So this past week has been a bear. Lauren is headed for a real downfall so it seems. Rebellious to a T. Refusing to come home when curfew hits. Refusing to talk to me. Refusing to go to any religious events. Leaves the house without telling me where she is going or who she will be with, and then refuses to come home or tell me where she is. Refuses to help around the house, and is not doing homework, and not doing well in school. She has started to wear make-up that is down right scary, and is cutting again, and getting phone calls from people I don't know. Medicines for the boys, the few not locked up, have started to disappear. Lauren swears it isn't her, but I don't know what to believe. I want to believe her, but I just am not sure. And everything is way fishy. So I am on ultra sensitive mode to make sure she is okay, and she is pushing me further and further away and saying terrible things to me.
She refuses to go to therapy so I finally gave her an ultimatum. She will go to therapy, either with her therapist, or in a residential facility, but she will have therapy. The choice is hers. She finally chose her therapist. So she goes after this terrible week and talks to her therapist and on the way home I try to see how it went and what they talked about. She says mainly the week, and I said and ...... She replies it was a good week, things have been really good! My chin drops and I go, really! Yes she just is feeling overwhelmed by me, and that is the reason for all of this. What crap. I wrote a letter to her therapist hoping she would see through this. This week has not been good, and Lauren is not in a good place.
I am having a hard time with this new therapy. I know it takes time, and I realize that point is to get Lauren to regulate her own emotions and upsets and deal with them in a positive way and to change that way over time, but the past weeks, whether they are survival mode or otherwise are killing me. The whole house has been in Chaos. The other kids want to know why she gets away with things that they don't. Part of that is I don't have any type of consequence I can enforce that makes a difference to her. I can say no friends, and she sneaks out. I can say no phone so she takes mine or her brothers. I can say no electronics and she doesn't care. No money, she steals it. Other than putting her in jail, I don't really have any consequences that I can impose. I suppose I could put her in jail, but that just seems like a bad solution. They don't have the means to help her, and she would just sit there and accomplish nothing, except have a record, which she already does. Doesn't need more.
My husband is so frustrated that he has more of less said that unless she is hurting herself or others physically or damaging mentally, (which is tricky) he isn't going to bother with it, because all it does is cause upset for him, and worry, and accomplishes nothing. So essentially it leaves me to deal with her, and I can't just give up and let her do whatever. She is still too young to make some of these stupid decisions. Maybe he is right, that is essentially what her therapist thinks we should do. Have the least restrictive environment that is safe. Let natural consequences fall, and let her manage. She thinks, and is probably right, that we have tried to "help" Lauren make good choices for so long, that she either refuses, or makes deliberate bad ones, because she thinks we are trying to control her. If she could only see we are trying to help, but I guess sometimes help is a hindrance.
Anyway..... I need to set up and appointment with her therapist where her father and I can go in, and get some real life advice, because overall doesn't really seem to help, and I am really struggling to keep going. And it isn't fair to my other kids, my husband, or even myself. In fact I have been pretty frustrated and down because I feel like the only one who can truly help is God, and his timeline is so slow or he feels like this is good for us, and isn't helping or at least not in a way I can see, that I am getting pretty discouraged. I read article after article on how you can get help for mental illness, and they all say that the Lord will help, and that blessings and modern medicine help, but for the past 4 years it hasn't really helped. I still feel like our lives are in chaos, and that as a family we are falling apart. I just need some help and need to have some support and see some progress!
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