Constantly in Crisis

Scoop on Lauren

My sister called me today, concerned about posts Lauren had made on Facebook, and unfriending most of the family, and wanted to know what was going on. I figured I'd just answer here.

So, there's lots going on. Not much of it good. There are a couple of things playing into it.

One, I think, is medication. The psychiatrist is changing her medications, and there's a fair amount of instability arising from that, I think. The goal is that the new meds should work better, but it takes time to get them tuned.

The other is that we've been trying to draw some clear lines on the rules, and it's turned into a real pitched battle. Her therapist says that we do need to set firm rules no matter how hard she fights, and that we should draw them wherever we feel is appropriate, because it really doesn't matter where we draw them, she'll fight, so we may as well set them where we want.

The current line that's really causing a lot of stress is over her "snakebite" piercing. If you don't know what that is, it's where the lower lip is pierced on both sides of the mouth. She pierced herself without permission, and against our objections. We haven't told her she can't keep it, but we have told her that she can't wear it at home, including at night. That's effectively the same thing as saying she can't keep it, because if she goes many hours every day without it, the holes will heal over.

More on the piercing in a moment. Another source of much stress on Saturday was Samantha's discovery of a pot pipe in Lauren's room. She says it wasn't hers, that she was holding it for a friend. We actually believe her, but it doesn't matter. We were very clear that we have zero tolerance for anything related to drugs, or anything illegal. The pipe, of course, is both, and she not only had it she brought it into our house.

We tried to talk to her about the pipe, but she got really angry and threw it at Samantha. Hard. It shattered (it was glass) on our headboard where Samantha's head had been. Luckily she ducked quickly. With things escalating out of control, we called the police. They tried to talk to her, but she was very uncooperative. She told them she wanted to get out of our house and away from us because she hates us and we just make her miserable. The officer threatened to call Child Protective Services and have her placed in foster care; Lauren said "Fine." It didn't happen, obviously.

The police finally more or less gave up trying to talk to her and cited her for possession of drug paraphernalia. She has court in January. It's a "petty crime" (the term Colorado uses instead of misdemeanor) with a maximum fine of $100 and no jail.

We had some more drama on Saturday that got a little violent. I made a mistake, I think, in asking her for her phone. Per our rules, the first step when she (or Ben, because he also has a phone) breaks one of the "important" rules is that they lose their phone. Usually I just use Verizon's web site and shut off service, but in this case I asked her for the phone itself. She refused to give it to me and stuffed it down her shirt so I couldn't get it. I compounded my first mistake by forcing the issue and marching her into the other room so Samantha could retrieve it. Lauren refused again and started fighting. I held her arms so Samantha could get the phone, so Lauren started kicking Samantha -- repeatedly and hard. I hit Lauren to make her stop kicking -- a fact that she's been screaming at me at every opportunity "You hit me!", and telling to everyone within earshot.

We did get the phone. Part of the reason I pushed the issue was that when she got so vehement about it I wondered what was on it that she was afraid for us to see. Turns out, nothing. She just got angry.

After the fight, we started talking about maybe putting her back in residential treatment for a while, because she's getting so out of control. I even wrote an e-mail to her therapist asking for a recommendation. Lauren blew up at this suggestion -- but she actually handled this much better, calling her therapist rather than doing something crazy. The therapist told Lauren that she would not recommend any residential facility, because she feels it's really bad for people with BPD.

That's more or less where it ended on Saturday night. After she calmed down she even took her lip rings out when she went to bed. In the morning I thanked her for that and told her that she would get her phone back after church, provided she went.

Church is another sore point. We''ve decided to more or less force it, even though we don't really believe in forcing it, for two reasons. The principled reason is that church is part of our family life. We can't require our children to believe, that's something every person has to work out for themselves. But we do require the kids to attend with the family. The second reason is more practical in nature: We really don't dare leave Lauren home alone, unsupervised, for three hours. So the rule is simple: Not attending church on Sunday means her phone is off until Wednesday. Not attending Young Women on Wednesday means her phone is off until Sunday.

Anyway, she sat through about half of Sacrament meeting before walking out. Then she went to about half of Sunday School, then left and walked home.

When we got home, she asked why her phone wasn't back on. I told her it was because she'd left. She got angry and went upstairs and put her lip rings in. I asked her to take them out, and said that since she already didn't have a phone, refusal would mean that we'd have to move to the next level -- no computer.

She got really angry again. She told us she hated us, hated our house, hated our rules and just wanted to get away and never see us again. She demanded to be put into treatment, to escape us. I said that I didn't see the value in it, that her therapist thinks it's a bad idea, and that I don't think it will help -- and it's expensive. She said again that she wasn't going to live with us any more, and asked us what we were going to do so she could leave, if not treatment.

We responded that we weren't going to do anything, that we didn't want her to leave. But we told her that we wouldn't stop her if she wanted to go. She packed a bag and headed out, but came back a couple of hours later because no one would allow her to stay with them. She probably would have stayed gone longer, but it's cold outside.

Later in the evening she again insisted on treatment and we again said no to residential, that we were paying for her therapist and her psychiatrist, and that the therapist said residential was a bad idea. At that point she got really mad and told us that if she was forced to live with us, she was going to simply refuse to do anything we asked of her, at all.

We had laid out in our rules that continual and absolute defiance was another "zero tolerance" area, and that if it gets bad enough the child cannot live in our home. But the police had made clear (in her presence, darn it) that we cannot kick her out without making some other arrangements for her. So she knew that was an empty threat -- well, it's not completely empty, but it's one we're not ready to take yet, and one that would require some planning.

That's where it ended Sunday night, with her figuring she had nothing to lose, that we'd already given her all of the consequences we could. And she's not too far wrong. Physical punishment, even if it would work, which I doubt, is too risky legally. And we have to let her go to school, have to feed her, have to clothe her, etc. But we decided that if she isn't going to obey any of our house rules, then she won't get anything from us above the bare, legally-required minimum -- anything in the way of physical goods, I mean. We're certainly more than willing to provide other support.

So, while she was at school this morning, we boxed up the contents of her room. We left her with a couple of changes of clothes and her furniture and bedding and that's about it. Nothing on the walls, no drapes, etc. The only shoes she has are the ones on her feet, and I think I'm going to take them since she doesn't need to go anywhere (see below).

We expected another firestorm when she got home, but that came sooner than expected. About 10 AM Samantha called me to say that the school had called. Lauren had written another suicide note which some other girls had found. They were freaked out, obviously, and reported it to the school.

Long story short, the school decided she probably wasn't really suicidal, but asked Samantha to take her to her therapist for evaluation. They also said she can't come back to school until the new year (school's out until then after this week anyway), and that perhaps she shouldn't come back at all, because she is so disruptive to the other students.

Knowing what was coming, I hurried home from work. I got there just in time to see her stomp out the door. That was a big problem because the school had released her to us rather than sending her to the hospital on the condition that she would be closely supervised and taken in for an evaluation. But luckily she just went over to a neighbor's house. We called the neighbor, who agreed to keep an eye on her until it was time for her 2 PM appointment with her psychiatrist.

At about 1:15, Samantha went over to get her. Lauren refused, and said she refused to go to any appointments or anywhere else with us until she got her stuff back. We pointed out that the psychiatrist was going to charge us whether we went or not, and that if we didn't show the insurance wouldn't cover it. She obviously didn't care about that, not even when I told her she'd have to pay for it. Future consequences like that don't mean much to her.

So, I ended up having to manhandle her home and we had to physically put her in the car. It was really hard, she was fighting like crazy and screaming bloody murder. Nice show for the neighbors. Actually, I don't know if we'd have managed to get her in the car at all, even with both Samantha and I trying. Not without hurting her, anyway. I finally grabbed hold of one of the studs poking out of her lower lip, threatening to use it to move her. Apparently that was tender enough that she agreed to get into the car. So we child-locked the doors and drove to the doctor.

She screamed profanities at us for about half the 30-minute ride, and sat in sullen silence the rest, after promising that she wouldn't say a word to the doctor. When we got there she went in, and did actually end up talking to the doctor. The doctor adjusted her medications, but she wasn't the one to do the evaluation; Lauren had a 5:30 PM appointment with her therapist for that.

When we got back home, Lauren decided to take off again. Again, this was a big problem for us, but it looked like it would be okay since she headed over to the same neighbor. This time the neighbor wasn't home, so I saw her heading off down the street and hopped in the car to see where she was headed. She was going to a boy's house -- incidentally, the boy we're pretty sure she got the pipe from.

I told her she wasn't going to his house, that we were responsible to watch her until she got to her therapist appointment and that although we trusted the neighbor we didn't trust the boy or his family. She told me I couldn't stop her (with a lot of profanity mixed in). I said that she was either going home or I'd call the police to take her home. After some more choice words, she walked home. I followed.

When she got home, she called the boy and asked him to come over. I pointed out that she was grounded because of her ongoing defiance and that he couldn't come over. Again she insisted I couldn't stop him, again I pointed out that I could call the police if he trespassed. She got really angry then and started pushing and hitting me, and trying to force her way past me to get out.

I blocked her escape, so she tried to jump out her bedroom window. Her bedroom is on the second story, and her window overlooks the concrete patio, so that would be a bad fall. I got behind her, wrapped my arms around her, pulled her back in the house and held her. She managed to topple both of us over, so I just laid across her, preventing her from getting up, and I shouted for Samantha to call the police. She was completely out of control at that point.

I just stayed there, holding her down, until shortly before the police came. I'm pretty sore because she was pummeling me most of the time. Luckily, she's not that strong so mostly I just let her beat on me. The only exception was when she grabbed the cord of the nearby vacuum cleaner and started whipping me with it. She got in several good strokes before I grabbed the cord from her, and then I had Ben move the vacuum cleaner out of her reach. I have some pretty good stripes on my back.

Finally she promised not to try to run or jump if I'd get off her, so I did. Within just a minute or two after that the police arrived. The officer spent a good long while talking to her, and did manage to get her to calm down. Then he talked to Samantha and I, and then he talked to Lauren until it was time to leave for her appointment.

The ride in to Boulder was amazingly positive, especially given everything that had just happened. She was happy and singing. Samantha went with her to her appointment while I took the boys over to the Google office, where we raided the drink coolers and played Rock Band and pool and messed around on the climbing wall.

She came out of her appointment without her lip rings, and we went to the mall for FHE. It was good until she went to Hot Topic and found some "piercing retainers", little semi-clear plastic pins you can use to hold your holes open, and asked me to buy them for her. I refused, and then of course she was furious -- but quietly so -- all the way home. Oh, sometime while we were at the mall, she put her lip rings back in.

So, that's where we are now. She's in bed, in an empty room, without a phone, and is wearing her lip rings. So the fight's not over yet; she's still trying to see if she can outlast us. We think it's important that she not be able to. It's not so much about the lip rings (though we really dislike them) as it is about the idea that there are real boundaries, and this is a better place to draw that line and have that fight than the next set of boundaries. It's pretty clear that the next fight, if we give on body modification, will be drugs. Just marijuana, at first, but we want to stay away from that fight, if at all possible (and it's probably not).

We're not sure what's going to happen on Friday, when we're supposed to drive home to Utah. If she doesn't tone down the defiance at least a little, we're going to have another problem because she won't be welcome in the Smith's home. It's already the case that we're not allowed to leave her there; if she's there we have to be also, because Martin and Nadine don't think they can handle her. They have a point.

I'm thinking that we may actually want to stay at Mom & Dad's, mostly because she doesn't know people in Layton and would have less reason to try to take off. We couldn't all fit, though, so it'd probably end up being me staying there with her, while everyone else stayed at Smith's.

It's going to be a wild ride the rest of the week. I may be working from home every day because I'm not sure I dare leave Samantha alone with her. She's as big as Samantha is.

Ian