Penny bounded up on my bed this morning... scaring me and waking me. She was all excited about something...still not sure what...I was afraid of some torn up garbagy mess I'd find when I came downstairs, but everything was in it's place.....I wonder what she might have gotten into that put her in such a happy floppy mood...I'll probably find out later.
Zack woke up at 730 am on his own this morning. He must have slept through the night. I did - so that probably means he did. I am almost considering not giving him the morning dose of Saphris.... Maybe he'd be able to keep his head off the table in group if he didn't have that med in him.....
Zack HAS to try today. He has to try and participate - or at least not drag the others down...and cause the leaders to want to give up on him. I reminded him on the drive over...tried to explain to him that even if what they're doing seems silly, if the other members are doing it he needs to go along with it...cooperate.. mental illness is serious and he needs to try and accept the help. He wasn't extremely responsive...but I got a couple "OK"s from him. I need to be satisfied with that I suppose. The "Family Services" social workers knew having him attend this group was a last ditch effort and if he didn't agree to go he would not be allowed to live in our home with us. We'd have to get back to the tough love....which I hate.
"Tough love" was suggested to us in 2009 by a couple psychiatrists and also the police..police that came to our house, called by Zack. (He worked the system, called the cops on us several times for nonsense - from his car that we bought him...using his cell phone we bought him and pay monthly for) In the end, the tough love tactic was more torturous and tough on me than on Zack. It broke me.....it didn't phase him. But the main consequence of our tough love was that due to my parents not agreeing with our discipline decisions they no longer speak to us.
It's been since March 2010 that they have not even communicated with their beautiful granddaughters.
We live in Illinois...my parents live in Arizona. They moved southwest about 15 years ago. Zack was 6 years old. I remember prior to their move, sitting on the sofa in my mom's house with Zack and my mother (at that time we lived 10 minutes apart - on purpose)... my mother was enthusiastically showing Zack photos of her new home thousands of miles away. He cried..he would miss her desperately....she cried. She had second thoughts about moving away. She promised she'd decorate a room just for him - his own room to use when he came to visit. She did. It was all western and cowboy themed. A darling little boy's room. Then when the girls were born she decorated a sweet ruffly floral room for them.
They used to be fantastic grandparents despite the distance and the poor parenting job they did with me. (not just whining...my biological dad was a depressed alcoholic and my mom is probably bi polar... they both had their issues & my sister and I grew up fully aware of them) I always said they are better grandparents than parents. The love between them and my three kids was wonderful... ..enough love that I forgave them for their treatment of me over the years. It filled my heart to know my kids were loved so much. They and my kids had a close relationship and a very strong bond.... or so I thought.
My parents would visit often, take the kids on vacations, and fly the kids out to Arizona to stay with them for weeks in the summer. The loss of my parents in my life doesn't really bother me....my mother and I never saw eye to eye, we weren't close. I don't have good childhood memories of her. I don't miss her. My step father is a good guy but he only came into my life in my early 20s. He was always very generous with me and my children. He treated my children as wonderfully as his own biological kids' children. The ones I feel bad for - the ones this tough love really effected - are my girls. Losing their grandparents this way was a tragedy in their lives.
Lucy and Jojo loved their grandparents. For quite a while they - especially Lucy - grieved the loss of them. Lucy even reached out to my mother... she emailed her and tried to explain the situation...reality from her own point of view...the view of a little girl that had had to cope with a mentally ill substance abusing brother in her home for years. Sudden unexplainable outbursts, swearing, arguing, yelling...slamming doors, physical fights..... what those girls saw.... Lucy tried to explain this to my mother and why we had no choice but to do what we did.... give Zack an ultimatum - no drugs....go to therapy.... or leave.
I remember the morning he made his choice. I begged him to stay... pleaded with him...grabbing his arm...tried to reason with him and hold him back....don't leave... stay until you at least get a job....begging him....but his desire to use drugs was so strong he preferred to leave and live in his car in parking lots. He had no cares about an uncertain future. No worries...Drugs. Drugs were top priority....the only priority.
My mother would understand none of it. She replied to Lucy with a "You should be ashamed of yourselves" email. That broke Lucy's heart. I remember her shock and her tears over that cold reply. My mother continued to communicate with Zack...on that cell phone of his we paid for... and she sent him money. Money that surely went to drugs. I don't even know the details that brought their twisted alliance to an end....but they no longer speak.
I'm so not up for tough love again. We haven't had any success with it in the past...so I pray and hope that Zack tries in group today and tomorrow...for the next few weeks until he can see one of their psychiatrists...but I just don't know where to go from there. Still hopeful though...it's a new door open to us. A new doctor and new opinion.
To Be Continued.....
Mini golf with Grandma and Grandpa in San Diego
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