Later

I heard The Ninja on the phone with Friend (aka partner in crime) from last week. You'll remember that our families made different choices. The friend is undergoing restrictions, but apparently nowhere near as severe as the ones we have imposed.

After his call ended, Ninja complained that Friend stole more stuff than he did, but had a lesser punishment. I reminded Ninja that, before the shopping spree, he had already ripped us off for a substantial amount of money buying songs on iTunes. He turned away to go back to his room, and all I heard was "Unfair".

A bad couple of days

The Ninja made a really bad choice on Tuesday. No one is physically hurt, but the emotional pain is intense. More later when I have the heart to describe it.

More info

Spoke with Toots's social worker. Toots would have to submit what's called a "72-hour letter" to the hospital administration. Then, two psychiatrists would evaluate her to see if she could be discharged safely. SW told me that she has never seen a 72-hour letter initiated by a kid go through to discharge. The SW also told Toots that, if she left without housing lined up, and we didn't let her move back home, her option would be a homeless shelter.

Homeless shelter? What in the name of glory have we come to? This is becoming a tough love situation for us. But it's just not possible for us to have her back home on a full-time basis. The stress and fear and anger she subjects us to aren't livable. And we're not going to sacrifice The Ninja's life for her. If she refuses to accept the help that's offered to her, well, she refuses.

Toots also has the right to contact the state Mental Hygiene Legal Services for assistance. I used to have some dealings with them. The lawyer who acted locally for MHLS was a very no-nonsense, get-to-the-point person. Very competent, but NOT warm and fuzzy. If she is still in the position, I can just imagine the conversation between her and Toots.

P.S.

Part of Toots' plan of leaving the hospital and setting herself up is to return to the BOCES special high school where she has already flamed out twice. Would they even give her a third shot?

I emailed The Ninja's guidance counselor this morning. He met with Ninja briefly, and they will have a longer discussion on Wednesday.

What next?

It transpired that the amount of money Ninja appropriated to buy music on iTunes was a great deal more than $150. Enough that we could have used to have a memorable summer vacation, rather than just going to visit relatives. With the help of a therapist, we have instituted a drastic plan to help him relearn that his actions have an effect on his life. Virtually all privileges are gone, as is his allowance. We are not canceling the week of camp, as we would not get all the money back from that, but he is not going to have any money put in an account in the camp store. After June is over, he will have opportunities to start earning back limited privileges.

He has been pretty quiet and sober about it all the last day and a half. He cried on Friday night that he didn't want to be this way, he knows he's doing bad things but can't seem to stop, and our consequences up to now have been just minor irritations.

Meanwhile, Toots' latest idea is that she is going to sign herself out of the hospital. And live how????? Lew told her that we won't let her starve on the street, but she should not expect to be able to move back home. She thinks she will continue in school and get a part-time job in a store, and that will be enough to support herself. I tried to explain to her about the job market and minimum wage. Didn't get anywhere. She has no more clue than a three-year-old.

Yet more agita

We are having some considerable trouble with The Ninja. Lately, he has been coming up with some creative lies, such as "I was marked absent for that class because the power went out and the teacher couldn't enter the information in the system." Yeah, right.

Yesterday, we discovered that he has been using my husband's Amex card unauthorized, to buy music on iTunes. At least $150 worth. My husband set it up so that Ninja could buy iTunes, but the agreement was that he would reimburse me in cash when he did that. Well, what we have here is partially a parental failure to communicate. When he got the bills, Lew wasn't checking with me to see if I'd gotten the cash. Not that that excuses the Ninja. We're in the process of coming up with a consequence that will make him sit up and take notice. We hope.

Oh, did I mention that he's also failing math and may have to repeat the course?

Age...appropriate

Toots is a curious combination of teenager and toddler. We estimate her emotional age to be about five or six, with a chronological age of seventeen. Lately, possibly because of her recent med changes, she has been acting closer to her age when she's with us. It's been pleasant.

When Lew brought her home last night for an overnight visit, she had a variety of school papers and artworks to show us. It was rather disconcerting to see a paper "award", complete with Mickey Mouse, bestowed for good behavior in school.

Remember, she's in eleventh grade.

Does it ever let up?

We have had a rough week with The Ninja. He has been engaging in something new - cutting class. He skipped out of periods 6 and 7, this past Monday and Wednesday. He almost had me believing his story about Monday, that he was in the Counseling Center having additional individual testing. But, mom thought, why was that going on if he already had his triennial review testing done last month? For Wednesday, he tried to convince me that the teachers had accidentally marked him absent. Yeah, right. That's in keeping with the dodge from last year, when he claimed that he had handed in homework assignments that his teachers had forgotten to enter in their books.

So, after some stern talking yesterday, Ninja admitted that he cut these two classes to join his friends in the cafeteria during THEIR lunch periods, and then took his own regular lunch time as well. (Steam coming out of mom's ears.) Little Mr. Social Butterfly. I've always been glad that Ninja is so good at making friends. Until now. Grrr.

So, his consequence is that he loses the use of his XBox for two weeks. Two weeks for two occasions of cutting and lying. He says he doesn't care, but we know he does.

The thing is, you can run but you can't hide, in his school. We get an email and a robo-call informing us of his absence from classes. How knuckleheaded can you get?

This had better stop happening. He says it will. Stay tuned.

On the other hand, he and we could have many worse problems.

Reality

Was on the phone yesterday afternoon with Toots’ social worker at Children’s Hospital. Bless her, she is young, earnest and optimistic. She kept talking about how Toots is “making progress with understanding her emotions” in their counseling sessions. Honey, I appreciate what you’re saying, and what you’re trying to do with Toots. But she’s been working on “understanding her emotions” and “developing coping strategies” for ten years. Bottom line? She has “better” times and “worser” times. But overall forward motion? Not really.

Short visit

Toots didn't like the Aveeno skin lotion I brought her last weekend, and she requested baby lotion. She didn't like the smell of the Aveeno. Why did I accede to her request? Because she gets very dry skin in winter, and needs to be using lotion. Now that she's decided against the Aveeno, she'd rather eat nails than use it. So I brought her baby lotion. After that, my visit this afternoon didn't go well. You see, when Lew was on the phone with her the other night, and she was talking about having assaulted a staff person, he said (as we have done before), "Toots, I can't continue this conversation when you're talking about having beaten someone up. Love ya, honey, good night." And hung up. Note that he did not slam the phone down abruptly. Today, Toots started in on how she feels very insulted and disrespected by that action of his. I tried to explain to her that we cannot accept her assaulting staff, and that it is in no way OK. She said that it wasn't her fault (it never is), she got mad when they tried to get into her room, and "I just blacked out and didn't know what I was doing. When I realized what I was doing, I stopped." It was further excused by the fact that she hasn't done anything like that in years. I corrected her memory; it's been just over a year since she assaulted a police officer. She said, "Well, many months." In the discussion somewhere was, "I'm not stupid, I'm not a little kid, don't you think I know better, I apologized." Sorry, Toots, I don't buy that. Up till now, you've gotten a bye because you're a psychiatric patient. In the outside world, if you assault someone, you will be arrested and go to jail. Her reaction, of course? "Well, I won't do that!" Famous last words. How many times has she said "I know how to behave, I'll just do it", and then gone blithely on to do exactly the opposite. Anyway, to make a long story short, I left 25 minutes into an hour-long visiting period.

Timely phone call

As soon as I finished writing the previous post, the phone rang. It was the social worker from Toots' house, with information on what happened last evening.

The rule is that girls may have cell phones, but they can only use them when they are out of the house. When home, they may ask to use the house phone to make calls. Toots has been aware of this rule since before she moved in. Last night, she insisted that she wanted her cell phone, marched into the office, sat for 15 minutes (she weighs over 300 pounds, and she can't be shifted if she doesn't want to), grabbed the phone, lay on the floor, and kept saying that, since other girls didn't follow the rules, why should she? A senior staff member was able to talk to her and get her to give it back.

Now, Toots' behavior at the house has been pretty good overall. Lew and I last night, and the social worker this morning, are in agreement that this episode might be due to anxiety over returning to school. I hope it doesn't become a pattern.

By the way, Toots did get up, dress, and got on the bus this morning. And neither the social worker nor I has received a call yet.

When I have more energy I will write about the events of last spring, and why she wound up back in the hospital for nearly six months.