Walking Freely Amongst The Normal

Sarah explained to me that ING accounts, an online banking resource for saving money, allows you to rename each account, to have as many as you need, and when one saves monthly for the big ticket items such as Christmas or appliances this is such a plus for me. I did have one some time back, but had closed it when I'd paid off something or another. I've since reopened and recommitted, Christmas will be here before I know it and I'm not gonna use a credit card.

My 40th kid line confused some yesterday, as I wasn't very clear. I've tried to de-identify as often as is possible, to be vague for protection purposes, to weave some older events through my sadly true experiences and stories, and if that kid then had been finalized already in their adoption, it wouldn't have been possible to send a serious offender back to Texas. It was scary and heartbreaking at the same time. I did stay in touch with him, later with an unofficial foster parent trying to supervise a difficult launch into adulthood for this one guy.

Chuy slept in his contacts. Nurse Faye, pronounced as one word by all the kids who've known her since she'd been their elementary school nurse also, well she'd called me to let me know she feared pink eye. Yeah, me too, but I'd taken him to an eye doctor yesterday, found it was thankfully not a virus, obtained prescription drops, blown the entire morning doing so, and he asked to stay home. He who never misses school, but was self conscious about the redness.

He hung with me, nearly a chatterbox which is a complete turnabout for this emotionally standoffish young man. It was nice.

I'd bought myself an armband holder, on a clearance rack of course, for my Iphone that contains all my music and podcasts as I've been trying to do more walking.

You'd have thought I bought stiletto heels and announced I was taking up rumba dancing at night. "Look at mama trying to be cool," they sneered. Really? Y'all want me to wear my apron out in public? I nearly did dance on the walking path as I was blasting Motown tunes in my ears.

I initially didn't like its weight on my arm, but four and a half miles later I was in love with it, swinging those ape long arms freely, dodging Tabby, Nando and Jack, who were scootering all around me, glad of the pavement, the older boys across the field practicing with their coaches, the temperature just under 90 for once, how nice was this? Giddy with the freedom, I galumphed along happily in the evening.

That said, at a public park in a small county, you keep running into folks you know, all that smiling and waving is yet another exercise. I ran into a couple I knew who'd also adopted a sibling group, last one now a senior in high school, they were cautiously celebrating the scent of upcoming freedom. "Well, if he graduates," they threw out the possibility that was still dangling.

$25 for Sabrina to go to The Bodies Exhibit in Atlanta on a field trip, making an appointment for JoJo to get braces, these kind of normal mama things seem so exotic compared to what we've been through as a family for so many long years.

Deep breath Cindy, learn to trust again in the goodness of humanity...

Adoption 101: Finger Painting

Interestingly there's been a complete and total reduction in feces-related issues here at home with someone recently assigned to a psychiatric hospital.

Feces smearing is a rather vivid, certainly disgusting, indicator of a much deeper problem. Duh.

One PhD brilliantly understated, "This is a sign of serious emotional disturbance, likely related to the instability of the early years. You should not try to handle this by yourself. Instead, seek asap evaluation with a clinical psychologist or other mental health professional."

I wanted to shout, "No sh*t, Sherlock," having lived for so many years in Crazy Town, U.S.A.

I'd once had to ask my caseworker, "What is encopresis?" She'd taken a deep breath, much as my own shocked Preacher's wife mother had also done way back when, in the early 1960s, I'd seen the F word written on a wall somewhere, and had innocently asked her what it meant.

Encopresis is repeatedly having bowel movements in places other than the toilet after the age when bowel control can normally be expected.

That would've been my 40th child, he'd arrived many years ago with a sibling group, yet one new child immediately disclosed to another child, already adopted by me, "Don't tell Mom, but..." to which the would-be confidant immediately hollered, "Mom!" and told the secret, which was an incredibly smart thing to have done.

The encompretic one immediately was placed in a program for juvenile sexual perpetrators for the next decade.

At that one point in time, I'd been in my laundry room in utter shock, repeatedly washing sheets and the constantly poop-soiled clothes of a new kid who was nearly my size. I can do diapers, certainly, but this episode stunned me. I had no clue then that there were children this disturbed.

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) recognizes voluntary encopresis without constipation as a psychological disorder. This disorder is said to occur when a child who has control over his bowel movements chooses to have them in an inappropriate place. The feces is a normal consistency, not hard. Sometimes it is smeared in an obvious place, but it may also be hidden from adults.

I apologize for what this might be doing to your coffee consumption this morning, but, as an adoptive parent of emotionally troubled children, this is not all that uncommon.

But it is alarming. It is not to be ignored. As if.

The prognosis for children with serious behavioral and psychological problems that result in smearing or hiding feces depends largely on resolving the underlying problems.

This is not something that people talk about. Duh. It is an extreme behavior coming from a definitely disturbed person. It is a cry for help, plus a push-away behavior.

It is a behavior that requires intensive mental health intervention, and it is emotionally alarming to any half-bright mother with other children in the home.

There are no bigger red warning flags.

It is a behavior that is, of course, denied when confronted.

"I didn't do that," one will tell me. Well, that one was the only one who'd been in that area, that one was the only one I'd been suspicious of, and had very closely watched. That one is not here now, and there's been no evidence since that that one's illustrative fecal behavior has reoccurred. A different sort of elimination process so to speak, if I may make a horrible pun.

But living like this, using a Magic Eraser constantly, has been unusual at best, emotionally exhausting, and physically disgusting.

I will bring this up in therapy certainly when I arrive there for my regularly scheduled family visit.

There was another brother as well with this behavior, another birth sibling of this one, another one who'd violently bombed out of our home.

I noticed wrinkles crinkling deeply under my eyes last night when I dared to look in the mirror, the stress has been debilitating, the uber-vigilance, the counter-turd terrorism has been way past distressful. I'm faced now with being 100% positive I must take a thousand steps to prevent this one from ever returning to live with us. I have no other choice.

I'm just a mom. A mom with many children and grandchildren who need protection. I can't physically prevent a very large one who has no fear of the law, nor of any consequences, from attacking or from victimizing.

It just can't be done.

I'm not enough to help him, he needs very long term intensive treatment, and if the government funders of a facility believe there's a dumb-enough home waiting to take him back, then their thought is to let that ole lady deal with it, who cares?

Well this ole lady deeply cares about the potential victims. This ole lady's gonna fight hard for family safety.

This ole lady can see the writing on the wall, the feces finger painting indicators that very brightly tell of a severely deep emotional disturbance that can not be properly managed, nor safely maintained, within a home full of children.

Ya don't have to paint me a picture...

Too Pretty To Wear Makeup

Before bed I still try and make sure the kitchen's clean, having had to entertain deputies over the years in the middle of the night, me always drug out of bed in shock over some matter or another.

I love long clean zen-like counters. Clutter stresses me terribly unless it is horticulturally slanted. See the missing cabinet door? There's more on the other side of the room, these weren't built for the temper dysregulation that's been exhibited within my home. I see Tia's ears in the bottom of the photo. The tables are to the right of the fridge.

My blood pressure is surging at the moment, as I watch a kid get busleft on purpose, it's a control thing for him. I could say, "Tough toenails, walk to school now," but experience has taught me that the kid will dillydally in and on the roadway, taunting cars to hit him, until a deputy is called, then the kid will say something along the lines of, "My mom is old and lazy and wouldn't get out of bed to drive me," which we all know isn't true, but I know that my blood pressure would surge into the stratosphere in response to outrageous untruths, and I've finally learned to protect my faltering heart, knowing no one else will do so.

So I "lose" all the control battles. They "win."

They win because I don't wanna play these games.

They win because I know I simply can't win since I do not lie, nor willfully cause problems for others, just to watch their then angry reaction.

But, in the end, someday I'll be free of all this, they will not have learned cause and effect because they literally can't learn this one connection between their actions and the results. Their brains are not wired so as to absorb this information, but it does leave me with the utter frustration of trying to keep my own head above water.

A grown kid was telling me about a very privileged young adult with a drug problem. The doting, educated, nice and well-meaning parents are paying the living expenses, hoping that this thirty something will get their act together along the way. "Well I don't want so and so living on the streets," the fearful parents of drug addicts will commonly say.

"This concept bothers me," my own hard-working thirtysomethng year old told me.

No one asked my opinion, but, as usual, here it is.

"I'd advise those parents to rent all the seasons of A&E's Intervention shows and listen carefully to every single wise word spoken by the drug and alcohol therapist on that show. No addict can do so on their own, they need enablers, they manipulate the co-dependent folks in their lives to help them out, but it literally isn't helping. The addict will eventually die or go to prison with this kind of help."

My kid nodded, knowing there wouldn't be a snowball's chance in hell that I'd ever enable a user, and I'm a helper by nature, how do you think I ended up with 39 kids?

...helping is when the situation actually improves. In other words, your actions have led your loved one to deal with the drug addiction , perhaps by attending a drug rehab center . Enabling, however, is when the situation worsens, and your actions have contributed to the drug addiction. Although this may seem straightforward, many people unconsciously fall into the trap of enabling. If you’ve ever wondered about your own actions, here are 3 steadfast guidelines to follow to ensure that you are not contributing to the drug addiction by “addiction enabling”.

If you have a drunk or a druggie in your life, read this one simple page until the words are tatooed into your brain.

I'm fairly sure, based on what my kids have told me, that there's been recreational drug use and there's been self-medication amongst my twenty somethings. There've been DUIs and some fairly serious issues with alcohol, but overall, I'd venture to say there's no drug addict in our family. Why? I dunno. Luck of the draw? Who knows?

But I'll tell you one sure fire thing. My kids know for certain that I will not enable a user.

I love them too much to help them die that way.

I've stepped back in shock sometimes and watch other enablers fall into their trap. One grown son found a seriously codependent older adult once to buy him alcohol for years, while he sat unemployed in their house while garnering DUIs, and watching their unemployed adult daughter pop pills.

Sometimes I think we have an entire generation of lazy folks thinking they're entitled to video games, free time, unearned cash and Government dispensed Oxycontin.

I sound like my own grandma now.

But where's decency and good sense?

Stop giving cash to drunks and folks who are high. Cut 'em off. That's how you help.

And Mr P didn't get busleft, apparently he scurried his butt down the hill when he was out of my sight, knowing he'd already irked me, as evidenced by my unusual silence, leaking steam outta the top of my head. He's done so well lately, I'll not allow this setback to color my judgement.

Sabrina however missed the dang bus, calling a friend to stop by and pick her up, knowing Mama didn't take too well to this lack of personal responsibility. Sabrina's brain wires are connected correctly. I expect more from her as a result and I get it from her. Smart and beautiful, she has a great future ahead of her.

"I'm smarter than this," she told me ruefully this morning, knowing I was fixing to make some wise alec remark about her wasting time on makeup this morning. I think she's way too pretty to wear makeup.

Gina's Dog

I am loving reading Twitter feeds, even more so than Facebook, but last night's news was more than a little disturbing as I read Manteo, NC was flooding. I'd spent most of my life vacationing at Nags Head, indeed a best memory includes a sail boat trip with my brother Gary at the helm, sailing all around the island of Manteo one lovely afternoon long ago.

My dear friend, Dottie, the one who'd initially showed me how to garden way back when I was expecting Sarah, only 18 years old was I then, revolutionizing my life at warp speed that one afternoon out back at 123 34th Street in Newport News, Virginia. I'd watched parents, grandparents and great grandparents do the same all my life, yet it was that one afternoon that it clicked for me.

Anyway Dottie'd called me, touching base as the water rose in her backyard from Hurricane Irene, covering her dock, bringing back a flood of memories for me that long preceded being the mama to so many. This isn't exactly how I'd initially visualized my 50s.

She was blown away at the thought of Sarah out for the night at her 20th high school reunion. We'd shared a beach house for a year, both of us college students, having met in high school homeroom, back when Sarah was a toddler and I was a newly divorced free woman. Matter of fact, I was as irked yesterday with Sarah's daddy, as I'd been decades ago, when I discovered he'd not evacuated.

I'm afraid with the sun coming up this morning there's gonna be extensive flooding apparent there in Southeastern Virginia.

I stand down here in Georgia on parched, scorched arid earth in complete comparison. Honestly smart Yankees, can't y'all just pull the plug and drain it all down here on us?

Since Sarah was out for a rare night in town, Tabby set up her bed tent and sleeping pads in my room to distract Hazel from missing her parents.

As I added Twitter Feeds last night, I came across so many on personal finance. I'd listened to Dave Ramsey's amazing Great Recovery Plan, where he gave a little background on how much his own financial life had been revolutionized by Larry Burkett, Ron Blue and Howard Dayton. Oh, Honey, me too. I was so blessed to have been exposed to all this way back before I ever began adopting.

I'm still learning, still so amazed at the depths needing to be plumbed for a more complete understanding of personal finance.

However it boils down every day to spending less than one makes. Period.

Being a completely meteorological geek in love with weather patterns, I've found other like-minded nerds with amazing knowledge. Sarah'd told me about the AthensGaWeatherMan, whose Twitter feed is always on target here.

A new issue of Garden Design arrived yesterday, I put it aside for another day, too stressed over the drought, too glued to The Weather Channel hurricane coverage, Twitter Feeds and texts to my sister-in-law, Mary, who was holed up in a motel still in the hurricane force winds and rain.

Gina, by contrast, had taken her sweet dog to the river, taking what I thought was an amazing photo of his act of contemplation. I share his love for rivers and unspoiled beauty. Yep, I relate to the dog, who didn't see that coming?

And here in an adoption blog, no mention this morning of issues. I'm concentrating this morning on less stress. I'll deal with it all after I hit 'publish,' grateful and confident that it's just not all that much this morning. Plus I have Ray and Hazel to get ready for church this morning, best get started.

Boundaries, Enabling and Other Issues

A boundary is the:
* Emotional and physical space between you and another person.
* Demarcation of where you end and another begins and where you begin and another ends.
* Limit or line over which you will not allow anyone to cross because of the negative impact of its being crossed in the past.

Because my own minimal boundaries have been so ignored or violated, stress levels rising, my own isolation-seeking maneuvers rapidly increase in response to the ridiculously hurtful pressure surrounding me. Jeepers, maintaining correct verb tense agreement there was an obvious challenge.

Listening to Dave Ramsey's podocast, he recommended a book entitled Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud, I made a mental note, knowing I'd easily find an inexpensive copy somewhere soon enough, as I generally do so. Positive attraction laws at work I'm certain, which makes it all the more ironic, as I fight against such a negative attitude that has painfully resulted from some ten years of intense trauma and shocks.

"Fighting the gravitational pull of stupid," Dave Ramsey explained, as he listened to a caller complaining about a family member constantly stealing his identity. "Report this to the authorities."

"I don't want them to go to jail," the caller protested.

"You'd rather spend your life untangling their repetitive messes that's costing you everything?"

Enabling. Co-dependency. Boundary violations.

Which issue is roiling about now in my head? Does everyone have issues?

Why can't we all just dig in the dirt and mind our own business?

My own physical boundaries are being erected monumentally high, as I seemingly shut out those who've committed egregious violations. I just seek peace. That's all. Check your drama at my gate, leave it there, don't dump it on me. Eliminate me from it.

No one learns anything if Mama bails them out. I can't fix y'all's ignorant choices. If you take up with a drug dealer, there'll be fallout that Mama can't repair, if you won't work gainfully, you won't have any money, if you treat me like crap, I'll avoid you physically and emotionally, preferring to pour out my love upon those who don't willfully, continuously hurt others for sport.

Having now been so severely emotionally damaged by the fury emitted from those who apparently cannot control themselves, read back at my nearly 4,000 posts that I've mentally edited in order to be presentable, if I'd poured out the entire story you all might be barfing into your coffee this morning.

I had a delightful evening last night at the high school football game, watching other families who don't deal with temper dysregulation on a regularly timed basis. No one breaking their windows, nor kicking in their walls is my idea of Heaven. I really don't require much.

I know everyone has challenges, indeed I learned of a young lady that I've known since she was in elementary school, now fighting cancer. Oh my goodness, I wanna scream, knowing what all her own family has endured since her father passed away some time back, losing her brother later. How much can one family endure?

I'd just recently been having some very long conversations with a grown kid who is very overwhelmed by the results of her own choices. "You're right mom," she told me, in reference to many conversations I've had with my teenagers regarding the fact that their life will never again be as easy as they have it now with Mom paying all the bills, providing food and shelter, vacations and events.

They rebelliously think they want to be free of my rules and admonitions, they wanna do what they wanna do, with zero regard for the consequences I've warned will befall them if they don't obey the laws of the land.

How many lock ups does it take? How many bad relationships? Failed living arrangements? The learning curve is incredibly steep for some. Then they want to claim they are victims of everything, that they own no responsibility for choosing not to work, or for thinking that getting drunk is cool. "Mom, everyone but you drinks alcohol. You're the weird one."

Then let me be weird all by myself without the knowledge that you are drunk or otherwise impaired if you won't listen to my one piece of advice which is simply, "Act right."

Hurricane Irene Sucks

The best thing about this morning is knowing my brother's family is evacuating from their waterfront home in the Tidewater area ahead of this monster storm Irene.

So much rain will fall in the northeast, on already saturated ground, while Texas, Georgia and other states are drought-stricken to the max. Deep sigh.

My brother, Gary, found a motel room inland, still in the cone of probability, but on much higher ground, a place where he could also bring his black lab elderly dog. I'd called his wife, my sister-in-law, Mary, not wanting to have to argue with Gary if he should decide to stay there. I was vastly relieved by Mary's urgency in getting the heck out of there.

Now they're faced with packing what they can, knowing their house could be destroyed. What about their home office? Valuables? His three daughters' belongings? They run a business there, there's huge potential for losses.

Gary's very non materialistic but there's a certain amount of stuff one needs to maintain a home life, a business, and then there are his boats to consider. Super Fox especially, a beloved catamaran. What does one do?

One of my dearest friends lives just up the water from him, I pray Dottie's outta there also. My first ex-husband is stubbornly refusing to leave because two of his grandchildren aren't leaving. "Just take 'em," I suggested after alluding to a lack of brilliance in him staying there. "Sarah needs a dad."

I'd gone to high school and college there in Hampton, Class of 1972, and Norfolk's old Dominion University, a ton of folks I still know that are in harm's way right now. Please leave.

This is a monster storm and it makes my stomach hurt to think of all my Tidewater friends from way back. I know a couple of my readers are there also, please be reading this from somewhere else today. Rinda in Virginia Beach, puh-leeze get to higher ground.

What if I had to pack up my kids and seven dogs? What in the world would we do?

I'm gonna force myself away from The Weather Channel right now.

A lengthy dentist appointment yesterday for Martin, Dr. Mandy's time, plus I got to babysit both Mae and Hazel, Tabby took sick at school, a blazing fever that's seemingly gone this morning, and then soccer practice later.

For those that don't read my comments, I'm reposting one from Secret Pepper Person as it so fits the bill. Don't think it won't happen to you if you adopt older children from the foster care system. That said, not all of my kids have been arrested, the majority have not, but there's a significantly higher likelihood that you'll learn about the justice system this way.

I'm linking this to my blog as I ponder some deep thoughts tonight while looking up 5 boys i knew who were adopted locally and finding 4 of them have been or are currently in jail. Wednesday's headlines on the front page of our local newspaper showcases a horrible arrest of an adopted son of one of the strongest, most loving Christian couples I know for sexual crimes against minors. They even printed the families home address and every news station truck in the county has been at their door. The tragedy got me thinking...thus looking for boys of families I knew adopted. 4 out of 5? The odds aren't good. They don't teach you this stuff in adoption classes.

Two of my teenage sons reported depression to me, indeed one cried last night. "I wish I'd never been adopted."

"Well that makes me feel needed," I cracked.

"No, Mom, you don't understand," he sobbed. "I wish I was born here to you, that I didn't need to have been adopted."

Oh.

I thought for a few minutes, knowing he's the cyclical one, and that Dr. Mandy had helped me to understand that his depressive moods are usually not indicated by sadness, but rather via agitation and irritability.

"Honey, you have to power through, you have to find your bliss, that which interests you," I lamely pointed out, knowing that when one is depressed there are no interests, but also knowing him pretty well, that he'd kinda, sorta get my drift. He doesn't feel hopelessness, he just feels extremely ill-tempered. Kinda like me back then going through menopause?

I hugged him helplessly, wishing I could do more to erase his profound inner pain.

The other one had just gone to bed early, he, too, fighting a fever, figuring he'd find some relief in sleep. He's in a dance class at the high school, he was comically showing Yolie and I what he'd learned, he's also learning yoga there, that's gotta help.

This morning both of them were fairly stable, trying to get out the door on time. I'm glad that both of them are willing to talk about this with me, but more importantly, they're both open and very vulnerable when talking with the beautiful Dr. Mandy who draws them out superbly, engages them, and helps them understand themselves.

That I've learned the major benefit of therapy, that I've gotten most of my children to also take advantage of this, that we've been so blessed over the years to have found excellent resources, might just be enough?

Oh Dear Lord, I sure hope so.

Our New Therapist

An illustration of the inside of my head and my heart?

Interesting day. A therapist confronted Jonathan about some problematic behaviors, he emotionally shut down, I didn't really fear an imminent rage because tears started leaking from his eyes, which is always a better sign than when he balls up his fists. He, however, refused to hug me good-bye, his countenance darkening.

I got to walk away.

Stunned.

Because usually, well always for the past nine years plus, it's been my job to then contain, maintain, curtail, or endure the ensuing explosion along with it's usual violent aftermath.

There was a young strong man there with us to do that job. It didn't have to be this raggedly ole lady.

The therapist walked off with me expressing the same bit of relief.

She was wonderful. Insightful, knowledgeable, well versed in trauma issues, able to see through behaviors and manipulations. Seven years experience there at the facility has, of course, taught her a great deal. Behaviors I'd described to her had already briefly appeared, a warning flag, so she addressed an issue that got under his skin so to speak.

I used to have to deal with children after therapists had prodded into their psyches, leaving enraged adolescents in my home that would kick in the walls, break windows and atack others.

She, and all the other preceding therapists, also get to go home each day, she has an entire professional staff at her disposal, and another delightful home life - this compared to us parents who seemingly must constantly fight enormous and debilitating battles 24-7 for our own protection and for that of others.

In that Atlanta area case I'd quoted last week, the teenager murderer had just finished with a therapy session before becoming enraged enough to kill his great grandmother. You think that doesn't scare the crap out of me?

"I'd hate to have been that therapist," our new therapist said ruefully, knowing he or she will likely have to shoulder some misplaced blame, but isn't that ridiculous? The therapist was doing their job. Period. This ragefulness is a separate entity.

"I'd googled 'teenagers killing grandparents' and got plenty of different hits," the therapist told me. Yeah, I'm well aware of the statistics.

Jonathan's been honeymooning there for 8 days, respectful and polite, conciliatory and decent, but he's not fooling anyone. She knowledgeably pinpointed emerging behaviors.

I cannot begin to express my utter relief at being able to drive away yesterday, alone and in peace. I could've stopped for lunch, but my stomach was clenched up after all that, I just wanted to get home, and I had an hour or so drive ahead of me.

I'll go there weekly for therapy sessions, a little peeved only because we've had therapy in place for so many years with no results, but I was literally taking notes yesterday as she explained the components of a psychosexual evaluation that they'll do at my precautionary request. I have a gut feeling here based on his assaulting behaviors, and those of his siblings, that warrants this assessment. The works of Neal Abel was a new one for me. Hmmm, interesting.

Today is our Dr. Mandy day, and I'll take a couple of kids who do respond favorably to therapy, as do I. I've learned so much over the years.

With no violent offenders now in my home, as the dust is settling, all of us rather shell-shocked survivors are cautiously emerging, blinking in the proverbial sunlight, assessing the damage, a little unsure as to whether we can now trust the peacefulness that has resulted.

That's what trauma looks like.

I've been retraumatized so often as to have had my brain tattooed with the pain. This is why I enjoy so much physical activity as it helps me to cope, the self-imposed isolation is also quite healing.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), once called shell shock or battle fatigue syndrome, is a serious condition that can develop after a person has experienced or witnessed a traumatic or terrifying event in which serious physical harm occurred or was threatened. PTSD is a lasting consequence of traumatic ordeals that cause intense fear, helplessness, or horror, such as a sexual or physical assault, the unexpected death of a loved one, an accident, war, or natural disaster. Families of victims can also develop post-traumatic stress disorder, as can emergency personnel and rescue workers.

Most people who experience a traumatic event will have reactions that may include shock, anger, nervousness, fear, and even guilt. These reactions are common; and for most people, they go away over time. For a person with PTSD, however, these feelings continue and even increase, becoming so strong that they keep the person from living a normal life. People with PTSD have symptoms for longer than one month and cannot function as well as before the event occurred.

One month? Are you serious? I've lived under these severe conditions for more than a decade.

The rest of that article can be found here.

Preferring the Braves

My desk has a stack of papers I've not filed, but the plants are watered. It's all about priorities, right?

Looking at hurricane projection maps, it likely isn't very bright of me to have hoped for a gentle landfall on the Georgia coast, followed by a stall pattern in which we'd get a foot of rain, but our severe drought makes me wanna cry out about a foot of tears.

Worse yet, I saw the Chesapeake Bay area threatened. Uh-oh, my brother, Gary, lives right on the water. Today's projection maps seem to be alluding to a more eastern slant

My gardens are crusty, hard as a rock, defeated and non-productive. Yesterday we had so little humidity in the air that I stayed outside nearly all day long, trying to wrest stubborn desert-like weeds from the baked clay. I'm afraid to water too much, we have a well and we'd be sunk if it went dry, but I feel as if I've lost an entire harvest season.

I dug some potatoes that practically baked themselves in the oven-like ground, and got enough tomatoes to chop for our pasta supper with some wilted, but still intensely flavored basil.

I got to walk four miles last night at the soccer fields. Sabrina who is in tiptop shape tried to keep up, but my normal walking speed is her sprint speed. "This is too much work," she fell away to play an impromptu game of soccer, while Tabby and Jack kept up on their scooters, out pacing me and covering even more miles per hour.

I don't pump my arms and speed walk, I just am metabolically set to a very high normal speed, 5 mph is no effort at all for me. I'd even had a coach time my speed once when he'd scoffed at my estimation. "See, I told you so," I'd later triumphantly hollered, not knowing how many years were ahead of me to continue parroting that line.

Lemme tell ya, frustration as fuel is extraordinarily efficient.

Speed I have, Sabrina and her birth sister, Tabby, got all the coordination. In comparison, I'm a cartoon character klutz-o-matic.

I've barely had to raise my voice at all this week, hardly any behavior redirection necessary lately, the usual control issues rearing their heads, but overall a calm, peaceful week in which I've contrarily received phone calls from grown kids who are struggling with issues.

One in particular has been worrisome as this one has some depression issues that lead to self-medication.

A reader had just asked if I have had kids here experimenting with drugs. It hasn't been really that much of an issue over the years, although I do remember a couple of instances in the last two decades in which I was certain I smelled marijuana, only to be told in the ensuing confrontation that it was not so.

"Dude, I'm from the 60s," I reminded both of them on both occasions, and borrowing Judge Judy's line, "Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining." leaving confused faces in my wake. Yeah boy, must've been the dope. "See it makes you act stoopider," I drawled.

I'd even called the deputies once and the minuscule amount had been confiscated. My kid had been lectured and I'd been told something along the lines of, "Boys will be boys." Way to hold them accountable - I know I'd then thought.

Equally as alarming, I'd caught three of my sons watching the Lifetime channel.

"Oh my goodness!" I'd hollered loudly with a very necessary exclamation mark, "Gimme me your man cards right now."

Three confused sets of eyes met mine.

"What the heck?" a startled Martin blurted.

There are a couple of channels I don't allow around here, such as The Skank Channel (MTV) or that Disease-of-the-Week, Be a Victim, Enjoy A Good Cry Channel also known as Lifetime. Bleech. The biggest misrepresentation of women ever.

Good golly boys, the Braves were playing. Justin Heyward had just hit a grand slam, Daniel had just texted me his excitement. Heyward can thank me later for not jinxing his at bat by watching it, as I'd been distratcetd by my boys apparently self-castrating themselves watching that estrogen overloadinducing channel.

Opinionated much?

Ya think?

So What?

Yep, eating ice cream outta the dang bucket with two spoons, yet another set of Emotional Twins here at home, Dubs and Martin have been best buds since they met nearly 13 years ago here at my house. CW'd toddled down the hall, just learning to walk, to greet the scared new almost four year old. They've been inseparable. They've been delightful, even as teenagers, but clearly Martin didn't want photographic evidence of his pigging out ice cream event.

"Really?" I asked in disbelief when another, much less genial teenager, Jonathan, called me last night, "You're acting perfectly there?"

"Yes ma'am," he replied.

"Why can't you do that good at home?"

"Because y'all irritate me."

Yep, I believe it. It's drilled in him to make mama proud, apparently just outside the home, as he's being courteous and strangely obedient in a psych facility, yet this abnormally perfect behavior will get him released before he's ready, sent back home to attack the younger ones.

It totally illustrates my point though, without familial demands, even minimal family safety issues, not now weighing down upon him, well Honey, he can live this superficial existence just fine. He's the youngest there in an age group 13-16. If he were still 12 and then the oldest in the group, I doubledawg guarantee you he'd be bullying someone, acting inappropriately, and raging when redirected.

Back here at home, I'm wondering who are all these delightful children who vied last night for the best test grades ever, shoving 100s (grades, not bills) in my face, telling me compliments from teachers, yep, this is how I'd once imagined my life to be.

Even at soccer practice for Nando, all the older boys got another wild soccer game going on the back field with their friends while Tabby and Jack used their scooters to follow after me on my own three mile walk at the park. It hit 100 degrees yesterday, down to 95 by the time we walked, but there's nothing 'bout sweating that I don't like.


I'd gotten to spend all day home alone, gate remain locked, some two hours spent up in my overly leafy room watering house plants, pruning back a bit, later I worked hard downstairs, so easy to do when folks aren't following me around trashing everything, indicating their extreme displeasure at having been adopted which dashed their original hopes and plans for an imaginary family reunion.

Yeah, I'd be mad too if I were them.

I added Suze Orman's podcast to my listening list, heard many of the Dave Ramsey ones that I'd not listened to all summer, what with kid demands on me 24-7, and I also like Dr. Joy Browne's podcast, a radio psychologist. I added some more personal finance blogs to my Google Reader after hearing The Simple Dollar guy say he reads about 100 of them a day. This one about not using credit cards spoke to me today. I do have a credit card I've not yet cancelled, maybe today's the day for that.

I'll just call 1-800-Quit-Ripping-Folks-Off and delete my own self.

I finished reading David Bach's Start Over, Finish Rich: Ten Steps To Get You Back on Track in 2010 book that I'd bought for a quarter at a yard sale, and I tinkered with our own budget, trying to get through August. We shut down the pool, it's expensive to run that dern pump, but we're on the soccer field every night of the week, no time to swim. You can buy Bach's book for $1.99 here or, duh, get it for free at the library.

So stress less. Is this how normal people live? I could so enjoy this lifestyle. Boring? A book reading nerd who seeks out solitude? So what?

Someone from Grandma's church sent me the photo of Grandma working at an unairconditioned warehouse on her missions trip, south of New Iberia, Louisiana, a place I remember puttering around in with a friend many years ago, happy as a clam that day, learning about growing sugar cane and blissfully not knowing the trauma that was waiting for me in the next decades.

If I were Grandma, I'd rather be toiling in the fields than to be stuck inside all day. She's the one in the white shirt not looking like she's 81 years old.

Today also is mine, all mine.

That's paradise to me. Solitude, options, horticultural pursuits, I don't wanna go anywhere, don't want any meetings or other obligations, don't ever want to run errands, I just want to slink around here and choose which chore to do.

I'd bought a push reel mower for five bucks, I'm gonna use it around the fenced in garden acre, nonpolluting noise or fuels, using muscle power versus having to join a gym where I couldn't dress all raggedly and I'd have to make small talk. No, thank you..

The dishes are done, I'm almost caught up on laundry, the house has been picked up already, and I'm gonna ignore the serious drought and pretend I still have more gardening options than what the reality of dry-as-a-bone dirt might suggest.

More and More Ironies

When even Psychology Today is pointing out food issues, not weight loss, not a Hollywood fad diet, but rather the ancestral diet which is real food, when Americans don't even know what real food is, I just scratch my head, and continue praying for rain so that I can grow me some real food. Another three drops fell last night after a significant thunder event.

Dr. Mandy was explaining cyclical dysthymia to me recently, one of my children is demonstrating some aspects of it, more of a general dysthymia defined as a depressive disorder, as insidious and debilitating as major depressive disorder, not simply as a personality type.

The essential difference between dysthymic disorder and major depressive disorder is the intensity and duration of symptoms. Dysthymia is defined as a low-grade, chronic depression.

The teen we are discussing is very cyclical, and at the moment, may not need medication, but it bears watching, as we don't want it to affect their future negatively. The dysthymia portion of it can be manifested by a general irritability and agitation, which I know fits this one child.

I was very dismayed in reading this article, where adoptive parents were not informed of major mental health issues. I can honestly say this did not happen to me.

I do not feel that information was withheld from me intentionally, I feel more so that the issues evolved during puberty as they naturally should have done. I noticed huge behavioral issues in some of the younger children that predictably blossomed in severity with adolescence and time. I had proactive resources in place, but that didn't help.

This article took a different tact. I don't feel as if adoptive parents can, nor should be, trained to deal with these dangerous situations. I very strongly feel there's a monstrously large need for facilities, for residential care, as I've discovered that a family situation itself can simply exacerbate the tensions, be either too volatile or stressful for the kid.

Therapeutic institutionalization, if done right, can be way less emotionally demanding, or emotionally threatening, on children like mine, no expectations of a happy family life for them to rebel against, to disrupt, or to victimize. Please know I speak from sad experience.

Deb and Doug Carlsons' adopted sons have trashed bedrooms, stolen credit cards and threatened to kill them. One drew a disturbing picture of beheading the southwest Florida couple and throwing a party.

The boys can't be left alone or play in the neighborhood like normal teens. Each week brings new crisis.

Hello, world. Have you met my kids?

This problem is rampant in the adoption of older traumatized children from the foster care system. Ask any caseworker or adoption therapist, read my anguished emails from some of my readers.

Jonathan called yesterday, doing just fine in his RTC, not acting out at all, which doesn't surprise me.

In the last five days that he has been gone, I've thought to myself about how many family incidents have thus not occurred, in which I'm so glad he isn't here to escalate situations, or to shut down our functioning normal capabilities, because that's what he routinely did here at home.

He's the youngest where he is now, no opportunities for the dark and sinister bullying of young boys that I'd observed here.

He's also honeymooning there, sooner or later they'll see his issues, but I'm afraid of funding issues in the meantime.

I'm no longer the optimist that is willing to try again and again with either him or anyone else who could potentially victimize others. I have a very real gut-level fear, based on years of trauma and incidents here, that preclude any rose-colored glasses semblance of hopefulness.

Oh heck no, I've been to this rodeo before and I plan to safeguard the younger kids.

Deb Carlson doesn't understand how a loving family's noble ambition to help neglected foster children could turn into such a nightmare.

"You have these idealized visions, you treat them nicely and give them things and make up for all the things they didn't have in their life," she said. "All of the resources I've found I did on my own."

Deep sigh here on my part.

I've long since abandoned my altruistic nature, way too beaten down by events and repercussions.

What we dumb naive adoptive parents have done is to have invited Hell into our homes, yet many of us have also been blessed beyond belief by some extremely wonderful children. Children who I've now forbidden to ever adopt because I don't want their children to suffer, ironies overflowing certainly.

Flat Out Emotional Exhaustion Setting In

"I'm home, Mom," Lily came upstairs to wake me up, knowing I'd fallen asleep already. Getting up early is no problem, but often I'll slump over exhausted the minute I hit my bed each evening. If I've allowed teenagers to go somewhere, given a curfew, they know they best wake me up, and allow me to notice they're home on time. I also had to go down and lock the front gate in the sweltering darkness.

Dropping Grandma off this morning before sunrise didn't feel like the best idea. It isn't as if I have any influence on her, trying to get her to reconsider this trip, Jack had whined and carried on, hating to see her go, his own loss issues still fresh after Grandpa's departure last fall.

Well, whatever. I have to let a grown woman make her own decisions.

I'm almost too exhausted from the 16 previous years of dealing with mental health issues to either compose a post this morning, nor to pitch much of a fit over Grandma leaving, it feels as if it's just about all I can manage to get everyone dressed and out the door for church this morning.

I'm just completely wiped out emotionally.

This afternoon is likely to find me lazing before the Braves game all afternoon. I am some kind of whooped.

Benches

I nearly feel guilty that it's been so easy. Eight kids wanted to go to the football game with me, they allowed me to sit with an AP friend of mine and some teachers, no behavior problems arose, we all went home and to bed later without incident nor argument.

Sabrina was cheering, Tabby was copying her every move from the other side of the fence, and my other kids were with their friends. A sweltering night that beats the tar out of those evenings later in the season in which I just can't get warm.

Up at 5:30 since Sabrina had to be at the high school at 5:45 a.m. for a competition cheer leading event in SW Georgia, the kids and I ran to a few yard sales. I spent 50 cents for a classical piano CD, sometimes I just feel like listening to some quiet music.

I'm very serious about working on my own self, about bringing peace and quiet back into my life, avoiding as much stress and drama as is possible.

I've thought a lot about being advised against isolating myself, but I'm very reclusive anyway, never lonely, always with more than enough to do, so seclusion isn't isolation to me, it's invigorating.

Mainly at yard sales, we've been hunting the home school curriculum materials for Ray, but I paid a buck for some Country Living magazines that I like, back issues to thumb through and drool over.

Two soccer practices this afternoon, I'm running Lily to town as she's 14 today and she wants clothes. We'll find some pig-out place as a treat, maybe Ike and Jane? Whatever Lily chooses will be our destination, and she's a vegetarian by choice with excellent taste buds so I'll be happy wherever she wants to go.

I've got to get Grandma over to her Church before dawn tomorrow so she can go with her friends on a missions trip over in Louisiana. Like it won't be 95 degrees here? Probably 105 there. Fortunately, like me, she usually isn't much bothered by the heat. But hey, she is 81 years old.

She asked me to go with her yesterday to see the movie, The Help. Neither of us care much about movies, but this one was so compelling. I get irritated at movies that constantly start different scenes with folks staring thoughtfully off into space, as if they feel they must demonstrate the thought process to us. Who sits and stares? There's too much to do for that kind of indulgence. I loved this movie, but it felt decadent to be indoors while the sun blazed outside and the kids were in school.

Nearly seven years ago I sat on this bench at the UGA Botanical Gardens, praying that the paperwork on my last four kids would soon clear ICPC, and allow them to come to our house. Tabby, the baby of that particular group, has no clue as to the importance of this bench.

Unrelenting, Unstaffed 24-7 Management of Mental Health Issues

I think it might be the very debilitating 24-7 aspect here that has seemed so impossible.

When one lives with violent mentally ill teenagers, when there is no break, never any sense of safety, then one feels as if this just can't be done.

Or maybe the scariest part is in knowing there are younger children who might be targeted, and I think the word 'might be' is putting it mildly.

When these sweet young kids have been threatened, have been hit by the unstable angry ones, when I've filed assault charges, and the angry ones still think they've gotten away with their assaults, well it all combines to make me terribly fearful for the future.

I was called last night from the facility housing Paloma, as they were again filing an incident report, telling me about her screaming rage, sending chills down my spine, apologies pouring out of my mouth, "I'm so sorry you're having to deal with this."

"Don't apologize Miss Cindy," I was told, "This is our job."

And it is a job, it is not a way of life for a family. I owe it to the younger children here to be able to live safely and without fear.

I'm giving credit to the Atlanta-Journal Constitution here for the article I'm gonna quote in its entirety, as it so reminded me of what I'd been dealing with a couple of years ago. Paloma's older brother, who had attacked us, and others, and had made many threats to kill me if he didn't get to do exactly as he wanted to do.

I went to court, begged and pleaded to have him not be sent home to us. In a shout-out to my friend in Ohio who is also dealing with a similar situation, I feel the need to reprint this article.

It is exactly similar to multiple scenarios that have played out both here and in other homes where there is mental illness. That there is not even the birth connection to hopefully play on the aggressor's heartstrings further compounds the issues in an adoptive home, where the adoptive mom has been accused by the aggressor(s) of "stealing me away from my real mom."

Huh? I never even met her.

Yet the illogical rationale, the mishmash of impulses in their miswiring that leads to violent outbursts scares me to pieces. I've been a victim already many times, as have others, and I'm taking all the steps I can in order to protect us from here on out.

I'm a grandmother, older than this woman, my mother is way older than the fatality in this article, and I'm dead certain that a few of my children, especially from one sib group, are more prone to violence than even this kid in this article. Four out of five have already been in lock-up or lockdown facilities.

Yes, I'm scared.

Here's the article fueling my own flames and my very intense real fear this morning:

Laura Prince of Douglasville is still trying to register the brutal samurai sword attack that left her seriously wounded and her mother dead – all allegedly at the hands of the teenage grandson she reared.

Gevin Prince, 15, appeared before Douglas County Court Judge Robert James on Wednesday on charges of killing his great-grandmother.

“I’ve lost the only two people that I lived for,” the grandmother told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in an exclusive interview Wednesday after leaving a Douglas County hospital.

The 55-year-old woman believes the entire episode that unfolded Monday at her home on Spring Ridge Drive could have been avoided if Gevin Allen Prince, now accused of murder, had received more medical care for his behavioral problems.

For months, Laura Prince said she’d tried to get long-term, in-patient treatment for the 15-year-old, a daughter’s child whom Prince had practically reared since birth. She’d gained legal custody when he was 5.

She said Gevin suffers from Asperger's syndrome, which is similar to autism, and the older he got, the more he “acted out” physically, eventually prompting 911 calls to county authorities.

That acting out came to a head Monday when, after a disagreement over a home computer, Laura Prince said Gevin reached for a sword, brutally attacked her and killed Mary Joan Gibbs, his 77-year-old great-grandmother. Police found Gibbs, a retired AJC staffer, dead in the yard.

The teenager, who made his first appearance before a Douglas County judge Tuesday, is charged with malice murder and four counts of aggravated assault. District Attorney David McDade said he plans to charge the teenager as an adult.

Laura Prince blamed the attacks on Gevin’s Asperger's syndrome, which was diagnosed when he was 8 years old, she said. Children with the disorder may have difficulty with social interaction skills and communication.

Prince said her grandson has had behavioral problems in the past – that’s why she was raising him instead of his mother. But the episodes had gotten much worse after puberty.

“He acted out, but it was nothing I couldn’t handle,” she said. “But when he started getting stronger and bigger, it got worse. It got worse more frequently.”

She said she took him to several treatment centers, “but they never would keep him.” She blames her lack of insurance and scarcity of hospital beds.

“I kept trying to get him help,” she said. “I was trying to get him into a facility, but it’s taken two weeks to get all the paperwork done.”

She said Gevin had seen a psychologist and psychiatrist and was taking medication for his behavioral problems. He had just seen a therapist about an hour before Monday’s attack, the grandmother said.

As his acting out escalated, so did the calls to 911.

The Douglas County Sheriff’s Department became familiar with the home on Spring Ridge Drive, responding to repeated calls, the grandmother said.

“They’ve been out here many times to help me with him,” Laura Prince said. “They knew his name by the address. They knew it was the great-grandmother, the grandmother and the 15-year-old.”

Just two weeks ago, the grandmother called police after her grandson kicked in a door, brandishing one of the decorative swords her oldest son collected.

It was the first time he had confronted them with a sword. Contrary to media reports, Laura Prince said Gevin didn’t injure his great-grandmother with the weapon. After he kicked in the door, a plastic hanger fell to the floor and Mary Joan Gibbs had stepped on it, injuring her foot.

Douglas County Sheriff Phil Miller confiscated the sword and took Gevin into custody. The teen was then taken to a hospital for a mental evaluation.

“They [sheriff’s office] got involved and had him taken to a psychiatric ward,” Laura Prince said. “But because they couldn’t find a bed, they sent him back home to us.”

Prince said this week’s attacks could have been prevented if Gevin had been admitted.

On Monday, an hour after he’d had a therapy session, Gevin was back home, playing on his Xbox. He decided he wanted to get on his grandmother’s computer, but she refused because he’d broken it once and she’d just recently gotten it repaired.

“I said, ‘Gevin, I just got it fixed from where you tore it up’ “He goes, ‘I’m still going to get on it.’ I said, ‘No, Gevin. You’ve got to earn that [privilege] back.’

“That’s what started it, and then from then on it just escalated,” Laura Prince said. “He started writing down what he’s going to do to me. He’s got a ‘feelings book” for his therapy. He said he was going to kill me.”

“I said maybe you can get on it tomorrow, and that’s when he jumped on me.”

“He tried to break my neck,” the grandmother recalled. “He beat me with a metal broom handle. Then he found the sword. I was the first victim of the sword. He started hacking at me like you would a sword.”

The grandmother said the blade on the sword was dull, but the force of the blows left her with broken bones on her arm.

“He broke my arm in two places,” she said. “I’ve got a cut above one of those breaks. I have huge bruises where he tried to cut my arm off.” She said she was also left with “four lumps” on her head from blows.

Prince said the great-grandmother came in “to see what the commotion was about and he got on her.”

“I tried to get him away from her. I think she was in so much shock, she was just like a deer in headlights. She just stood there,” Laura Prince said. “I was trying to get her to get in her room and barricade herself in, but she didn’t.”

Bleeding heavily, Laura Prince said she finally managed to get into a bathroom and barricade herself. “He tried to stab through the door,” she recalled. “In fact, the sword went through the door.”

When police arrived at the home, they found Mary Joan Gibbs in the yard with fatal stab wounds.

Gevin Prince was standing in the doorway with the sword and a pellet rifle. The teen used the rifle to shoot out the windows of a patrol car, police said.

After a 10- to 15-minute standoff, the teenager was talked out of the house and into the yard, where police used a Taser and K-9 dog to subdue him.

Knowing the youth’s history, Sheriff Miller said his deputies tried to use restraint, but were prepared to resort to deadly force if necessary.

"Fortunately, we didn't have to," Miller said earlier in the week. "It was very tough."

Now Laura Prince is left with making memorial arrangements for her mother, and getting legal help for her grandson.

“I don’t know what happened,” Prince said. “It was like, this is not Gevin. When I looked at that face and saw him, that was not my grandson.”

She told Channel 2 Action News that she does not agree with the DA's decision to seek to try her grandson as an adult. She described her grandson as a math whiz who could draw architectural designs by hand but could only read and write on a first-grade level.

"He's not emotionally or mentally old enough to stand trial as an adult," Prince told Channel 2. "I know it was an adult crime, but he was not an adult."

She still hopes his final destination will be a mental health facility, and not state prison.

“I know he’s going to be gone for a long time, but he does not need to be in a prison system because someone will get hurt," she said.

“I tried my best,” the grandmother said. “I feel like I failed him. I feel like I could have done something more. I did do my best, and I was doing my best.”

Profound Deviation From Normal Life Experience

This is a normal emotional dysregulation event in the adoption of older children. Angry at me over something ridiculous, I can't even remember, but his response was to kick all the cushions off the sofa instead of doing as I'd asked. He doesn't have major issues, thank you Lord, but his very high anxiety and spurts of uncontrolled anger, never physical aggression towards others, have all combined, and been regularly demonstrated by him, to spur me into scheduling a psychological evaluation for him.

Not to seek out residential help, but to better access resources here for him. He's been in therapy, he's fairly responsive to it all, he came to me from Texas with a Level Three label back then, no alarm bells, he just certainly needs some anger management and anxiety reduction techniques.

Today Dr. Mandy will finish up all his testing, it's been an all summer evaluation process. I look forward to reading her assessment as it helps me as a parent so much. It helps the schools even more.

I think I'm emotionally whacked out, beat down, mentally exhausted. I know that I am. I walked around sighing, dragging in enormous breaths of air all day long yesterday, trying to shrug off the past decade of constant, debilitating, unrelenting stress. It's been 16 years since I've lived in a home without a child carrying a mental health diagnosis.

There are still a couple of knuckleheads with me now, but no seriously dangerous labels. I can deal with zero impulse control and even oppositional disorder, annoying as they both can be, it's doable, and pretty much comes with the territory in the adoption of older children.

There's some part of me now that's afraid to accept, to trust, that it can now be an easier, much safer existence.

I'm afraid to let my guard down, I'm now as hyper vigilant as my children.

There've been times with insightful therapists in which I've wanted to take notes, so absorbing is the information I've been given. Dr. Mandy, of course, and, more recently Charli, can take my description of scenarios, actions and events, and explain in laymen's terms that which I've observed, and, then, explain it all back to me in terms of behaviors, and how they should be treated and handled.

Literally I experience 'Ah ha,' moments in times like these, always making me wish I had a live-in therapist, much as I envied the size, knowledge and PRN ability of the medic on staff where Jonathan now resides. The huge man had asked me to sign permission for them to inject Thorazine during any rages, temper dysregulation events , that Jonathan might demonstrate.

"Not that we wanna drug him up," the man explained, "But rather so that we may then verbally process with him what has happened."

This guy had to have been some 300 pounds of muscle, 6'4", with the potential to wield an injection of sedatives.

So if a guy that big, with a staff of trained professionals at his disposal, knows he needs to do this with teenagers like Jonathan, and I know that he does need to do this, then how does one expect someone of my age and my size to be able to also maintain these behaviors all by myself, while also desperately trying to protect the other kids?

Folks, it just can't be done, it's not possible, and I'm exhausted from these efforts over the past 16 years.

Jonathan's act of trotting off happily away from me just illustrated the concept that some kids actually might do better in an institutional setting where family expectations are not the main focus. Sometimes the boundary issues, the sharing and cooperation required amongst family members, to say nothing of the implicit expectations of love and respect...well, it's just all too much for miswired, mentally challenged members of society.

Paloma used to explode viciously and unexpectedly at times of what I thought was normalness, lashing out at everyone, controlling all family events with her rages. She does this less so nowadays where she is, living amongst other issue-riddled teenage girls in an intensive cottage, maybe she feels less emotionally threatened there than here? Who knows?

Jonathan is not unhappy without me.

I'm not unhappy without him, I'm just struggling with very mixed, expected feelings of loss and a sense of failure which I know intellectually is ridiculous, but, hey, I'm a mom, and this goes with the territory. I'm not fishing for compliments or reassurances, I'm just sharing how I feel right now, and this afternoon with Dr. Mandy, she'll use the knowledgeable words that I need to hear. She doesn't waste her time, or mine, with platitudes, but rather with some interesting thoughts, suggestions, and observations, based on her many, many years of observing my family's interactions, events and dynamics.

But first, I'll have granola mixed with plain Greek yogurt for breakfast, gag down a ton of vitamin supplements, pick up towels, socks and shoes that've been flung in our morning get out the door routine, start a load of laundry, do the dishes, water the houseplants in the family room, start the pinto beans, and head out for four more dentist appointments.

None of that bores me, these mundane chores beats the crap out of patching the sheet rock where ragers have exploded their fury, or measuring window panes that need replacing again due to mental health issues. I was always just glad, during those times, that it was an injured house versus a human being.

But still, I hesitate to fully breathe easier just yet, trauma victims take a long, long time to heal. For me though physical activity helps immensely.

Trauma has been described as a profound deviation from normal life experience.

Hmm, my family interactions versus other families in our county?

Trauma victims moved in with me, and later left me as one of them.

How could it not be so?

Reading some self-help strategies, I literally cracked up at #1 Don’t isolate. Following a trauma, you may want to withdraw from others. But isolation makes things worse. Connecting to others will help you heal, so make an effort to maintain your relationships and avoid spending too much time alone.

A trauma? What about a thousand traumas?

I DO want to withdraw, that's always been my own first line of defense.

I feel so different from other 57 year old women, this isn't something I can discuss with many people, chatting in a social group seems too foreign, I'd alienate folks if I brought all this crap up.

Maybe now I'm oppositional too?

Is that contagious?

I'm sitting here giggling so, at least, we can rule out depression. I reckon goofy people can fight that symptom off, right?

Illustrating My Fears

The attack marks the third time deputies have encountered the teen.

Sheriff Phil Miller said on two previous occasions, the teen was sent to a hospital to be mentally evaluated and then turned over to Juvenile Justice. But both times, Miller says, the boy was released, despite his violent history.

"It just seems to me that somebody may not be doing what they could do, or we may be dropping the ball somewhere in the system," Miller told Choi.

Miller said someone else was recently killed by a mentally ill person who slipped through the cracks. On July 22, a deputy shot a man described as schizophrenic after he used a knife to kill a man, deputies said.

Miller said the suspect’s mother “cried out for help many, many times to many, many different places and didn’t really get it."

There have been two killings in Douglas County this year, both involving people with a history of violence and mental illness, Miller said.

"I want to make sure that these people who are crying out for help get it," Miller said.

An Atlanta TV news station reported the above in reference to a young teenager's murderous attacks upon his grandmother and great grandmother. Go watch the video and tell me it doesn't make your blood run cold?

You think stories like these don't worry me?

A message yesterday from a lady I've met before regarding her kid's verbal desire to murder her, a kid she thought she'd bonded with...compounding her shock, well, Honey, it just blew me away on her behalf. I'm also aware of other injustices her family has endured over the years.

Am I paranoid? I don't think so.

I also don't think someone dropped the ball, I blame budget cuts, and a society that has a hard time comprehending juvenile violence and/or juvenile mental health issues.

Once one has lived like this for many, many years, and has fought uphill crazy and violent battles...one has a very different perspective than everyone else on earth, such as legislators, who get to go home to their comfortable, loving families.

I was a little worried yesterday evening that Jonathan's last remaining birth sibling in our home would take his anger out on me. He often does so, but with a silent treatment rather than violence. He's never been threatening towards me. He simply shrugged his shoulders in response to yesterday's events, somewhat relieved I'd venture to guess, because it had fallen on him a bit to help me manage the behaviors. Translation: help me to protect the younger kids.

We had a spectacularly quiet evening considering the amount of teenagers living here, everyone was working on homework, pigging out, on the computers, or pushing Ray and Hazel around in a wheelbarrow.

We've endured a level of toxicity for way too long. I say 'we' because several of my kids too have been the brunt of crazily irrational resentment levels.

I don't reach out to those grown kids who are still spewing toxicity, I feel it would be either inane complicity, or compliance, on my part, I feel I'd just be enabling negative behaviors, so I find it best for my own blood pressure and peace of mind to keep a low profile, preferring the solitude of rural living and the joys of horticulture, even in a drought.

Maybe I'm just over-rationalizing, but I just can't continue to be the abused trashcan into which they spew hatred, fury and vitriol.

All the years that I have reached out, having my head and hands repeatedly bitten off angrily, has made me incredibly wary, and yes, maybe even paranoid to some degree, but that's part of PTSD, the waiting for the other shoe to drop, in response to what one has previously, and continuously, endured. I feel similar to a combat veteran having lived in a war zone.

Yolie pointed out that Jack seems to be deeply missing his last school year's early morning time and connection with Chuck. When Jack was in elementary school, he went to their house each morning, at the end of our driveway, and either Yolie or Chuck would drive Jack, Tabby, Nando and CJ to school each day.

Now that Jack's in middle school, he rides the bus later with the older kids. Yolie mentioned he still comes up there kind of early, wanting a few minutes with Chuck, which is understandable considering he is still grieving for his BFF, Grandpa. The other night, over at Yolie's house with Daniel and Megan, I did notice Jack being kind of clingy with Chuck.

Jack is normal and nurtured, stable and secure, so his grieving process will, or should, follow a fairly normal patten of behavior. He tells me that his crazy dog, Shatter, has helped a lot. I get it, the dogs help me cope also, and Shatter is a nutbird and a half.

Lily's full of good grades, music, art and Yorkies, just as I turn to gardening and books for solace. I'd taken CW's guitar to Musician's Warehouse to get it restrung yesterday, knowing that's one of his creative outlets, Nando is athletic and kicks the soccer ball all over the meadow. I think I spend more than a fair amount of time trying to discern each child's unique abilities and aptitudes, knowing the importance of it in the big picture of life, wanting to encourage that which they enjoy and excel in so beautifully.

I'd recently added another weight bench and set of weights (used) to our garage gym room, Allen, Chuy and JoJo have been helping Scotty bulk up, Sabrina's competition team, plus sideline cheering squads suck up all of her waking moments, while Tabby plays school with my grandchildren, loving being the older one for once.

I went to sleep thinking about Jonathan and woke up thinking about him, feeling guilty, of course, that I'm also glad I don't have to battle with him this morning about school, hygiene, logic, bullying, and all the other issues that sprang up each day.

I have a ton of other challenges awaiting me, nothing dangerous thankfully, just a bunch to do.

Surprised By My Tears

No one warned me that Marley & Me was a sad movie. Love stories don't get to me, but the dog died at the end of this movie, and I sobbed like a baby up in my tree house room late the other night.

I cried today in my truck for another reason.

We had a court date tomorrow, a day in which Jonathan's probation would be revoked due to his many offenses. I knew they'd take him away in handcuffs, crying and blubbering, and I was truly afraid I'd emotionally go over the edge as well.

Yesterday around two Charli called to tell me we'd been approved for our PRTF application. Major obstacle overcome. Wow. We'd applied for RBWO almost thee years ago when he was refusing to attend school for days on end and had been turned down.

"It's on you now, the parent has to call around to different facilities and get him admitted," she told me. "Text me back if you get it done and I'll fax over the approval papers.

Ten minutes later, first call made to the first facility of my choice and he was accepted, a flurry of emails, texts and faxes got the rest of the job done and I had him there by 10 a.m. this morning.

By 11:30 it was all over, all paperwork done, Jonathan trotted off excitedly like a kid at camp, barely hugging me goodbye.

I got into my truck and cried.

Cried over the unfairness of life. This is a kid who just can't. It's not that he won't. He just can't. He goes into the dark and angry bipolar caves of his mind and there's no reasoning with him. He's threatened murder, he's assaulted folks, he lies and he steals, but I don't think these are willfully disobedient choices.

He's severely emotionally troubled.

I'm terribly afraid if he someday carried out his murderous threats that have been well-documented, fingers would be pointed at me. "Why didn't YOU get him help when you knew he was like this?"

Like I haven't been trying for the past nine years, one month and 17 days? Four out of five kids in this sib group are flat out dangerous, they want to hurt others, and I find it ultimately heartbreaking.

I drove the 60 miles back home and tackled my errand list, staying busy, talked myself down on the phone with Yolie, Sarah and Emily, later with Grandma.

I'm not crying now, I'm just left with a sense of sadness and loss. I don't know what's gonna happen. He might honeymoon there, behave superbly, be released only to come home and explode viciously. I just don't know what's up ahead for us.

I do know that I'm very glad he's in an excellent treatment center instead of being locked up at RYDC. He doesn't need to be just punished, he needs help.

Tonight will be much quieter at my house, there's a sense too of relief in that I don't have to scurry around, walking on eggshells, trying to manage his very irrational behaviors and explosions. My own PTSD though isn't allowing me to totally let down my guard. I'm too much of an emotional wreck after the last ten years of very intense behavior challenges here 24-7 at my home. I just don't feel totally safe yet, even though I'm left with a pretty great group of kids. It's me, I'm the one with issues now.

The six potential victims of Jonathan, those that he predatorily deems younger or weaker will certainly now be relieved.

I kinda just feel like I've been hit by a frieght train over and over and over again for too many years in a row, a little afraid to get back up, knowing there's likely another train on the way, and I just can't figuratively get my big butt off the tracks safely.

Dear Dan

Dear Dan, I'm so sorry I crapped up your hitting streak, ending your run at 33 games in which to consistently get a hit. I jinxed you, I'm sorry.

Superstitiously sweating at each of his at bats, telling my kids to be quiet so I could will him to get a hit, much as I did during Daniel's lovely ten years of Little League and high school baseball games.

Sunday afternoon is the only day of the week when the sun is shining, that I don't feel guilty for watching an entire game. I was doing laundry during commercials, but was so excited about his potential game #34 that my high-octane suppressed mental energy must've short circuited his hitting ability.

I should've just worked on our budget, or finished reading a book.

Texting both Daniel and his beautiful fiance, Megan, during the game, reacting loudly to different plays, it all ended with a dumb thud for Dan Uggla.

Sorry 'bout that.

I'm also still irritated at Brooks Conrad for his three errors in one game last October when he crapped up Bobby Cox's last night in the Atlanta stadium, that wonderfully fun night with Daniel and Megan. Striking out yesterday only added to Dan Ugglla's woes.

No segue now into other matters, I type as the words and thoughts pour out, erratic, energetic and jumpy like my energy level.

Tony made a spinach quiche that afternoon, burning the crust, but hey, he's learning. Honey, put ricotta cheese in it and I'm gonna pig out, burnt crust or not. Tomatoes from my arid garden were deliciously tasteful inside.

When I find other interesting personal finance pages, I tend to read many of their older posts, gardeners captivate me as well, yet our local gardening blogger spoke of the heartbreak of so many drought filled years and intense heat, how it's taking its toll on so many farmers and gardeners. I'm fighting a losing battle, quite discouraged, but still hanging in there.

I've run our AC for over a month now, even the kids literally complaining about the canned air, I shut it off last night, fired up the attic fan and soaked our home with fresh, fragrant air, waking up under the covers this morning, refreshed and revived.

This entire week will only be 90, not near 100, a massive change for us all.

90 is relatively cool for Georgia in August, a very normal temperature for me, I thrive happily at 90 degrees.

This morning I have zero appointments, no meetings, and no demands and I'm gonna enjoy it, truly my first day with no grandchildren or any other requirements, and I have a long list of just plain ole boring stuff I need to work on.

I got to see Daniel and Megan later last night, Daniel telling me he's going to Boston in mid-September, and for a brief minute I thought about getting a babysitter (Hey Yolie, Hey Sarah), and meeting him up there for his military discount standing room only Boston Red Sox game.

Only a self-confidant, well-adjusted man like Daniel would encourage his silly ole mama, "Do it, Mom," but the reality for me is soccer season and a cheerleader which makes my attendance at the high school football games a requirement in order to emotionally support her endeavors. Deep sigh. Fenway Park is so on my Bucket List. Being there with Daniel would be a blast. The wallpaper on my phone is of he and I last spring on Opening Day at Turner Field.

That was the time they'd also saluted the military with this massive flag. How proud was I? Standing there with my Lieutenant son? Thank you Lord for so blessing me.


Bouncing thoughts again, but Facebook has brought some elementary school friends back into my life recently, that I even remember any of them is amazing, that I can't find Nancy Samuelson or Debbie Daniels is irking me, but how cool is this social network for shut-ins like me?

I picked a couple of watermelons out of my parched gardens, I think I'll eat an entire one by myself this morning, they're Charleston Greys, I'll save the seeds, well the ones that I don't spit across the field, remember I'm easily entertained, and I happily know that the next generation of these seeds will be even more suited to my spectacularly humid air, and dry soil micro climate.

Can you hear the quiet all around me? They've all gone to school, a fairly happy bunch of Monday morning teenagers, CW pictured above, a teenager having fun with CJ last night.

I hear the roar of my attic fan, some songbirds out the window, and a rooster that's been crowing for the past several hours.

My house is already swept and picked up, the dishes are done, rugs are vacuumed, leaving me more time for the bigger chores which actually excite me due to my unique conglomeration of ridiculously Type A genetic traits.

But first, a quick shout-out to sons-in-law that don't read my blog. I'm grateful that Chuck fixed Lily's keyboard and that Preston fixed Jonathan's fishing pole. I'd just have slung them both, the devices, not the men, across the room in frustration, as my gene pool lacks both the patient gene and the ability to sit still and figure out mechanics.