It was just a few days after Christmas when everything fell apart and our nearly 9-year-old daughter Makala lost all sense of reality. We were getting ready to celebrate all of our birthdays, and other important dates. It was approaching the 4th anniversary of Gotcha Day. Worse still it was about to be the 5th anniversary of the day the police had taken Makala and her baby brother Jeremiah into foster care.
January is usually a very stressful time of year for our family. But, this past January was looking as if we might not make it as a family. For the first time I had REAL thoughts of just giving up. It’s hard when so many people tell me that they would have “sent her back a long time ago.” Until this year I was just insulted when people said such things. But, now I was starting to wonder who had the problem, the inventive people around us, or me for believing in hope?
Last August Makala had been hospitalized and they recommended she go to a Residential Treatment center, but our employer provided private health insurance company refused to approve. So we struggled it out and continued to seek mental health treatments and pretend our lives were normal.
It was a frightening night when we finally couldn’t handle it any longer. The video tape we made was the only way we had to get the kind of help we needed. Finally, after all these years, my back surgery and the nearly 20 car accidents I have had the video was enough to have her admitted. Hard as that was to do, we had great hope as usual.
Makala was in treatment for just about three months. Initially, we were told that while in treatment her medications would be adjusted or changed, she would be given a complete health exam, educational assessments, IQ testing and most important the much needed, so hard to get IEP (Individual Education Plan).
We visited every single day. We had all of our birthday celebrations in the family visiting room and attended family therapy sessions. Where we were told to read the same books we have read and no one cared we said we read them. We were “counseled” by a young college graduate who was pregnant with her first child. Someone who hardly had a clue if you ask me. But, these sorts of places don’t attract the high paid help and some college grads will take whatever job they can find.
It didn’t take too long to figure out that rather then a high quality treatment program for Makala the situation could be more appropriately called 3-months of respite for haggard parents.
The bottom line is that we are disappointed not just for ourselves but for Makala. It’s not likely we will ever resort to Residential Treatment in the future. We aren’t sure what we will do if there ever comes another time where someone is going to get hurt but, we do know that living in a treatment center and being locked in a padded room when things get out of control isn’t a great answer.
It would have been nice to get some real help. I keep wondering Where is the Village?
Related Blogs:
- Choices and Consequences
- Scar Tissue
- Rumors and Crutches
- The Story of Joe and Eddie
- Thanksgiving and LeRoy’s Boys
- When Uncle Eddie Took Care of His Birth Mother.
- When Uncle Eddie Took Care of His Birth Mother.
Special Needs and Adoption-Related Terms: Adoption terms and special needs words may vary from agency to agency. The terms used in this Special Needs Adoption-Related Glossary may be slightly different from one State to another.
A | B | C | D | E-F | G-H-I | J-K-L | M | N-O | P | Q-R | S | T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z
For more information about parenting special needs children you might want to visit the Families.com Special Needs Blog and the Mental Health Blog. Or visit my personal website.
Anna Glendenning is also Families.com Insurance and Guest Blogger. Read her blogs at: http://members.families.com/happymomanna/blog