Alli was doing well when she first came home, and quickly began to erode away at any semblence of family life. She has stated numerous times she didn't want family and especially didn't want parents. The reasoning is trauma based and makes no sense if you are trying to make sense of it.
This child can say, "I think you are wonderful parents", "I just don't want parents."
I cannot describe the last 6 weeks. She went from being great to running away; something she planned out for her 17th birthday. We talked her into going to her bio sisters house for a week hoping she would settle down, but no. When she came home, on her birthday, she was adamant about moving.
I took her to see the counselor and that was the last time we were together.
We actually stopped to eat at Cracker Barrel. She ordered her coveted mashed potatoes and gravy.
The very first place we ever ate together was Cracker Barrel in NC and all she would eat was Mashed Potatoes. :)
So, now she is 17. We talked her into staying with our son and daughter in law, who have graciously opened their home for her for a short time, and she did go with them. (They are treating her as an adult guest)
She is working at a new job which the Lord graciously provided.
Texting her hasn't been very successful. She doesn't want to talk. We are blocked from FB or Instagram.
She wants to live her life how she wants to live it. She said, "I don't want to be told what to do, or that I have school or that I have bed time, or need to get up. I don't want anybody to tell me what to do. " "I want to do what I want to do, when I want to do it, eat what I want, when I want, sleep when I want, when I want, get up, or do school when I want to."
And the sad part is, the only thing we were telling her by then was, "You may not have relations with a 25 year old man"..... She was doing what she wanted and she still left.
TRAUMA is horrid. This child is the long term result of long term trauma. Our 6 years of intensive, connected, purposeful, intervention could not stop the tidal wave of behaviors that have been a part of our lives all this time.
She would have periods of doing great, and then fall backwards into old fears. That I get.
But this? I honestly don't get this. She threw her Summit program notebook in the trash, and is choosing a dead end. I fear for her safety and where she will go from here.
We have done ALL we can do.
She is in the hands of the Lord. She always has been, but today, it is more of a reality.
Why do people reject love? Why do they knowingly run towards destruction?
Those are questions I will probably ask the rest of my life. :(
Sooo, unless I have anything positive to say regarding the two girls who are no longer home, I am going to focus my attention on the two who remain and are doing fabulous.
I don't know what else to say.....