Tina's Daily Blog: The Day From Hell

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

The Day From Hell

Yes.... we are mid-week without Chris home and today I truly went insane. We're talking crying in the car because the stress is almost too much kind of insane.

Julie had asked yesterday if her new roommate could come over for Easter with us. Now, I'm sure this girl is really nice - and my decision had NOTHING to do with her what-so-ever. But... with Chris gone all week, me managing here alone, and on top of that with a little cold - no, I really don't want to entertain guests. Our family, Evie and Jimmie, Mom, Julie, is great -- but not someone I've not met before. I was trying to figure out a way to nicely tell Julie this yesterday when I got a call from Julie about 11am.

She and her new roommate had gone out to breakfast. Both had taken their medications and reacted badly to them.... slurring.... sleeping sitting up. The roomie was driving and kept almost hitting cars, swerving, that kind of thing. They were up by my house and wanted to know if they could come over and they could take a nap at my house. Now.... the nap I certainly didn't mind - I'd much rather them rest than drive around in a doped up sleepy stupor. Ya know? But..... the whole thing was just............... odd. I don't EVER recall having to ask someone if I could sleep at their house because I was too tired to drive. Never mind the fact that it was 11 in the morning. (Apparently they were up all night talking - as Julie said "like a teenage slumber party") So.... they crashed at my house until 3 or so. I told her she HAD to be gone before the kids got home from school. I did manage to tell her that I didn't want her new roommate to come over for Easter - but it had nothing to do with her... I just.... wasn't in the frame of mind to entertain on that day.

About 1 or 2 today, Julie calls me at work. She just talked to mom, and mom had told her that I might not want her to come over to my house on Easter. Why?? Because she was terribly drugged.... slurring her words something horrible... not making any real sense. Julie goes on to tell me that she had just come from seeing Dr. Vergeese - but he really couldn't do anything because she was difficult to understand and she kept falling asleep sitting up. And... as I'm talking to Julie, I totally understand why my mom said what she did -- Julie sounded horrible! So... "Easter" she says, "can I still come over?" Then she follows quickly with "if not, it's fine. Kay and I will go to the Sandpiper Beach Resort for the weekend." I truly felt like she almost would rather go to the beach. She mentions that Easter and Thanksgiving were not big holidays for her anyways. After thinking about it for a while, I told her that I really felt it best that the kids NOT see her in that condition.

At about 3 she called and wants to come over tonight to say "hi" to the kids - she wants to know if I'll be home so she can swing by. She sounds better on the phone at this time. Not normal, but better. I explain to her that I have a lot going on tonight: I have to go to the pool store after work and get chlorine, come home and maintain the pool, take Kayla to dance practice, take Justin to baseball practice, go to the grocery store, then go back and get Kayla and Justin. Mind you.... this is all timed to the minute. Pool store by 5:30, treat the pool by 5:45, 5:45 take Kayla to Church, drop Justin off at 6, go to the grocery store until 6:45, go back and pick up Kayla, then Justin, then home and make dinner. So.... no.... there is no TIME. She says she'll call anyways and see if I'm home. Sigh...........

4:30 I get a call from home while I'm at work and all hell is breaking loose at home. One of the kids who comes over all the time, Sean (who is NOT supposed to be in the house before 5) is in the house and he and Jonathan just got into a fight. Sean had Jonathan in a headlock, Jonathan hit Sean. It sounded HORRIBLE and it's an awful feeling to hear that chaos going on at home and not being there to deal with it.

Sometime between my telling Julie "no" about the visit tonight when I talked to her at 3 and 4:30 she's called Justin to talk to him about coming over. He calls and tells me that he does not want to miss baseball practice tonight. I tell him not to worry about it, he IS going. He said his mom didn't sound so good and asked "how long is she going to be like this?" I didn't know what to say... but I told him it might take a couple weeks for her medications to get regulated.

On the way to the pool store, Julie called to see where I was... could she come over. I tell her I am just insanely busy right now... too much to do. She says she'll call later and see if I'm home and she can come over. We talked about how to tell the kid she wasn't coming at Easter. I told her that I was just going to tell them about her medication.. how it wasn't 'right' yet. Julie explained that -- she takes the meds as prescribed, but right after she takes them she gets dopey and the slurred speech, which lasts a while. She doesn't like taking afternoon meds, but she has to because if she doesn't the voices come back. She says they are louder in the late afternoon and at night... then quickly points out that they are not really 'voices' as much as 'sounds'. Yeah... okay.

I head home, expecting the house to be in horrible shape. Of course, I was not surprised to see it was. Jonathan broke a wooden lip to the wood floor... super glue on the wooden dining room table from where he tried to fix it... course NOBODY had done their chores... and they are just sitting around like they have nothing better to do. I'm FURIOUS with everyone at this point. In particular Jono who broke my floorboard into three pieces. I go to Jono's room (where I sent him in anger mode to keep myself from yelling at him) and I see that he still has not cleaned his room... the clothes that **I** folded for him earlier in the morning that I asked him to put away were not done. I was LIVID.

Somewhere in this time Julie calls. Again. I tell her I am headed out to go drive Kayla to Church. She said she'd call back in a bit to see if she could come over. At this point I just want to cry.... I don't need one more thing. Is this some kind of joke? Argh....

I take Kayla to Church, go to the grocery store, come home to take Justin (only to find out someone else is going to take him to the park - YAY!) I put away groceries and realize that I have 15 minutes now before I have to go back and pick up Kayla. I figure I can quickly start dinner and it'll be done at a reasonable time - so I'm making dinner. Phone rings... it's Julie. (Anybody counting these??) "Can I come over now?" She asks. I explain that I have 15 min before I have to go get Kayla. She said... "it's okay, I don't mind. What are you doing for dinner? I could make the chicken dish that you love!" Okay wait... now she wants to eat over??? I am FRAZZLED beyond BELIEF at this point. I'm still huffing over Jono, frantically trying to get groceries put away and dinner started in time to go get Kayla. I tell her that I guess she can come over, but only for the 15 min or whatever - I've got to go get Kayla. She comes right over.

I finally meet her roommate, Kay. Very nice lady. When it's time to get Kayla, Julie suggested I take Kayte with me, then Julie can stay and visit with Kayla when I get back. She mentions bringing her bathing suit so they can go swimming too. Boy... I think she had this planned the whole time. I take Kayte, go pick up Kayla and come home.

Mind you, any time I'm alone at this point, I am balling my eyes out because I am so stressed. I feel......... like I have no control... and I HATE THAT!

Long story short (oops, too late!) Julie stayed over, ate with us, went in the hot tub, and it was really okay. The kids were worried about her... she kept shutting her eyes falling asleep. But other than that, it was a good visit.

On top of it all.............. it's report card day. I'm going to post their grades here real quick, then go watch some TV. I'm utterly exhausted.... and I need some 'me' time. The only thing I'm missing is some Gray Goose............ that would be nice! Anyways.........

Kayla: 3 A's, 1 B, 3 C's
Justin: 2 B's, 4 C's, 1 D
Kayte: 2 A's, 4 B's
Jonathan: 2 B's 2 C's, 2 D's

Don't spend your precious time asking
'Why isn't the world a better place?'
It will only be time wasted.
The question to ask is 'How can I make it better?'
To that there is an answer.
Leo F. Buscaglia

1 comment:

Unknown said...: All I can say is "whew" - you are amazing.; 10:25 PM

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In A Nutshell:

Here is a letter I sent to Dr. Phil which really sums everything up:
I am married to my high-school sweetheart (20 years this August), with two wonderful children (Amanda who is 20 and Jonathan who is 13). I have two sisters, both younger – I call them “my good sister” and “my bad sister”. My good sister is – well, good! Normal in every way. The bad one, Julie, has been in trouble since she was a kid. As a baby she cried all of the time. As a teenager she was in trouble all of the time. At the age of 14 or so I remember that she had run away from home to live with a grown man in Atlanta. This was one of many run a ways. As a teenager, she provided sexual favors to boys in school, as well as teachers. As a young adult she was arrested for prostitution. She’s done drugs ranging from marijuana to crack. She was diagnosed early on as bi-polar with personality disorder. She’s also a serious cutter to the point where she no longer hid the cuts. She’s cut things like “Ronald Cecchinni” into her arm… and “Fuck you Dr. XXX” on her stomach, in large letters. Julie is also a diagnosed sex-addict. She’s also recently (in the past year) begun ‘huffing’. (I honestly believe that this huffing has caused some permanent damage) She is currently 36yo.
Julie lost her husband Ron a year and a half ago as a result of Leukemia and Kidney Disease which the military attributed to his serving in the Gulf War. He left behind three children – Kayla who is now 15, Justin who is now 14 and Kayte who is now 13. Even when Julie was married, her psychiatric problems persisted. She has been hospitalized literally hundreds of times over the years. However, when her husband was alive, he would take care of the kids when Julie was mentally out of control. After Ron died, Julie lost control of the kids and her life. She began to spiral out of control, having pot parties at her home (to the point where the kids said a door would open and a cloud of smoke would come bellowing out of the room), smoking weed with her own kids, having sex all over the house with different men all the time, allowing young men (19 yo) to sleep over with her oldest daughter (only 14 at the time), and allowing Gang members to live in her home (she said she felt ‘safe’ with them there). In addition, she was attempting suicide daily, overdosing on medications hoping to not wake up the next morning. Mind you all of this while she was seeing her Psychologist every week and Psychiatrist once a month. Both of these Doctors knew what was going on at home, neither of them reported it to the proper authorities. I have even been told by one of them that he was told, by Julie, that she ‘heard voices telling her to hurt the children’ but that she was proud that she could ignore the voices. Still, these Doctors reported nothing.
I should add here that it was at some point in this period of time in Julie’s life when her children began suicide watches over their mom… each one taking turns to sit in a room with her at all hours (night and day) because their mom was less-likely to hurt herself while they were here. However, it didn’t always work – Julie constantly took pills in front of them trying to either dope herself up or overdose, and she would even cut herself in front of the kids.
Finally one day, she woke up furious that her last suicide attempt didn’t work. She got violent with her oldest daughter, police were called, and finally DCF was called. (I would like to add that we (other family members) had called DCF in the past to report things, but some of the cases were ‘unfounded’ and one other time the fled the state knowing CF only had jurisdiction in Florida.) DCF removed the children from the home in November 2005 and I gained custody of the Children shortly thereafter.
There are lots of things I could add here about my sister, DCF, and the horrible Foster Care or Custodial Care program we are involved with. However, that is not my main reason for writing to you.
Kayte, the youngest, seems to be adjusting pretty well. She has a tendency to trivialize what her mom has done and the seriousness of it, but I think that is normal given that it is her mom. Kayte was in counseling, but she feels it’s ‘a waste of time’.
Justin, the middle child, is okay. As a young boy I'm told he was a terror. He used to hit his mother and at one point (only 6yo) tried to jump off a building to kill himself. Since then, his anger has turned in to an endless smothering of love and caring. He does everything for his mom… from getting her whatever she needs to rubbing her feet and back. Justin has seen a psychiatrist since moving in with me who felt that his issues were brought on by trauma. It was also at that visit with the psychiatrist that he confided in myself and the Doctor that he had suicidal thoughts often while living at home with his mom in her ‘state of being’ after his dad died. However, since he moved in with me he has done so much better (and continues to improve daily) that she didn’t feel he even needed counseling at this time. He would, however, need counseling before he was reunited with his mom.
Kayla, the oldest, has serious issues. She is also currently in counseling but feels that it is ‘a waste of time’. Kayla has always lied and stolen things. Family members feel sorry for her because you can tell that she doesn’t really mean any ill will by it, but it’s been ‘the way she is’ for a very long time. By far her biggest problems are lying and her need for approval by men (young and old).
Since the kids have moved in with us, my husband and I have set up rules. The kids already had myspace accounts, so we set ground rules for it. 1) We needed the login names and passwords. 2) Profiles must be set to private. 3) The only people they were allowed to have on their friends list was people that they actually knew. When Kayla’s list climbed over 300, and she was found to have inappropriate conversations (wanting to sneak out and ‘hook up’ with young men), we made everyone cut their list down to 30 friends, which included myself. 4) All vulgar language and inappropriate photos would come off immediately and would be monitored by myself at any given time. At times, they try to put up ‘sexy’ pictures which immediately need to come down.
However recently I have found that she has multiple website things going on in an attempt to pick up young men. I'll outline a few here so that you understand the gravity of the situation: 1) I found her 'normal' myspace account set to 'public view'. She has over 11,000 profile views(meaning people looking at her pictures and wanting to know more about her). I had reset it to private many times, but she keeps going back and resetting it to public. 2) I have found another myspace account which she went by the name 'Shannon' and used it to pick up young men, tease them, then later tell them that she was 'taken' but refer them to her 'cousin, Kayla'. She'd then give them all of Kayla's information. Of course thiswas also set to public. 3) I have found another social network website that was like myspace in which she had ONLY men (mostly from other states) as her 'friends' whom she corresponded with. The emails back and forth basically said the same thing as all of the others... more on that in #4 - only these were guys that not only did she not know, but they were not even in the area! 4) All accounts that I have found had basically the same thing... her emailing guys wanting to know if she was pretty, if they wanted to 'hook up', talking about going to their 'crib' or meeting up with them somewhere, and constantly seeking approval and affirmation from these guys.
I believe she gets this from her mom. And the sad thing is, if you met her, you would love her. She is truly a GREAT kid… but she has serious issues. I’ve described to you Julie’s behavior and Kayla’s seems to be the same way. Neither can make decisions on their own that are ‘the right thing to do’, and both lack the understanding of simple values, morals and ethics. I could go into so many examples. How do I describe the utterly amazing difference between Julie’s parenting style and my own?
I know... Both Julie and I have myspace accounts set up to ‘monitor’ the kids. To illustrate the difference between Julie and myself, here is something that Julie and I both put on our myspace accounts. You are supposed to put something 'about yourself' by your picture. Here is mine: "I'm 38 years old. I have two amazing kids, Amanda who is 20 and Jonathan who is 13. I have great husband, Chris. I love to sing - and have been singing in Toast of Tampa Show Chorus for 10 years. I'm raising my nieces and nephew (12, 13 and 14). I love God and my family."And here is Julie's: "I am who I am and if you dont like me for me........FUCK YOU........ Plus if you dont like me for me....... Im gunna tell my kids and there gunna kick yer ass!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Here’s the other dilemma we are having; the two girls are in counseling that is costing me $25 EACH in co-payments every time they go. The State of Florida provides NO financial support to me as a relative caregiver, other than providing the three kids with Medicaid. They received small SSI checks because of their dad’s death, but it barely covers the food they consume. The DCF worker, having spoke with the girls and being told that therapy is ‘a waste of time’, has referred me to a clinic that DCF uses for cases such as this to seek mental care for Kayla (aswell as the others). However, the kids have TriCare as their primary insurance because their dad died from Military causes. TriCare requires the co-payment, regardless of the Medicaid secondary. Having said that, please understand that I worked in referrals in a primary care physician’s office for 16 years… I totally ‘get’ what is required for primary and secondary insurances and all the red tape. But because of the uniqueness of this situation, the kids are suffering!
I should also point out here that I have the kids for an indefinite period of time. Right now Julie is doing things that she has been told to do to get the kids back. However, she is still awaiting a court ordered detailed Psychiatric exam to determine if she can EVER parent again. Even if that Psychiatrist feels she can parent again, she’ll most likely need to be ‘clean’ and ‘episode-free’ for 6 months to a year minimum. In addition, Julie is only allowed supervised visits and one phone call a day. This came about because of her inappropriate behavior when she was with the kids and because when she was allowed to call any time she’d call 10 + times a day.
The other problem with Julie ever getting her children back is that… she doesn’t understand what she did wrong. She parents as if she were 15-years old herself. If anyone has ever done something bad and been able to ‘keep’ their kids, she sees no reason she can’t do it. She brought her daughter at the age of 13 in for a HUGE tattoo on the small of her back. It’s Tigger flipping ‘the bird’ with her gang name under it. She was also planning on getting a large tattoo on her 12yo before the kids were taken. Again, she sees nothing wrong with any of her past behavior.
So, you see, I could have these children for the rest of their teenage years. I honestly don’t know where to turn to get them the help they need.
I feel as if I am in a psychiatric nightmare and I just can’t wake up. Eight months ago I was at home, my biggest ‘kid worry’ was if my son was going to get good grades on his report card. Now I find myself in a crux worried about whether or not the lessons I teach them, this late in their young life, are going to be enough to turn these kids around and help them to be productive adults in the near future.

Tina's Daily Blog

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

The Day From Hell

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