Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Backfired

As I had hoped we were beyond, but hoping against hope, John’s manipulation continued. He was instructed that he had to spend the money I spent to buy his clothes on church pants, pants and shorts since yesterday he had bought a bunch of shirts. He convinced me that I knew nothing about style and that Kyle needed to shop with him. So I gave Kyle the instructions of what he needed to get, and he came here with no church pants, a shirt, three pairs of shorts, and earrings.

He demanded that I take him to finish shopping immediately. I was in the middle of preparing an important fax, so I told him that I needed some time and space to think. He went ballistic. The scene culminated in me leaving for a while. When I came back he said, “Now can you take me?” I told him no again. This resulted in a broken window.

Immediately he is asking to go back to residential treatment because he can’t control himself. I told him no, what you need to do is to accept responsibility, pay to have the window fixed, and move on.

Fortunately, our friendly electrician stopped by to tell us how we can put yet another couple hundred dollars in his pocket (how I wish he read this, cuz I just LOVE giving him a hard time). That kind of broke John’s momentum, but as soon as he left he was asking me to take him shopping.

My word to him, when he gets home from a pizza party at church and immediately asks me to take him shopping is that when the window is paid for, we’ll talk. This is exactly the way that the therapists, professionals, psych hospital, in home therapists, etc. have told us we have to respond. But I don’t look forward to the fall out.

Fortunately, though, we now have Kari's husband Mike as our fix-it specialist and he came over after work and we put cardboard over the window until it is fixed in a day or two.


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