Ameri has a New Family or Not

(As this is a recap of posts from another blog, please catch up by checking down this page a bit and even the archives listed of the right)

Ameri’s new family is is very excited about having such a beautiful blond and curly haired doll-child in their midst.

The boys get along with her easily and things start as well as can be expected. There are uncountable photographs taken of her. Diane eagerly buys the most adorable outfits and has quarterly Olan Mills studio photos made. Ameri has never had this kind of attention before. One can only imagine what a pleasure it must have been for this previously unwanted child. As was fore shadowed in the previous post, things started going downhill. Ameri starts to display her fretful side and she exhibits behaviors and body gestures that only hint at the darker side of her earlier years. These behaviors become a real problem in pre-K and in kindergarten. Ameri is seen by psychiatrist, psychologists and a bevy of pop-therapist. By age five, Ameri is being dosed with various medications and begins periods of inpatient treatment. By the time she is old enough for first grade, it is quite obvious that something is profoundly amiss with this beautiful child. Her treatment and medications have begun to cause concern with the health care insurance administrators and this has put the continuation of that insurance in jeopardy. Diane is a rejected mother. She experiences a period of hospitalization that reveals that she has untreated symptoms and psychological damage from abuse and misuse at the hand of adults in her early years. It discovered also that Bob has issues that have never been adequately addressed. The boys are now beginning to display behaviors and delinquencies that arise from the stress of just being boys and the troubles that are being revealed in their parents. Things begin to fall apart quickly. The oldest boy is in trouble in the community and is known to law enforcement. He also is keen to marry his girlfriend, even though both are just of age and have no college or ready prospects. The middle child also displays troubling behaviors at school. The youngest is struggling in school and he is found to be profoundly dyslexic. Something has to break.

In the midst of what seems to be a family melt down, Ameri has been referred to a residential treatment center that is a national model for children and families that are in the most dire conditions as displayed by Ameri's new family. Ameri is admitted with the proviso that she is only the pivot around which family treatment will be provided. Suitable arrangements are made with the insurance providers and assessments and history are collected. When the first full family session is arranged, only Bob and the youngest boy are present. Ameri is in her third week at the facility and Diane is unable to attend because she is getting ready to display an animal and compete in a show event. Needless to say this puts a whole new picture on the plans and expectations for the treatment staff. Questions arise. A deeper investigation may be needed. Diane is then contacted by a very well qualified staff member and arrangements are made for another meeting. It is now approaching thirty days that Ameri has been at the facility and she has had only one visit from anyone in her new family. A date is set for the next meeting and all seems to be back on course.

On the day of the meeting, Ameri gets to dress in her best clothes. She is very excited that she will get to see her "Mommy" again. The family gathers with staff in the big conference room. Ameri comes in and has an emotional reconnection with her "family". The meeting has not progressed far when "Mommy" announces that she does not want Ameri to come back home and that she has already seen a lawyer to make arrangement to sever paternal right and responsibilities with Ameri. This statement explodes in front of the gathered staff like a bolt of lightning. Ameri does not fully comprehend the situation and she is hustled out of the room as pandemonium ensues among Bob, Diane and the boys. The gathered staff, including a prominent psychiatrist and several multi-degreed professionals absorb the impact of the statement. They request to hear it again. It is repeated. Staff then adjourn to another room to discuss the implications. In the conference room, Diane is coldly gathering her family to leave. No! We have come to say what we have to say and we will now leave. And so it was. The family departed with out seeing Ameri again.

Over the days and weeks that follow, conferences and consultations were held among staff and state juvenile authorities. There was discussion that such a situation must be brought to the attention of the states attorney's office. The family attorney begins to make counter moves and submits argument to the courts that the family's request must be met. It become clear to staff at the treatment center that it is in Ameri's best interest that she not be returned to the family immediately and that some thing must be worked out. The state's attorney and the state department of law enforcement have not before been presented with a like case. There is very little on the books. The family attorney puts together a hard and abrasive case to achieve their wishes. Some power chips are called in by the family that can only be described as favors from individuals who are politically connected.

I now must pause and present the rest of this in another post. At the moment my life is on hold because of the current situation in which Ameri has placed herself. My role in Ameri's life has been one of being the primary transporter and caregiver to her. As she moved into her teens, she needed to have more care and attention from Mom. My role then became one of running interference when Ameri made demands of Mom that conflicted with Mom’s professional duties. That soon devolved into Ameri going around me at every opportunity and making arrangements with Mom on the sly. Mom allowed it. I have now become the pivot on which much conflict arises. I have to be the “NO!” parent and Mom has become the “We-will-talk-about-it.” Parent.

The story continues.

Ameri Grows from a Toddler to a Kindergartener

(As this is a recap of posts from another blog, please catch up by checking down this page a bit and even the archives listed of the right)

Ameri's life with Grandma Lilya continues. By the time she is seventeen months old, however, she is beginning to put a real crimp in Lilya's style and styling. Ameri has been passed around to friends and acquaintances. She has experienced some good care and some not so good care. There is some talk that she has been used in ways that are just not conventional. She has been with older kids and questionable adults. There has been no serrious intervention from any governmental or family service agencies If anything has gone on it has been kept quiet. But, clearly Lilya is not too happy with the way things are going and the obvious behavioral manifestations she has seen in Ameri.

Lilya is acquainted with a couple that she knows from a church group, and she gets wind that they are looking to adopt a child. They have boys, but they want a girl. Lilya finds a way to approach Bob and Diane and to present them with an opportunity. So as to not get bogged down in details we will say that a deal is struck and Ameri is handed over in a relatively unsupervised adoption proceeding that was handled by an attorney and a judge.

Ameri goes to live with Bob, Diane and the boys. We must imagine the joy they must have felt that they were getting such a beautiful child. She has golden ringlets of hair. She has kissable cheeks and she is overwhelmed by so much attention. Bob and Diane love sweet little things. After they were through having the boys, they filled in their nurturing needs with exotic pets and toy animals of various species. But, now, here they have a beautiful child. The camera never stops. Diane loves to dress Ameri up and off they go to the photographers studio for a shoot. I have some of those pictures. Ameri is a doll. She is just sweet and perfect in every picture. In time, though, the effect of birth circumstances and early care begin to show their results. Ameri begins to act out in strange ways and displays motions and activities that are at first puzzling and then as they are to be understood become disturbing. Bob and Diane find that they need to seek professional help for Ameri.

Ameri's behavior and habits become more and more disturbing. She does not seem to want to accept affection, nor does she seem in any way to be attached to Bob and Diane except for when food or treats are involved. The boys have doted on little Ameri. They play with her and watch out for her. They share their treats with Ameri. Still, there seems to be only a tenuous bond with her new brothers. Children seen to have one level of expectation with each other and quite another with parent figures. This is especially pronounced with Ameri. She has rejected all of Diane's motherly overtures and she is even hostile to her at times. That hostility shows itself by screaming and running away from Diane. It also come out in distinctly destructive or hurting acts that are targeted at precious mementos, pictures and family pets. The professional visits ramp up in frequency. As Ameri gets on to her third year she is really starting to show her stuff.

Between ages three and four, Ameri is placed out in daycare and therapeutic respite centers. As she moves toward her fifth year she is in pre-kindergarten and then kindergarten. She is a hand full every where. She is accepted for a while and then has to move on. She is not an easy child to manage. When she is with other children with marginal problems, a dynamic arises that causes the allied behaviors to be greater than the sum of the parts. Now, Ameri must experience her first hospitalization.

Let's Begin at the Begining with Ameri

(I must now recap the posts that I started on my old blog. It was not meant to be as personal as it had become with the Ameri accounts.)

Here is the first Ameri post.

Ameri: A Throw Away Child

Ameri is Born and Reborn

I have two daughters. One daughter came into the world within a marriage and she had the benefit of two loving parents. She was the first born grandchild of two combined whole families in which there were five aunts, four grandparents and five living great grandparents. She grew into a fine adult. She was an outstanding student all through grade school and high school. She became an outstanding track athlete. She brought the first state champion honors to her high school. She was recruited heavily by all the big name schools seeking women athletes. She chose one that seemed like a good fit, but after the first year she had topped out as an athlete. She was the president of her pledge. She was sought after socially. She was far ahead of the academics of her freshmen offerings. She chose to change schools after completing her spring term. She chose to attend a school with rigorous academic standards and she also chose to become a walk-on candidate for the track team. She had no scholarship money of any kind. She chose the school because of the reputation of the coach and the scholastic demands. She eventually graduated with honors and NCAA titles. She is now making her way in a very competitive world, in a very competitive city, and she is standing solidly on her own two feet. Let us call her, Nike (Νικη). That would be pronounced knee-kay. The shoe company pronunciation not withstanding.

My second daughter, let's call her America or Ameri for short, was the second born child of a woman, we will call her Avril, who had not known the security of a stable home or loving parents for most of her life. That woman had been born to a woman who had grown up under conditions that were equally barren of love and stability. My daughter, Ameri, was the only living child of that unfortunate mother, Avril. Her first child was dead at birth. Ameri is then an only child. Ameri has no father of record. Ameri and her mother were released from the hospital and sent home. Her first home was a shared room with another man and woman who were in Ameri's mother's drug and alcohol crowd. That situation broke down early on and the trail from there leads from one shared accommodation to another that included various hotels and flop houses. At the end of about three months of that existence, Ameri was returned to the hospital where she was born. Avril disappears.

Ameri's physical condition, when she was brought back to the hospital, was not good. She was underweight for her age, twelve pounds at 90 days. She was covered in scabs and her genitals were swollen and traumatized by either severe diaper rash or frictional abuse. She was dehydrated near to the point of dry. Her brain activity was more of a scratchy impression of seizure than any other way to describe it. She was near death. From that point, until Ameri was released from the hospital three weeks later. A seeming miracle has occurred. Tiny Ameri was brought back from near death to being, instead of a functioning three month old infant, for all practical purposes a new born. She weighed just over fifteen pounds. Her stretched out body length was just over fourteen inches. That she recovered at all was seen as a major event by the hospital staff and that she seemed to respond with the minimum capabilities of a new born was seen as a further remarkable event by the hospital staff. Since Avril, Ameri's mom, has disappeared, it is now necessary for Avril's mother, Ameri's grandmother, to take custody when Ameri is released from the hospital after a three week stay. We shall call Ameri's grandmother, Lilya. Lilya takes Ameri home to an apartment she shares with her current boyfriend. The boy friend's name does not matter because he is one of many.

This part of the story ends. Ameri is alive. She starts life again with Grandmother, Lilya.

Back to Square One

Ameri called on Monday with complaints. She was not having the romantic adventure that she had her heart set on. Boy friend comes home from a twelve hour shift at dawn and after a couple of beers with the boys. He wants sex and sleep. Ameri wants other attention and she has already slept. It's an old story.

Yesterday Mom had to do the four hour drive to meet up with her. Ameri's refuge is the hospital or in patient treatment center. In the area where she is staying there are no treatment facilities or hospital psych wards. She had Mom take her to a small regional hospital. It is a rural hospital in an agricultural community. In the waiting area there were farm workers with grievous trauma, farm worker children in feverish distress, and an unconscious black convict from a private prison shackled to a gurney hand and foot. There are no psych facilities. Mom sits with Ameri for nearly four hours while the sick and injured come and go. Finally, Ameri is admitted provisionally and will be transported to another facility further from home. Mom still has a four hour drive home. She had to leave Ameri at the hospital. It was not an easy decision but there was no other way. Ameri does not seem to feel any discomfort being in the care of strangers. She recognizes that there is a professional ethic and SOP that will be followed and she feels safe with that.

Ameri's behavior is predictable over a cycle of days, weeks and months. The long cycle is tripped by the coming of Halloween and begins to wind down after Easter. This cycle also coincides with her birth trauma, abandonment events by caretakers and the Holidays. Within the long cycle we find that Ameri experiences episodic cycles of functionality and then breakdown. Even in these sub cycles there are yet other sub cycles of mood and behavior. Even in the best of times her attitude, habits and behavior toward us can only be described as execrable. We do on occasion see some glimmer of a smile and a bit of laughter, but that is very rare.

So to wrap up for today. Ameri is somewhere five or more hours from home. She is being questioned and evaluated. They may or may not hear right away about the hospitalizations that she has experienced since August 2005. No one has contacted us. This situation is not as personally traumatic as it has been in the past. Mom is coping and putting her cheerful spin on things. I am seething and as hurt as I have ever been. There are things I need to be doing in my life but I need only start a project and Ameri pops in with a need that is complicated, requires an expenditure of cash and will require driving time. The cycle continues.

More

Short Honeymoon

I knew that the phone situation (no provider tower) was going to be a deal killer in Ameri's remote refuge. She also has to be apart from the boy friend for 12 plus hours. When he is off work he has to sleep. If she last till Tuesday, I will be surprised.

More

Think Fast - Don't Blink

Whoa! Things move fast when Ameri plans.

Ameri has been on her carwash job about ten days. She even had some days off in between. She put together a trip to see her boyfriend and she needed our cooperation to get the job done. The turn-around trip is just about eight hours. It is a very senic day time trip, but at night there are such hazards as wild boar, alligators and loose cattle to worry about. Every week there is some blurb in the newspaper about some unlucky soul plowing into a critter.

I started the trip with Ameri and Mom. We had to pick her up at work. Then took her to get her check cashed. And then we had to sit in dropped-jaw amazement at what the plans, and costs are going to be for the trip. Ameri's check was not going to cover the caper. A great argument ensues. Mom is attempting to bring some reality to the plans and budget. The gas alone was going to take more than half of the pay check. And, no we are not going to even start until we have the gas money in our hands. I did not get that far. I drove home, removed my set of keys from the ignition and let it be known that my part was now over. So Mom and Ameri take off into the sunset for a 200 mile drive with a fold-out map of the route from here to there.

The last I saw of the boyfriend about twelve days ago was his cheery face in the midnight light of the last hotel room available in a sleepy snowbird resort town. See ya.

Mom and Ameri drive to his new address and are surprised to find his current abode is on the shore of a major winter snowbird resort lake. His job provides a per diem allowance and the place is surprisingly nice. It is now coming on to the end of the season there and with Easter the place will become nearly deserted until after Election Day in November. Mom is relieved to discover that the manager of the place is a retired Midwestern woman of a very agreeable nature who runs the place in a no nonsense manner.

The trip took place over night, Saturday. Mom and Ameri were let into the apartment; a very large one room efficiency with a private dock and a panoramic view of the lake. Boyfriend had to pull an overnight shift on the welding crew at the job site so Mom and Ameri got a little sleep and then had breakfast with the boyfriend this morning. Everyone was muy simpatico. The nearby convenience store is hiring and Ameri may attempt to get on there. Or, so I am told. Mom got back home about noon today. She had a long nap. We talked about how this might work out. Everyone is so relieved - until the phone rings. It is Ameri. She is not satisfied because her phone is out of range of her provider tower and she is on roaming. CRISIS!

Ameri's other life is one of great drama and it takes place on the phone. She is in constant contact and conflict with about a dozen or so of her drama kings and queens from her travels of the summer through late fall. She does in fact have a very richly fabricated and embroidered life with those folks. There is not a word of it that is true but it keeps the cellular towers a-smokin'.

The day came to a close very much unsettled and fraught with gauzy pessimism.

My head hurts.

Short Relapse and Now Recovery

As we figured, Ameri's stay at the county mental health facility was short and not so sweet. How bad could it be? She was in on Monday and out on Wednesday. "There wasn't anybody nice there." She went to school today. They are going to allow her to complete some work and finish in summer school. They have really gone out of their way to make things happen. They need the check too.

Job? Yes, at the neighborhood all girl crew car wash. We shall see what we shall see.

Oh, the boyfriend. He is staying over at the out of town worksite. Ameri has indicated that she wishes to make another road trip over there. If she does, it will have to be Greyhound and a connection with el Xpresso local service. I am not driving that route again for a while - no matter how much I like it.

More later.

Short Recovery and Now Relapse

Today Ameri got up and went out the door to go to school for the first time in months. She has so little work to finish that the school has been working with us on attendance. They are not happy about her attitude and behaviors but she is still enrolled. Her teacher who was such a comfort to her last year in the spring and summer was too put out today to give much comfort.

Ameri came in with Mom at 5:00p and they left for a therapy session at 6:00p. Mom has just returned home alone. While in the therapist's office she said that if she went home she would harm herself. Of course the therapist is then obligated to call 911 and have law enforcement come in. When the policeman arrived he discussed things with Mom, he said that he would have to go on an do what had to be done because he had just come from working a teen suicide.

The therapist, being relatively new to her profession, had never had to proceed on her own with such a situation. Mom had to provide some support for the therapist. Just today I confirmed an appointment with a psychiatrist for Tuesday. This appointment came as the result of an eight day confinement in early February. The facility of choice, for insurance purposes, was full so now she will have to be confined in what ever facility has a bed. We live in a compact and densely populated metropolitan area, so no facility is more than forty five minutes away.

If you are asking yourself ,"Why?" I must respond that only God and Ameri know the answer to that.

If you wish to catch up and review some history of this drama go to

http://sinopianview.blogspot.com/ and find the archives on the right sidebar.

Recovery and Road Trip

Ameri was released from the hospital on a shaky living plan. We were not involved in her pickup. The hospital sent her by cab to a rough motel in a nearby part of our metro area. She did call us but would not let on where she was. She has a new boyfriend. When she disappeared into the hospital she did not even call him. He called us. He turns out to be a nice guy. He is just a bit of a blemished angel, but Ameri responds to him when she gets into her hard headed state.

The new boyfriend is a pipe fitter and welder. He is a gypsy welder and so the crew that he is on can be going anywhere in the southeast. He has no transportation so we took him to an in-state job on Sunday (Mar. 5 2006) I was either that or Ameri taking off with him on the bus.

Ameri got a great deal of past due homework done this weekend, with the boy friend’s help and she went into school today to work there. She seems to be responding to the current combinations of medications that are prescribed.

The drive to the job and return was a bit of a haul. We felt good about doing that for him. He has been a steadying influence on Ameri.

It could be a whole lot worse.