so instead I will use this blog for the purpose that it was intended.
Don't feel like listening to a bit of venting this morning....just pass this post. The thoughts and such that will be typed out may/may not be very Christ-like. They will probably not even come close to the standards and such of what I try to live up to everyday. And often fall short. I know that my Father in Heaven loves and all that other jazz. But today it just isn't something that I can accept, agree with, believe....
I knew when I picked my quarterly 'pick (aka work hours)' that taking the Extra Board (aka...on call ALL.THE.DANG.TIME) it would be tough. I knew there would be some really hard days. I knew there would be some really easy days. I can't complain about the board because I knew what it was like. I will complain though...about being tired. My day started at 4:45am yesterday. That does not include the 'shower, heat up some toast, warm up your car and travel the 10 miles across town'....I then worked until 5:40pm with little over an hour break. It was tough and emotionally draining.
This morning my day started at 4:45 again. Only today I am not booked with work...I'm sitting...and waiting....for WORK. For someone to call in sick, get in an accident, bus break down, ect ect. At this very moment there are about 7 or 8 people ahead of me waiting for work and there will be about 10-15 more coming in after me.
Last night I got home from work - physically and emotionally drained. I can't really go to bed before 10pm w/o having problems sleeping. I will wake up 2:00am unable to get back to sleep. So at 10pm...I promptly went to bed. I laid there tossing and turning.
The phone rang. I had fallen asleep (and I think my dh did, too) and we were kind of abruptly woken up. Because he didn't recognize the number James didn't answer it. I fell back to sleep very quickly. It is probably 10:30-10:45pm at this point.
This morning James leaves me a groggy message after he had listened to the voicemail...."the phone call last night was Cor. He was calling to wish us a belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Here is his message so you know what his voice sounds like".
WTF! Seriously?
I don't give a shit what his voice sounds like. (PLEASE don't get me wrong. I L.O.V.E. this kid. But I CAN'T love him like I did.....as in more than life itself....because otherwise....I would be 6 ft under.) I know what his voice sounds like. He's been calling our house phone every few days over the last few weeks asking 'is this James?" and when I so no...he hangs up. What is there to want to know right now. Nothing.
I don't want or expect my husband to carry the burden of having to talk to him. I've told him you don't have to talk to him because HE IS NOT our child ANYMORE!!! Remember? I've been supportive if he WANTS to talk to him. But he DOESN'T have to!! And for the last several months he hasn't. He even called one of the facilities he was in towards the beginning of the year and told them he was to stop calling w/requests and informed of them of a rather not so nice message we received.
We've not heard anything since early summer - late spring.
"Hi Dad...this is Cor. Just wanted to call and wish you a belated Merry Christmas. Hope you had a nice one. Happy New Year. Tell the kids I said Hi and love them.".
Hi Dad...tell the kids hi?!?!?!?!?!
Really? I've not taken his lack of asking how I am or wanting to talk to me personally. Yet, today....it feels pretty damn personal. It's pure bull shit. And it pisses me off. Things like this that I regret ever having fought as hard as I did.
Please don't tell me it isn't personal. That he can't help it. Because even though I really do know and believe this fact...it doesn't change how I feel. It doesn't take away any of it.
This child change who I am as a person. How I look at other people. HOw I react to other people. It didn't change me for the better, in my ever so not so humble opinion...it changed me for the worse. The idiots that were involved w/us as professionals to help us to the idiots in the end to the current idiots.
There are a few other things I would say, too about those idiots. But because this is a public blog I can't publicly write what those other thoughts are. Just know....I'm not an evil person...but I think evil at times. And today is one of them.
How the hell is it that 1 innocent phone call from a hurting young man....who wants to just connect with the only person (my dh) that he considers family can send me from wavering back and forth in the depression hole to a full fledge.....spiral of downward stuff. Its shit. And it sucks. And the only enemy I would wish this upon would be the asshats that put us in this situation. Who from the VERY VERY VERY BEGINNING LIKE DAY 2 of him being in our home (before we had any issues) that 'when it comes to attachment if you provide him with a loving home and meet his needs.....HE will be fine" Dumb ass. How stupid can you be? Really, you make me want to puke. It is a pretty safe bet that he and I will never meet face to face again on this side of Heaven. Heck, today I'm not going to be going anywhere that lovely.I hope I never see his face again. Actually, HE better hope.
I know that the LDS SS agency moved him to another location 1/2 way across the nation when the crap started to hit the fan here. They claim it was because he got a promotion. I believe that about as much as I believe I need a new hole in my head.
The last thing we ever wanted was for this boy to not have a family. But because people with degrees, who never sat 8 mo. pregnant in the middle of a love hold bc the raging 8 yrold was going to hurt himself or your 2.5 yr old baby.....never walked a day in my shoes.....lied to us. They never walked a day in our shoes. Hell, we were lied to even AFTER our disruption and all the way up until the disruption. And I'm sure we would still be lied to and about.
I'll end because nothing is going to be productive with me venting this.
9 comments:
All I can say is that I PTSD the way you PTSD. Which is one of the reasons I feel so fiercely loyal to you, the reason we "get" each other so well. And I'm sorry, because I know how Cor can rock you, and that sucks.
exactly Corey. It has rocked me to the core.
and...James just told me that he got 'another' call today. The phone number....is his damn CELL PHONE NUMBER! WTH...really?
RAD sucks. Trauma sucks. It all sucks!! There's nothing pretty about any of it. And yes, there are days, even when we know in our heads what is going on, that it still stabs us right through the heart.
Just so you know, there's not a lot of love between us and LDSFS either. They are really good at selling pipe dreams, but like so many other places, they NEED to train their social workers better and they NEED to give a LOT better support to adoptive families!! I personally think one of their biggest problems is that their workers are either young or old. LDSFS is a spring board for them to jump start their careers or it's their final resting place before they retire.
As far as adoption goes, their forte is placing infants at birth with families where this will be the first child. That never was us. There’s also no cap on the # of adoptive families they will accept. As far as they are concerned, the more the better because there’s more for their birth moms to choose from. Problem is, there are 75 families waiting for every baby that is available...and 73 of them would make phenomenal parents. They don't know jack about the issues that come with adopting older kids, including attachment. Nor do they deal at all with early childhood trauma. Neither does DCFS (which is *GAHHHH* so stinking frightening and why our system is totally screwed.) Thankfully, as more and more people have adopted older kids, LDSFS seems to have realized they aren't equipped to deal with these special kids or their families. They would not even consider taking us on after we brought the boys home. Hindsight being what it is, I’m actually glad now! At least they’re trying to grow up and realize it’s better to turn them away than take them on and get in over their heads.
Even being desperate as we were at the time for help, though, even if they would have taken us, I don't think I would have trusted them anyway. They did NOTHING to support us during the 2.5 years we tried to adopt through them. We and several others we know have been involved in counseling with them at various times for other issues as well. No one I know has really been helped by them...except the families who were lucky enough to get placements through them. In very recent years, I've also seen some people have some success with addiction recovery and couple’s marriage therapy through them. But for the most part, most people get NO help from them or LDSFS ends up make things worse simply because the issues people are bringing in are bigger than what their therapists are trained to deal with. They might be owned by the church, but they are still a BUSINESS that is run like a BUSINESS. It is a commercial interest of the church created to hopefully fill a need for it’s members. They are supposed to uphold the doctrines of the church, but they aren’t overseen by church in the same way that a ward or a stake is.
Ok...now for the fun part!
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Don’t you worry about venting. It can actually be a very healthy part of processing and healing. In fact, it is a key part of the of the emotional "funeral" process. Since you've already done the hardest part with this post, I'm going to challenge you to take it a step further and finish the job. Trust me on this one, girlfriend. You’ll be so glad you did!
All funerals (especially our LDS ones) follow a certain order. Viewing...Eulogy Service...Burial...Lunch. Remember that order. It is very important. Just as that order is important protocol for a real funeral of a deceased person, it is likewise important for emotional healing as well. Every one of those stages will also need to be passed through in their proper order before we can finally put our emotional junk to rest.
The viewing is where we look at the whole picture of stuff that is bugging us and weighing us down. From my outside perspective, it looks like you’ve been stuck in the viewing phase for a very long time. That’s a pretty common place to get stuck, too. That whole picture can look pretty dang overwhelming and sometimes there’s so much stuff in there we can’t see the exit doors anymore. I know. I’ve been stuck in that viewing place myself. Shoot. I was so stuck that I wasn’t even viewing or processing anything anymore. I was just completely exhausted and numb to everything. My overwhelming place was full of different stuff than yours is, but the weight of it was still crushing and there was a time when it very nearly buried me alive. It was at that point someone showed me the way out. I still know where the door is. C’mon. I’ll show you the way. :-)
The eulogy service is where we take just one component of that whole and start to break it down. We talk about it. We share the details. We give ourselves permission to bring it out in the open, to say those words we’ve been too afraid to say before (even the colorful stuff), and most importantly, we give ourselves permission to FEEL those emotions that are lurking behind the facts. With this post, you FINALLY broke through the barrier and started doing just that! Without even realizing you were doing it, you very nearly completed a eulogy, too.
Not only is this eulogy portion BY FAR the hardest part of the emotional funeral process, but it’s also the point in which you can quickly relapse back into that stuck and helpless place (and actually cause it to look even more overwhelming) if you don’t finish the process. I don’t want to see that happen to you!
So, here comes the challenge. It’s time to finish the eulogy and move on to the burial. Since you've come this far and done your ranting, I want you to sit down now and draw a lovely picture of this person you're still angry with. Not Cor. He'll come later. For now, just keep breathing (a lot!) and try to ignore him as best you can. Remember what you know about trauma and keep repeating it over and over. For now, do the social worker dude. Make him fat, bald, ugly, and draw zits all over his face or whatever else strikes your fancy.
I personally like using crayons for this little exercise. They have a magic way of allowing you to break through inhibitions and be a lot more fluid and childlike and free in your expression. They are most excellent for scribbling all over your drawing, too. Don’t worry if you break a few of them along way. They’re cheap and easy to replace. And let’s be honest...sometimes it feels pretty dang good TO break them! And thus concludes the eulogy.
Now it’s time to move on to the burial. This is where you physically remove that emotional junk (the representation of it, anyway) from your world. This is actually the most fun part of this whole process. Seriously. There is a genuine fun part to all of this!
Once your picture is finished, I want you to destroy it. Spit on it, jump on it, scream at it, poke holes in it (you might as well aim straight for the eyes) and then rip it up into tiny shreds.
Still more...
Blogger was being a pain and I can't remember where I left off! Ugh! Sorry if some of this repeats.
Anyway, now it’s time to move on to the burial. This is where you physically remove that emotional junk (the representation of it, anyway) from your world. This is actually the most fun part of this whole process. Seriously. There is a genuine fun part to all of this!
Once your picture is finished, I want you to destroy it. Spit on it, jump on it, scream at it, poke holes in it (you might as well aim straight for the eyes) and then rip it up into tiny shreds. Now that it’s completely destroyed, it’s time to get rid of it. That doesn’t mean stick it in a box on your shelf. It means make it physically leave your home and your world. You can flush the shreds down the toilet, you can burn them in a blaze of glory, you can sprinkle the ashes in the litter box to be forever peed on by your cat, you can dig a hole in the yard and bury it like an animal buries it's crap...and then plant a tree on top of it if you want...because, you know, crap makes good fertilizer :-), or my personal favorite...stick them in an envelope, put a stamp on them, drive to the post office, and mail them to an out of state dry cleaners with no return address on the envelope. After all, it is dirty laundry!! :-) The point is just do something crazy and over the top and very, very deliberate. You’ll be amazed at how incredibly freeing this is!! Hint: merely putting the shred outside in the trash can for the garbage man to collect on trash day isn’t going to cut it. It’s got to be way bigger and way more deliberate than that to be really effective.
Once you’ve had your fun with the burial, let me know. There’s one step left...we gotta have lunch. Get through this part and then we’ll talk about the most important step...the one where light and hope and peace and rest are finally found. It’s also where you start to free up the emotional space you need to keep on dealing with the bigger fish.
I love your sweet heart(s)! Both of you!
P.S.
The social worker...the first one...he is only ONE of many. We were 'tempted' to move to a 'smaller' town couple of years ago. When I remembered that the 'last' SW we dealt with lived in that town, had twins the same age as my daughter who would be in the same grade and a son the same age as my boy...well....I decided it was safer for HIM that we didn't move there. So...we didn't.
G
I really understand the part about how parenting that child changed "who I am as a person. How I look at other people. How I react to other people." It is so true and so sad because my other children were robbed of a better parent as well as everything else that they lost.
I also got a phone call today from my oldest and had to give myself a reboot to be able to shake it off...hearing his voice. I am amazed how much it still trips me up.
I love Diana's idea for the picture.
Wishing you some peace...
Just tackle one of them for now. Take one person, write out every stinking think you've ever wanted to say to them but never could. Don't worry about grammar, spelling, or even colorful language. Just let' er rip! Then draw your picture, then destroy it. After you've done all that, we'll talk about the last step.
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