Family Meeting, yeah right

Me, my ex, one therapist from her regular psych hospital, her case manager, a social worker from the lock down facilty, and Rachel all met last night for a family meeting. Gads, was it a disaster.

It started out with Rachel refusing to acknowlege my existence, and then reaching out for the emergency button to call a code, and laughing maniacally. The lock down social worker didn't see her do it, so I had to tell her so she could call it off. Then Rachel took off from the conference room and went running through the hallways, laughing hysterically, with the staff trying to chase her down.

We talked for a while without her while tried to calm her. The lock down said they didn't see any reason she had to stay there any longer, because she hadn't shown any aggressive or self-abusive tendencies. She refused to shower, brush her hair, change her clothes, or particopate in anything they asked her to do, and she continued to eata foods she was allergic to, and making herself throw up, but that was no big deal....

So they wanted to discharge her tomorrow... which is now today. I was furious. The regular hospital said they were fine with that, and I said I was not. I had been asking the regular hospital to do a full-scale psychiatric evaluation on Rachel since she had been admitted there and it STILL had not been done, and I was not going to okay her release to the regular hospital until I had it in writing that they had arranged such an eval for her.

The lock down social worker said to me if I was not prepared to allow them to release her to the psych hospital, was I prepared to take her home, and I went balistic.

These places terrorize parents, lie to them about their rights and the laws, and I let them have it. The fourth time she was in lock down, they told me if I didn't take her home with me they'd call children's services and file charges against me for child abandonment and then I could lose Joey as well. I took her home. The fifth time she was in lock down, was because she had attempted to burn the house down with me in it because she "wanted a new mother" and if I was dead she could get one. And she had outlined to me calmly, in detail, her plans to murder Joey and my husband during the night. I was NOT taking her home, and I had called children's services, and they told me if I DID take her home that would be putting Joey in jeopardy, and they could take him, so when they made the threat again, I told them tough s$%^. She stayed there for two months until they found a permanenent placement.

So when this lady started in on me again with the same garbage, I told her she should go perform a physiologically impossible act of reproduction on herself, and that she was going to keep Rachel until my demands for her appropriate care at her permanent institution were met. They were all a little taken aback, but there wasn't exactly anything they could do when faced by a parent who actually knew her legal rights, which they did not often encounter.

I also started venting about how the permanent place refused to acknowledge that Rachel could possibly have an organic mental illness, that this wasn't just psychological and behavioral, that she needed stronger medication, and intervention for mental illness, not just intervention for an emotional disturbance. The first hos[ital she had been in, for the first year, had medicated her heavily and left her in front of a videogames screen 24/7. I moved her vecause I wanted her getting therapy too. I had no idea that therapy would be all they would be giving her.

I told them that while they were probably an excellent program for children with merelty behavioral and emotional needs, that was NOT Rachel's only set of issues. She was bprn to severely mentally ill drug and alcohol using teenagers, with the cord around her neck and meconium on her face, had suffered lead poisoning from eating paint, and head injuries from pounding her head against walls. She had absolutely no remorse, and never had.

I told them they may be licensed psychologists, but they were totally ignorant of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, prenatal drug exposure, early onset schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, and sociopathy, and they had no right to tell me my child did NOT have any of these problems when they were not knowlegable enough to even know what these issues looked like let alone diagnose or treat them. My ex backed me up on this too, which really surprised me.

Rachel was eventually coaxed back into the room, and she ranted that she was not returning to her permanent placement because they always believed the adults before the children, and never let her do what she wanted. She wanted to go back to her first placement, where she would be left alone. Her rant lasted as long as mine.

It ended with our outside-agency case manager telling me she was going to try to find a place that could do a full-scale psychiatric eval on Rachel. Fortunately my husband had taken off of work, and he and Joey had driven me so I could hide in a novel during the whole ride back home.

Sarah