Foster Further

Yesterday was one of the worst days I've had since the girls came to us. For no apparent reason. Jane just decided to be really naughty all day long, about five minutes after she was released from each time out session. The past week we've been talking about anger, triggered by some incidents that occurred during her last therapy sessions. I had been telling her it's okay to show anger for a few days now. Well, she sure as hell took me up on the offer. Except not the way I meant it. I meant she should have a tantrum, yell, scream, even hit. Get it out! Express it! Be honest! Be real with me! Trust me enough to show a single authentic emotion already! Nope. She decided to do the most sneaky, underhanded, devious, manipulative, destructive things her little 4 year old brain could think of. I think she spent every minute of her time outs just planning what she'd do next. I was patient, calm, and creative in my consequences for the first two events. Then, she took Kat...

It's been awhile since I last posted. After I wrote the previous post where I grouped Jane's behaviors into weeks/months where we saw A and then weeks/months were we observed B, I went downstairs and started talking to Theo about this idea of A/B behaviors. The words, "it's like she's switching personalities..." were coming out of my mouth when I just stopped...horrified, frozen, tearful. Dear God. Her mother is bi-polar. Is it possible for a child to show traits of a mental illness this young? I know the medical community won't diagnose this young. What does this mean if it's already here? That moment pretty much sunk me. I went into a depression stronger than anything I've ever experienced before. So much fear. So much grief. Then...all the irrational responses: anger, distancing myself from her, resenting her for all the dark and nasty impulses this fear awakened in me. There were several days of doing nothing--frozen in the nonstop ...