And there are Times When You Just Gotta Scream

Salinda left and I threatened to go to the police station with the names of her friends if she wasn't home in 30 minutes. I told the guy who was driving as well. She came home, threatened to hit me, grabbed my laptop and tried to yank it out of the display. Threw several things off my desk and then turned off teh power in the house.

I had Bart come home so I could get away to make phone calls. I must add here, that in the midst of all this, Rand had a flat tire on our old van and I had to go deal with that. So stress was mounting by the minute.

But once I got away and started to think about this I was able to weigh our options. I had several conversations with Bart and also talked to Mike and John's P.O., a law enforcement official, a county adolescent worker, and the therapist. And here are our choices.

1) We can try calling the cops, but our law enforcement here basicaly admitted that unless she crosses certain lines there is nothing they can do -- apparently threatening to damage our property or to slap me aren't enough.

2) We can go down the CHIPS route again. We can voluntary place her into the county's custody, but they will put her in the "least restrictive envinronment" which is foster care. Unfortunately, there are many foster homes for teens in our county that have a reputation of having no rules -- kids love living there.

3) We can try to have her admitted into a psych hospital, but she would be able to act perfectly fine.

4) We can downplay what she does, bide our time, and wait for her to bury herself. We can respond lovingly but firmly, continue to consequence, and make her make the decision.

There is one last thing that we may do if we have to, which would involve 30 days of her life in an assessment program, but for now we're going to hold on to that until things get worse.

We have selected option 4 for one main reason -- we've been down roads 1, 2, and 3 already and we don't like any of them.

Sainda told her therapist that she wants to go to detention. Well, she has a few more things she'll have to to do get there, but if she is determined, that is where she will end up. We just aren't going to make it easy for her.

We will calmly play this out. Tomorrow she has a doctor appointment to rule out thyroid issues or drug use that might be making her so sleepy all the time. Then we are supposed to meet with her thrapist together, but she already told the therapist there was nothing she was going to do to try to make things work.

So tonight Bart and I had dinner out. We agreed on option four -- with the doctors appointment tomorrow and then the therapist. Then if there is nothing on the tests, we'll get on the waiting list to see the psychiatrist. If she refuses to take medication, we'll document that too.

So, I brought home half my supper. Walked in the door and said, "I brought these home for you -- Potato Canoes. They are really good. By the way, you have a doctors appointment tomorrow at 2 to get a physical and then we'll go to see H (the therapist) together. Either you can talk or I can just visit with her alone."

I truly believe that 90% of what she does is for show. She's had this horrible "violent" episode where she was going to destroy our property while we were home and she doesn't have phone privileges, but when she was alone in the house she didn't touch anything or use the phone.

She's a pretty confused young thing and I think with her maybe we can calmly ride the waves and get through this. It's nice to have already been through it twice... makes it a little easier to know what not to do.