Eight days after the dentist cemented in a metal spacer that was meant to stay in until she was 12 or 13, Jane pulled it out. She confessed she'd been getting a fork whenever nobody was looking and trying to pry it out. I'd found her doing that 24 hrs after it was put in and she got in big, big trouble and I thought it was over. Nope.
She was mad, she told me, that I told her it had to stay in. She cried, hard and genuine tears, about how much she hated the feel of this strange metal thing in her mouth. She said her tongue hurt all the time because she couldn't stop bumping her tongue against it (it ran all along the inside of her bottom teeth).
All of these complaints are normal. Expected. If any of our other children would've had that apparatus in their mouth there would've been nonstop crying and tantruming. We would've been in hell addressing the issues nonstop for days. Not her. She never said a word. I truly believed everything was fine. She did not ask one question. Did not make one complaint. I asked her a few times how her mouth felt and she said fine. Lied and lied and lied.
Why?
Why not say her mouth hurt when directly asked? How can that possibly be a hard thing to do?
It isn't hard. She has no problem crying and seeking comfort for everyday scrapes and bumps when playing.
But she was pissed about this thing in her mouth. She is a deeply, deeply angry and defiant child under the guise of the cutest, sweetest, happiest little girl.
She will always choose self-harm. She will always choose to sneak and lie. She will always choose to undermine authority in stupid, petty ways.
We go to see the therapist for an in-person session tomorrow. I'd already scheduled it 2 weeks ago because I could see her spiraling out over the coming holiday season. I am so, so tired. I am utterly without hope.
There is no real progress. There is only the endless cycle of I-feel-like-being-nice or I-feel-like-being-a-shit. And our family is trapped in whatever stage she wishes us to be in.
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