Ready or not the RTC is done....

It amazes me to think that I have gotten to the mindset that “I just don’t care”. I look back at my life, the last 4 grueling years, my children, my marriage, everything. I am amazed that most of it remains intact.

I feel punished. My heart aches and I am out of answers.

We are days away, Friday the 13^th to be exact, for his return from residential treatment. It did not work. He continues to escalate and continues to attack. They can’t help him no more than he can help himself. He shows behaviors there but nothing like at home. I guess they can’t justify keeping him if he is not trying to plan the next mass attack. He continues to be self mutilating and dangerous. We feel lost, tired and angry.

I have gone silent since he left in May, 2011 (his 9^th birthday). I needed healing for myself, my other children. I have had a taste of what our lives could have been. Bike rides with giggles, snuggling watching movies, hugs-oh the random daily hugs- sweet gestures, laughter and I love yous. It all stops now. I have to transition back into protective mommy mode. I hate who I have become. I try to find my pizzazz and my internal happy that has kept me pushing for so long but the fire is out and I can’t seem to relight the match.

I don’t want to give up on making the memories that I have been making with my other children over the last few months. I will leave them as that, memories, beautiful moments that I had. I can be happy knowing that I capitalized on the time I had with them.

While in RTC he came home for weekends. We never had a good weekend while he was home. The music stopped in the house and the control battle began. The violence and rages continued. Some weekends were better than others and some you just had to buckle down and ride it out until the weekend pass was over. I then spent the entire week showing my other children love and affection. Love and affection piss him off and make him violent. It has become safer to avoid affection when he is home. The affection between me (mom) and the other kids (always better than him according to his perception) causes violent rages and intense moments.

Safety. It’s what’s for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It seems to be ALL that matters.

I am scared. I am scared of my 9 year old. How do you explain that to yourself let alone the professionals?

I have been beaten down by a new batch of “quick fixers” the State has sent to me. If I am told one more time to throw everything I know about parenting this child again I may scream or start punching. I have been told that therapeutic parenting is bullshit and the proper parenting technique is to “lead by example”.

(those of you that are sensitive to language may want to turn the page here for a moment of venting).

I am the Motha of a F@#$ example as a loving parent. I dissociate better than my child so that I can always show love, kindness, and acceptance and Damnit I spend every breath working on techniques, identifying triggers and trying to make sure everyone moves within the house easily and safely. I have no life other than trying to understand and help my children of trauma.

(please resume normal reading here)

Unfortunately if I do not take the new help I am considered unwilling and I will have no services, nowhere to turn when he goes off the deep end again. I have to play nice and show that “I want to make myself better so that he can love me”. (nice quote huh?-jerk faces!)

He is super excited that we have people that will be in and out of our house “showing me how to be a good mommy”. Did they really say that to him? No. That is his perception and one of the biggest obstacles we have to tackle. His perception. Nothing is as he perceives it. Red is black and a dog is a cat, it is that off. He thinks this new round of treatment is funny and likes that I have to have “helpers” to be his mom. The attention is delighting him. It is yet another person to manipulate and he loves that more than anything.

It sucks me dry. I feel that I have nothing left to give at times. I am numb. I feel weak and ready to just let him finish me off. This sucks. The worst part is my post is so similar to other moms just like me feeling the same thing, looking for answers, giving it everything they have, pulling their hair out, sadly I am not alone in this.

It’s time to find some real answers and I am going to show them they have never met a “motha” like me…