The CRCG: Part II

I can't put a name on it, how this feels.  It's a bundle of sadness, regret, fear, and just a little bit of hope, but I have to search through the tangle of all those other things to find it.

Yesterday, a meeting was held at the Juvenile Probation Center off of Kilpatrick. You arrive there and you tell the receptionist that you are a parent and you are there to attend a CRCG meeting for your child.  Then you sit down and you wait a long time until the CRCG committee gets to your child's name.

They call your name and you walk into a room that contains about twelve people, most of whom you have never met.  They are representatives from MHMR, from CPS, from Special Education programs at one or two schools (in this case it was Cleburne and Alvarado), School Resource Officers, and others.  Someone introduces you.  You sit down and say hello as each person introduces themselves.  And then they ask you for a basic summary of why you are there.

And you tell them.  You tell them about how your son's behavior has deteriorated over the past year, and what that actually means:  that you often have to take your four year old and lock yourself in a bedroom because he gets in a "mood" and wants to harm you.  How your two older children don't really want to be at home anymore.  How he is too big and you cannot control him anymore.  You tell them about all of his hospitalizations, and how nothing concrete came of that except the knowledge that he functions much better in a regimented and scheduled environment.  You try, in the limited time that you have, to convey the absolute desperation you feel that something must change, and then they ask you what you would like to see happen for your child.

And you have to look at a group of twelve people, most of whom you have not met before this day, and say:

I would like my son placed in a group home.

They tell you they will sign the papers and get the ball rolling.  They thank you for your time.  And you leave.

And when you get out to the parking lot, that's when you absolutely lose it, because you feel like a monster.  You didn't get to tell them about his beautiful smile, or his wonderful sense of humor, or how he cuddles up to you at night, or how he loves the singer Pink and the band Fallout Boy, and you didn't get to list his favorite foods, and how he helps you in the kitchen and helps you clean the house and plants things in the garden.

You don't get to talk about that and you question yourself all the time, every minute, until the next time you have to lock yourself in the bedroom again, or the next time he pulls on his four year old sister, or scratches you on the arm or hits you in the face. Then you think, no I did the right thing.

And you realize that what it boils down to is that this isn't just about you. You, yourself, may be able to endure this indefinitely.  Because you are his mother, and you are genetically wired to sacrifice and to endure.  This is what mothers everywhere do for their children.  But your other children and family members are not wired this way; your other children are just children, and they need you too.  So you make this decision and you do it understanding that this child does not just belong to you, he also belongs to Heavenly Father.  You understand that his life is taking this turn for a reason.  Logically, you know that if you wait until he is thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, something terrible may happen. He may hurt himself or someone else without understanding what he is doing, and then the choice of what happens to him may not be yours to make anymore.

But that doesn't make this any less painful.

My hope is that this will be a positive thing for him and for us.  There is no question that Logan needs more care than I can give to him at this time.  One day, he may be able to return home again, and we can make up for lost time. Until then, we must, as his parents, make the best possible decision for him and for us, and that is giving him access to the care he needs and an environment that he can function in, and giving our other children the peace they crave and deserve.

The CRCG

The next step, before we can place Logan in a group home, is to have his case come before a Community Resource Coordination Group (CRCG).  These groups serve 250 counties in Texas, and they are made up of representatives from different state agencies, such as the Texas Education Agency, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Mental Health and Mental Retardation (MHMR), the Department of Housing, and private service providers.  While this is not a complete list of the agencies involved with the group, it should give you and idea of what the group is made up of.  CRCGs exist to help meet the needs of individuals who cannot be serviced by just one specific group.  Logan's needs cannot be met by MHMR alone, although they are the facilitating agency for what will happen next.

The CRCG meets once a month, and they discuss several cases in the meeting.  While his service coordinator told me that I didn't really need to be at the meeting, I have it on good authority from Tarrant County MHMR that it's a good idea to be there so you can explain your home situation firsthand, instead of someone doing it for you.  (I mean, that's a no-brainer, right?  Any time your child is involved in something, you should be there!)

Perhaps you're wondering how I can be so matter-of-fact about all of this.  In the past several months we have watched Logan's behavior and ability to cope in stressful situations deteriorate to the point that he needs specialized care.  There is no manual for raising a child like him, no rule book, and even if I had someone standing next to me who had a child like him, their experience would still be vastly different from mine.  As we have moved from one crisis to the next, I have seen doors that I thought I should open stay shut to us, and other doors fall open as if by some miracle.  (Actually, in a lot of cases, it was.)  Through it all the answer has been very clear:  I'm not the one guiding this.  I'm playing a part.  Heavenly Father has something very specific in mind for Logan, and even if I put my foot down, and said, no way, he's not going...he would end up going, whether I wanted him to or not.  Frustrating the will of the Lord is not a good thing; there are so many unforseen consequences.  It's a little like stealing something that doesn't belong to you:  you may have gotten what you wanted, but the joy of possessing it is somehow diminished by the knowledge that you did something you weren't supposed to do, that you knew what was right and chose to ignore it, and by the eventual burden that only a guilty conscience can bring.

The CRCG is simply the next step on this journey.  In the meantime, we are living one day at a time, with the knowledge that sooner rather than later, he will go to live somewhere else and our time with him in our home is limited.  If you think that is stressful and creates a lot of daily heartache, then you would be correct.  It's only alleviated by the fact that prayer has given me so much comfort, and by the fact that Logan himself has come to me, in the midst of one of his upset and anxious episodes, and expressed a desire for something different.

The best and truest way to live your life is by doing it according to what Heavenly Father has planned for you.  Trying to sort things out, all by yourself, is laudable, but it's by praying and asking for direction and reassurance that the decisions you've made are correct that you receive a testimony of an eternal plan that applies specifically to you and those you love.

It's Okay to Not Go Big

The other day, I made a post on Facebook, and went something like this:  "Fall garden planted...sweet potatoes, beans, and tarragon.  Fingers crossed."

It sounds like so much work when you say something like that.  Fall garden, planted.  It implies hours of work.  A sweet lady I know even commented that she didn't know how I had the time to do it.  I told her that it wasn't a very big garden.

And it's not.  It's six squares of raised beds.  The sweet potatoes are actually one sweet potato that I cut in half and rooted in my kitchen window, then stuck in the ground.  The beans and the tarragon were each one seed packet, planted by either poking holes in the ground or digging it up then recovering it.

An hour, spent in the sun with my 12 year old and 4 year old.

I've grown up believing that the only way to do things was to go big.  You made all A's or you didn't do it.  You get first place because if you didn't, you could have done better.  You keep a clean house or you have failed.  The list goes on.

So even planting a garden is something that becomes big in my head:  we need winter squash, and onions, kale, lettuce, beets.  We need to dig holes for fruit trees if we can find the room.  We need.

But we don't.

Sometimes, especially in the darkest days of your life, it's okay to not go big.  It's okay to look at a situation and say, This is what I can handle, and this is what I can't handle, and plan accordingly.  There is a certain kind of peace that comes with acknowledging your own limitations.  

This is a new lesson for me.  One that says, You can afford to wait, and be patient.  You can afford to back off, and let Heavenly Father work for you.  You can afford to rest.

Flying Blind

I sound so gauche, because this place has been there forever, but this weekend I drove Logan out to Glen Rose and we discovered Heritage Park.

Heritage Park is proof that it doesn't take a lot to make me happy.  Seriously.  Tall trees and lots of shade?  Check.  Historical buildings?  Check.  The Paluxy River?  I'm in.

I think that no matter where I go, the Paluxy River is always going to be one my favorite places.  There's something magical about it.  Maybe it's because I grew up listening to my Grandma's stories, which inevitably had the phrase "we had to cross the Paluxy to get there" in them.  Maybe it's because wading in a river and being able to see the bottom of it is a novelty in Texas.  Maybe it's something I can't put my finger on.

Taking Logan anywhere these days fills me with a sense of desperation.  I look at him and know that he will be better served in a different environment..  But I also look at him and know that the time I have when we can take off on these kinds of trips...little day trips to get him (and me) out of the house, are numbered.  Everything is changing this year.  And it's so scary.

This past Sunday someone spoke in our church.  This man is a pilot and he spoke of a time when he wanted to land his plane, and the instruments weren't working properly.  He said that the first rule in aviation is "fly the plane", that sometimes pilots panic, looking through manuals and searching for solutions, and they forget to just fly.  The other thing he said was, Trust your training.

I feel woefully unprepared for this particular challenge in my life.  Nothing makes sense to me right now.  I feel like I am flying blind.

The only constant in my life is God.

My biggest hope is that one day, in the next life, Logan will come to me and we will talk about this, and he will tell me, you did the right thing.

Food For Thought

Not that I've ever done this....

The Glad Game

When you start really studying the meat of psychology, especially abnormal psychology, you are warned, as a student, that the possibility of diagnosing yourself with one of the disorders you study will increase.  It doesn't mean that you have that disorder, it just means that if you look for something hard enough, you can make the symptoms fit if you want to.

That being said, I know that I'm depressed.  All the signs are there, and they fit neatly into little compartments without any compromise.

I also know how to fix it.  I mean, I'm worthless, as a future therapist, if I can't help myself.   There is this discipline of psychology called "positive psychology" that's received a lot of press recently.  It turns traditional psychology on its head and instead of focusing on what's wrong, it focuses on what's actually right and going well for the patient.  It seeks to bring out the best in a person, on encouragement and goal-setting.  I don't believe it's the solution for everyone.  The layperson may think that a therapist is a therapist, but there are several different approaches that you can take to therapy, and depending on what's ailing the client, one might be more appropriate than the other.

But I think the positive aspect has a place here.  Depression is a nasty thing; it's like a fungus that keeps breeding and feeding on itself.  The brain is trainable, and if you spend a lot of time focusing on negativity, barring a chemical imbalance that can only be remedied with medication, then soon you develop a habit.  You start looking for those bad things and you won't be disappointed.

I am surrounded by challenges right now.  A great deal of it has to do with Logan and some of it does not.  In order to knock my brain out of this devastating loop, once or twice a week I am going to post five things that I am thankful for.  It's a great exercise in gratitude.  So, here I go:

1) I am thankful for cheese.  I say this because it's the first thing that came to my mind. I just finished a plate of cheese and crackers after drinking a cup of Sleepytime Tea, and it's not something I can ever give up.  

2) I am thankful for my daughter, Abby.  She is the ray of light in my day.  

3) I am thankful for my daughter, Sarah.  She makes me laugh.  I love her sense of humor.

4) I'm thankful for zinnias.  I used to think that roses were my favorite flower, and I still love them, but zinnias have captured my heart.  You can throw the seeds on the ground and cover them up and they sprout anywhere.  And the Texas heat doesn't bother them.  And they're pretty.  And tough.

5) I am thankful for the end of my Abnormal Psych class.  It was a four week class conducted at a break-neck speed and tomorrow is the last exam.  It may be my favorite subject, but Hallelujah and praise the good Lord above, it's over and it will give me an extra couple of hours in the day.

I thought that would be hard, but it wasn't.  Until next time, readers.  Love you all. 

DMDD

I want to shed a little light on a brand new diagnosis for children that just came out in the newest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-V) that mental health professionals use to help diagnose mental disorders.

Before I do that, though, I want to explain something about the DSM, and about mental disorders in general.  This time, before this edition of the DSM came out, different committees met to discuss different aspects of the manual.  Their jobs were to decide if the way things were diagnosed was accurate and basically what should be left in or taken out or changed.   The DSM is a very useful tool that mental health professionals use all the time; it's the way they know the difference between schizophrenia and schizotypal disorder; it's how they can determine if a person is suffering from antisocial personality disorder or if they have narcissistic tendencies.  That being said, the DSM is not the word of God, and should never be taken as gospel truth.  In other words, if you have an active, brilliant mind:  question everything.  Don't just blindly accept.

The diagnosis of Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder was added to the most recent edition of the DSM.  This diagnosis was intended to describe children between the ages of 6 and 18 who experience rages, tantrums, and outbursts of severe types, and who also are frequently irritable over a period of months, but who do not meet the criteria for bipolar disorder or psychosis.  Logan was diagnosed with this after one of his stays at the hospital.

Mood disorders, in general, are sometimes hard to diagnose because their symptoms overlap. The DMDD diagnosis received some criticism from professionals for being too vague; because it is a relatively new diagnosis, researchers haven't had a lot of time to study it or draw conclusions about it.  Some psychological studies can take years to complete, especially when children are involved, because researchers want to know the background of the child, they want to take a family history, and they want to follow up with the child when they're older, to see if they still exhibit any of these symptoms or had problems with adjustment. Part of the reason this diagnosis was included in the fifth edition was so it would replace the diagnosis of "childhood bipolar disorder".

Why am I writing about this tonight?  Some people have asked me how Logan is doing; some want to know what exactly is going on with him.  Logan has a diagnosis of autism and intellectual and developmental disability, and general anxiety.  So imagine, for a moment, someone who wants to communicate, but can't, someone who is especially sensitive to external stimuli, like lights, noise, and touch, someone who really wants to socialize but cannot do it (asking him to do this is like asking a lion to graze with a bunch of sheep; the lion may be hungry, and if we humanize him a little bit, the lion might want to blend in, but there is no way that he can, and his nature won't let him), and imagine someone who becomes extremely anxious any time his schedule is changed or something unknown is thrown at him during the day.  That's a lot for one person to deal with.  Now throw in a mood disorder.

What this means is that all of Logan's frustrations, anxieties, loneliness, happiness, anger, rage...cannot be dealt with by him in the same way the rest of us deal with those emotions.  His disorder is a dysregulation.  He cannot regulate it.  His brain will not allow him to do so.  It's not a matter of choice, and it's not a mis-behavior on his part.  He is trapped in a wicked soup that his own brain concocts for him.  Sometimes, it's too much, and he can't control himself.  This is why we are choosing to place him in a group home.  Living here, with us, while he's battling all of this, plus dealing with being 12, is too much for us to physically, emotionally, and mentally handle.  It's too much for him to handle.  The chaos of family life, surrounded by siblings who surpass him even at the age of four, create so much frustration for him that he cannot contain it.  

Now take him out of this environment.  Put him in an environment with other children like him. With caregivers who are professionally trained to deal with these disorders.  With a schedule that does not change by the hour based on the needs of different family members.  Suddenly, he's relieved.  It may not be the ideal situation, for any of us. We are all struggling with it.  But it's what he needs.  One day, things may change, and he may be able to come home again.  But right now, during this time, this is where he needs to be.  And I think he is so brave.  He knows that he is different.  But he wakes up and he fights, every single day.  I have seen him do it.

I also write about this because I think that everyone needs to have a greater awareness of each other.  In your lifetime, you will deal with a mental disorder.  It may not be yours, but it will be a family member's, or  friend's, or a co-worker's.  You will be exposed to it.  You may meet someone and wonder why they are so eccentric, or why their mood seems to shift abruptly, or fail to understand why they take so many pills at lunchtime.  You may meet someone and wonder why they're so fat (some SSRI's (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) cause weight gain and enhance appetite), or you may have a friend who continues to cancel at the last minute on social engagements.  It looks rude from the outside, right?  But you cannot know that they desperately want to be there, but they are sitting on the couch at home, wrapped in a blanket, because they are too anxious to set foot outside the door.  

I'm thankful for Logan.  If I had to do this all over again with him, I would.  Without question.  I don't like the person I was before I had him. He taught me about a different world, and I never want to go back to not knowing.  Greater compassion, greater kindness, greater love.  He is my greatest teacher.