A child is lost

A mother grieves.  There is simply no other way to talk about it.  Alex has been hospitalized in the pysch unit for 11 days now.  This hospital generally only holds a patient for 7 to 10 days before transfer to home or another facility.  The hospital cannot stabilize Alex long enough to even consider transfer. 

Alex is also breaking all of the orthodontic devices out of his mouth.  What is left he can use to break teeth.  I plead with the doctors to get the rest of it out.  The psych unit does not acknowledge that his breaking of the devices in his mouth warrant a determination of actual intent to cause self-harm.

At this point staff is attempting to placate him to make the records appear he is stable enough to transfer to a facility.  So far Alex has unintentionally made their plans fail.

I grieve for my son.  When a child enters the mental health institutional roulette wheel of care, family members and prior treating doctors are disregarded.  The best interests of the child and the appropriate care for their issues is not considered.  All must comply with the boxes these new people in charge insist upon.  These people know nothing of his landscape of trauma, but they still try to tell him what to do.

My poor sweetie.  I did not teach him to comply with random dictates that counter his survival instincts.  Now Alex finds himself in a world where landscape of reality has changed - and he refuses to take my hand so that I can help him though the bewildering forest of change.  Alex is mad at the world, himself and me.  He now attacks me because I dare to love him and try to save him from himself.

This merry-go-round of drama-trauma started 13 months ago when Alex mentally broke after being assaulted at knife point on school grounds because the escalating bullying at school did not stop despite him telling me about it for over six weeks and me telling the school officials about it every day. 

It is like the phone conversations I now have with the pysch unit - I tell them, x, y and z about Alex and how to help him and then they disregard me.  It feels just like when I told the school officials like the teacher that Alex could not continue to endure what I was literally watching in her class real-time.  I told that teacher that was happening in her class to Alex was worse that what he endured in the orphanage.  Yet, that abuse of him continued until he broke. 

So my Mama heart weeps tonight.  I hope that Alex finally stopped making weapons out of his clothing and went to sleep.  Since the bullying last year he has struggled with sleeping unless he is on the family living room couch or in my bedroom.  At the same time I know that my son is right and he needs to start arming himself from those that would harm him.  He has a long way to go before his face will look normal to others.  Maybe the family loving Alex gives him the courage to start arming himself and stop hurting himself.  I know his grandmother would applaud any offensive to protect him.

A family mourns.  And a child remains lost.  May God watch over us all.