Don't talk to people who aren't there

A long time ago I shared on here that Oksana had imaginary friends.  She calls them "ticks".  There are a number of them.  The main ones are tick (yes he is a "tick" and his name is "tick") and tuke but there are many, many more.  She often creates them based on other obsessions she has or events in her life so, for example, she has one named gluten free, one named room 51 (the safe room that she frequents at school when she is having a meltdown), etc.  These "people" are her hands.  She holds her hands up in front of her face in a certain way and talks to them.  It is suspected by almost everyone that this is how she coped with long days stuck in a bed.  Makes perfect sense, right?  The small problem is that she isn't there anymore. 

Before Oksana started school we didn't restrict ticks much at all.  We figured they would eventually go away on their own to be replaced by real people and real relationships.  Ha!  Oh sorry....it's probably not appropriate to laugh there.  Anyway, I remember when we were going to Kindergarten Orientation and on the way in the building she started talking to ticks.  I told her that ticks were not allowed in school.  I knew she was going to use them to ignore everything they said to her.  That was the first time we ever restricted ticks.  They were not ever allowed in school.  The next restriction we made was in public.  Ticks are not allowed in public.  You can interact with us, or with the people around you but not your hands as we walk through the store, zoo, etc.  Basically we allowed them in the car and at home and let me tell you...after a long day of school she would plant her butt in the car and out they'd come.  She'd often say "I missed you!" and I'd have to pull her away from them to say goodbye to her para. 

As time has gone on these have become a problem.  She was literally with them every single second of her day that she could.  It was ALL SHE EVER DID.  When she wasn't with them she worried about when she would be with them again.  If friends came to our house we had to remind her that we have friends to play with and we don't need ticks when friends are over, but it would never fail that real people didn't provide what she needed and the ticks would be back out.

I could see it was a problem but I was really lost as to what to do about it.  It was obvious they were more important to her than anything. At one point someone suggested to me that she might be schizophrenic.  I remember the night that I put her to bed and said "Oksana when you talk to ticks do they talk back to you?"  That's a conversation I never thought I'd have with one of my kids.  You can imagine my relief when she said no.

A few months ago this kind of came to a head.  We were outside playing and Oksana accidentally tripped Anya.  Anya was hurt but it was an accident that only needed an apology and a check to see if she was OK.  Instead Oksana walked past her as if she had never seen her and didn't hear her crying.  I stopped her and reminded her that she needed to come back and apologize and she glared at me and said "BUT I'M TALKING TO MY TICKS!"  That was it....we just couldn't continue to go on like that.  Rather than getting better she was getting sucked deeper and deeper into them.  Larry and I made the decision to limit them.  She could only talk to them for 1 hour a day, 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes at night.  Her response was "But they will miss me!"  I assured her that since they were not real they had no ability to miss her.

When all of the poop stuff started we restricted them even more and now we have completely taken them away.  I have no idea if this was the right thing or not.  I catch her talking to "someone" at least once a day and have to remind her that we don't talk to people who aren't there.  She gets very angry when I catch her and often lies and tells me she was talking to me or someone else in the room.  She's found ways to get around this by using puppets or dolls and I'm fine with that.  There's a fine line between imagination and mental illness and I'm trying my hardest to find it and not cross it in either direction. 

I still struggle daily with whether or not I did the right thing but let me share this with you.  She is now playing with toys (even if she is talking with them at least it is more appropriate), she is more engaged with us, she even hurt Anya the other day and immediately stopped to apologize and check on her.  She's also far more bored and sometimes fills time stimming on a ball which is a bit of another issue.  We've suspected that the ticks were a stim of sorts and I think that has been confirmed but it is much easier to redirect her from the ball.

And in the end I will just say that parenting kids who come from trauma is HARD.  I fail constantly.  Sometimes I feel like I'm floundering trying to figure this out and do the right thing for her but I won't give up.  Most people wouldn't do this but I'm committed to her even if in the end I end up in a padded room talking to my hands ;).....

Update on Anya aka "The Rascal"

Our time has been so consumed with Oksana lately that I haven't had the chance to update on Anya in awhile!  She will be home 9 months on the 20th.  It's hard to believe!  Here are some bullet points on Anya:

-Her sign vocabulary is huge (I can't count it anymore) but the astounding thing has been her verbal skills.  They have exploded.  Now....people outside of our family don't understand her and she is still speaking in one word sentences but her progress is really astounding (though the other day she did say "more ham").  She still struggles with the concept of yes and no and doesn't understand questions well.  She has a long way to go but she's doing amazing!

-Her behavior has been....well not good since coming home.  She is doing much better with behavior but this child will always test every limit and push every boundary.  That's just how she is.  She's got a little streak of aggressiveness that comes out now and then.  It most often comes out when she is stressed, overstimulated, or with someone new (she was aggressive with the OT evaluating her for school).  Occasionally it comes out at home and it seems to be more boundary testing here than anything.   The great thing is that I'm not disciplining her CONSTANTLY like I was in the beginning.  She is getting much better with her boundaries and doing well.

-Anya starts Kindergarten next month.  I can hardly believe it.  I have to admit that it may be really hard on me.  4 months ago or so I would have given anything to be rid of her for a day!!!  Now that the day is finally nearing I'm going to miss her so much.  The good news is she has a FANTASTIC teacher and is in a fabulous class.  I know she will thrive there but I also know the first couple of weeks will be very hard for her.

-Anya has a best friend.  He is red, fuzzy, and his name is "Melbow" :).  One day we were in Target and I picked up a LOL Elmo to show her.  She got an absolute kick out of him but he was $40!  I told my mom she could get it for her birthday but likely he would end up in the bottom of a toy box within a week.  Well she got it and for the last 2 months this Elmo has been at Anya's side day in and day out.  He goes everywhere with us, he has been sent down slides, worn my clothes, ridden our dog, sat in every grocery cart she sits in, been swung around by his arms until one broke, been kissed and smashed, and eaten every meal with her....and he looks like it!  When he finally bit the dust and was unable to LOL anymore we decided he had to go and there was no way that we were forking out $40 every two months to get new LOL Elmos.  Then what would happen when they don't make those anymore?!  With our luck he would become the rare $100 LOL Elmo!!  So we ordered a stuffed Elmo that looks just the same but doesn't talk.  Today he came in the mail and he easily replaced LOL Elmo though she did try to squeeze his foot to see if he would talk to her :)!  If this guy is destroyed in 2 months at least he will only cost us about $13!  He's already been tortured plenty today and good old LOL Elmo is going into retirement!!!

-Anya goes to Sunday school at church and LOVES it!  We were all worried and made sure to get her a shadow to be with her each week.  Well the shadow says Anya does so great in there that she ends up helping the other kids!  Now when the shadow isn't there Anya just goes in without her.  They all love her and besides and occasional problem with eating play dough she has done great.  We have her in the 3 year old class and it is a perfect fit for her.  She is the exact same size as all of them but developmentally she is behind them but that's just fine.  It has been so nice to go to church and actually be able to listen again!

-Anya ADORES her brothers.  Oh my goodness she just thinks they are the best things in the world.  They adore her too....and don't let them tell you otherwise ;).  Really her attachment to our whole family is coming along nicely.  Don't get me wrong, we still work on indiscriminate affection and appropriateness with strangers but we are leap years ahead of where we were.

-She is a music fanatic.  This girl loves music!  When her favorite songs come on she cheers because she is so excited.  She loves the music from VBS, of course she loves anything Signing Time, and tow of her favorite songs on the radio right now are Gold by Britt Nichole and Strangely Dim by Francesca Battistelli.

Enough with the blabbing.  Here are some pictures and videos.  The videos are of her signing some of her ABCs (by letter J she just wanted to see herself, one of her favorite past times), and of her saying "more ham" (it's pretty cute!).

Anya and Oksana taking self portraits on my phone :)

My little rascal.  She loves self portraits!

High heel boots and a pull up (with Melbow, of course)

What can I say....she likes shoes.  Notice that Melbow is right behind her.  He's never far!

The new Melbow that replaced LOL Elmo.  I'm so sorry little guy, it's going to be a rough life!

Dear Meds....I miss you

Just in case I ever wondered how much Oksana's meds were helping her I now have my answer.  I can't for the life of me remember if I blogged about the problem with her meds so if I did at least this will be a reminder.  When we finally got Oksana on a dose of Risperdal that really made a difference for her we also got a side effect....drooling.  Massive, massive amounts of drooling.  Her face was literally always wet.  So much so that she had a rash all over her chin that we could not get rid of no matter what we did.  We called the doctor and she put her on another medication that is supposed to help the drooling.  It dried it  up in 24 hours....and then shortly after she stopped urinating....a side effect of the new med that was supposed to take away side effects of the Risperdal.  She was taken off immediately and backed off of her Risperdal to see if the drooling would at least decrease.  They told me we would not be able to increase the Risperdal again and the next option was to move her to a different med.  I was devastated because I knew the lower dose of Risperdal wasn't going to cut it.  I can't begin to tell you how hard this was.  For the first time in 3 years Oksana was functioning really well.  Not perfect by any means but she was happy, she was learning, and she was growing emotionally and socially.  It was awesome.  Now we were being told that was going to be taken away.  After a month or so I called them and told them that the drooling was better but it was most definitely not gone.  I knew we were going to need to up her Risperdal again once school started so we needed to just do the transition now rather than doing it during school. 

She is being transitioned from Risperdal to Seroquel.  We are basically cutting back the Risperdal and upping the Seroquel until the Risperdal is gone at which point we will adjust the Seroquel until it is where it is working well for her.  We started the transition 9 days ago with the first adjustment.  Day one was very hard but days 2-6 were better.  On day 7 we move forward again adjusting a little more.  Oh my.  She has been rude, impatient, obsessive, she can't handle the tiniest disappointment, and she is just all around obnoxious.  We are supposed to stay at this level for 7 days before we take her off of the Risperdal completely and then they had better start upping that Seroquel fast!

Evan's 11!

Yesterday my "baby" boy turned 11!   Unfortunately Tuesday was a busy day in our house with a camp, summer school, therapies, and adoption classes.  Because of that Evan is celebrating his birthday on many different days.  On Saturday we took him out to eat at the restaurant of his choice (O'Charley's).  Then on Sunday he got a birthday treat of his choice (Ice cream cake).  Later this week we are taking him to a water park that he loves.  He pooled his birthday money with Clayton to get an xbox which he got a couple of weeks ago.  He figured out pretty quickly yesterday that while he was having lots of fun it kind of made for a bummer birthday!  He did thoroughly enjoy it when Larry and I sat with him, went through his baby book, and told him his birth story (at least the parts that he could handle) :). 

I had a natural birth with Clayton which really just meant that I had no drugs.  With Evan I really wanted to go all out and I had a new OB who was awesome and totally on board with it.  We did no intervention at all that wasn't absolutely necessary.  I wanted my water to break naturally and it did....while I was pushing....at which point it shot across the room and drenched my OB!  I remember them telling me he was crowning while my doctor was changing in the bathroom yelling "Erin I promise I will be there to deliver him!"  She was and it was an awesome experience. 

Today Evan is a typical 11 year old boy.  He is the jokster of the house, he bounces on everything, he is an amazing big brother, and, of course, he loves all things horses!

Because of the way his birthday has been broken up, and since we haven't even really officially finished celebrating, I don't have any pictures specific to his birthday but here are some of my recent favorites that I haven't posted here and a video of him riding.

Goofing off as usual on a recent trip to Arizona with his grandparents.

His new shirt.  It cracks me up!

At the doctor's office goofing off (do you see a theme here) with the model of an ear!