The system doesn't work

My Rachel tried to stab someone to death last night. The shift coordinator called to let me know. No big deal because no one was actually physically harmed, right? They still want to discharge her and don't understand why I won't bring her home.

We had a big, very loud meeting on Wednesday. They say she's made so much progress. And she definitely has. She no loinger tries to strangle people when they try to brush her hair. She's more likely to calmly state when she's thinking and feeling, even though those thoughts and feelings are her conviction that she can create false documents to enable her to run away to Japan and start a new life on her own, or that she'd be happy to come back home as long as I follow her rules, and allow her to run her and our lives as she sees fit, because she knows better than we do.

The therapists, administration, and insurance company all agree that if I won't bring her home, she is ready to be moved into a therapeutic foster home- a family trained to care for kids with behavioral problems. I fought with them until they started screaming at me that I wasn't in this for Natalie's best interests but because of my own issues, that I was obviously not in my right mind nad needed more intensive therapy than what I was getting. At that point I left the meeting, because I ust couldn't take it any more.

My Rachel tried to kill somebody tonight. She was angry at him, so she grabbed a pair of scissors and tried to stab him to death. But our mental health system insists she's ready for a step-down in care. It all comes down to money, doesn't it? They don't want to pay the exhorbitant price of the care this child needs. So they're going to let her loose on society, my homicidal delusional 12 year old. And while I hope with all my heart that I'm wrong, someday, I truly believe, she'll be a killer or she'll be dead.

Sarah