RTF - My journey

[crazedncrazymom]

Hi all,

DD17 has been home from rtf for 3 months now.  I thought I'd give an update and overview of what led to rtf.

Pre-RTF

DD was suicidal and self-harming.  She'd already been admitted 6 times to the hospital.  Two serious overdoses, one which  left her in a coma for almost 24 hours.  She was so defiant.  She was physically aggressive.  She never hit me but she's bigger than me (everyone over the age of 12 is bigger than me!) and usually invaded my space so much that I would back up, back up, back up and woah here's the wall.  Can't back up anymore.  Then I'd be standing against the wall with her standing over me and screaming how much she hates me and calling me names.  One of those times, I just got fed up and slapped her.  I'm not proud of it, but I was so tired of being trapped there against the wall and being berated.  She called youth and family services and said that I beat her.  They said show me the bruises and dropped the case.   The next day she ran away from home.  She showed up at school the next day and youth and family services found her a place at a youth shelter where she lived for 30 days.   By the 3rd day she was begging to come home, but the shelter had a 30 day program and we decided to let her stay for the entire program.

She emptied out the fridge a couple of times in her rages.  Just threw everything on the floor.  She was constantly storming out of the house without permission during her rages.  She snuck out, quite often, in the middle of the night to go down to the convenience store to steal something.  Throughout all of this we were calling the police and having her taken for observation at the hospital on a daily basis.  I called it my quiet time.  They'd keep her for 4-6 hours and send her home with us.

After the second overdose she returned from the hospital and an hour later said she still felt suicidal.  I returned her to the er to be admitted.  She was released 10 days later.  We met with her counselor and the clinic supervisor.  They strongly recommended rtf.  I was so sad.  Sad just isn't even a word to describe what I felt.  I was devastated.  I said NO I'm not ready to give up on her.  She has a family who loves her and she loves us.  :)H said yes, please take her!  Then we made a deal.  The next time we took her to the ER for any reason, we would pursue rtf.  Well, we got home from the meeting and dd claimed to be suicidal and asked that we admit her.  Jeez, after all that arguing and being badgered I may as well have just said ok from the get go.

Months later we discovered she had a bf at the hospital and was anxious to get back to him.

It took a lot of work and determination to get the hospital dr on board with rtf.  For those that have no experience with this issue: State funded rtf is different than an rtf that you fund out of your own pocket.  A lot of these kids have no family and no reason to even want to get better.  A lot of the kids come from extremely poor backgrounds and the lifestyle that goes along with socio-economic disadvantages.  I guess it goes with the saying... .you get what you pay for.  I couldn't afford to pay for RTF so we had to go that route.

Coming: During RTF

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[crazedncrazymom]

During RTF

In August 2012, DD16 was admitted to an intensive rtf treatment program that was supposed to end after 4 months.  Soon after she was admitted she was diagnosed with BPD traits.  I searched the internet for helpful advice and maybe a forum for support.  I found this site.  I read the articles, the lessons, tools and workshops.  I read the recommended book by Valerie Porr "Overcoming Borderline Personality Disorder".    I think her book was really helpful in the way that it's like "hey it's not your fault, but here are some different ways of looking at your behaviors that led to this situation"  I felt beat up enough by counselors, pdocs and mostly myself.   I got up the courage to really look at my part in my dd's illness and finding my way out of the FOG.  I think that was such a HUGE step and changing point for me!  Just stepping out of the FOG and instead of beating myself up for not handling situations optimally, figuring out how to do better.

The program was not a good fit for our family.  The main goal of this program was to get her back in our house as often as they could and for as long as they could from day 1.  She never had a chance to look at her behaviors or had true expectations of using her coping skills.  She was allowed to stay in her room lying in bed at all times except during private and group counseling sessions.  The whole thing became a huge fight between me and dd's clinician about whether or not she was capable of safely having day passes/overnight visits.  :)D was self harming and vocalizing suicidal ideation on an almost daily basis.  The program was more interested in how often she had visits than helping her cope with these thoughts/feelings and giving her actual treatment.  We lived half an hour away from the facility and I was there 3-4 days out of the week.  

After reading that paragraph I realize how truly angry I still am about them pushing her home so much.  I did mention it three times!  I thought about editing 2 of them out, but feel it's important to leave it as there really was that much disagreement between me and the staff regarding home visits.

After about three months I was so fed up with the program that I was going to bring dd home early.  I increased the home visits but it just wasn't working.  I was much better about using validation and not getting caught up in arguments with her.  However, she wasn't ready to change and continued being defiant.  Apparently she had talked with the counselor about exactly where the line was between being defiant and being so defiant that I would call the police.  She said she was going to work at making me miserable but not so that I could call the police.   I spoke with the insurance company rep and we decided to pursue long term placement at another facility.  

We told dd and wow she was furious!  The idiot clinician let her bring her lunch into the meeting and then told her.  I knew what was going to happen from the second I saw her lunch but was hoping the clinician was going to let her finish her lunch before he told her.  Nope!  I ended up wearing pizza and salad.  She withdrew consent to allow the facility to speak with me.  I said that until she re-signed the consent voluntarily that she wasn't allowed to call me.   A week later her new clinician called and said that she had re-signed her consent.  Apparently there was a big fight between her and the pdoc about whether or not she would leave the facility and be admitted to the hospital.  She became physically violent with staff and had tried many times to kill herself.  The staff was getting aggressive with her during her physical altercations and by the time I went over to check on her later that evening she had 6 bumps on her head from her hitting her head during struggles with staff.  I demanded a supervisor and said either you admit her to the hospital until you all get a better safety plan in place or I will.  Then I told dd about the planned move and she was happy and agreed to stay calm and compliant at the current rtf until the move.

I did a lot of research and found another facility that was more suited to her.  Her scheduled discharge date was 11/24/13. She was moved within a week.  When she got there she was physically aggressive with staff and mean to the other girls in the house.  They gave her 22 hours of kitchen time (sitting at kitchen table and reading about treatment or drawing) for her behavior.  There was a lot of accountability and expectations at this new place.  She HATED it!  It took 2 months before they allowed her to go on a day pass.  Soon thereafter we brought her home for the weekend to celebrate her 17th birthday.  It was a 3 hour drive to pick her up and another 3 hours getting her home.  Just as we were pulling into the driveway the facility called because they had found a suicide note.  We immediately took her back to the facility.

The staff continued to work with her on suicidality and effectively using coping skills.  She decided that following expectations wasn't so bad.  She learned though seeing all those other girls with no families or families who were abusive and neglectful that her family wasn't all that bad.

There were a lot of struggles and triumphs for me and dd.  I learned to set boundaries.  If you call and demand to come home I will end the conversation.  If you call and curse I will end the conversation.  I learned validation.  It must be so hard to be away from home.  It must be very lonely for you... .etc.   I kept working on myself.  We started talking about moving the discharge date up.  Eventually I made a decision.  :)D would come home when school started and go to a partial hospitalization program.  She was happy and excited, but so scared that life would go back to what it was.  She started talking about not wanting to come home.  I talked to her and listened to her concerns and fears.  I validated her feelings and told her that she could stay at rtf if she felt we weren't ready to be a family.   We worked through some of our fears and went over what the expectations were for all of us and then... .

On August 16, 2013 DD came home!


Next: Life after RTF

[Gidget]

I am so sorry for all you are going thru with your daughter. These stories are heartbreaking. I will pray that things start to get better. I to have been going thru those rages and I hate you. Slamming doors for three hours because she couldn't go out. My daughter never harmed herself although she admitted to me for the first time she wanted to kill herself in high school.

So hard to hear and try and understand. I am finally not feeling so alone with all of this since I found this board.

I will pray for you and all who are dealing with these issues. The holidays are tough although I think this one I am finally feeling a little more peace and much more self confidence that this was not all about me.

[Someday . . .]

crazedncrazymom, thank you for sharing your story.  You certainly have had a long and convoluted journey with this illness.  It is so helpful for me to hear others stories as I tend to feel that I'm the only one who has such an incredibly challenging time . . so truly I am grateful for you to disclose your harrowing episodes.  It makes me realize that 'we're all in this together'.  I look forward to your update since your daughter has been home . . I'm hoping that it's been filled with growth and calmness.   

[crazedncrazymom]

Hi Someday and Gidget,

Thank you for your kind words.  Your reaction is one of the reasons I decided to post my whole story rather that just the update part that I had planned to post this morning.  You both are right!  We're all in this together.  We've all gone through our own hell.  Some not as bad, some much worse.  Essentially, we've all come here because our lives and relationships we've found ourselves in were/are unmanageable.  I am free to post my journey here because I know all of you can relate.  

All we can do is take responsibility for our own actions and words.  After every incident we need to ask ourselves, did I do anything to make it worse?  Could I have said or done anything differently?  The awful thing is that during the height of our many crisis situations, I would have said NO I'm just reacting to her bad behavior!  I'm doing the best I can!  I look back now and see how I made things so much worse.  I was invalidating.  I tried so hard to control situations (You will not act this way!  This is unacceptable!)when I could have just stepped back and out of the situation and talked about her behavior later when everything was calm.  However, I do look back without too much guilt.  I was doing the best I knew how.  

-crazed

[crazedncrazymom]

Life after RTF

DD17 has been home for 3 months.  She has faced and overcome a lot of challenges and is continuing to work on herself.  She sees how her rages have effected relationships with friends and family and is working on skills to help her overcome those feelings. 

She is no longer defiant!  She follows all expectations at home.  DH and I have learned when and how to give her space if she is getting angry.  She makes unreasonable demands at times and we've learnt to validate those demands without giving into them. 

We have earned her trust and respect.  We are not perfect.  I am still working on validation.  I forget sometimes.  Just the other day we had a conversation where she wanted to do something that really went against maintaining her personal boundaries.  I was extremely kind and loving during the exchange but at the end when she was walking away I realized I didn't validate why she wanted to visit this friend.  So I threw it out before she left the room... .Hey dd!  I know you wanted to do that because you are such a loving and giving person!  She nodded and left the room.  Not perfect but it worked.

I am so proud of our family in how we have learned and used such important skills such as validation, SET statements and stepping back to take time when emotions are getting high.  We have surely come a long way!

DD is still having trouble coping with depression and suicidality and has been admitted to the hospital twice during this time.  The first time because she told me that she was feeling suicidal and wasn't sure if she could keep herself safe.  The second time because she had written a note and had cleaning supplies in her room that she planned on drinking.  We suspect she didn't have true intentions, but wanted to be hospitalized to get attention from her friends.  However, in that situation, we felt it was best to have her admitted because suicide must be taken seriously every time.  We ended up taking her out of the program as soon as she was admitted.  There was a girl there that had tormented her during one of her past hospitalizations.  DD was so upset and said that she couldn't be in the facility even if they moved the other girl to a different building (which they offered to do).  We brought her home and kept a close eye on her.  Lastly, just a couple of days ago she told me she was extremely depressed and a bit suicidal.  I asked how I could help and she said she needed to get out of the house for a bit.  After a couple of hour she said she felt better and asked if we could go home.  As of today she is stating that she feels fine and the depression has passed.

So, there has been a lot of growth on all our parts during this journey.  We still have a ways to go, but I see a big, bright light at the end of the tunnel.  I have so much hope that dd will lead a long, productive and happy life.  This wouldn't have been possible without all the tools and support I've received from you all here at BPD Family!

Much love!

-crazed

[Gidget]

Beautiful CrazyMom I am so glad things have gotten better it gives me hope I am just starting this journey and new to just realizing what I had dealt with all these years.

I to now deal with the mistakes I have made and how I handled things but this board and the tools I am learning gives my peace and comfort that I am not alone in this that there is support and tools that I could learn how to change things and also looking at the things that I did do wrong but realizing it is ok to have made mistakes.

It gives me hope that we could start to heal from what we have gone thru. I just what to learn more before I try to really speak to her guess I am scared and trying to take baby steps. I feel I take 2 steps forward and 1 step backwards. I have to say my counselor had suggested anti depressants for me because of how upset and depressed I had been over all of this. Just reading here the stories and learning the tools from articles I feel almost like I want to go on again that there is hope and healing thru this.

I can't believe how this board has helped me to cope.

God Bless Everyone Here!