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 |  My son's recovery from severe abuse and the horrors of Attachment Disorder |
| May 25, 2008 This has been a good week so far. In a way, it has felt weird. It’s been such a long time since we’ve had a meltdown, that it’s a little scary! LOL Isn’t it strange that normal feels so weird? In fact, it worried me that not only might Tony sabotage the progress, but what if I, myself, sabotage it because it just seems too good to be true? We decided to buy him a Play Station 2 as a graduation present, because Michael couldn’t follow through with his promise. (His dad wanted it for himself.) It will eventually go to Grandmother’s house, but right now she is tied up with Aunt Rita in the hospital, so we have it at home. He has done well with it so far, and it hasn’t caused him to argue about bed time or other times we asked him to stop. Things sort of snowballed, though, because of convenience and events that sort of just happened. The same day we got him the PS2 for graduation, I had to pick up my recently widowed sister in B’ham. Since James and Kellye were working at camp, Tony and I decided to have an adventure. We went to Books-a-Million, and we had so much fun, he compared it to Six Flags. Wow! He got a Spiderman comic book and drawing book (surprise, surprise); he got a whole SET of Captain Underpants books, and then Shiloh and My Side of the Mountain, to read as requirements for summer reading for sixth graders. So he really racked up. I figured, it’s reading; it’s educational. Hopefully, I didn’t mess up our progress by giving him too much too soon. After our trip to Books-a-Million, we treated Aunt Mary Ann to dinner at Chili’s. He treated her like a queen—a fragile queen. She felt honored and pleased as punch. Then, Saturday, I really needed to buy him some shorts and shirts for summer. I also bought him a basketball because his other one got stolen, and he uses it so well for help with his emotions. But I did tell him that he HAS to keep it in the laundry room, so it won’t be stolen again. You can see why I’m concerned about buying him so much. There were only three negatives worth mentioning, but no tantrums or meltdowns: First incident: On the way home from last week’s session, I allowed him to go into the store with me, as long as he chose his ice cream flavor quickly. If not, I would choose for him. He did fine, except he kept picking up things in the store to look at and show me. I told him to stop picking things up because I had to check out, and someone might think he was trying to steal something. The next time he picked up something, I did “pat him down” as discretely as possible, but he was still embarrassed. In the car he expressed his anger, and I thanked him for telling me his feelings, and explained that I didn’t really think he had anything, but that I had asked him not to pick anything else up. A little pouting, but no shouting! (Poetic Warrior Mom) Second incident: As we got into the car to head to Wal-mart to buy groceries (remember James and Kellye were at camp), Tony “remembered” something he needed from the house. Two points for Warrior Mom, who was alert and ready, and casually asked him upon his return to the car, what he had gotten from the house. At first he lied, but before I could even question his story, he told the truth. He had taken 4 quarters out of Kellye’s coin purse. He returned them to me, and I told him we would have to come up with a way to pay Kellye back for stealing from her, and pay me back for lying to me. Update on consequences: Kellye chose this as the consequence for stealing from her: "He must play with me 30 minutes on the PS2." I thought that was really sweet. I chose cleaning out and vacuuming the car for lying to me. Third incident: He woke up at 4:00 a.m. Sunday and said he had wet the bed, so I let him get in our bed. The next morning he “confessed” that he really hadn’t wet the bed. Again, I thanked him for his honesty, and told him I’d have to think of a consequence for the lie. As it turned out, though, he had wet the bed, but lied about it being dry because he had been told that when he wets it because he drank more than he had permission to drink, he would have to wash the sheets. So, I just found that out, and haven’t yet come up with the consequence for that either. Update: He will wash, dry, and fold a load of clothes. (Coach helped with with that one!) Saturday, after he had received so many new things, I wanted him to write 10 sentences about being grateful in his journal. (He had asked for several things, to which I had responded, “Not today. You need to be grateful for all the things you have gotten this week.” He wrote good sentences about good behavior or good manners, but it was clear after the fourth sentence that he didn’t yet understand “grateful”. So I told him we would have to discuss that some more, and let him write the sentences another day. Since he wrote last week in his journal about worry and fear, I have brought it to his attention throughout the week when he was worrying too much about something, so that he would begin to recognize it. One time he said, “Why isn’t okay for me to worry? What’s the big deal?” I told him it was certainly okay for him to have any feelings at all. All feelings are okay to feel. I just wanted him to understand his feelings better. I did tell him that if you worry TOO much it keeps you from being happy, but I didn’t dwell on it much. Oh, I forgot the other reason I’m fearful that I’ve overdone the gifting this week. As you recall, Tony’s motivation to sleep further inside his room this past week was that Vincent would come over for 3 hours on Sunday afternoon. We had not considered the possibility of Vincent being unable to come. He was with his father this weekend, and couldn’t come. Yikes! Tony had earned a big reward, and he certainly didn’t need any more “bought” things. Still, it had to be a good motivator or he would not try to work harder to sleep in his room. Soooo, I thought and thought about it, and couldn’t come up with a reward. I finally asked Tony to write down some suggestions for us to consider. The only two that didn’t involve PS2 games or movies were “football” and “kitten”. Yep. We chose kitten. It turns out that there may be a bonus involved. Right at this moment Tony is in HIS bed in HIS room with the DOOR SHUT, because I’ve told him that he will have to TRAIN his cat to want to sleep with him at night. The only way we can keep her in there is for his door to be shut. Neither of them is asleep, but it’s progress!!!! I’ll take progress in any amount! Oops. That didn’t last long. Tony couldn’t bear the door to be closed. He is, however, willing to leave the door open, AND leave his mattress inside the room. He’s going to bed right now and is going to try to sleep in his room with the door open. I don’t know if he is strong enough yet to do it, but he is trying. I’ll update you on how it goes. Either way, he’s either maintaining or moving forward. Both are good! He also told me all about how the cat was probably just scared and that’s why she wouldn’t stay in his room. And, that when she begins to trust us more, she won’t be afraid. (Hmmm, that sounds familiar.) Oh, by the way, if he will do it, I’d love for him to sing the song to you that his graduation class sang to the parents. It made James and me both cry. He told me the next time I asked him to sing it to me, “Only if you promise not to cry!” The words are: “You raised me up so I could stand on mountains. You raised me up to walk on stormy seas. I am strong when I am on your shoulders. You raised me up to more than I could be.” You can see how that would bring tears to our eyes!!! Monday, May 26, 2008 I don't think we've sabotaged anything. He worst he has done has been to increase his number of request for things. No demanding or rudeness, though. My response continues to be, "Well, not right now. You need to practice being grateful for all the things you got this week." He got very upset with Callie for scratching Gabbie's nose and making it bleed. He made serious threats, but did not act on them. I explained to him that he MUST not threaten to hurt ANY animal, or I would have to take his kitten back to the Human Society to be sure it was safe. He got rid of his anger fairly soon, and even petted Callie later. Tuesday, May 27, 2008 The session with Coach was wonderful. Tony had so many positive things to talk about. Even the stealing and lying incidents were atually positive, because they showed improvement on his part. She did a great job, also, of using the kitten in her therapy. She talked to Tony about tips for caring for a kitten. She happens to be a big cat lover herself. But in her own brilliant way, she managaed to make lots of correlations between the kitten care, and Tony's own situation. That's why we love her so much! Warrior Mom ** Image ID #1437731 Unavailable ** ** Image ID #1435990 Unavailable ** ** Image ID #1420491 Unavailable ** |
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