Starting over

I just found this post among my drafts written on May 29.  The irony is I find myself in the same position, thinking the same thoughts… just a different girl.  We had the art therapist over yesterday and she asked us to draw our favorite part of the summer.  Vale wanted to draw being down at the RMH with his Skinny Harem.  I couldn’t believe it.  I will write more on that later… but when will this cycle stop?
Having found out that he was back about this girl again, how adamantly he insisted that this girl, whom he’s never met and never WILL meet is his girlfriend has thrown me, emotionally, for a loop.  Why?  Simply put, if he is not invested in his recovery than all I’m doing is spinning my wheels and flailing my arms about.  That is incredibly frightening.

I never have the expectation that Vale won’t screw up or slide back into old habits, but yes, I am a little shell-shocked by his abandonment of the track he was formally on.  Lying about this girl, trying to manipulate me into taking him someplace where she may be, putting so much energy into sneaking around to go online to meet with her cannot coincide with true effort into recovery.  If he were to come clean and say, “I was wrong, I shouldn’t have done that.  I realize why you have these rules set up, why this particular girl wasn’t good for me…” etc I could let it go, but his continued silence about it, his hostility towards me when I bring it up, his refusal to let it go…

How can I assess anything now?  How can I interpret all the little signals that he puts off?  Has all the data that I have been getting off him and working with over this last month in error?  How far off the mark am I?  Where do I go from here?

More from Art Therapy

This is another example of what our family has done in art therapy.  The real purpose of posting it is to enlighten another family about what may occur in these types of treatments.  

The therapist gave each of us a piece of paper and various drawing implements; pencils, markers, crayons etc.  She asked each of us to make some sort of scribble on each of our pages, an idea that appalled Vale.  I guess his OCD doesn’t allow the unbalanced mess of scribbling.  After each of us did our own scribbling, and Vale did his version of controlled doodling, we had to pick which scribble to use to create a picture.  Then, as a group we would decided what picture we saw in the scribble and bring the picture forward by adding elements.

The scribble chosen was mine, since I had less on my page and they all felt they had more to work with.  The decided that they saw a face in it and each child added an element.  Dolorosa added the eyes, youngest the nose (replete with nose hairs, ugh), Grey drew in the hair… Payne decided that it should be called Nude Ascending a Staircase, so Vale added the staircase.  The kids thought that the sides of the picture looks like cheeks being pushed back by velocity, as if the person was falling out of a plane.  Hence the airplane.  

The picture turned out like nonsense, but the point of the exercise was to have the family work together to create it.  I don’t know how much we learned from it, but it was fun. =)

More from Art Therapy



This is another example of what our family has done in art therapy.  The real purpose of posting it is to enlighten another family about what may occur in these types of treatments.  

The therapist gave each of us a piece of paper and various drawing implements; pencils, markers, crayons etc.  She asked each of us to make some sort of scribble on each of our pages, an idea that appalled Vale.  I guess his OCD doesn’t allow the unbalanced mess of scribbling.  After each of us did our own scribbling, and Vale did his version of controlled doodling, we had to pick which scribble to use to create a picture.  Then, as a group we would decided what picture we saw in the scribble and bring the picture forward by adding elements.

The scribble chosen was mine, since I had less on my page and they all felt they had more to work with.  The decided that they saw a face in it and each child added an element.  Dolorosa added the eyes, youngest the nose (replete with nose hairs, ugh), Grey drew in the hair… Payne decided that it should be called Nude Ascending a Staircase, so Vale added the staircase.  The kids thought that the sides of the picture looks like cheeks being pushed back by velocity, as if the person was falling out of a plane.  Hence the airplane.  

The picture turned out like nonsense, but the point of the exercise was to have the family work together to create it.  I don’t know how much we learned from it, but it was fun. =)

Family Art Therapy

Yesterday at family art therapy, the therapist asked us to draw an abstract about our family.  Each of us grabbed some crayons or markers and went to work.  It turned out, for the most part, 5 of the 6 family members there drew somewhat the same thing; symbolic representations of each family member.  I actually inserted my version of it below.  It’s my thoughts on each family member colored in their favorite color.  I wanted to show that although we’re all different, we’re still connected, like a jigsaw puzzle.

The top row:  My husband (encompassing), 2nd daughter (flowers, sweetness), 3rd son (lego block), Vale (buildings/architecture

Bottom row: Me (wounded heart), oldest son (nebulous like water), youngest son (wheels/always in motion), Payne (a book)

Yeah, I’m not much of an artist.

However, Vale’s younger brother seemed to tell more of the truth with his.  He drew his oldest brother off to the side, torn away from the family, hand out resisting us.  That’s how the oldest son is right now.  In the lower portion you can see me having 7 arms out, supporting the entire family, while my husband is depicted by a brain (upper left corner).  Near the bottom is Vale, being pulled down by two demons: Self Mutilation - he’s the fat one with the pitchfork and Eating Disorder - which is the skinny one.  Vale is shown struggling against them, pulling himself out of a pit.  The artist is the second block from the left on the top row (again Lego, and the word School is in fire, cuz he doesn’t like school).  Artist and his two sisters are holding up CTY for Center for Talented Youth, a program they all belong to.

Anyway, of all our drawings, I like this one the best.  It really demonstrates what’s going on in this child’s heart and mind.  It’s sad to see him depict the oldest brother torn away, but I am relieved to see that he drew Vale rising out of the pit.

What are your thoughts?

Family Art Therapy

Yesterday at family art therapy, the therapist asked us to draw an abstract about our family.  Each of us grabbed some crayons or markers and went to work.  It turned out, for the most part, 5 of the 6 family members there drew somewhat the same thing; symbolic representations of each family member.  I actually inserted my version of it below.  It’s my thoughts on each family member colored in their favorite color.  I wanted to show that although we’re all different, we’re still connected, like a jigsaw puzzle.

The top row:  My husband (encompassing), 2nd daughter (flowers, sweetness), 3rd son (lego block), Vale (buildings/architecture

Bottom row: Me (wounded heart), oldest son (nebulous like water), youngest son (wheels/always in motion), Payne (a book)

Yeah, I’m not much of an artist.

However, Vale’s younger brother seemed to tell more of the truth with his.  He drew his oldest brother off to the side, torn away from the family, hand out resisting us.  That’s how the oldest son is right now.  In the lower portion you can see me having 7 arms out, supporting the entire family, while my husband is depicted by a brain (upper left corner).  Near the bottom is Vale, being pulled down by two demons: Self Mutilation - he’s the fat one with the pitchfork and Eating Disorder - which is the skinny one.  Vale is shown struggling against them, pulling himself out of a pit.  The artist is the second block from the left on the top row (again Lego, and the word School is in fire, cuz he doesn’t like school).  Artist and his two sisters are holding up CTY for Center for Talented Youth, a program they all belong to.

Anyway, of all our drawings, I like this one the best.  It really demonstrates what’s going on in this child’s heart and mind.  It’s sad to see him depict the oldest brother torn away, but I am relieved to see that he drew Vale rising out of the pit.

What are your thoughts?

Art Therapy

Yesterday, Vale had his first appointment with his art therapist.  We’ve heard a lot of good things about the therapy organization we are now using, so it gives me hope.  We looked for an art therapist for Vale, because of his natural tendencies to draw and also due to his inability to verbalize himself sometimes.  When Vale becomes anxious he literally can not speak, the words seem to get stuck in his throat.  It is our hope that through art therapy he can finally bring to the surface the abuse and move past it to healing.  I know, understand and accept that Vale won’t ever get truly over the abuse he suffered, but it doesn’t have to define him.  I have used the analogy with him that the abuse is this heavy box that is pressing him down now.  One day that heavy box will be used by him to stand on, to rise him up.  I’ll keep you posted on the art therapy, so that any other parents who may be reading this blog could see if it is a viable option for their son (or daughter for that matter).

I’ll be posting some more foundational post as pages to this blog.  I posted one already about the purpose of this blog.  I’d like to post a page about Vale, one about me and one on how all this came to light.  I will be posting them as pages, so these more key items of this journey won’t get lost in an archive.