A Messy Life, Sometimes

Everything feels messy right now. Its been another crazy, busy weekend. Dancing Baby Girl has been with us since Friday, Kendra and her friend flew out tonight to San Francisco for their Spring Break/College Visit trip, my oldest son, Bart is off to Columbus, OH to see an old friend and meet up with his girlfriend who goes to school not too far from there, and my dh is off at a sleep clinic for the night getting his sleep monitored and analyzed. And I, I am pretty much a mess.

I had a first interview for one of the jobs on Friday and it went well. So I should be happy right? But taking this step means that I am going to be giving up an identity that has defined me for 20 years, if I take a job I will not be a foster mom any more. And I really think that once I get out of it, there is no way that I will convince my dh to get back in again. So I am doing grieving stuff in my head.

Dancing Baby Girl's situation is not improving and I am very concerned that she and her birth parents are not bonding. The parents seem way too eager for me to come get her at every opportunity and DBG resists with every fiber of her being going back to be with them. There is no specific concern of abuse but things just don't feel right to me. On top of that DBG is developing some behaviors that I find very difficult to deal with, a lot of attitude stuff, and screaming instead of discussing, etc. Makes me really wonder if anyone is listening to her.

On our walk to day, actually our pull since she sat in the wagon, when I started to turn down a street she was yelling and screaming at me. When I told her she only had to speak nicely to me and ask to not turn down that street and I would listen to her she looked at me like "OH". Anyway at the next block she says sweet as can be "Mommy, go that way, not this way." and she remembered to speak respectfully the rest of the walk. It is like she thinks that she will not be listened to at all so she has to start out fighting at the top of her voice. She didn't use to be like that.

So there is that. On top of all this coming and going we have been in contact with our oldest daughter's placement and she is sliding quickly downhill following the typical pathways. First she holds her bowels and despite repeated medical intervention she will not poop, so then she gets rashes and bladder infections which trigger her PTSD something awful. Then she gets paranoid that the staff are not helping her, they are trying to hurt her, ditto for medical folk and for the medicines she is prescribed. Fairly soon she will slip into psychosis and then she will either hurt herself or others. Then she will put into the psych hospital and it will be very horrible for a few weeks. Even when she has gotten "better", she will have in all likelihood lost her placement and she will have to sit in the psych hospital indefinitely until another provider decides to take a chance on her. I do not mean to be pessimistic, it is just that we have experienced this cycle with her since she was 8 years old and in 12 years I have learned to see it coming from afar.
Often it is frustrating because there is no specific triggering event, but this time it is even more frustrating because there is one. Last week her SW went down to talk with her and got her all excited about going to court in a few months and becoming her own guardian. (Without our knowledge) Now this is a young woman with an IQ of 55 (on a good day), with repeated psychotic breaks, who has major medical issues that might require surgery in the near future and who takes many medications each day that she has no clue how to take on her own. I think she is a great candidate for emancipation don't you? This has obviously scared Brooke quite a bit and she is beside herself with anxiety.

A little background, three years ago when she was 16.5 we had to let her go into the temporary custody of the state in order for her to get services. There is a good program called Supports for Community Living but she would not be eligible until age 21 and even then there would be a 10 year waiting list. Except that there was a loophole, if she was in state's custody they could get her into the program through the backdoor and when she turned 21 and aged out of the state's care as a foster child she would have a backdoor right into the funding source. Good plan, on paper anyway. What is now happening is that the state is trying to get her emancipated before her 21st birthday so that she will not be eligible for the SCL waiver.

We will of course be fighting all of this, but boy it makes me tired and messes with my head.

To add to the messy theme, my house has reached gross and disgusting and I have little to no interest in getting in there and doing the deep cleaning and organizing that needs to be done. One of the side effects of the depression that has gripped me since Dancing Baby Girl was reunited is that simple organizational tasks around the house just become impossible. Partly I know it is because there is too much in the house that reminds me of her living with us.

I need to go to bed. Sorry for the late night ramblings.