What's on Our Minds

Chica Marie asked me Monday morning, “What made Mommy V not a good mommy so I couldn’t stay with her?” I was rushing to get Chica Marie ready for her first day of school and this is where her mind was at the time. Not on where her seat would be in the classroom, not what friends from last year are in her class this year, but what made her mom unsafe, what made her end up in foster care. I answered generically, telling Chica Marie her mommy didn’t always take good care of her and sometimes left her places. I didn’t have time to elaborate and if I had said her mommy was sick Chica Marie would have been very upset, not understanding mental illness at her young age. Of all the bad timing for such a question! Chica Marie was not satisfied with my answer, declaring her mommy did take good care of her and when I told her the judge didn’t agree she said he needed to look again. Sigh. Flubbed that one!

 

But, I got a second chance, since she asked me again while getting a bath that night. She asked me why the judge said she couldn’t be with her mommy, because she loves her mommy and wants to be with her. I explained that her mommy didn’t always make good choices (this is wording used to explain Chica Marie’s behaviors, so I thought she might understand it a bit better) and reiterated she left Chica Marie alone too often. Chica Marie was indignant, yelling that she wasn’t alone, she was with Mini Momma and she was fine and not scared. She kept pressing me so I said that sometimes her mommy took bad drugs that made her make bad choices that were not safe. Still, Chica Marie was not placated. So, I said the only thing I could – I know it sucks you can’t be with your mommy, it’s not fair. It’s never fair when kids can’t be with their biological families. She asked to see pictures of her mom on my phone (ones I captured from Facebook so I could print them for Chica Marie to have in her photo album). She calmed down a bit after seeing the pictures and talking about her. She also wrote her a note that I promised to get to the county worker who could pass it along to her mom. She peppered her anger towards the judge (this is my terminology for her, rather than trying to explain “the system” to a child) and promising to never forget her Mommy V. I told her she never should forget her mommy and I'd do what I could to help her remember. Given what's happening, this exchange was extra poignant.

 

My mind has not been firing on all cylinders since the meeting last week. All I’ve been thinking about it when Chica Marie might be leaving, how long will she be gone, will she need to move schools, will we see her for her birthday, for Christmas, will I receive training (because I think I need it) to deal with her behaviors once she comes back home? And now, will her therapeutic foster parents understand her talking about the judge and her Mommy V and all this big huge mess. Swirling and swirling and sprinkled with – I’m an awful mother, I can’t help her (because this was said to me numerous times), I’m not good enough for her. I’ve buckled down on watching the Beyond Consequences videos I’m borrowing from CHOR. I’m re-reading the book and also reading another recommendation I was given. I emailed the CHOR staff asking what more I can do, what trainings can I get – they told me I need to take things one day at a time, this has to be a process for Chica Marie to go through and once “they” (the therapeutic foster team) has figured it out “they” will let me know what works and what does not work. “But!” my mind screams, “But! What about connection? What about continuity?” I clamp my mouth shut and try to accept things for what they are, but relinquishing the control is not an easy thing to do. And, it strikes me, this is how biological family must feel when a child is removed from their home. This sense that they KNOW the child and they KNOW what’s been tried and what has worked and what definitely won’t work and the world is spinning around them and no one is listening, no one is hearing their words because the professionals are in charge now. Thank you for your concerns, but here’s where you stop and we begin. She hasn’t lived with them for three years, she’s been with me – but they know what is best. I’ve been dealing with these behaviors and working with them for three years now – but, I cannot help her. The psychiatrist doing her evaluation told me she is “too damaged” for me to help her and she predicted Chica Marie would end up in residential care. Good God! The child is only SIX years old!

 

I don’t want to sit idly by and I hate being in this gray limbo world. I suppose, in the eyes of the county and CHOR, I should be relieved, I’m finally getting the help I’ve been begging for! But, this is not what I wanted. I wanted someone to come beside us and help fine-tune my approach to Chica Marie so we functioned better, so we communicated better and so we could get the behaviors out of the way and just be mother and daughter, a family. I didn’t want someone to come rushing in and sweep her away in a tide of “we can do better.” I don’t feel relieved by this plan, I feel anxious. The latent anxiety I had for a potential future has revved up to a pulsating anxiety I have for the immediate future. I try to keep the what if questions at bay but I hear them rolling around in my brain, popping up with new ideas every time I’m reminded of what is happening. I hold my breath and tell myself to not put the cart before the horse or some other unhelpful advise proverb. I spend a lot of time willing myself to not think about it, to put it out of my mind. My success rate on that is low. This whole things is constantly on my mind. Just like with infertility, it’s the unknown that is knowing on my insides, spinning my brain into hopeless mush, and coloring my world a bleak gray.  I look at Chica Marie and try to imagine her not being there and I cannot fathom it. I think of her room sitting empty, being pilfered by Love Bug playing with her toys and trying to recreate the games he played with his sister. My heart seizes and I fight back the tears in my eyes – this is so hard! And, it isn’t going to get any easier anytime soon!