How Long??

My husband and I had built a wood "sculpture" in our back yard a few years ago to disguise our compost pile of leaves and dead branches. Sometime in the fall, I realized that the sculpture had been destroyed. We had a Workaway (http://www.workaway.info) guest from Germany who was wonderful and spent a lot of time working on our garden - I asked her about it and she said that it had been intact the last time she saw it. We were puzzled about who had destroyed it. My husband had suggested an angry neighbor. We didn't think that Yelena had the strength, resources or reason to destroy it.

I do have to say in her defense that when we asked her, she did remove the stone fire circle and pile of kindling with a wooden "teepee" over it that she had built in the back yard. She told us she was just "practicing her survival skills that she had learned at camp." Note: She spent a year in residential treatment for firesetting.

Today was a beautiful sunny day and one of the first days that I really felt that it was time to go out into the garden. Serendipitously, husband and I both wanted to work on rebuilding the sculpture so I went to Home Depot and bought a bunch of 4" nails and dug the hammers out.  I went to look in the woods in back of our house for any additional wood I might use and on my way back, I saw an axe strategically placed behind a tree where you wouldn't notice it from the garden. I knew the moment I saw the axe that Yelena had in fact destroyed the sculpture. My heart sunk. Where did she get an axe from? My husband went and hid it in our neighbors garage thinking that it might belong to him. I had also found a mat knife(mine) and my garden shears (that had been missing for awhile) while I was in the woods.

Yelena came outside and asked if I would buy the soundtrack from Frozen for her - her new favorite obsession. I said what I had been told to say at the Attachment Institute: "I have to talk to Daddy about it and as soon as we both feel close to you." We had been talking a few days ago with her therapist about restitution (the restoration of something lost or stolen to its proper owner, recompense for injury or loss) for an incident that had occurred a few months ago that had landed her at a hospital CBAT for two weeks.

What had happened was that Yelena had broken into the room of one of the students that we host from foreign countries that come here to learn English. Yelena had taken her iPad, removed the cover and threw it away and then erased everything that had been on the computer. The student was enraged (as she had every right to be) and started to yell at Yelena who immediately went upstairs and put on her karate outfit and came back downstairs ready to fight. When my husband tried to intervene, she told him that it was none of his business, shoved him and knocked him down and then hit him. He took her to the ER when she had calmed down a bit. I was at work at the time but met them at the ER where she stayed for 24 hours before they found a bed for her about an hour away from us (it was a holiday weekend, naturally). Our three students were gone the next morning.

So, today, when she asked me to buy her music I reminded her that she still needed to provide restitution for that incident. I know, I should not have brought the subject up but I felt that we were all forgetting about it. Not that everything else has been wonderful. She took a shower and changed her clothes two out of five days that she went to school this week. She drew on a lampshade. She left the kitchen a mess several mornings and evenings, etc. We had discussed this before and I had suggested she write her student a letter apologizing. She asked me what she had to do and I told her that she should think about it and I was sure that she could do this. She asked another couple of times and I mentioned the letter. She said she couldn't write a letter because she didn't know the woman's address and then because she couldn't write in Turkish and I said she could write it in English. She stormed off.

When we came back into the house, she shoved a folded piece of line notebook paper at me. I read it. The letter said: "Dear F. This is a letter of apology. I am sorry about what happened. Best wishes, Y.
ps The turkish coffee was great. LOL" I said that I would have to talk to Daddy about it. She screamed for my husband to come "right now" and shoved the letter at him. He put the letter on the table and walked away. She screamed for him again. I said something about attitude and tone of voice. She went after my husband and he reappeared in the kitchen saying he was going to the Y to work out and left. I didn't get to the part where I was going to compare a $600. iPad and the loss of about $400. week in income from the students to a short slightly sarcastic note.

Yelena and I were standing in the kitchen. She crumpled up the letter into a ball and there it across the room. She reached for a jar full of pencils and pens and started breaking them all in half. I said nothing and left the room to go upstairs. I went in my bedroom and sat down at my desk. She followed me upstairs and came over to me and opened up all the bottles of her medications which were sitting on my desk and dumped them onto the floor. I went towards my bed to get my purse, put my phone, my kindle and my keys in it and tried to get to the door but she closed the door and was blocking the exit with her body. I lay down on my bed and started to read. She came over and unscrewed the lightbulb in my reading light then picked up a book I had been reading and started to rip it to shreds. I said nothing. I didn't react, I kept on reading. I have a shelf where I keep a bunch of photos of all of the kids - she started taking them out of the frames and ripping them up one by one. I said nothing. I didn't react. I kept on reading. She came over to me and grabbed my kindle from me. I stood up and wrestled her for it. I didn't get it but I made sure it was turned off and went to leave and she blocked the door again. I asked to be let out. She said "I have you trapped and there is nothing you can do. You are powerless." So I said, "No, not really" and went and picked up the phone and said "I can call 911". I dialed three numbers at random and acted like I was waiting for them to pick up. She said OK and gave me back my kindle. She was still blocking the door so I went back to the phone to dial 911 again and she said "OK" and moved away from the door. I had my purse so I walked down stairs and put my shoes on and walked out the door into my car. I drove for a few blocks and then called a friend and asked if I could come over.

I probably got to my friends house about 6 or 7 pm. We talked had dinner, watched a movie. I came home about 11 pm. All the lights were on in the house. The kitchen was a mess - she had made french toast for her dinner and didn't clean anything up. She had been in the bedroom that our sons used to share - lights were on, books on the floor, trombone lying on the bed, ouija board on the floor. I went upstairs. No further damage to our bedroom but nothing was cleaned up. I went into her room to check on her and she was fast asleep. I leaned over to give her a kiss and she stirred, looked at me and asked where I had gone. I told her and then said "Good night sweetheart, sleep tight."

The week off between Camp and School is often the worst week of the year for us.

My husband was going to take Yelena to NH for a few days. Leaving Wednesday and returning Saturday. 

Tuesday evening, she got his cell phone (figured out the code or saw him punch it in). When confronted, she admitted that she had it and gave it back. Then she asked if she could still have her DVD player because she had been honest when we asked and had returned it immediately. She had been watching pornography.With Yelena, she fluctuates back and forth between Disney princesses and hard core pornography. I said that we needed a little bit more than an apology and we decided that for doing more chores around the house, she could have it for 1/2 the time she usually gets it for.

Wednesday afternoon they went to NH. My husband called me Thursday morning and told me that when he went to breakfast this morning, a woman stood up (crying) and said she had lost her iPhone and she was very upset. Something went "ding, ding, ding" in his brain and he went to look for Yelena and yes, she had the iPhone and had been up all night watching pornography. Apparently, she also removed and lost the "custom" iPhone cover and changed the security code. She said she didn't know anything about the cover (it was found later that afternoon). My husband had called to ask me what he should do and I said that he should pack her up and come home. This is the place where I have been teaching art for a week for several summers and it doesn't put me in a good relationship with them. It didn't put my husband in a good relationship with them this morning…

So, I just got home (I work late Thursday night). Gone are my plans for my two days off alone. In any case, my husband didn't tell her that the iPhone case was found so we are planning to tell her that she needs to repay this woman for the case which we are setting at $35. (she just got $15. for getting three teeth pulled). I just spoke with her and the conversation ended in her saying "why do you hate me so much?"  I said that I didn't hate her and I wasn't angry but I am sad, frustrated, confused and frightened. The woman could have called the police and pressed charges and over $250. is a felony. And yes, I am angry I suppose but the fear of what will happen to her and the frustration that we are not getting anywhere is far greater than the fear at the moment. I don't think I know what to do…

Our attachment therapists response:

I am so sorry you all are going through this.  It's so hard on so many different levels, not the least of which is you not getting the break you had been looking forward to.

So much you're handling so well.  You're emphasizing the sad, scared and even shame that go with the anger.  You told your husband to bring Yelena home.  You're not yelling at her.  The only thing I would add is it sounds like you're still talking and explaining too much.  You don't have to ask her anything, you don't have to explain anything.  She knows.  It overflows her shame which she exposed when she asked why you hated her so much.  She knows you don't hate her.  She was sharing her shame.  Bring her home, keep her quiet, have her work really hard to earn privileges.  She just let you know that she needs to work harder to earn privileges.

Also, get away the next two days as much as possible.  Do everything you planned.  You don't have to fix cooked meals for Yelena now.  If you're like most of us you have plenty of stuff to make sandwiches, stuff in the freezer to heat up, plenty.  Keep your plans for a 2 day break!

The next day:

I feel that we are at a stalemate here. Yelena knows what she is expected to do and she is doing nothing - actually making it worse in some ways. I am not doing anything for her but being polite and giving her her meds. My husband feels like if he talks to her he is going to kill her and he left the house yesterday and today for long periods. She is making a huge mess all over the house and breaking every rule. 

We host several foreign students and she took one of our students computers twice yesterday - I don't know what she was looking at. One time, I went into my bedroom and she was sitting at my desk looking at this woman's computer. I know she is trying to get right under my nose and make me scream and yell and take some kind of action but I haven't done anything. She hasn't gotten anything either. Yesterday she said it was such a boring day and she hoped we would do something more fun today and I said I would love to but only if I feel close to her…  

Of course, she told me that she has "gotten over" the incident in NH and has "moved on" and suggested that I do the same. She says the problem is that her father yelled at her, etc. and it's all our fault. "Why did you have to adopt me? I was happy with my birth parents. The only people who really care about me are my birth parents. You should have left me in Russia, etc. etc." 

She's cooking food and throwing it out, leaving plates full of pizza crusts all over the house, scratching wood tables, cranking up the radio to unbearable levels, wearing her father's clothes, and the list goes on. She also said yesterday "So are you going to keep me a prisoner until schools starts?"
The tension is building to such a point that I feel that something negative is going to happen. I think that she thinks she can hold out as long as we can. I'm fine but I have to go back to work tomorrow and I am afraid of leaving my husband here with her alone. We are planning to go out to dinner tonight by ourselves. I wish we could do something neutral like find a respite program for her but of course it's Labor Day weekend… She wants to end up in the hospital and I don't want her to. She also told me yesterday that she has spent almost all of her life in institutions and she knows I want to send her back to Germaine Lawrence (where she spent last year in a residential program for fire setting). I told her that I didn't send her to Germaine Lawrence to start with and I prefer having her home with us.

The next day:

Everything has turned around and I think it's because we stuck to our guns and did what we were supposed to do 100%.
We went out to dinner by ourselves Saturday night and left Yelena at home alone (a first!)  Her dad has left her alone most of today and yesterday (a first) while I have been at work.

Last night when I came home from work, she was definitely at that point where she wanted to pick a big fight with me, attack me, have me loose control and be able to flip out herself. She did something she has done before - she broke a pencil in half and then drew the splintered part across her wrists and her arms making lines across her arm saying "I am going to kill myself" and then did the same thing on my arm (she drew blood) but I didn't say a thing and then she pinched me really hard on the other arm and also drew blood and I didn't react at all. This was the point where it could have escalated and she would have been out of control but I think that once she saw that she wasn't going to get to me, she started to calm down.
We ended the evening by her asking me to read her a story before she went to bed which hasn't happened in a long time. She wanted TinTin not a fairy tale. And when I came home from work today - THE KITCHEN WAS ALL CLEANED UP AND SO WAS THE LIVING ROOM (more or less)! It was a real switch around. Of course, she also broke into her dad's locked office today - she went in throughout the window (who says this child isn't clever?) but she didn't get anything. Yesterday, she actually stole the whole TV set! Aside from that, her whole attitude has changed. It was night and day. My husband had explained to her earlier that she owed $25 for the iPhone case that she destroyed and she gave him the $10 she had and she has started earning the rest of it (she took out the recyclables tonight and cleaned the kitchen after dinner) and I read her more of TinTin before she went to bed. She said that she worked so hard today (she has no clue) that she wasn't able to clean her room but she will do it tomorrow.

Basically, I did not react at all to her and my husband just stayed away when he felt he couldn't bear to be around her.

It's so amazing. I really feel like she was headed toward being hospitalized and she turned it around totally. My husband had the crisis team all set to come tonight or tomorrow morning. Yesterday, she asked me "Why do you and Daddy hate me so much?" and tonight we were both telling each other that we loved each other and I asked her if she knew that Daddy and I will always love her no matter what and she said: yes, she knew that….

The next day:

Maybe I was a bit hasty to declare a unilateral victory...

When I woke up this morning, Yelena was already up and when I walked into her room and asked what she was doing, she said that she just finished cleaning her room. She had mostly cleaned it up. Still, it's unusual for her to be up that early... When I was looking for some clean clothes for her, I found a metal box that had been in the back of a locked closet. I realized she had been in a particular closet in our bedroom that was way off limits. I also looked in my other closet and realized she had been into a bag with my mother's jewlery in it that had been in a bag in a box underneath a whole pile of stuff. I found the jewlery later in another part of the closet and she claimed she had not taken anything, just looked at it. She was probably up early this morning hiding her loot. Plus one of our students said that she was missing a gold necklace that had been a gift from her mother and my husband had found her in the student's room yesterday walking out with a box in her hand. That plus the fact that she broke into his office yesterday through the window gives me reason to pause.

She has start working to pay back for the iPhone case and she did clean her room, take a shower, clean the kitchen and living room. I don't really understand the stealing.l She thinks it's OK if she gives back what she stole or denies it. I'm not sure if she is getting back at us or has no idea why she steals. My husband wanted to put a padlock on our bedroom door but I think that just makes her want to try harder to get in. I need to rethink my strategies for hiding things. She has been in EVERYTHING probably when we left her alone in the house. On the bright side, she didn't burn down the house...

We were both really upset this morning. He is convinced he is getting ulcers over this. He is searching her room this morning while she is at school and I am curious to see if he found anything...

Return to Blogging!

I keep telling myself to keep blogging. Yelena is a full time job even now that she is 14. I now have a full time job outside the home so I am totally unable to focus on the blog at the end of the day. I saw an article in the NY Times this morning that is spurring me on to writing some more. I will look back through my notes. Meanwhile:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/witw/articles/2013/04/17/adopting-my-russian-daughter-not-just-parenting-but-healing.html

http://www.thedailybeast.com/witw/articles/2013/04/17/adopting-my-russian-daughter-not-just-parenting-but-healing.html

The best blog:
http://juliaandme.com

Happy 2012

I was in the car with Yelena the other day and she had on a brand new wrist band/ace bandage type of thing. She has always been drawn to ace bandages and has used them whenever she has had the chance, whether or not she has been hurt in any way.

In the public school last year, her teacher had forbidden her to wear an ace bandage in class. If she hurt herself, she would get one from the nurse and then continue to wear it every day for weeks. She complained constantly that her wrist or arm hurt (not usually her leg or ankle and I think that’s because you couldn’t see it.) Her teacher felt it was distracting to her and the other students because she wrapped and rewrapped it constantly. I felt that if there was some psychological need that it was satisfying then she should be permitted to wear it especially since she was not permitted to use any other “fidgets” in class. That was last year and now she is at a new school. Finally, after many years of hard work, Yelena has an out-of-district placement and it has made a world of difference (for the better.) But that is another story…

I asked Yelena where she had gotten the ace bandage. It looked new and clean and was obviously some kind of wrist splint. She told me that she had found it under her bed. Since I do clean under her bed occasionally, I knew she could not have just “found” it there. I told her that and said that she could write down where she got it that if she preferred to. Sometimes when she is embarrassed about something, it helps her to write it down rather than say it. She took a pad of paper and wrote down that she had found it in my drawer when I had been watching TV last night and she was supposed to be asleep. I told her that it wasn’t possible because I did not own anything like the one she had and had never seen it before. I said she could have another chance to tell the truth and write it down if she needed to. She started to write and then stopped and asked me: “When was the last time I had a sleepover at Jane Doe’s house?” I said that it hadn’t been since last year and I had cleaned her room entirely over the summer and it was not there. She was silent.

It occurred to me that if she had something that she could use as an ace bandage, she wouldn’t hide it for months, she would probably wear it immediately as soon as she got it. We had been at a friend’s house the day before so I asked her if it had come from their house. I said that I could easily check with my friend and picked up my phone to call her but she wasn’t home so I left a message. Meanwhile Yelena took the bandage off and place it on the seat next to her. I asked her where in their house she had found it and she said “In the bathroom.” It seemed like the first reasonable explanation out of the four she had given me. I told her that she was going to have to give it back to my friend and apologize. She said she knew that and didn’t seem to be upset about that in the least. I also added that there might be another consequence as well but I needed to talk it over with her father as consequences don’t seem to phase her or change her behavior at all.

For Christmas, Yelena received DVD’s of two full seasons of a TV show that she loves (Avatar, the Last Air Bender). She has been unable to stop watching them, almost like a compulsion. She got many other presents. She took the wrappings off and looked at them but never opened the boxes. After a week, I took them all and put them in a closet wondering if she would notice. She hasn’t noticed yet. Out of sight, out of mind. I might just return them and get my money back.

Over the Christmas vacation, Yelena was so obsessed with the DVD’s of  “Avatar” that my husband woke up several nights to find her at 3 AM or 4:30 AM or whatever downstairs glued in front of the TV set (strangely, I slept through it all). We had a new TV set that we just got. On our old set, we had cut off the plug and replaced it with a male plug and then we made an intermediate cord with a male and female end so that Yelena is not able to watch TV unless she has this “intermediate” cord. After a few days with the new TV set, I went to Home Depot and cut the cord and rigged it up like our old TV.

And yes, we also have locks on many of the doors in our home because Yelena has no boundaries. She will take anything that strikes her fancy – from an article of clothing to a diamond ring. She will also eat anything that is not nailed down. She especially likes sugar and if there is nothing sweet to eat, she will eat plain sugar, cake mix, pudding mix or anything else that has sugar in it. The pantry in the kitchen is locked. My studio is locked. The doors to the rooms of our other children are locked. We have used a hasp on the door with a combination lock. Over the past few weeks, we have found that Yelena has gotten through the locks (actually, I am a little bit proud that she is that clever but otherwise furious). We initially thought she was figuring out the combiation but then realized that she has taken the pin out of the hasp and can open and then relock the door without ever opening the combination lock.

So I will amend the first sentence of the second to last paragraph: Yelena was so obsessed with the DVD’s of  “Avatar” that my husband woke up several nights to find her at 3 AM or 4:30 AM or whatever downstairs glued in front of the TV set eating oreos and drinking lemonade. She would be eating sugar and watching TV 24/7 if we let her...

This Weekend

I would love to blog more but time is always a problem... 

This was our weekend:

Friday: My husband, Yelena and I had a nice dinner together and watched a movie. I noticed a bracelet that I had never seen before sitiing on the coffee table and asked Yelena where it came from. She said that a friend gave it to her. I asked which friend. She finally said C. So I asked if it was OK if I called C's Mom to check and she said NO. She said she found it on the ground at school and we asked why she had not turned it into the lost and found. Meltdown. Finally got her to bed after an hour of screaming. 

Saturday: We have two exchange students from Mexico living with us. It is my only source of income at the moment and we really enjoy having them but as far as Yelena is concerned it was a big mistake. She is intensely jealous of them and any time we spend with them or attention that we give them. Apparently, Yelena was in the Mexican girls room Saturday morning. They asked her to leave and then they closed their door and she started to knock on the door for awhile and shoot rubber bands at the door. She thought it was funny but eventually stopped. They were freaked out by her behavior. My husband  gave the girls his cell phone and told them to call us if anything like that happens again. 

Yelena went for a playdate with a friend from her old school. When she came home, her friends Mom came up to the door and said that Yelena had said that she didn't want her to come in and that she just wanted to be dropped off. We were curious as to why she didn't want her to talk to us. Her friends Mom said they had a great time and Yelena was well behaved and that she spent the $10.00 she had on Yugioh cards. My husband and I looked at each other - Did you give her $10.00? No. Did you give her $10.00? No.

We asked Yelena where she got the money from. I told her that if she told me the truth quickly there would be less of a consequence than if she didn't tell me for awhile. She was supposed to go out to a movie and I said if she told me what happened she could go (mainly because I felt like we all needed time apart.) She wrote me a note that said: "I took the money from your purse. Are you happy now?" My husband was ready to call the Crisis Team.

Sunday AM: While Yelena was taking a shower and getting ready for Hebrew School, I went into her bedroom and right in the middle of her bed in plain sight was my old wedding ring. She did not seem to have any recollection when she took it or where she took it from. It was also not hidden and placed in such a way that it was screaming: FIND ME.

So, I took her to Hebrew School while my husband called the Crisis Team and they were waiting for us when we got back. I actually went out for the rest of the afternoon so I can't give a first hand report but my husband said she was very volatile.

The plan that she did with the crisis team states as the goal: "Client will display good behavior within the next three days to be able to go to Thanksgiving in NY." I wouldn't have written it like that... Also, My husband said that Yelena said she wan't sure she could do that. 

Today with her therapist, she said she didn't want help that she just wanted us to send her to jail. This is the second weekend in a row that we have had the Crisis Team in our home. Last weekend, she "broke into" the Mexican girls room and stole a huge bag of left over Halloween candy and rifled through one of their purses.  I say broke in because everyone now has combination locks on their doors and somehow she figured out the combination and went into their room. 

The stealing and lying has been escalating to epic proportions in the last few weeks. She doesn't seem to have a lot of remorse or shame about it. She knows the rules about stealing and lying but somewhere there seems to be a disconnect between thought and action. The impulse seems so strong that it is not modified by any mere cognitive idea. We can't leave her alone at all. She had her period recently and it could be hormonal or she needs her meds re-evaluted and tweaked. I don't know. I just know that I am totally spent.