, but we always wanted a brood, and I guess I'd dreamt of being some kind of of super-adopter or something. So grieving is certainly a part of it.
Funny old thing, life. Our kids didn't ask to be in their position either, we had some level of choice, they had none. They need us x
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Post by moo on Aug 1, 2015 5:24:30 GMT
Some great advice tml already xxx just wanted to send you cyber support, hugs & damson gin xxxx
So sad to read your desire for more l/o & super adopter status xxx always such a sadness & leveller xx {{{}}}
Hope your sticking plaster is better by far than you dared hope xxx
Xx moo xx
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Post by nancydanfan on Aug 1, 2015 6:48:45 GMT
I am certainly not the poster for adoption success, but I think the best therapy we did for dd at the age of 9 was regression. It was being discussed on the AUK boards and my initial reactions were " that seems weird" but it also made sense in filling in the gaps of what dd had missed.
For a couple of hours a week I gave her little ducks to play with in the bath, gave her a massage, cuddled her on my lap whilst feeding her a bottle of milk ( that was a challenge as she was quite a big girl.) We did nursery rhymes and baby talk and lots of eye contact and she absolutely loved it. It actually helped me as she had told some very serious lies and emotionally I was pulling away from her to the extent it was hard to even look at her. The physical contact felt relaxed and genuine and it felt as if she was trusting me. Even the acting as if she was a baby helped me feel a greater empathy for her. Looking back now I think it may have been the thing that stopped us disrupting then. We had a few sessions with CAMHS. They were rubbish. Looking back I wonder if we had done the regression stuff sooner and for longer would our outcome have been better ?
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Post by bop on Aug 1, 2015 8:48:35 GMT
We still do regression stuff with our 12 and 13 year old - baby bottles at night, sometimes feed them, do hair, cuddles after a bath etc and it certainly seems to help them.
DD1 found it really hard to even do regression stuff with us - we'd be doing it with the other two and she'd maybe nominally join in, but could never do it alone....
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Post by leo on Aug 2, 2015 9:41:52 GMT
For us, the help that actually helped was finally being able to access assessment and treatment/therapy all from one organisation. Before this, I found we were constantly at appointments in varying different places and that each 'professional' only looked at things from their own point of view/area of expertise, only looked at the symptoms that presented themselves right at that very moment in their office and did not take account of any of the other difficulties or needs my children had.
The difference now we are thought about and understood as a family - with all of our needs and difficulties put into the mix before advice/support is given - is huge. I think it is this that has helped us the most - more so in reality than the actual therapy we receive!
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Post by toomuchlaundry on Aug 2, 2015 16:39:02 GMT
Thanks all, we now have a diagnosis for (severe) ADHD for Little Man, and medication to start in just under a week's time. We're hoping this will be 'actual help'. He now has 5 diagnoses to his name! Poor kiddy. Grateful for a fab psychiatrist this time tho.
Next we need to get super brave and book that long awaited night away for just us. !
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Post by larsti on Aug 3, 2015 14:38:18 GMT
Hugs TML (have always loved your username BTW!
Reading your thread and the recent diagnosis of ADHD made me think of Donatella's middly. Meds really helped, if memory serves. Certainly they are in a different place now from what they were a few years ago. And she has 3 (you probably know that) placed separately which is different again, but still several ACs. Whereas I always feel I can't help a right lot when we only have one AS!!
The right school setting also helped enormously in their case.
I am a great believer in 'one day at a time' and 'each day has enough trouble of its own' (although I can't take credit for the 'motto'....it's in the Bible!!) Not always easy to live by as fear can come in and we wonder how we will cope if things stay the same or get worse. Acceptance always helps in my experience.
Also as someone said to me at the weekend...'you never know what might happen'. This was apropos of my new policy of 'no more pets' When our 2 dogs and 2 cats die I am thinking 'enough'!!! She said they might outlive me.....so you know, we might get run over by the proverbial bus. why worry??? sorry for the black humour there :-)
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Post by corkwing on Aug 4, 2015 7:56:15 GMT
Hi, TML -
Hope the medication really helps! Mackerel was diagnosed with ADHD and they put him on Ritalin. Sent him hyper! I don't know what they've prescribed for Little Man but if the same happens, get straight back to them. Ours immediately changed the presecription to something else, which did help.
The night away for yourselves... Go for it! It is incredibly important to maintain our relationships.
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Post by toomuchlaundry on Aug 4, 2015 14:01:16 GMT
Thanks all. Corkwing: it is Ritalin. He'll start it on thursday after some tests at the GP's. We've got follow up with psychiatrist next week to see how it's going. Can't imagine what MORE hyper looks like! Scary!
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Post by nzhb on Aug 4, 2015 14:18:07 GMT
My AD has lots of diagnosis too. She has ADHD & is on long acting methylphenidate - BIG change for the better in her behaviour - less distracted, less 'silly', less verbal diarrhoea.
We have been very grateful that we have it!
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Post by littlemisscheerful on Aug 5, 2015 7:27:07 GMT
What would help me most is a clone of me, so I really could be in 2 places at once!
No other help, I'm afraid. In the same boat here.
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Post by peartree on Aug 9, 2015 18:33:53 GMT
Helps
We find time helps and timely interventions of therapy and support. Really we've been the people doing it all so we need proper support to do what we do, so psychotherapy ideally
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Post by lankelly on Aug 10, 2015 6:22:26 GMT
Hi there just wondering if the Ritalin had started yet and how little man was getting on with it?
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Post by toomuchlaundry on Aug 10, 2015 7:54:37 GMT
Thanks all. We're on the first week's trial of Ritalin to try to get the dose right. It does seem to be helping a fair bit. We certainly know when it's wearing off! It's definitely just part of the picture, but we're glad to have this part in place.
We've also gone and booked our first night away without the kiddies!! Feels less daunting now it's actually happening.
Thank you all for encouragement, support, kind words. Very much appreciated.
Tml x
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Post by corkwing on Aug 10, 2015 9:24:41 GMT
Great to hear that the Ritalin is working! That's brilliant. And enjoy the night away!
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