A Teens Journey Through Addiction

This kid!...

our 9th child,

18 years old,

didn't graduate from high school,

can't drive until he's 21 years old due to drug charges,

lives in a half-way house and washes dishes in a restaurant,

and we simply could not be more proud of him and his accomplishments!!!  

Why?

Because in one week, we will celebrate a major milestone in his journey...ONE YEAR OF SOBRIETY....Yeah!!!!

At this time last year, we were picking him up from jail and driving him across the mountains to a  drug treatment facility.  He was so angry that we had to have his older brother ride along for extra protection in case he bolted or got violent.  I was literally shaking during the entire three hour drive!  Our relationship with him was almost completely broken.  We were all hurt and angry.

After 35 days in that treatment center, we drove 5 hours to the next one and he stayed there for 3 more months.

When his time there was up, we had no choice but to bring him home until we could find an available bed at an Oxford House (a clean and sober half-way house).  And he's been there ever since.

Its not that we didn't want him to stay home,  in fact, I grieved heavily at losing him again.  You see, he is such a bright, funny, loving, magnetic person.  He lights up every room he enters with a huge smile.  Drugs had stolen that person from me since the time he was 11 and then when he had finally gotten clean, and we could see glimmers of the boy we once knew coming back out, he wasn't able to stay.  And I felt robbed again.

But his drug buddies lived around us, and he couldn't risk falling into that lifestyle again.  Not only that, but he had gotten pretty heavy into dealing drugs and their were several people who wanted him dead...literally!

And now, here we are!  One year clean and sober...no alcohol, pot, Molly, mushrooms, cocaine, etc.  None of it...!

Here is our story...
I don't want this to come across like we did it right or have all the answers, far from it!  But rather,  in the hope that it will help someone who is in a similar situation and needs some encouragement, its a lonely road!

It took 3 years of fighting law enforcement to get him arrested enough times or for a serious enough offense that the court would order drug treatment.  That's right~ I was the crazy mom who called the police, called parole officers, called the court, called juvenile detention...hours upon hours of phone calls, snapping pictures of every shred of evidence I could find and waving it in peoples faces until someone finally heard me cry..."Help him!!!" ..."Please, someone help him before he's 18 and its too late!"

Why did I need the court to send him to treatment?  Because in our state, you can't force someone to go to counseling after the age of 13, let alone treatment.  Its ridiculous! He was a danger to society and himself, but unless he admitted there was a problem and chose to seek help on his own, there was nothing we could do.  So we hounded the system.  Praise God it worked for us, but there are WAY too many people who don't get to enjoy such happy outcomes.

The system is broken.  Especially when it comes to drug abuse and mental illness. ( I will tell you about our run-ins with the mental health circus sometime...that was a crazy ride!..no pun intended :P) But along the way, you learn valuable little tidbits that help you out...
For instance--in our state, every time you call 911 on your child his name gets on a list that goes to a Juvenile Court Judge, if he sees your childs name come up enough times, he can order him to appear in court to find out whats going on.
So, like a Mom on a mission to save her child, I called him in for everything you were allowed to call in for; leaving the house without permission, threatening people, damaging property, illegal possession of drugs or drug related items, skipping school...you name it, I called.

Some cops understood my mission and even applauded it.  Others complained that I was wasting their time.  It seemed to just be the luck of the draw.

At one point, we got him signed up for the Youth At Risk program.  Its a program through Juvenile Court where they bring in a mediator to try to assess how bad things are and help the family get things back on track.  If the kid won't cooperate, then they turn them over to a Judge, who then takes over the parenting role and consequences for breaking family rules becomes time in detention.

Its a good program for kids like ours, who really couldn't give a darn about house rules or school at all.  The Court Appointed Mediator was great and actually gave David and I the green light to lay down some heavy consequences that hesitated to do before.  It didn't take long for our little runaway to decide he didn't like the pressure and he decided Jobcorp was a better option for him.  But that only lasted about 5 months before he was kicked out for drug use...no big surprise!

Our big break came in December of 2014, when we received a notice from the court that he would have to appear before a judge for a drug charge from 10 months prior!!! Way back in February he had been caught on school property (big no-no) with a baggie of pot.  It had taken 10 months for them to formally charge him.  So in January, we went to court, he was found guilty and sentenced to 3 days in Juvie-big whoop.  But, the best thing that came out of it was that he had to serve 9 month probation, and his probation officer was GREAT!  She saw what was going on and was watching him, and all his cronies.  If she even caught a whiff of something fishy, she was ON IT.  Plus, she really made me feel like we were a team.  She understood my desperation to get him help and encouraged me to let her know if I saw him doing anything questionable.  Three months into it and he was locked up for a month with an order to go straight from detention into rehab.  She had compiled a laundry list of parole violations ranging from being 10 minutes late to out-patient drug counseling to a failed UA (urine analysis drug test).  Nothing horribly serious, but enough that the Judge could see that although our son was good at covering his tracks, he really did need some help.

Little did they know how right they were.  We found out later, that during that same period of time drug dealers had almost shot him!  They had jumped him right in our neighborhood, drove him to a remote location, beat him up and had a gun to his head!  He was saved by a curious stranger passing by with a spotlight.  True story!

That was the final trip to detention and the beginning of sobriety.  Today, he is loving his new life!

And this week we get the joy (yes, it is a joy again! Thank you, Jesus :) ) of spending a few days at the beach with him.  We will have a celebration honoring his amazing accomplishments and present him with this token...

We know that sobriety is very fragile.  It will be a life-long journey that he has to take one day at a time.  There may be set backs, but we praise God for His mercy and faithfulness to us and pray that you will not lose heart in yours.

I love the mandate that God gave in Joshua 1:7, "Only be strong and very courageous, ...do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go."


In His love,
Cath

Read about his celebration...

Tuesday, April 12

We got a call from the director of MTFC at Kitsap Mental Health.  Miss A has been accepted into the Therapeutic Behavioral Management program and will be going to her therapeutic home on Wednesday.  I'm as jumpy as a cat on a hot stove today!  I have such a rush of conflicting emotions.  If you would have told me  8 years ago that we would accept this girl from a disrupted adoption, only to have her live with another family for 6-9 months while she learns to manage her anger, I would have said you were crazy!  Then again, if you told me that 8 years later our whole family would be held captive by her anger and that I would have the bruises to show it, again I would argue that to be impossible!
I love my daughter and would gladly give my health and sanity to make her well.  But that is not the question we need to ask, it is this...would we give up the health, sanity and safety of all the other children for hers?  I have always been the one to take in children that can't stay in their homes, it doesn't just break my heart to send her away, it many ways breaks my conscience.
The only thing that makes this bearable is the way the program is designed.  She will go and live in one of their specially trained homes not 40 minutes away, we will meet with her for weekly therapy sessions, she will get to come home for visits, she will get one on one attention in her new home and come back home in 6-9 months better able to manage her anger.  Meanwhile, David and I will adjust our parenting skills to be more affective, we will get the other children help with their trauma, tighten the reigns on the unruly behaviors that can be very provocative to Miss A and in the end (hopefully) have a much healthier family.  

Thursday, April 7

According to the calendar, spring has arrived.  This year it finds me sitting on a heating pad in my bed with a stocking cap on, while I write this post.  It is 33 degrees outside and we are out of dry firewood, not usually a problem for this time of year.  I don't mind though, its cozy in here and the sun is shining, giving me hope that the day will warm.
I'm hoping that it warms enough to make viewing Mr. C's baseball game a bit more comfortable, though.  It will be the first one this season that I have seen.  Between rain-outs and lack of communication on his part,  I've missed a lot of action.  For some reason, he wasn't telling me when he had a game and I decided not to push it.  My hunch is that he was unhappy with how he was playing and waited to have me there until he loosened up a bit.  Poor guy, I wish he didn't wrap so much of his personal identity up in his ability to play!
Miss A continues to be stubborn and angry with me.  I find it almost peaceful, since she refuses to talk to me.  Sounds horrid of me, I know, but typically she nips at me and everyone else all day long.  The peace is refreshing, even though you could cut the tension with a butter knife :-P
I spent most yesterday on the phone with the DCFS Family Reconciliation Service Agency, our Psych office, pediatric doctors office, friends that have friends that might be able to help, Kitsap Mental Health....ie-gathering information and resources and trying to put together a plan that will help us have a workable scenario for keeping Miss A home.  Like a dog in the garden, I'm digging like crazy to find that hidden bone- a perfect plan that we can grab onto that allows her to remain at home without sacrificing the peace and safety of everyone else in the process. I caught a few sniffs of possible options yesterday, but will need to follow up today.  Ir sounds like Group Health may help pay for outside help if they can agree upon a treatment plan with  the "outside" provider.  This was wonderful news!  We really like the Psychiatrist that she has, but treatment has focused primarily on stabilizing her Psychosis with meds and not dealing with the underlying issues or on her behavioral problems.
A workable plan might be one that includes emergency respite care for when she has an "episode" and behavioral therapy/management and treatment for her underlying PTSD.  It needs to be with someone who isn't easily manipulated or ensnared by her charms into believing that she's fine, which is what we have struggled with in the past.
So all this = more calls today.
David and I were able to get out for a bit together after the kids went to bed.  Living with all this tension has taken its toll on our relationship.  Our unshakable unity has always been a source of strength and comfort to both of us in the past.  Lately, we find ourselves questioning the other persons tactics or motives in dealing with the children.  Its sad how quickly that shakes the foundation of a marriage, thus the family.  Living with people who are unstable mentally, creates an atmosphere of  instability that taints how everyone thinks.  You can't trust your own feeling or anyone else's.  No one behaves rationally because they are functioning from a place of fear.  One fear that may be helpful for us is the fear of NOT being unified.  We are so afraid of having to parent alone that we will do whatever it takes to keep our marriage together and stay unified.  I say that with a little smirk on my face, but really, its true.
Our was fun, coupon shopping at Rite Aid and Albertsons!  Its become sort of a hobby with us to hunt down the best bargains combining sales with coupons.  Toting our "coupon binder" in which we've collected and carefully filed away coupons from the Sunday papers, we head out to the stores with the best advertised deals on products we use. Our big wins last night were- 10 boxes of cereal for $1.25 each, a Venus razor for $2.00 (normally $11), 5 boxes of granola bars for around $1.35 each and Purex laundry detergent, 46 loads for $1.99 each. In the end, we spent around $60 and saved close to $100, plus got $9 off our next shopping trip.  Love it!  David is like a kid in a candy shop when we find a good deal -so cute!  We make it a little competition to see who can find the best deals, high fives and fist pounding to whoever discovers one.  Great fun!

Wednesday, April 6 6:30 am

A new day, always a good thing!  A little sleep, a fresh cup of coffee with my morning Bible time, while the birds sing outside the window.  We will make it!
The kids are milling around getting ready for school.  Well, most of them, anyway.  Miss A is slumped on the couch deciding whether or not to cooperate.  I'm trying to decide what my plan will be if she chooses not to go.  We already have a few rules established for children who refuse to get up for school-ie, I will not excuse them, so they suffer the consequences laid out by the school and they have to do chores while at home.  The challenge today is that David would rather that I not be home while she is here, at least until she decides to respect me.  So Mr. M and I will have to find something to do today.

Well....happy to say that I get to stay home and have a "normal" day today :)
She got on the bus after all.

My stress level is still fairly high, so I'm going to suit up for a little fresh air and exercise before I start chores.  No music, no phone...just my own huffing and puffing, and the birds singing-ahhhhh, therapy!!!!

Until later, have a blessed day-xxoo

Tuesday, April 5

I may sound a bit grumpy tonight, my apologies. 

Most of my day was spent trying to compose a simple email asking friends and family if they would consider helping us out by taking Miss A when David is out of town on business.  Why is it so very difficult to ask for help?  It seems so selfish to ask other people to disrupt their lives in order to help make ours more manageable.  But I am more convinced than ever that I cannot be left home with her when he is gone. 

She confessed to me and everyone in the car on the way home from school, that she doesn’t obey me, only David, because he has a more intimidating voice.  It’s sad.  After everything that we have gone through with her and for her, that she doesn’t have any desire to obey us, just out of love and respect.  It  only comes down to the tenor of our voices!  I wonder how far we have really come in 8 years of relationship building-? 

The rest of the afternoon went from bad to worse.  She went around the house demanding this and that from me and other people.  Dictated what we could and couldn’t say or do.  When we refused to comply, her grumpy mood escalated.  At that point, I decided that the other kids didn’t need to be subjected to her foul mood.  So we loaded into the van and left her alone with herself.  I treated them to pizza and ice cream, a much better way to spend the afternoon than listening to her grump. 

Part way through the evening I got a call from a police officer saying that she was at our house in response to a 911 call.  Apparently, Miss A had called 911 to say that she was not getting along with her parents and wanted a new home.  The police officer came to the house, checked things out and saw that she wasn’t in any danger and hadn’t trashed the place and calmly told her that she needed to work things out with us.  Escape is  our daughters only solution.  She cannot see any other way.  She has no tools for resolution and no desire to do the work needed to gain the tools.

Again, I apologize for complaining and talking bad about her, but I’m at a low spot.  A place that I know many others have been at before with their own children.  For better or worse, I’m determined to share our journey so that others can learn from it.  Take the good and be blessed or learn from our mistakes and vow to do better-either way is good.

The strain on our marriage is hard to bear.  If we could always agree on how to handle her, or be ever-so-careful to not place blame, it would be so wonderful.  But that is not always the reality.  David and I are a team, but when you are both so tired and stressed, its easy to let hurtful words slip or imagine you are being attacked.  You imagine all sorts of things that may or may not be true.  It’s not o.k. to lash out on your child, the very person causing stress yet the one you are both desperately trying to save, so you lash out on each other.  But all you have is each other.  You agreed to have the other persons back.  They are not the enemy!  So you remember that, vent a little, cry a lot, and reposition onto the same side of the playing field again.  Game on!

Awake again. It seems I haven't had a full nights sleep in weeks. The depth of my loneliness has come to consume me, a familiar reality. The old struggles roll together with the new, piling hurt and frustration and worry, one upon the other in a suffocating blizzard of emotion. I can't catch my breath. I can't sleep. tears flow in aggravating endlessness. I long to reach out to someone, to pour out my heart to anyone that would listen. But the heartbreaking truth is that there is no one. I know all too well that there is no one.

Time and energy spent tending the hearts of my children has replaced the efforts of tending friendships, and there lies the void. No one that knows me, no one to listen. Even if I did feel that I had payed ahead in a relationship enough to call upon the account in my time of need, the likely response to my hearts cry would surely be that we had ' brought this upon ourselves'. Words I can't bear to hear as I gasp for breath.

So here I sit, licking my own wounds and feeling trapped. I need a break so badly but can't go anywhere because we never know when Miss A will have an "episode". I'm worn out and tired of feeling afraid of her. Every time I hear her voice raise even a little, my hands instantly start to shake involuntarily. My heart begins to race and in an instant I am on alert, ready for what may come. Will I ever get over it?

The last "episode" was especially traumatic for me. I was alone with her and in the hour and a half struggle to keep her from doing more damage to the house, or running out into the road, my knee was injured. In her psychotic state, she doesn't recognize that I'm hurt and continues to fight me for another hour or two. We have been through so many similar scenes over the past year. Times when she has tried to hurt us or herself. I don't know why this one was particularly difficult for me to recover from. Maybe because of my knee, or the fact that I was alone, but more likely because I had been hoping that we were on the road to healing.

Hope is powerful. It carries you along in the darkest hours, giving strength and direction when none can be found. Now the dark reality that she probably will not get better consumes me in its hungry path. I don't really know how we survived the last year? The scars are still fresh in each of us. Mental illness is ugly and incredibly frightening. How long will we have to go on?

She is 16 now, will it be until she's 18? How will she ever live on her own? The added complication of being developmentally delayed, makes it impossible. She can't even read a label, let alone understand what it says. Any option for living somewhere else is far beyond out means financially. We have 10 other children to care for.

Here is where I hear the judging voices saying, "with that many children, you were bound to have this happen" or "you made your bed..." All of which is true. Except we believed that we were obeying God and we still do. Knowing that you have followed where God has led certainly helps, but doesn't preclude the need for a sympathetic ear in the hard times.

As I sort through the jumble of issues that have poured down on me over the previous months, I can't help wishing that the world would just stop long enough for me to process each thing. How I long for a vacation, even a weekend away...but I know that it would never be enough. In the end, everything would still be here, waiting. Besides, we can't leave Miss A.

I have spent hours on end sorting through the various governmental agencies trying to determine the services that are available to her now and after she turns 18. They consider us an "at risk" family (a title I never imagined we would have) and want to help us out any way they can. Yet, all good intention fall by the wayside when budgets are cut to save a drowning bureaucracy. There is nothing for us. Not even respite care.

Now, there are some families that would take her for respite. But really, I have a hard time trusting anyone's credibility that says they would willingly take our mentally ill, developmentally disabled, behaviorally challenged, RAD, ODD, etc, etc....daughter!! I say that tongue-in-cheek, but the truth is, she's still my daughter and I care about her well-being and a person would have to be insane to choose this!

I should probably go to bed now. Its 4 am and I'm back on duty in a couple of hours. Thanks for listening. As I say good night (or good morning, rather) I want to say one last thing. As difficult as this all is, I love my daughter. I don't like her illness, what we have gone through is yucky, but I do love her and will continue to stand by her (forever!), I'm thankful for her and will choose to believe that God has a plan in all of this.