Chapter 29 Lilly’s second anniversary in our home came in March. She was eight then, and the winter weather had started breaking. We actually had some sunny days where she could play outside and hunt for bugs. One day I heard glass breaking outside and ran out to find her bashing out the garage windowpanes with a large stick. “What are you doing, Lilly!?” Lilly dropped the stick to her side. She was wearing a blue jean jacket, red sweats, and muddy white tennis shoes. She pointed to the window. “I was letting the ladybugs out. They were stuck in the garage.” I guess that was one way to free them. What was it with her and windows, anyway? She didn’t seem to fear shattering glass (that was obvious), but why hadn’t she made any attempt at breaking the big window in her room? That nagged at the back of my mind. At some time in the future, would that large window become a casualty as well? Not long after the ladybug incident, Lilly began to self-harm with broken pieces of china from a miniature tea set that was given to her for her birthday. It took us a while to figure out that she had stomped on a tiny cup with her shoe to break it and hid the sharp pieces. When alone for any period of time, she’d use the sharp edges to cut her gums or lips. She had innocently admitted the cause of her wounds, but was secretive as to the whereabouts of the broken pieces of china. It never occurred to her that anything besides porcelain or china could be used to cut herself. She rarely touched any of the decorative glassware that I had in most windows, but when my mother gave her a doll with a porcelain face and hands, she broke it so she could cut. We felt that the cutting was a spin-off of the self-harming that she did at two-and-a-half when she had the head banging issues. (I think that feeling pain reminds children with RAD that they can still feel something, because they have experienced so much pain that they can be numb.) Spring also brought with it the usual no-holds-barred school behavior. We’d seen it the year before when she was seven. In March, to everyone’s shock and concern, she mastered removing her bus harness. The day she did that was a long one. She got out of the four-point harness on the bus and removed it, as well as her shoes, socks, and pants. She climbed over the seats, jumping from one to the other while a worn-out bus aide tried to catch and keep her away from the other four disabled children on the bus. The driver was upset. Bruce and I knew that if she couldn’t be safely transported to and from school, we were all in deep doo-doo. After hearing the driver’s report, I was so angry and ordered her to go straight to her room, which she reduced to a ghastly scene within fifteen minutes. That tiny girl took the mattress off her bed, pushed the bed frame across the room, cracked the hinges off her door, and started to beat on Bruce as he tried to stop her from flipping over her four-drawer dresser. Bruce at one hundred eighty pounds was not afraid of her, but he was always afraid he might hurt her if he ever became unglued. Lucky for all of us he has a great deal of self-control. If we had been a reality show the whole world would have been RIVETED to the screen. I watched as he single-handedly hauled her mattress, dresser, and the bed frame out of her room all the while fending off kicks, punches, and flying objects. I put in an emergency call to CHC and told them that someone had to come quickly. Then I frantically searched for the discarded blue jean vest that had been put with a pile of junk to go out with the trash. Bruce had just emptied Lilly’s room when a tiny lady from CHC arrived “to help.” I explained to Tiny Lady that I felt we needed to secure Lilly again until she calmed down or we’d ALL get hurt. She seemed to agree because she made no objection to putting the backward vest on Lilly again. Lilly was on her “safety leash” in the emptied room with our collective surveillance for close to an hour before she regained her senses and gave up the overwhelming fierceness. At that point we took off the vest and gave her a trial chance to play peacefully with a few toys in her empty room with the baby gate up. Unfortunately for Bruce, her room would have to be entirely re-assembled for bedtime. Tiny Lady stayed until she felt it was safe to leave, and after she left, I threw the vest with the yarn still attached in the kitchen wastebasket. If it ever got to that point again, Lilly would have to be taken out of our home until she was safer because the whole thing was getting scarier and scarier. We did not want to be in the newspaper because she had boxed us into yet another “extreme measures” corner. Sometimes a picture of the potential nightmare went across the screen of my mind: “Illinois couple ties tiny girl to door” or “Foster mother ropes child’s door tightly shut” First and foremost was our marriage and integrity. If either of those unraveled or came into question, it would ruin us and her chances as well. We came to the conclusion that we must tread very carefully because one misstep could potentially destroy everything in our lives. My mind went back to her angelic face and peaceful demeanor the day Mr. and Mrs. Garth came for dinner. They might not have believed the real story. What average American would? NOTE: Your book reviews are needed! If you are enjoying these chapters, please like this post, and then put my email address in your address book and email me at: nealierose@nealierose. Thank you! -Nealie
Posted on: Mon, 01 Sep 2014 13:08:37 +0000
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