Thursday, February 9, 2012

Shame: It cuts so DEEP.

I have not been blogging for a while. :0)
Like a month, yikes…Apparently I have been *cough* overwhelmed?

Imagine that.

Things are in limbo with baby Faith, my heart is raw and aching, but that is not something I can or will talk about. Just please send prayers. Lots.

Something so, “RAD-A-LICIOUS”, went down at my Casa today, I had to get it out somewhere…and the fact I kept my cool, and helped process it therapeutically…BOOO-YAH! Cause that is not always the case….bahahahahaha

Chatter goes to Therapy.
I love Chatter’s therapist, she.gets.it.
She is a Catholic Nun, that has family that has adopted children with R.A.D…
She gets it in ways many therapist would not.
Still a MAJOR triangulation just blew our way…and left me speechless.

It is no secret I ‘used’ to Home-school, just like I ‘used’ to do a lot of things I loved and had convictions for, prior to bringing my brood home. I home-schooled for the first year and a half with nine children in our home.
Then it became TOO MUCH. I couldn't keep myself, or my family afloat any more.

At that point convictions became frivolous things and for the sanity and health of my family I had to adapt, we all did. Now 5 of my children, attend 4 separate, all day, part time, a couple hours, everyday a week, two days a week, home based, therapeutic, public, and Charter Schools. It is a different, more manageable kind of hard.

My oldest at home lil' Missy “Bugs” is tender, and brilliant, but shy. Being a new girl in the fourth grade at a wealthy public school, has not been kind. Not kind at all. As in, if I wasn’t a grown woman, there are some kids I wouldn’t mind punching in the face kicking sand at out on the playground. Seriously. Bugs has struggled, begged me to Home-school again. I have prayed, cried and battled this as a mother. I hate seeing my daughter alienated, YET, if I can’t help her, cheer her on, and let this help her be stronger, and more resilient during HER, (NOT MY) trial…what faith am I putting in her and her capabilities? When the playground of life comes to call, what tools have I given her, if I don’t love her up at home, build her up..and send her out for some hard knocks. Gag.

For Christmas I bought her this necklace as a reminder, to hold her head up, and be who she is...

Everyday for the past 4 moths, I have processed how her day was, how Recess went, if she talked to anyone, what she did, whose crap she didn’t take. Freak, Gossip Girl has nuthin’ on these little Diva’s.

….and apparently someone else was paying attention…like taking NOTES, paying attention.

Enter an interesting visit I had prior to Chatters therapy appointment with her therapist.
Apparently Chatter has had very sincerely and heartfelt like sessions where she has talked about “not having friends to play with on the playground” and “ having to walk around recess all by herself”.

“Wha?”

It was sounding all too familiar.
And knowing Chatter HAS FRIENDS, and PLAYS with them on the playground, and I could name names of all of the kids she hangs with….I was intrigued to figure out what the sam-hell was going on.

So, not to bore you with my mad numb-chuck skills in the detective work department; When push comes to shove turns out Chatter had started weaving these giant tales of  “No one being nice to her on the playground”, “Having no One to Play with”…
“Walking alone all during Recess by herself” to her therapist….she filled up sessions with it.

…and then the Mama-bomb dropped..and started asking questions.

Turns out Chatter led this into a self fulfilling prophecy. So she wasn’t lying to her therapist, she started telling her friends “No, I don’t want to play with you”, or, “I am not allowed to play with friends, I have to walk alone”.

Seriously, she was alienating herself, on purpose.

It took 3 hours, tons of tears, a lot of patience, and phrases like, “It seems to me”, “I might be wrong, but”, “I am guessing” , “Maybe….”.

We used an arm length of how much truth we had to tell and where we were at in the truth.
We had sobbing melt downs, where she would have rather gagged and thrown up than admit the truth.
and.we.got.through.it.

I kept my cool, I worked through her shame of her deeply WISHING she WAS Bug-bug, in everything, EVERYTHING. We worked through how much fun it wasn’t going from having friends to play with, to telling them “no” and being alone….

We blew out, and screamed together and then jumped on the tramp counting to 100 over and over again…and we had our tapping words:

“It is good to be me”
“I deserve to be happy”

….I sometimes forget, how deep my children’s shame goes, how far they will go to be seen, to control their environment and create tangibly the constant chaos that goes on in their heads. Today we tore down together something she had put up by herself….and in that moment, she was not alone.