I am reading a book that Light strongly recommended. It's Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking. It's a good book, but I'm not totally into it. Because I am too afraid. Honestly, fear is a huge problem for me in regards to making art. For instance, there are a few things currently in queue for my sewing machine. They require some creative attention. I have been avoiding the sewing machine ever since the end of last semester. I want(ed) to get some sewing done over the break. Maybe. OK, part of me wanted to sew. Another part is afraid to. And I get so angry at myself for being such a wuss. Let's move to another topic, this one is making me squirm.
Diva. Now here's an uncomfortable topic of conversation. For those of you just joining us, Diva is my 13 year old adopted daughter. She currently resides in a residential treatment facility (RTF) for the emotionally distressed. Or something like it. Colloquially speaking, she's in the loony bin.
I may have mentioned a few weeks ago that the RTF was going to get an MRI scan of her brain. They did an EEG back in November (I think it was) that showed abnormal results. Today Diva's therapist told me the results of the MRI. Diva's brain is abby-normal.
The official diagnosis is (let me see if I can remember it) Periventricular Leukomalacia. (Yes, I got it right.) A preliminary Google search gave me lots of information that has nothing to do with Diva's symptoms. Evidently most children with this condition develop neuromuscular problems, specifically cerebral palsy. Diva has excellent control of her motor functions. She's a good dancer, even. What happens with this leukomalicia is the white matter of the brain is deficient, damaged, or somehow abnormal. The white matter is what's beneath the gray matter. It's not what the brain uses for thinking, but contains neurons that relay information from the thinking parts of the brain to other parts of the body (where the muscular systems are affected) or to other parts of the brain. As I understand it (don't bet the farm on this explanation) Diva's white matter does not adequately relay information from one brain action to another, from one thought to another. She has a lot of trouble making cognitive connections. For example, cause and effect aren't always evident. I realized many years ago that there is a disconnect somewhere in her mental processing. Now I know why.
In one psychological test she took a few years ago the doctor found that she has problems with her short-term or working memory. This is the memory cache where you hold onto a phone number while looking for a pencil and a place to write it down. Stuff stays in the working memory for a few seconds while the brain determines whether to keep it, and if so, how and where to store it. When I was helping the child learn to read she'd see a new word in a sentence, I'd help her sound it out, then she would forget the word by the end of the sentence. Sometimes if it took a while to figure out the word, I'd have her restart the sentence so she could get the whole flavor of the meaning. But when she got to the same word the second time, she'd have no idea what the word was. Talk about frustrating! I used to think she was doing it on purpose to irritate me. I fussed at her. Now I know that at least some of that was genuine. Do I feel bad about fussing at her about it? Maybe a little bit. What with all the other polluted water under that bridge, I don't feel much guilt about this.
And let me tell you the latest foolishness she pulled. On Boxing Day evening around 9:30 she ran away from the RTF. She hooked up with a couple of 16 year old girls from her unit and they sneaked out and jumped the fence. One of the other girls called a friend of hers (a guy, young but over 18) who picked them up and took them to his house across town. Thankfully this idiot lives with his mother (that's what I understand from what they told me) who saw the fool sneaking in with three under-aged girls. The mother realized it was a very bad idea for these troubled run-away teens to stay with her son overnight. She called, or convinced one of the girls to call the RTF, and a couple of the staff drove out to retrieve the girls. They got back to the facility at 2:45 a.m. And boy, is Diva ever in trouble!
All of the work she's done, all the advancements she's made in their program levels since going to the facility in early April are gone. She has to start over as if she just arrived. This means that she won't qualify for outings and other rewards until she moves up the ranks again. Perhaps she can advance quicker than she originally did, having been through it before. I don't know. We saw her on the 27th, the day after she ran away. She was pretty upset, and didn't contribute much to the conversation on our visit.
We did not go see her on Christmas Day*. Frankly, I didn't want to. I wanted to have a nice Christmas, peaceful and laid-back, therefore going to visit the Diva was not on the program. We planned to go on Boxing Day, but the weather was sketchy. It snowed most of the morning, and we weren't sure about the roads. It's 70+ miles from here to the RTF, on old county back roads that don't receive much maintenance. The roads probably were OK, but my heart wasn't into a visit. If my motivation had been stronger I may have made the trip. So we planned to see her Monday. Then we got a call from the RTF informing us of her shenanigans. Superman talked to them a few times Monday morning, trying to get the whole story. Actually, they had called us around 11:00 the night before, but we missed the call because we were asleep. We didn't leave here as early as planned on Monday because we wanted to be sure we could see the fool child.
Superman and I went to see Diva. Her therapist, who was officially on vacation, had come in to check on things and happened to be there when we arrived, which was good. The four of us had a visit/meeting: Diva, the Therapist, Superman, and me. Diva didn't say much. Mostly she slouched with her arms crossed and her head hung low. It wasn't the most pleasant visit we've had.
Diva called tonight. She was pleasant but vague when talking to me. When she talked to her daddy she told him that she'd had a visit with the lady from one of the state mental health agencies. This is the agency that wants to help bring her home. I talked about this in a recent post. Anyhoo, Diva told Superman that the agency lady told her that if she has very good behavior from here on out, she may be able to come home in three months. Oh HELL No!! Especially not after that bullshit she pulled last week. Shit.
In related news, I talked to Twitch on the phone today. (I took him back to Charlotte yesterday (Monday).) The topic got around to Diva coming home. His opinion: Oh HELL No!! He said he doesn't want her to be near us, meaning his dad and me. There's something about the cavalier way she threatened to kill us in our sleep (it happened last March) that has all of us pretty creeped out.
This has gotten long. I'll quit now so you can get back to your life.
*I visited her the Wednesday before Christmas, and took a big bag of presents to her. She had gifts from us, and there were also gifts for the residents from other do-goody organizations. It's not like I ignored her entirely. We talked to her on the phone on Christmas Eve and, if I recall, on Christmas Day as well.
