Vent

[Malina]

Happy New Year, PaKettle!  Thanks for writing!

I think you are right.  DD11 is being treated for anxiety disorder and she also has OCD which seems like maybe it is getting worse (more compulsive behaviors are being exhibited in the last few months....tearing her clothes, taking things apart).

I think finding a therapist to coach me through this transition with DD17 will be my goal for the new year.  Have no idea how I will pay for it.  But, I am sure I will go nuts, or I will drive my few friends I have left nuts, or I will drive this board nuts, if I don't!  lol

I need some support.  I need someone I can go to for a reality base, for strategies, and maybe just to document everything in case anything ever happens to me.

Another mom here said a therapist told her her dd would be diagnosed sociopath.  I looked it up and there was my DD17!  I am not qualified to diagnose her, of course, but I truly believe this is probably what she is.  Not a violent one, but a smooth-talking, calculating, manipulative one.  I think I represent to her all the mothers who abandoned and abused her before she met me.  Her birthmother who died, the grandmother who died, the aunts who abused and mistreated her, and the stepmother who threatened to kill her and drove her away from her home (I always suspected that woman could not cope with the child's behavior and is why she did that).  If my theory is true, my daughter gets her jollies by coming up with ways to cause me pain in either small or large ways, spends her time plotting how to destroy my life.  There is plenty of evidence to support this theory, but mostly only if you are me.

How will I ever find a therapist who gets this?  It sounds so crazy.  They will probably want to put me on some kind of paranoia medication, especially if they ever meet my beautiful, charming, sweet daughter. 

As far as giving her the boot on her 18th birthday, she is keeping me in the dark regarding her plans.  I have tried to be loving and supportive and let her know repeatedly that she has a home here as long as she wants it, that I hope she will stay and finish high school.  I am sure she has a plan, whether to leave or stay, but she won't tell me what it is.  I do not want to go back on my word to her.  That is not who I am.  And I have spent the last 10 years of my life trying to prove my trustworthiness to this child.  It goes against everything in me to take those words back.  But, I also realize that in order to preserve myself and my other daughter that I may have to.  I can only anticipate if she does stay here after the birthday that things will only get worse and not better.

[justine]

Does she graduate this year?   I hope so, for your sake.   A degree is one of the few things that our kids cannot lose, sell, or have taken from them.   But even though i had to let go of that dream thru much effort, my ds did graduate.   But i had to get to the point where i was okay if he didnt, if the alternative was losing my mind in the process.

If you find a therapist who works with adoptive parents and/or rads, you will be understood, i believe.   These therapists are the  ones who hear the story over and over and know it must be true.   I spent 2=3 hours once with a therapist with "some" experience with rad....and not once during our time did she question my stories of the drip, drip, drip of the passive, aggressive unattached, unhealing, teen rad.   She believed me, validated me and encouraged me and it was well worth it for the strength it gave me to get thru my last year with her....

[Jeannie]

Yes, I agree with Justine.  A therapist who is experienced in working with RAD, or adoption, or even therapeutic foster parenting would be able to hear and understand you.... and BELIEVE you.  They're there.  They might be hard to find, but they're there.  I'd pursue that if I were you.

[Malina]

Thank you.  I know our community mental health agency works with foster families.  Maybe that is a place to start.

Unfortunately, she will not graduate until next year.  She is only a junior this year.

I did notice yesterday that she has stacks of my bathroom linens in her closet.  Did not make sense to me until today one of my good cooking spoons turned up missing.  Then it occurred to me that quite possibly she is going to furnish her new apartment by stealing my household items a bit at a time.

I need a strategy so that I get it all back.  I thought of telling her I found the linens and I would be searching her stuff.  Then I decided I will just wait until she goes back to school and search her room.  It is such a mess in there it is not hard to hide anything.  Alll she has to do is dump a bunch of clothes on top of things.  Or, like the lighter and the eye drop vials, just fold them up inside her folded clothes.  She has enough clothes for 3 or 4 girls. 

Also, I suspect she may have a stolen cell phone.  I am wondering if she has stolen property in my house, am I legally responsible?  Does anyone know?