There's a lot we've been dealing with since school started this fall. I have kept quiet because...
well...
it's been scary!
If you can't handle a little scary, close this link immediately. It's about to get ugly, folks! Time to come clean with y'all because handling this solo is just too much. I can't do it anymore.
School started with it's usual fashion. Issues here and there for our girl. Bus anxieties. Peer issues all over the place! Learning troubles, particularly with math. Trouble respecting teachers and staff. But then we had 3 pretty significant events.
~~ EVENT ONE ~~
Right before Halloween we had our first big incident in a long while. During recess, Quiet Tiger and a handful of other girls were trying to one-up each other with scary stories. Most seemed quite age-appropriate, but Quiet Tiger's were way too over the top. She pointed to a particular man in a car in the school parking lot and proceeded to tell her friends that the man killed her twin sister and was threatening to kill the rest of the family. She proceeded to tell them to watch his arm, because if he put his arm out the window of the car, it meant he was going to blow the school up. She ended her tale by threatening her friends with a punch in the face if they told any teachers or school staff.
The smart kids spoke up and told the teacher. I then got a phone call from the school.
A call like that with a story like that sends a mom into panic mode. Such a horrifically twisted story made our girl sound like the handful of schizophrenic people who used to attend our church in Chicago that Jay had to interact with regularly as part of his security detail.
I called our primary care doc and had them document the whole thing in her chart. I called her child psychiatrist and she wasn't able to see us for weeks. I called our primary care doc back and asked for a referral to a new child psychiatrist and a child psychologist (trauma certified, preferably). I called our insurance, then our ComPsych benefits division of our insurance. An entire afternoon spent on the phone and scribbling notes of every conversation I had, documenting everything.
Within a few days we were in a new psychiatrist's office. Upon hearing our history and current status, she was quick to get our daughter on Lexapro to help level Lauren's moods and anxieties. She also prescribed 2 sleep meds. For the first time in SEVEN YEARS, I finally had a doc listen to me, watch the security cam video and agree that my daughter wasn't sleeping. So we left with Clonidine to get her to sleep and Trazodone to help her stay asleep. In the months that followed, we tweaked dosages with regular monthly psychiatric visits. And we also scheduled a NeuroPsych Evaluation with a PhD, trauma-informed Child Psychologist and waited for that appointment.
In the meantime, the school started documenting Lauren's behaviors on daily Check-In Sheets that all teachers would complete throughout the day. I'd get to see the good days, the bad days, the in between.
Christmas was nice and peaceful and downright enjoyable with our girl. Probably one of the most pleasant holidays we've had in years with our girl who typically gets very dysregulated during holidays.....
~~ EVENT TWO ~~
Then why on earth would she go to school and tell the teacher that her brothers beat her up over the holiday break?
I was at the office on a Thursday morning a couple weeks ago when Jay got a call on his cell phone from the county. The gal from the county told him that the school alerted the county to a problem and they needed to speak with us. Jay handed the phone to me. Seems a boy in Lauren's class said something to a teacher about getting in a fight with siblings over the Christmas break. In response, Lauren rose her hand and said her brothers beat her up over break. The school called the county to report it.
Mortified! I began shaking and furious, full-on Mama Bear out to protect her boys.
I told Lauren's backstory to the gal from the county. I told her about our past psychiatrist, new psychiatrist, psychologist we were still waiting on for testing, meds we had given her in the past, meds we were giving currently. I told her the diagnoses we know: Reactive Attachment Disorder, PTSD and Anxiety. She immediately understood where I was coming from. She was familiar with the unique needs of children adopted internationally from orphanages. She was familiar with trauma, attachment, neglect, even issues while in utero! I felt much more at ease. She assured me that no CPS investigation would be held. And she asked how the county could help us. She agreed that there is little professional help out there that works for kids like mine. She was kind and gracious.
But Mama Bear ran right out and bought another security camera for our main floor. We had to have a camera on our girl in the house in order to protect ourselves from her lies.
A few days after that, Lauren and Jay were talking one night after dinner. I was avoiding conversation, hiding behind my laptop as I absentmindedly browsed Pinterest. I cannot recall how they got on the subject, but Lauren started telling the story of a book she had read over the summer called The Terrible Truth About Third Grade. The main character thinks her life, her town, her school, the people around her are all boring. She decides to make life more interesting by telling lie, after lie, after lie. I cringed thinking my daughter was acting out what she had read in the book. After putting her to bed that very night, I blitzed through the book (it was in our basement) and sadly, there wasn't much redeeming value at the end of the book, no remorse for her lies, no lesson learned. UGH! It was all starting to make sense. But it all seemed so.....
highly abnormal!
We had our NeuroPsych testing on Martin Luther King Day. We miraculously got squeezed in and insurance pushed through their approval in days, as opposed to weeks. Lauren was wild, unruly, rude and disrespectful to the doctor. She sighed, rolled her eyes, was non-compliant, all out embarrassing for any mom to hear. But it was Lauren showing her colors..... to a complete stranger, a professional.
Sigh.
The doctor came out to me in the lobby and the first thing she said to me is, "Brooke, how are you doing this?" Lauren exhausted her. We spoke for about an hour, getting a refresher about how severe malnutrition in the first 2 years of life damages a growing baby's brain -- permanently. For so long we had been working on attachment, thinking RAD was our main issue, one that could be overcome. I had put the food issues aside. This reminder of possible permanent damage sobered me. I left with the hopes of results somewhere within 30-60 days. We're still waiting.
That leads us to this past week.
~~ EVENT THREE ~~
On Wednesday this week I got a call from the school at approximately 2:40pm. Lauren had refused to get on the bus to come home and I had to go pick her up. I figured it was just her having bus issues again and wanting to control mom and make me come get her. I had been in mismatched yoga pants and long sleeved T because I had been feeling lousy that day and intended on doing homeschool with Ethan and cleaning house. No need for presentable clothes or make-up for a mom not leaving her house that day. But I went to pick up Lauren thinking she'd be waiting by the flag pole or would be walked out to the curb and I wouldn't have to go inside and see anyone. I called my friend Hilary on the way because she had called me earlier in the day and I couldn't take her phone call. So I returned her call while I was driving the 20 minutes to the school and told her what was up.
I got into the parking lot, said good bye to Hilary and realized that there was no Lauren outside, so I had to go into the school looking like something the cat dragged in. Worse, actually. No Lauren to be seen. I was taken into the Executive Director's office where we made introductions and I was asked to tell a bit of Lauren's story. I was baffled why this was happening. We also discussed the IEP process which we've had in process since right before Christmas break. The conversation ended 15 minutes later or so and we went to get Lauren.
But she wasn't in the conference room where I was told she'd be. Instead I saw the floor with her jacket, shoes and backpack all over the floor, scattered. What on earth was going on? The 504 Coordinator came out and told me of an incident on the playground at recess. Seems Lauren and her friends had a game they were making up and the other girls went to the monkey bars. Being limb different, Lauren hasn't figured out how to adapt to monkey bars. That set her off. The rest of the afternoon she had a bad day at school. It ate at her. And when it came time for dismissal, she started yelling and screaming and carrying on loudly, in front of peers, teachers and staff, screaming that she was not getting on the bus and that no one could make her.
Well, true. The school couldn't pick her up and plop her in a bus seat.
They took her inside where they hoped to calm her down, but she only escalated to rage mode.
After I heard the story I was shown to the school counselor's office where Lauren had backed herself into a corner. She gave me a weird look and asked me what I was doing there. I told her I was there to take her home. She refused to go with me, insisting she'd stay at the school. The counselor and I both said that wasn't an option. We began to hear ridiculous stories about how she could hide in a garbage can and no one would know and skunks and bears would come and you know how bears kill people, mom.
Ranting, raving, lunatic. To put it nicely.
I'm only guessing here because time was not a concept I could comprehend in that moment, but after maybe 15-20 minutes of getting nowhere, the 504 gal and the teacher brought me out to the school lobby again. All were baffled. After a breather, I went back in and tried to hold Lauren's hands and bring her out by walking with me. She put on the skids and would not come with me. At this point, I became afraid of touching her. I may be 5-foot 3, but I can still pick up my girl and throw her over my shoulder and get her where she needs to be. But this was the school that reported my boys to the county.
I was afraid to touch my own daughter in that moment because I couldn't trust the school. We tried talking over and over again, 20-30 more minutes. Everything she said was agitated, ranting, senseless, irrational. One minute she'd rant, then the next she'd pick up a toy off the counselor's desk and would start baby talking about it. I got another break and at that point, I picked up a school phone and called my husband. Thinking my trip into the school would be a fast one, I had left my purse and phone locked in my car. Jay didn't recognize the school number so he declined the call and I called his office to talk to his assistant. Amy told me she'd reach him and tell him Lauren was having a mental health crisis and that I needed to talk to him. I then ran to my car for my phone and purse. On my way back inside, I posted, "PRAY NOW" on my Facebook page. Maybe it was inappropriate of me to be on Facebook when my daughter was acting like a raving lunatic, but I needed prayer. I also saw that Hilary had texted me to see if all was okay. When I didn't respond, she texted Carson who was back home. When she learned I wasn't home yet, she became concerned. I texted her back just when I got back inside when the 504 gal was asked to call 911. Lauren started ranting about wanting to kill herself, knew where the knives were in the house, how she'd climb up to get them, how everyone in the world wanted her dead, how we never should have adopted her, how everyone hated her, how she would run off into the woods and die. You name it, she said it.
The school had no choice but to call the authorities.
The Wright County Sheriff arrived. He had been through this with teens, but not so much a 9 year old. He tried everything the school counselor had tried. I swear, they were trained by the same organization! Almost verbatim, their words, their questions, their responses were identical. But Lauren refused to go to the officer. Whose 9 year old child is a complete belligerent jerk to a police officer? MINE.
O..... M...... G.
Jay called me and told me he was on his way from a meeting about half hour away. The ambulance arrived and pulled up right in front of the counselor's office window. Lauren watched and started asking questions. Everyone told her that if she didn't go home with me, she'd be forced to go to the hospital in the ambulance. She didn't want either option. She told everyone in the room, teacher, 504 coordinator, school counselor, sheriff, and me that we didn't want to help her, we couldn't help her, no one could help her and she didn't want help from anyone. Raving mad. Over and over again. The officer held off the medics, hoping he could still talk her out of the corner of the office and get her to go with me.
Jay arrived shortly after 4:30. Keep in mind, school dismissal is 2:30. So we were 2+ hours into this by now. As I watched Jay walking in, I thought I could use that as motivation to get her out of the office and up to the lobby to meet Jay. After all, the school's front door would be locked and we'd have to let him in. With a little bit of refusal, she eventually came out. Then the conversation, the circles, the craziness continued for Jay. I let him try to talk her down.
Then Hilary arrived. She had seen my text about the 911 call while she was in mid-dinner prep, turned off her stove and drove over. I excused myself from the drama and went out to hug her neck and sob on her shoulder. The 504 gal followed me. Seemed Lauren was curious why I was outside crying, that's what the gal told me. Around 5:15, Jay had picked Lauren up and with the help of the officer, carried her to his truck. She kicked off her boots and fought the seat belt. Jay removed any possible projectile objects from the back seat.
THREE HOURS after school was dismissed and she was finally leaving. And we were all exhausted. I stood in the parking lot with Hilary and we cried some more, swore plenty (including a few F-bombs from your's truly --
not sorry!), and I drove home in my car.
The girl was screaming at Jay in the living room when I arrived and went upstairs to a quiet room to call a triage nurse at our psychiatrist's office. The decision was made that if she became violent or said more words about death or suicide, we'd drive her to the ER immediately. But she calmed down. Considerably. We ate dinner and put her to bed with her meds.
Thursday, I was supposed to be at the office, but I stayed home, as did Lauren, and I spent all morning on the phone with docs' offices, insurance, ComPsych, and multiple hospitals trying to find out what to do because I had learned that our regular psych was out of the office all week. Our girl needed to be seen and I needed to know where to take her, what was in network, and if I needed any prior approval.
When Jay was home for the night, we took her to U of M downtown to have her undergo a psychiatric assessment.
And that's where the more consistent Facebook posts came in. To wind down an already very long story....
- She was a delight on the drive downtown.
- We waited in the hallway to be seen by a nurse.
- The nurse showed us to a room where she asked a few basic questions.
- We waited a while and Lauren became anxious, but not manic.
- We needed the crazy to show and that's ALL I prayed for -- THE CRAZY!
- We were transferred to the Children's Psych Floor where we waited more.
- Two hours here, two hours there.
- We finally met the psych who only heard our story.
- He said it was all behavioral and sent us home to follow up with our regular psych next week.
- We got home just after 1am.
- The girl did not sleep a wink even on the drive home.
- I got her her bedtime meds and put her to bed.
- We unpacked the info with the boys.
- And bedtime for us came at 2am.
This is not good news friends. This is NOT behavioral. So not behavioral! What part of this sounds like she's just having a behavioral meltdown? She's a mess and something is not right in her brain. At the Psych Ward, if you're not bat-s#*^ crazy, they send you home. We knew that going in, and it was true for us too. Sure, Lauren LOVED the attention, LOVED the control she had at the school by stealing 3 hours of everyone's afternoon, and zapping all our energy. She even LOVED the hospital.
But this is so NOT behavioral! This is a child who is so damaged, broken and in need of professional help. Yet no one knows how to help us, or any families like ours. We could spend hundreds, thousands, on doctors and therapies and get absolutely nowhere. So....
- We send Lauren to school on Monday and hope for the best. I don't even know what to ask you to pray for. But pray for the staff's energy and capacity to deal with her, no matter what she dishes out!
- We go to our regular psych on Tuesday afternoon. Pray she sees the desperate need for further intervention and has options for us!
- We wait for the results of our NeuroPsych testing. Pray they get here sooner than later, especially since the doc is busy and back-logged! Results will give us more diagnoses and suggestions for any therapies that *might* help.
That's where we are. We're tired. We're exhausted. She was great today at home though! No surprise there (insert eye roll). We have a work trip coming up in just a matter of days. We need the getaway DESPERATELY and we'll talk to the doc on Tuesday about the feasibility of us going. At the very least, I'll stay home and Jay will go. But that will SUCK! And I worry how bad it will look to leave a messed up girl home while mom and dad go off around the world again for another Edward Jones adventure. But most of you don't live my life and I can't worry about what people think anymore. I don't have time for that.
We need your support, your prayer and your love.
Thanks for being part of our prayer and support team. Never in a million years did I think we'd ever find ourselves in a situation like this. Never!
We need our village now more than ever.
