Operator, I need back my dime

So I had my first phone call last week with my daughter. They had warned me it would not be pretty. They warned me that she would use certain things against me. Things that she knew would get to me, she would yell out and try to pull out my heart. I was ready, through my own therapy sessions (thanks, Christine!) I was prepared and I had little saying wrote on notebook paper to keep repeating to her in case she went broken record on me.

She did.

At first, I almost started to lose it and cry. Speaker phone magnified that fact that to me, she is still 5 years old. But she really is not. She is the teeanager that I have had to call the police on almost nightly. She is the teenager that I caught smoking pot. She is the teenager that decided to have sex with her boyfriend and then scare me to death by announcing she was pregnant. This is the girl that hated my guts and would not let me touch or hug her for years.

Whew, that was a close one. I dried up the tears and the therpist started to talk. He wanted to know why we had put her in this school. We stated many, many reasons. He wanted to know if we were nervous with her at home. Definitely we were many nights, especially when she was having episodes and no one could control her. Once I started to talk this out with the therapist, she strted to yell in the background and for a few minutes, her old voice came back. She stopped calling me mommy. She demanded that I return her home. And then I remembered full well why I had brought her to the school.

A month has passed, and she has done alot of thinking. But no one, and I mean no one, can change in a month. This is going to take alot of months of reprogrammig. Lots of therpy. She claimed that her pants do not fit her anymore and that she is gaining weight. I am alright with that, becuase at home she never ate and was dangerously losing weight. Also, she cannot smoke there 🙂 and I am sure she is gaining weight because of that. These are not issues that were pulling at my heart.

The one issue that got to me was the lice problem a girl came onto her unit with. All of the girls get checked on a weekly basis, and this girl was new. So everyone had to get a treatment. Now I am a hairdresser and she knows that lice gives me the heebie jeebies. So, BINGO! She got me there. I immediatedly called the school after the call to complain and ask what the hell was going on. It was one girl, and they treated her. Everyone got new sheets and pillow cases to sleep on. I sent new brushes and I will continue to send new brushes. I think it will pass.

She is claiming that her stuff is getting stolen so I had to call the school and make sure she has what she needs. Evidently the expensive shampoo that I sent her was not even being used by her. She has been using some cheap Suave stuff that smells like strawberries and a girl took it, so she had to use what I had given her. Poor baby. It does not smell like strawberries, it was a much better salon shampoo. But if she is not using it anyway and wants to use the Suave stuff she can get there at the school store, I should not feel bad for her. I need to learn to let go. I cannot shower her with all of this stuff. I am sure this is a big reason why she cannot deal with things in life. I am learning this in my own therapy. My need to cover her with everything and make sure that she never goes one second without has created the weirdest bubble around her, impenetrable. She needs to learn how to live life without me giving her everything. WE are trying. We will continue to try.  If someone steals her shampoo, then she is going to have to learn what actions to take to rectify that situation. I will not always be there.

I have another phone call this Thursday. I am a little scared, but a little excited. I know she will cry. But I will be strong. I keep in touch with the school every day and I know what is going on. I send her packages loaded with things, but maybe I need to back off. She will find that she is very crafty at getting what she needs. She did here. She did not need me for anygthing at all. I am going to step back for a while and see where it takes me.

~ by trinity0909 on April 7, 2009.