Flashback to July: Let’s get this over with

I think I’ve drug my heels about finishing this long enough, wouldn’t you agree?  I have so many other things I wish to write about, but I feel as though I can’t go on to those things until I’ve put this one to bed.  Not really sure why.  Not entirely sure why this is so difficult to sit down and finish either.  Insights anyone?

It’s our final week down in Hershey.  We arrive on a Sunday, Vale chomping at the bit to get back to Nicki, me dreading the week.  In an effort to get him out of the house, I suggest we go out to dinner to this restaurant he’s been wanting to try since February.  The name of it is Houlihans, and although I don’t believe he actually wanted to eat at it, he wanted to go in it, so he was agreeable.  At least initially.

We arrive at Houlihans and it’s raining.  The parking lot is full, so we have to park in this parking garage type facility.  We step out of the van, and Vale starts.  At first it’s just simple kvetching, about how many cars are in the parking lot, how cold the rain is, etc.  When we actually get into the restaurant, I can visibly see him start to become unglued.  ”It’s too dark in here!  There are way too many people.  Why is it so warm in here??”

You ever have a moment in time where you look at your child and you’re unsure as to who that person is?  I was in this moment.  The space-time continuum had just shifted and I was in some type of alternate universe.  I started to look around to see if everyone was sporting goatees (vague Star Trek reference there).  He was antsy.  He was agitated.  He was very anxious.  He was completely eating disordered.  I asked Vale if he wanted to leave and he said no, so we were given a table.  Madness then ensued because they gave us the menu: it was huge and expansive.  He was consumed with anxiety over how in the world was he going to order, there were far too many choices.  At this point I sort of shifted into a survival mode, I suggested we leave.  Vale got even more upset, he was afraid it would draw attention to himself if we just walked out now, so I thought of something to do about the ordering.

A bright spot on the menu is that they had this whole list of entries that were smaller portions of their customer favorites, so that you could sample a couple of different items.  I suggested that Vale pick 2 or 3 of those, and he’d be ensured that the portions were at a manageable level.  But even those 20 or so choices proved to be far too many.  He did notice that someone had a french dip sandwich and thought it looked good, so I suggested that we split a sandwich and a salad.  Whatever he didn’t eat, we could always take home.  We had a tentatively help peace over that decision and we ordered.  Wouldn’t you know it that when they brought our food they would serve it on these over-sized rectangular trencher type plates??  I thought he was going to have a fit.  He did become a bit louder when he exclaimed something about the amount of food.  I quickly started reducing the number of plates and divvying up our food: one half of the sandwich for me, one for him.  One half of the salad for me, but no, I couldn’t put the entire half portion of salad on his plate.  There were also fries, but he couldn’t stand more than 3 or 4 on his plate.

The sandwich went down easily for Vale (and it was tasty ~ if you’re even in Hershey, PA try the french dip sandwiches at Houlihans).  I made a bold move and put the rest of his portion of salad on his plate, while it was somewhat cleared of food and he was okay with that.  He ate some of the salad and said he wanted to take the rest of it home.  Unfortunately the salad was the kind where they had pre-tossed it so I mentioned to him that if we took it home, it wouldn’t be very good the next day because it already had the dressing all over it.  He sort of loudly dropped his fork and looked me right in the eyes and said, “So you lied to me.”  I lied to him?  About the food?  Really?  I had the foresight to know that the salad was going to come like that and I purposefully lied so that he had to eat it?  I was dumbfounded at his accusation and I probably did some type of jaw dropping.  Now he was angry and it was all directed at me.  I don’t remember a whole lot about the rest of that night with the exception of that he did eat most of his salad, he wouldn’t touch a fry, and I was, apparently, the devil.

This last week at the Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute was originally supposed to be a short one, only until Wednesday.  However, the week before, Vale had cut himself and coupled with the fact that his eating disorder is getting out of control, they decided to keep him the rest of the week.  Oh yes, I forgot to mention that little tid bit didn’t I?  Nicki was getting near to the end of her treatment, so the program she was in shortened her week by a day, then the next week by two etc, weaning her from the program.  So the previous week, Nicki had gone home on a Thursday and Vale was distraught, not knowing what to do with himself without her on Thursday evening.  If I remember correctly, I sent him to our room because he was being belligerent about something and so he used, can you believe this, the room *key* to cut himself.  Okay, it’s horrible enough when he used knives and box cutters to cut, but a key?  Can you imagine how painful that must have been?  Of course that event left me distraught and us needing to stay for the entire week.  Vale was completely oppositional Monday and Tuesday, combative, clearly not interested in his treatment and becoming worse by the minute.  His eating was getting worse, refusing to eat breakfast, escalated behaviors over dinner and I finally had had it.  We were leaving Wednesday, whether he liked it or not.

Tuesday evening I had him retire to the room early and we packed.  We took stuff down to the car and I happened to walk through the main eating area and found Nicki, another mother and her daughter sitting around the table talking close.  I walk toward the room and the other girl started frantically started making faces at Nicki to be quiet.  Obviously they were talking about me, and it wasn’t pleasant.  How in the world did I become the bad guy?  I wasn’t ‘in the world’ so to speak, around people who didn’t know about what was going on with him or what it’s like to have an eating disordered kid.  Why in the name of anything sacred weren’t these mothers on my side.  Now for her part, Nicki was a 16-year-old girl with a mad crush, I can understand why she was so unhappy with me keeping the two apart.  But these other mothers should have been standing shoulder to shoulder with me… I’m still baffled.  Fortunately, I’m not a parent who seeks popularity, I do what’s right for my family and I kept on packing.

Vale didn’t say goodbye to Nicki because I didn’t tell him we were definitely leaving until we were up in our room.  The next day I kept him busy up in the room until after 8:30 so he wouldn’t have time to see her then either.  In retrospect, I toss that around as to whether I should have done that or not.  But in the end I ask myself, what good would have come from him sharing a tearful goodbye with this girl?  I also wholeheartedly admit that part of me just wanted to cut this thing right off.  He was not happy with me and he pointedly asked me if I planned that on purpose, to which I replied honestly that I did.

During that last week, I made an appointment for Vale at the eating disorder specialist.  This time we didn’t see the doctor like we usually did, we saw his physician’s assistant and that was a godsend.  Vale had, surprise surprise, dropped weight.  Apparently Vale didn’t keep his cards too close to his chest while he was in with the PA, asking if Nicki was there, was she alright, could he see her etc.  Of course the PA couldn’t tell him squat but she could see where his entire thought was bent toward and she got rather tough with him.  In short she threatened him that if he didn’t start getting with the program she would take action.  And no, despite what he thinks, she would never put him in a partial program there, to be around the girls, he would go in a lock down.  She then walked him through what a program like that was like: they would tell him when to wake, when to sleep, where he could go, when he ate, what he ate, how much he ate, whether he could see or talk to his family or friends, what privileges he could have, when he could leave.  She didn’t paint a pretty picture at all.  Vale was rather shocked by the entire conversation, but I was delighted.  This PA was taking the bull by the horns, something the doctor never seemed to do, and I was so relieved.

I don’t remember the ride home quite well.  I don’t think it was pleasant.  In fact, I don’t think we spoke to each other the entire 2 hour trip.  I’d like to tell you that within a few days he was back to himself and we started progressing back toward recovery again, but that would be a lie.  He kept up his restrictive eating.  He was ignorant and unkind toward me and the entire family.  He moved like a ghost through the days thinking only on his ‘lost love’.  He contrived how he was going to see her, talk with her, be with her.  He vandalized a restaurant bathroom, carving her initials into the stall.  That was a delight, let me tell you, and I made him tell the manager and fork over $60 in reparation.  We went to see a nutritionist who concluded that this wasn’t the time for him to be working on his eating disorder, because it was blatantly obvious he had no interest in recovery.  The nutritionist spoke with the PA and both agreed that Vale had too much therapy types and he was learning how to work it all, they suggested that we pick one and work with them and then slowly add others as he got back on track.  I agreed with them, that things had shifted into madness and we pared things down to just his Biblical counselor.  I think the kicker was that of the entire summer, which included a week-long vacation right on the bay in Delaware, his fondest summer memories were of the time in Hershey, with Nicki.  I wanted to kick him when he said that.  The time that cost us the most, that was so ruinous, painful was his favorite moments of the summer.

Why was this so hard to write.  Is it because I question myself?  Was it really the right thing to take Vale down to Hershey?  Was I foolish?  Should I have ended it sooner?  In the short-term it caused us so much pain and was so damaging to Vale’s recovery.  But as I look back on it 7 months later and see Vale’s progress I wonder if it didn’t come in part because of this time in Crazyville.  Is it possible that he is more solid now because he knows we’ll do anything to help him, to listen to him?  If it isn’t, will you at least not tell me.  I need that one small bit to keep from despair about that whole thing.  Placate me, okay?

A Flashback to July 2011 - part 1 (A warning to ED moms)

I’ve been avoiding doing this for some time.  Why?  Because it’s hard.  Hard for two reasons; I have to go back and recap what happened, and hey, I’m innately lazy and the memories that need to be recapped are hard.  Back when I was keeping a more daily encapsulation of Vale’s recovery, I left everyone at the Ronald McDonald House in Harrisburg where Vale was undergoing Trauma Therapy.  I just stopped.  I stopped recounting what was going on in his circadian life and treatment.  It wasn’t pretty and I really don’t want to think on it, but for continuity’s sake, and for the sake of those who are also walking the road of recovery, I go back there now.  At least I’m going to try.

I did write about how we ended up in Harrisburg.  You can read that post here

The first week down in Harrisburg for treatment at the Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute outpatient facility was okay, it was seeming to be profitable.  However I did see one issue creeping up, one that I struggle with Vale all the time: girls.  Okay, I get it.  Vale is a young, handsome, red-blooded, American male.  He’s naturally going to be attracted to young ladies, especially at his age, right?  Well with Vale, nothing is simple.  He doesn’t simply do anything, everything is complicated.  He doesn’t develop simple, cute, age appropriate attractions.  He dives head long into frighteningly dangerous and destructive obsessions with and over girls.

Although Vale was in a psychiatric treatment facility dealing with trauma, there were many young ladies staying in the Ronald McDonald House while attending the local eating disorder clinic, Briarcrest.  These young ladies found Vale to be quite attractive (who wouldn’t) and Vale became quite the novelty since he was the only boy.  And I foolishly, so so foolishly, allowed Vale to socialize with these other young people.  That was the biggest mistake I feel I’ve made with this entire journey.

I’m going to have to split this post up into a couple different parts, because this is getting long and also because I’m really struggling with writing it.  I do want to get this out though before I close this post.  If you are going to put your eating disordered child into a clinic and must stay in a communal place like a Ronald McDonald House, do *not* allow your child to socialize much at all with the other eating disorder patients.  They feed off each other, and it will be so disruptive to your child’s recovery.  Limit their interaction and keep your child busy outside the communal home and away from the day-to-day behaviors of the other patients.  Your child will learn new tricks, new ways to be evasive and techniques to ratchet up the level of their eating disorder.  They take and compare notes, become jealous of one another and the level of control each has and strive to become ‘perfected’ in their eating disorder.  It will wreak havoc on your child and everything you wanted for them.

We learned that the hard way.

**I included a lot of links in this post to aid any other parent looking for resources.  I hope it’s helpful.

Fallout: Loosing the Taste of Blackberries

Okay, I admit it.  I joined Weight Watchers.  Yes, the mother of a recovering eating disordered son joined a ‘dieting’ program.  I’m not remotely at a healthy weight and just as Vale needed to make better eating decisions so do I.  Weight Watchers encourages me to eat more healthy, so I’m not ‘restricting’ just making better choices.  And yes, Vale and I are talking about it quite a bit to make sure I’m not one huge trigger to him.  And I keep the scale, which I just recently purchased, stashed out of sight.  So far so good as I have lost 14 pounds.  Now if only Vale would find them…

And I just said all of that just to say this:  I’m buying and consuming more fruit.  Monumental right?  When I went to our local store (Maine Source ~ do you have one near by?) they had a sale on berries: blackberries, raspberries and blueberries.  That’s especially rare for this time of year so I scooped up a bunch of them because the kids and I enjoy them so much.  And if you have children you probably guessed that my kiddos were elated.  And if you have an ED child you probably guessed that I was equally elated to watch Vale scooping up the berries and eating them like candy.  Well, all of them except the blackberries.

After a bit of the other children enjoying the berries, Vale came to me and said, “You know Mom, I just can’t eat the blackberries.”  I was confused.  I did see him sampling them earlier and so I asked him if it was because he didn’t like blackberries or was there another issue.  Yeah, yeah, you know what I was thinking… restricting?  And in actuality I found the real reason far more sad.  Vale told me that at his former foster parents’ house, where his rapes occurred, there were blackberries growing all over the place.  And although enjoys the taste of blackberries, he just can’t eat them without thinking about the rape.  Another simple pleasure stolen.

My poor baby.  You go on and just eat those other berries then.

Never, ever underestimate what sexual assault, what rape will do to a person.  It snakes its way into everything.  Insidious.

 

Excellent Article on Eating Disorders in Men

Sunday, May 29, 2011  03:15 AM

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Michael Whitehead was 16 when a doctor diagnosed his eating disorder. He now is 18 and still gets care at Nationwide Children's Hospital.
JEFF HINCKLEY | DISPATCH
Michael Whitehead was 16 when a doctor diagnosed his eating disorder. He now is 18 and still gets care at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.


When Michael Whitehead started losing weight almost three years ago, it seemed like a good thing.

“I was overweight and made fun of for most of my life. Relentlessly,” said the Fairfield County teen. “But then I became extremely obsessive.”

He dropped more than 100 pounds in six months. He began to eliminate many foods from his diet, eating almost no fat. At his lowest point, he ate about 700 calories a day and exercised at least three hours.

He felt that he couldn’t stop.

Whitehead was 16 when a doctor diagnosed anorexia. At one point, the 5-foot 9-inch teen had shrunk to 120 pounds.

He now is 18 and a senior at Amanda-Clearcreek High School. He has been through two inpatient-care programs and continues to get care at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. His weight is up to about 180 pounds, and he’s on medication that helps ease the obsessive-compulsive disorder that helped fuel his illness.

Whitehead is troubled by advertising that depicts young men who are impossibly thin and yet still have muscles. Images such as that contribute to the disorder by encouraging people to attain an impossible physique, to seek “perfection,” he said.

And he’s adamant that people, including doctors, should be better at recognizing eating disorders in boys and men. Initially, he said, doctors “were like, ‘Oh yeah, you’re a guy, you can’t have an eating disorder.’

“I think that society really needs to know that this is not just a female problem.”

A population-based study published in 2007 found that men and boys were one-third as likely as women to have anorexia or bulimia and more than half as likely to have a binge-eating disorder.

“I think it’s still viewed as a predominantly female disorder, and I think that’s going to be a hard thing to change,” said Dr. Terry Bravender, chief of adolescent medicine at Children’s.

There are many obstacles, including doctors who don’t recognize it and patients and families who resist getting help, he said. “I’ve seen boys and young men embarrassed to come in because they think they have a girls’ disorder. And I think a lot of times boys have to be really impaired to be identified as having an eating disorder.”

In male patients, problems typically arise a little differently, he said. They often start to eat healthier and exercise more in hopes of building muscle. Then other mental illnesses - including obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression and anxiety - lead to development of the disease.

Anorexia and bulimia can lead to osteoporosis, heart problems and, in the most extreme cases, death.

Signs of eating disorders should be taken seriously, and professional help is essential, said Lynn Grefe, president and CEO of the National Eating Disorders Association.

Those involved with someone who is ill should take care not to approach the situation with anger or find fault with the patient or his family, she said.

“It’s not their fault. Nobody is to blame here,” Grefe said. “Blame can really get in the way of treatment.”

She said she has heard more stories about men with eating disorders in recent years and pointed to one study that suggests hospitalizations are increasing faster among males than females.

Recognition of eating disorders in men - preferably earlier on, before serious damage has occurred - must improve, said Grefe, whose organization is working to increase physician education on identification of the disease in both genders.

Laura Hill, CEO of the Center for Balanced Living in Worthington, said there’s work afoot to change the mental-illness diagnostic manual that psychiatrists and others use. She said the manual is skewed toward women. The diagnosis for anorexia, for example, includes criteria based on the patient’s menstrual cycle.

“It’s underdiagnosed,” she said. “You’re looking at other things … and it often only surfaces after you’ve eliminated and ruled out other problems.”

Family and friends play an important role in helping patients get well, Hill said, and their support and understanding go a long way toward recovery.

Whitehead said, “The worst thing you can do is try to make them eat. You need to tell them that you care and that you love them and try to help them get some professional help.”

mcrane@dispatch.com

Spotting trouble

Common signs that a person might have an eating disorder:

• Drastic weight loss

• Preoccupation with counting calories

• Weighing oneself several times a day

• Excessive exercise

• Binge eating or purging

• Food rituals, such as taking tiny bites, skipping food groups or rearranging food on the plate

• Avoiding meals or wanting to eat only when alone

• Taking laxatives or

diuretics

• Smoking to curb appetite

• A persistent view of oneself as fat that worsens despite weight loss



Understanding eating disorders

• As many as 10 million females and 1 million males in the U.S. have anorexia or bulimia. As many as  13 million more struggle with a binge-eating disorder.

• Eating disorders affect people from all walks of life, including young children, middle-age women, men and individuals of all races and ethnicities.

• The peak onset of eating disorders occurs during puberty and the late teen and early adult years, but symptoms can occur as young as kindergarten.

• A recent study of hospitalizations related to eating disorders cites data showing a sharp increase from 1999 to 2006, up 18 percent overall, 24 percent among the elderly, 37 percent among men and 119 percent among children younger than 12 (although that age group accounts for fewer than 5 percent of cases).

• Anorexia has the highest mortality rate of any mental illness.

• For more information or to seek help, go to NationalEatingDisorders.org

or call (800) 931-2237.

Source: National Eating Disorders Association



 

What about the fallout

I want to write a series of posts on fallout.  To my surprise, so few people understand what lies in the aftermath of sexual abuse.  I guess they see it as one and done or something.  ”Boo hoo, have a little cry then back to life has normal” and I can’t think of an idea that is further from the truth.  It still hits me for a loop when we encounter something that is seemingly so innocuous, but due to fall out it becomes a problem.  Going to a restaurant, simple phrases people toss out, being at Chuck E Cheese for crying out loud!  These have all become somewhat of a situation due to the consequences of a traumatic event.

As always, I have other survivors and especially parents of survivors out there in mind when I write my blog entries.  No two circumstances are exactly alike, I realize that.  So there will never be anyone else who visits this blog and experiences all the same things as we do.  But when they read a post about something that seems so random yet impacts so hard perhaps they will feel like, “yeah!  Something like that happened to us too!”  Because outside of trauma real uh… normal.. um, .. regular… *darn*…non traumatized people (?) couldn’t relate.  We have our own weird little sub culture, I guess.  But we aren’t alone, are we.

My Very First Speech (Or at least that I can remember)

My son is soooo awesome!

walkingthroughwithvale:

I’m not much of an orator (or a writer) for that matter. I’m just a fourteen year old boy who was sexually abused. I was badly treated by two older boys for a couple years through the ages 5-7. I’m not sure how many times it happened, I don’t even know one of the boy’s names. I’m sure I never will, but it doesn’t matter, It still happened.

I don’t get why people think that boys shouldn’t show their feelings. Why is it not manly for boys and men to cry? Why does it make a male girly or weak to express their emotion? It’s unfair. Babies cry, so do little boys, and little girls, so do teenage girls, and adult women. Why can’t young men and adult men cry? Why are people teaching their boys it is wrong to deal with their emotions?

I recently read about something on the C.H.I.L.D Facebook page that happened on September 21 to a little girl.  She was sexually abused by a man; a man who was supposed to take care of her, teach her, and be her leader. It went to court, and the following is what the defense attorney offered up to reduce the perpetrator’s prison sentence.   First, the defense attorney stated that he hoped that, “this incident will fade from this little girl’s memory…”

Well, guess what, it still happened. That little girl will still live with that in her head for the rest of her life. And even if she doesn’t remember details, she’ll still know that something happened.   

“Rather than requiring the girl to have to testify in court, he admitted what he did,” said the defense attorney. “He’s accepted responsibility and is remorseful. There were no threats, force or intimidation; the duration of the incident was 2-10 seconds and he stopped it of his own volition.”

It’s great that the man confessed to his disgusting sin, and took ownership in court. Unfortunately that is the opposite with me; I won’t ever have my day in court, never see my civil justice. One of the perpetrators who “offended” me denied even knowing who I was. Now, obviously the man in this case knew the girl, because he admitted to offending her. But my offender said he didn’t even know who I was, let alone to admitting the crime!

How about the perp’s acceptance of his actions and his remorse?  The victim also accepts the actions and the blame as well.  In our society, boys aren’t victims; they are supposed to be the victors.  So I kept my abuse secret for six years. I didn’t tell anybody. Well, guess what? Since I couldn’t tell people I have some serious problems. I have PTSD. I have an eating disorder. I have MDD. I cut.  And even now I struggle telling people closest to me; extended family and friends, because society sees sexual abuse as a ‘girl’s issue’.  Eating disorders are girls’ issues.  Self mutilation is a girls’ issue.  Well I’m testimony that they’re not.

Another thing that the defense attorney ignorantly stated is that “there were no threats, force or intimidation”. Are you kidding me? The victim is a little girl, and he was a grown man! There was a sense of force as soon as that child met that man from the beginning! Children can be scared by adults even if that adult is the nicest person on the planet. This is because of how innocent children are, and their lack of maturity to acknowledge facts.  Now, I don’t think I was verbally threatened when I was raped. Even if they weren’t threatening to me, I was still a little boy. Plus, they were much bigger, stronger, and older.                                               

In my mind the most disturbing thing that the defense attorney said was about the abuse only occurring for a few seconds.  Does it matter if it was only 2-10 seconds long? No, because it still happened! And to say that he stopped on his own volition? Of course it stopped on his own volition. Do you think that the little girl had a choice? Even if she screamed he could still do it!

Another crazy thing this perp stated was that he was “a good man who made some poor choices.” No! My father is a good man who sometimes makes poor choices. I hope I grow up to be a good man, but I know I will make some poor choices. Perpetrators are bad people who make bad choices. These people don’t just wake up thinking; “Hmm, I think I’m going to rape someone today” That is a thought that starts with a seed, and then you feed that seed for a long time. You are not a good man. You are an awful man.

Will this girl turn out like me? That’s what I want to know. Will she hold it all in? Will she hurt herself for something that isn’t her fault? I don’t want that to happen to her, and I’m sure nobody here does either. That’s the whole reason we’re here. To support children who have been abused, sexually or otherwise.

If you’re a boy out there, I want you to know that it is not weak to cry. It is not weak to show your feelings. I hope me raising my voice for this cause will make you want to raise your voices, also. I hope this brief oration makes other people understand and care.  

Robert F. Kennedy once said ‎“Each time a person stands up for an idea, or acts to improve the life of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.” I hope that I have sent a ripple of hope to all survivors out there. 

That’s all I’ve got to say, really. Just be supportive of people, you never know what has happened to them. It is NOT a victim’s fault that they were abused. It is NOT my fault that I have been abused. Thank-you all very much for listening! God Bless You!

 

New Coping Skills

I’ve begun utilizing a new coping skill, and I’m not all together proud of it.  Honestly, I needed some help.  I am incredibly lonely and am working on keeping the family together by myself.  My husband, even thought he is a good man, can’t rise to the challenge and as he has often done in the past, is loosing himself in his work and denial.  He knows that I am strong enough to bear most things so it’s easier for him to put off, ignore or deny how badly he’s needed.  I think he honestly tells himself I don’t need him, but then I wouldn’t resort to.. *this*.

*This* is used to keep me more quiet and numb feeling, I have so much incredible noise in my head, although at times it makes me incredibly sad.  But I have had a good cry, so I guess that’s a good thing. Hmmmm, why write about it?  Well I’m thinking that when another mom views this blog looking for support in dealing with her child going through so much pain she won’t feel alone in looking for an artificial crutch.

Intellectually I realize that Vale was raped 6 years ago.  Before I even knew him, let alone when he was my son.  In fact I have adopted another son who was sexually abused as well, but we knew it going into it, and he didn’t have major fall out.  Because the disclosure happened now, it seems to me that it happened now.  I’m dealing with all the mess now.  We’re talking to police now. Going for therapy now.  Working with him through it now.   None of that occurred 6 years ago.  I just mentally draw myself up into a fetal position and think, “my baby… my baby… my baby…”

And then the kicker is the fallout of the other children… oh, that’s so hard.  My oldest withdraws from the family.  Vale’s twin wants to know every little thing so she can somehow come to grips with it or control it.  The next in line dreams dreams…the next puts on a facade and cries to me when she the mask slips.  The youngest just can’t seem to understand, and why should he.

Add to this running for therapy, school, other obligations .. I sound like a broken record.  Can’t I please have a vacation?

Please?

Last Friday (the bad part)

What a relief… until Vale started shuffling the color communication cards that is.  He put the light blue one back in the stack and then handed nearly every single other card *besides* the ‘I’m feeling great!’ card:

  • Help!  Things are serious!
  • I want to cut
  • I want to purge
  • I’m remembering
  • I don’t know what to say
  • I feel blank
  • I just cut

You just cut?  How is that possible?  You haven’t been home 5 minutes and I’ve seen you every minute…(suck in breath) Did you cut at The ***** home?

blank

Vale, did you cut when you were at The ***** home!?!?

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Oh Vale, what happened??  And then he told me.  

Our youth pastor was talking about how we all are part of the body of Christ, and how each part of the body has to support an help the other parts.  All doctrinally correct, and I support that.  However, he then used an object lesson, and I didn’t support that.  The pastor said, “No one wakes up in the morning thinking, ‘I’m gunna hurt myself today’ and then goes and gets a hammer and smashes his hand..”  To which the other members of the youth group snickered and laughed. *sigh*  So insensitive, so foolish.  Vale was hurt and upset by that, and I can understand why.  I am not happy with this.  Vale and 3 of his siblings are in youth group, that means 4 people are there who have lives touched by self mutilation, 20% of the youth group.  He should have been more sensitive.  I’m trying to be more forgiving because after all, Pastors are only human too.  But I want to slap him!

Since this family is a hunting family, Vale easily found a hunting knife and cut deeper than I had ever seen before.  His arm was still bleeding when he got home.  I don’t know if it was the still bleeding arm, the depth of the cutting, the fact that he cut in someone else’s home or the humongous swing of the pendulum that set me off, but I freaked.  I got so scared.  So quickly.  I called Vale’s dad and asked him if he thought Vale should go to the hospital.  Fortunately Vale’s dad has a cooler head, and knew that it wasn’t necessary.  Looking at those gashes I thought of only 2 things, “How did we go from the light blue cards to this so quickly?” and “If he had cut with his arm flipped (meaning the underside of the arm instead of the top side) he could have been dead right now.”  It was all just too close..

We had such a good day.  So many positive things occurred, such progress.  And then to have such a huge shift, a wide swing in the opposite direction…  Why did that happen?  The instability… I think that’s the hardest of all to survive.  You can’t enjoy the good parts, savor the joy, because you’re always waiting for that shoe to drop.  That’s exhausting.

Not exactly stellar…

Today was not one to write home about, to turn a phrase.  The anger that I carried earlier took quite the toll on the entire family.  It wore me out physically and emotionally; my daughter started becoming anxious about her weight and how that would affect Vale (which would be not at all, because she’s trim) and Vale was an absolute wreck.  He sneaked a pair of scissor and did a number on his arm, he was a little hostile and had at least two episodes of despairing.  I have *got* to learn to control and mask my emotions more.  The children take far too many cues from me.  The evaluate my emotional state and mirror it, but because they are children their version of ‘me’ is usually quite distorted.

The downside of that is rarely being able to let go.  More hyper-vigilance.  Where do I turn for comfort, or venting, or feedback.  Tumblr apparently (lucky you!).  Even my husband isn’t so available because his work has been extra taxing and he’s strung out from that.  So when I unload gripe cry share with him he doesn’t have a lot to support me with.   Who does that leave?

The upside of the day is that I took the suggestion of one of my readers and asked my eldest son to pick up some of those paint sample cards of all different colors.

I sat with Vale and shared the idea of using the different color cards to represent how he’s feeling.  Vale has a hard time speaking sometimes so with some advice from someone who has gone through something similar, we were able to give him his own language using colors.  We have cards that say, I want to cut, I have cut, I want to purge, I have purged, I am in a lot of distress and need help, I feel blank etc.  Hopefully this will help Vale express himself and aid me in keeping him safe.

Vale just went to bed handing me two cards: I’m remembering (which means he’s obsessing over a memory) and I don’t know what to say…. and that latter one reflects my sentiments as well. *sigh*  I feel so inadequate for this job.

ps.  Our sewer appears to be blocked again.  Because we weren’t busy enough.

The way you lie..

On the first page of our story (placement)
The future seemed so bright  (adoption)
Then this thing turned out so evil  (disclosure)
I don’t know why i’m still surprised
Even angels have their wicked schemes
(And things have gone) to new extremes
Vale, you’ll always be my hero
Even though you’ve lost your mind

Just gonna stand there and watch me burn
Well that’s alright because I like the way it hurts
Just gonna stand there and hear me cry
Well that’s alright because I love the way you lie
I love the way you lie
I love the way you lie

Not a gambler

Seems like I’m making deals with the Devil.  Vale has been purging and/or trying to purge far more than he’s let us know.  He says the days run together but he thinks its somewhere near twice a day; sometimes more, sometimes less.  Even though the visceral reaction is strong when looking at his carved up arms, the secret purging horrifies me.  I think I’ve explained why (I can’t remember what I’ve blogged and what I haven’t)… there is no way I can control it.  And the purging is far more deadly.

He says if I allow him to eat as much as he wishes, and not more, the desire to purge would most likely not occur.  So what do you do?  Do you allow your child to restrict to approximately one quarter of the caloric intact that you know they should have?  Or do you try to push more down their throats and know that there’s a good chance they’re just going to puke it up anyway?  Do I sell my soul, or Vale’s?

It’s all about me..

If you would allow me, I’m going to indulge in a little self pity.  Today is exactly one month since we first discovered how much pain Vale is in.   I can’t get over how much I’ve aged this last month, how haggard I look, how drawn.  Now don’t get me wrong, I was no spring chicken to start with.  I’m over 40 and have an adult child.  My hair is rather grey, although I could really care less.  But my face was pretty line free.  I had some slight expression lines around my eyes, but I rather liked those because they reflect how much I smile.  But now I wake with this furrow between my eyebrows.  I can’t rub it away.  It’s because I find myself caring this concerned expression on my face all the time.  I find my forehead wrinkled and feel tense and I have to tell myself to relax it.  And as far as those fine lines around my eyes… I don’t smile as much.

I can’t believe how incredibly tired I feel, how much sleep I lost, how early I wake.  I wake at 4:30 or 5 and tell myself, what’s the point in going back to sleep.  Getting to bed is hard because that’s Vale’s most anxious time of the day.  To get him to deescalate takes time and if I don’t take the time then something is going to happen.  If we could start getting him to start with his deescalateion around 6-7 that would be awesome, but right now it’s not a reality.  The weight of the responsibility and vigilance is so heavy.  I can be worn down by 10:00 AM.

Please know that I express things things because I hope that one day other mothers will read my ramblings and find themselves in like company.  I don’t express them because I’m irritated with Vale or I resent the time or the lack of sleep or the aging process.  I am still very aware of what a privilege I have of caring for Vale and taking this journey with them.  But even if you’re a mom you’re still just a person.  You’re a person who wants to be able to go out for lunch and not worry about fallout from the absence.  You’re just a person who  wants to be able to go to bed early if necessary and not feeling like you’re leaving your children in a dangerous situation.  You’re just a person who wants to have date night with your husband, but know you can’t leave your fragile child in the care of others.  You want to take care of yourself but are so filled with worry and so tired that you can’t seem to do so.  You’re a person who wants to say, ‘hey!  what about me?’ and you feel so guilty for feeling this way.  This is your child, you pour your very self out for them and then willingly volunteer to do so over and again.  But it doesn’t negate the fact that you’re worn thin.  If you think about an airplane crashing, the first thing they tell you is to use the oxygen mask for yourself first before applying it to your child.  Because if you pass out you can’t take care of your little ones.  It’s impulse to care for the child first.  I guess, I’m waiting for my oxygen mask.

A Hard Line

Had to draw one tonight with Vale.  Supper came and, god forbid, we actually put some food on his plate.  He had made a deal with this psychiatrist that he would eat 3 meals and a snack.  This was his third meal, and I reminded him of that fact.  Couple this with the fact that he wanted to continue building his Lego city and I told him he needed to clean up and we started to get build up of anger in him.

After supper and with more insisting that he put his Lego pieces away, Vale started to become increasingly agitated with me.  He stopped speaking to me politely or respectfully.  He started shutting down.  I could see in his face that he wanted to cut and/or throw up so badly.  He would show me, he would cut and then I’d feel bad.  Well that was not going to happen.

I threw down the gauntlet.  He was throwing a temper tantrum, I told him under with no uncertain terms that if he made the choice to cut or vomit because he was angry with me that I would not comfort him.  I would not cry with him.  I would not deal with his cuts, or if they were bad enough I would take him to the hospital and leave him there.  I understand the release he receives from cutting.  I understand the urge.. the addiction.  However, it can not become a power play to ensure he gets what he wants in the home.  The fear of it exacerbating him and making his issues the absolutely center of the home mandates our firm stand.

Before he went to bed, I reassured him of how much we loved him, how I wanted him to sleep well, how I wanted to hug and kiss him good night.  But he was in control of what happened in the next few moments and we gave him some time to figure out how he wanted to play it out.  He decided to hug and kiss his father goodnight and ignore me and go to bed.

Okay, between all of you and me.  I am scared of what he’s going to do.  How much will he damage himself to assert himself.  I can’t even begin to guess.  It was be so incredibly easy to cave in and cater to him in order for him to not self harm.  But as his mother, I know that this would be a slippery slope, and the end of it would be grave.  I pray that we only have this ‘fight’ once, I prove my point, and he will know where we all stand.

We’ll see… we’ll see.

About the eating disorder

I wanted to write an entirely separate post on Vale’s eating disorder, even thought it truly fits in with everything else.  I guess I want to write about it separately, because there is so little out there about boys who have eating disorders.  I can’t find a term that defines the eating disorder that Vale seems to have.  I hate using the term have.. like it’s cooties or something.  Vale’s mind and heart are shattered… he chooses not to eat because he doesn’t feel like he deserves to.  That’s just not something you ‘have’.

A couple of months ago, we noticed that Vale was eating less.  Honestly we didn’t think anything of it.  Children’s appetites naturally ebb and flow.  We thought that perhaps Vale was at the bottom of a growth spurt and was simply eating less.  It is winter, he wasn’t as active.  But most importantly, we had no clue about his state of mind or his cutting.  When things came to light we started looking at his eating in a whole new way.

You can’t say that Vale is bulimic, because he don’t binge.  He doesn’t fit the classic definition of anorexia because he doesn’t have a negative body image.  He doesn’t think he’s fat.  He doesn’t want to loose weight, get more ‘buff’ or slim down.  He doesn’t think he’s too thin either.  He stopped eating because he felt he wasn’t worthy of it.  Now, it’s just too uncomfortable to put food in his stomach.  When he feels full he doesn’t like the feeling and he has tried for a while to throw up.  I really credit the grace of God that he hadn’t been able to do it.  However, he learned that if he puts his toothbrush down his throat, he can stimulate the gag reflex and thus vomit.  He revealed this to us last night.  I am so devestated.

Please don’t get me wrong, when you see your son’s arms criss crossed with angry frowns drawn by the edge of scissors or kitchen knife, it’s horrible anguish.  But to know the life threatening severity of restriction and purging… the possibility of having to bury your child becomes ever so real, so vivid.  To know he feels so much triumph in being able to vomit the food you so carefully ensure he puts down his throat… knowing you can’t lock up his gag reflex, you can’t watch him 24/7.  Really, you’re absolutely powerless.  Even now, as I type this post I’m sitting in the living room quietly, not daring to turn on the television, because if I listen I can hear the hinges on my upstairs bathroom.  But this is no way to live.. starving, is no way to die.