Just lost

Miles was finally accepted into a new placement. He has been there since June 2015. At first things seemed to go smoothly. We kept waiting for his therapist to gain his trust and for our family sessions to begin addressing his issues. 

I could never get the education department to follow through with getting his IEP updated. It still hasn’t happened. I gave up on that and tried to focus on some more priority issues first. 

Within the first weeks after he arrived, the psychiatrist contacted me regarding his mediations and wanted to make some major changes. Major changes have never happened. My latest phone call with him I realize he doesn’t plan to make major changes, even with his meds for psychosis which needs to be done. He continues to struggle with voices, hallucinations, and paranoia. 

His insurance company has been pressing to move him to  step-down facility, however he has not been accepted by any because they don’t feel they can provide the level of care that he needs. 

His personal items that we provide on  a regular basis are constantly being stolen. The RTC claims no responsibility in preventing this and shows no interest in replacing any of his items. 

He has been placed in stabilization unit several times but nothing like in previous RTC placements. He tells me he is just playing their game trying not to make waves in order to just get by. 

In April Miles was attacked and called a nigger by a staff that had been harassing him. We argued with the facility for a week to get him examined at a hospital. Miles had been complaining of headaches and dizziness since the assault. When he was finally seen, the emergency room doctor contacted me an told me that Miles had a concussion. We have yet to be able to get him relocated and it is still not safe for him to be at home. 

I was lied to by the acting director multiple times over the situation. I was informed by the therapist that they are severely understaffed and that staff witnesses to the assault and the therapist were told to keep their mouths shut or they would lose their jobs. 

CPS was involved. I was told by the RTC that police had been notified , but when I contacted them, they knew nothing of the incident. 

I was finally contacted last week by the detective and told that the city’s attorneys office would be prosecuting the staff that attacked our son. He was fired by the RTC but I want to make sure he is never able to work with children again. I would also love for him to do community service in an area that might teach him some tolerance to the black race. 

Miles is 15 1/2 years old. We are losing the battle to try to get him help. He is stuck in an unsafe facility that is doing nothing but preparing him to survive in a prison one day. I have been in contact with one former resident/patient at the facility that tells me he was raped while in the facility and that we need to get Miles out as soon as possible. 

We now fear Miles is in danger due to the fact that the staff that attacked him still has friends that work there and it is common for staff to bribe kids to harm other kids that they have issues with. 

As a parent, I have never felt so lost. 

 

I Must Have Fallen Down The Rabbit Hole!!!!

By chance there are still any followers to Losing Miles, I think I actually lost MYSELF!!!!! I swear I feel as though I fell down the Rabbit Hole just like Alice in Wonderland!! 

Some time after my last post I went to visit Miles for his birthday. He turned 14 in December. He had been asking for some new Jordan’s so that is what we got him, along with some other small things. I even took the time to buy these things to replace the laces with called Hickeys that can be purchased at Brookstone. In RTC shoes with laces aren’t allowed and these things work great. He wasn’t given a pass to leave the campus due to his violent behavior and all kinds of lies, cheeking medications, etc. You name it, he pretty much tried it. We seemed to have a really good visit although we were confined to a small visiting area with a couch, chair, coffee table and a TV suspended from the ceiling that we were able to watch approved dvd’s. 

Not long after my return home, all hell broke loose with Miles AGAIN. During some of our phone conversations he threatened to kill me once he is released from RTC, or have me killed by another resident that had been in the RTC and returned to our home town. He also threatened to kill his therapist. I immediately contacted her and begged her to not see him for sessions unless she was in an area that could be observed by other staff. I know that these therapists are well-trained but Miles happens to be bigger and taller than that therapist and when he is in a rage, almost appears to have super strength! I also requested that there be no phone contact between us unless it was monitored by his therapist. 

Not only were there death threats but there were all kinds of delusional false accusations of horrendous abuse by us and accusations that we were alcoholics and drug dealers and that he wanted to be placed into foster care in hopes of being adopted by another family. 

After consulting with MY therapist and psychiatrist (that I never needed before this journey with Miles) I field a report with the SLC police department. It was my hope that perhaps he would learn a lesson by going before a judge that he couldn’t threaten people that way and have documentation just in case something does happen to me! NOT!! According to staff that escorted him to his meetings with a probation officer, the judge, and an attorney that they tried to say WE were responsible for paying for, he went in there and charmed the pants off of everyone, in spite of me signing a release for them to look at his elaborate documentation of mental illness issues. He lied and turned everything around and the whole thing was dismissed, supposedly for lack of evidence!!!!

It was around that time that I think my whole perspective changed a bit. I became intensely aware of how vulnerable I might be to threats against my life and began to take charge of that. 

Miles, finally after 3 attempts, escaped the locked facility he was in along with 3 other boys!! He actually made it a mile and a half away from the facility! One of them was able to stay gone for a couple of days before being returned by the police. Miles went back to the RTC willingly when staff found him but upon arrival in the parking lot, he attempted to kick a window out of the van, discharged a fire extinguisher all over staff, swung the extinguisher at a female staff and had to be placed in a hold by one of the large male staff members. 

All of that made it more clear to me that not only did I need to continue to advocate for Miles, but I also had to take precautions to insure my own safety and well-being as well. 

Things got even more awakening when this past March or April we were notified that the RTC was closing. We had until mid June to find a new placement for him. The RTC assisted but they weren’t as concerned about finding a good placement for him as they were mostly concerned with just finding any place that would accept him. I lost count of how many denials he got!! Finally after a 4th appeal to another RTC just 30 mins south of the other RTC, he got accepted. Its pretty bad that he is too sick to be safe at home, and too sick to be accepted at an RTC!!!!!

I feel as though I am slowly climbing up out of the muddy hole I fell so far into, however the closer I get to the top, I slide back a ways with every encounter we have with Miles and his therapy. Currently, he is being extremely charming at his new placement and whining about being bullied (something he has been quite guilty of being the bully in the past). This is his pattern, I almost want to tell his therapist to call me for a family session when things get real and the honeymoon is over with Miles!!!

Thank you very much! I now have anxiety AND PTSD!!!!!

PIMPIN’

I got a call from Miles (will be 14 in December. Diagnosis Schizoaffective, Major Depressive, Generalized Anxiety, and RAD) therapist the other day asking me what the coat that I just recently sent him looked like. Immediately I was irritated to say the least. He has been in this RTC for a year and this is the 4th coat I have had to buy and send to him because they keep getting “lost, or stolen”. Keep in mind, I just sent the last one a few weeks ago. Therapist tells me that someone noticed a girl wearing this jacket! I describe the jacket and tell her to look inside because I wrote his name(huge) with a sharpie inside the jacket. She also tells me that after questioning everyone involved, that my son GAVE the jacket to the girl to wear!!! Now, I am more than irritated!! You guys have no idea how many times I have contacted the RTC going OFF over missing items of his that he calls and asks me to replace!!!! WTF….I ended up telling the therapist that she can either hold his coat in her office and give it to him only when he needs it, or give it to him and tell him if he gives it away he will just be cold because I am NOT buying another one this winter!!!! Folks, I have acted really stupid with staff over some of his missing items in the past!!
I got off the phone with the therapist and immediately tell my husband this story. He just started laughing and said, “He’s pimping with his coats!! Probably telling the other guys,” ya look, she’s wearing my coat!” UGH!!! Then I just had to laugh too, cuz I know he’s right!!!
I think I will start sending some chocolate in his care packages and tell him that girls really like chocolate. He thinks he’s got game and doesn’t realize that these girls are just taking the jackets and he never gets them back!!!! Just saying……

DRAMA

There must not be a more helpless feeling in the world than to have a sick child that you can’t help. The fear of the insurance company denying treatment dangles over our heads putting and enormous emotional burden on us. As it stands now, Miles is approved until January. 

This past week was full of drama. Miles decided to make up a huge lie to tell staff that some mexican guy with tattoos and his girlfriend were walking along the trail behind the treatment center where the boys have a recreation area and came to the fence and flashed a gun at him and told him if the kids didn’t quit yelling at them when they were on the trail that they were going to get shot! He even gave a description of the guy to his therapist and told her that he looked like his sisters ex-boyfriend. The therapist called me to get a description of the ex-boyfriend and had to go through all kinds of surveillance tape to try to get to the bottom of things. When she told me Miles described this 5ft 8in mexican guy with tattoos that looked like my daughters ex-boyfriend I wanted to die. The only similarity was the tattoos!! My daughters ex-boyfriend is black, 6ft 4in tall and about 250 pounds!!!! Besides all of that, there is a metal guard about 5ft high along the fence and there is no way on earth he could have seen anything but the top of someones head. He also told his therapist that a unit manager talked to the guy too!! At the end of the day, deciding that he had lied about the whole thing, they took Miles into his therapists office to first talk to him and just see how far he would take this lie. They told him that the unit manager would have to be fired for talking to the guy and Miles stuck to his story. He was wiling to let this guy lose his job. When they let him know that they talked to me and they knew he was lying about this imaginary person and that they had looked at the tapes and never saw anything he finally admitted that he thought if he told that story and I thought he was in an unsafe place that I would come get him. Then he flipped out on them when they told him there would be consequences for his lie and had to be put in a hold. He kicked the therapist and made a mess of her office then as they took him back to an isolation unit to let him calm down he threatened that he was going to kill his therapist. 

I got a call the next evening from the nurse telling me that he had been put in another hold because of aggression and when he was told if he couldn’t calm down they would have to give him a shot he told them to go ahead, so they did. 

It really frustrates me because sometimes I think he acts aggressive in order to get a shot. The nurse confirmed to me that recently when he has gotten aggressive and required a shot that it was totally different that when he first got to the treatment center and was not on proper medication and required sedation. 

I feel like besides all of his other problems, Miles is showing a tendency to have a drug abuse issue. 

I don’t anticipate things getting much better with the holidays approaching and his birthday is in December. For the past 2 years I have been able to visit him on his birthday but this year I won’t be able to make it because of his dads holiday tour schedule and my responsibilities with our granddaughter. 

I seriously worry that he is giving up on himself and I have no idea what to do. I don’t even know if there is anything I can do. At some point, I feel like something within him has to kick in and decide that this is not the life he wants for himself. 

Love Is Not Enough

I have been forced to focus on some self-care this past month. I have an auto-immune disease that rears its ugly head to remind me that in order to do what ever I possibly can for Miles, I have to be as healthy as I can be. 

My husband and I took a few days to go to Hermosa Beach in California to de-stress and recharge a bit. 30 minutes away from our destination it was like someone turned on a water faucet! Tears were literally pouring out of my eyes! It was the strangest thing because at first I thought I was having an allergic reaction to something. Then I felt it…this horrible pain coming from deep within. “Oh my God! I am crying!!” I thought to myself. It dawned on me that it was the first time we had been to Hermosa without Miles!! We had a nice time and the weather was perfect and the healing energy from the ocean was amazing as always, but in the back of my mind, I couldn’t keep from remembering all the wonderful times we have had with Miles on that very beach and I couldn’t stop wondering if he will ever make that trip with us ever again. 

Miles has now been in a residential treatment center in Salt Lake City for a year now. I feel like we are getting nowhere with therapy. I even had an independent doctor review all of his records just to get yet another opinion. I thought perhaps he might suggest a different type of treatment center that might be able to make more progress in helping Miles. I followed up on a couple of suggestions he made, but they were dead ends. One told me that they were not equipped to deal with his mental illness and the reactive attachment issues he has. The other I learned after a google search has had all kinds of media attention about kids being unsupervised, getting wrong medications, etc. His opinion overall was not encouraging at all. It left me feeling even more helpless as far as Miles and his future is concerned. 

A few weeks ago we had a family therapy session via telephone and Miles brought up the possibility of a group home. This is something his therapist and I have already discussed but know that he is not even ready for that yet. The therapist told him that he would have to be able to make it 2 months without any of his behaviors that are holding him back and then she would start looking for a group home that might accept him. So far he hasn’t even made it a week toward that 2 month goal. 

The reality of how severe his RAD is has really been hard to accept. The trauma he experienced long before he was ever placed in our home was obviously much more powerful than the loving, safe, secure home we provided. Love is not enough when it comes to RAD. His feelings toward us are ambivalent at best. 

Cup-O-Noodles

My phone rang this morning and when I looked at it and saw it was from the treatment center, my heart stopped. I can always tell something is wrong when I get a call from the center at an odd time. 

It was the nurse. I swear I was literally holding my breath. He was calling to inform me that Miles attempted to end his life today. Apparently, another resident cheeked his meds and gave them to Miles and he took them along with his own meds. They are monitoring him and he is on 24/7 watch right now. At one point his blood pressure was 92/55. 

Later I got a call from his therapist. I still don’t have any answers to what triggered the incident. This is not the first time this has happened. The last time this happened he had traded another resident cup-o-noodles for his meds in order to try to kill himself!!!

I went from not breathing to a huge sigh of relief , then to anger , and finally now deeply sad but grateful that his attempt failed. 

I know this is not the life Miles wants for himself right now, and it’s not the one I want for him. I just can’t imagine life without him though. 

 

A Million Tiny Pieces

Following the visit with Miles we were slammed once again with his lies. Once again he has started telling staff that he was horribly abused at home. Telling things like we beat him with a baseball bat at times and locked him in his room and slid food under the door to him!!!!! He has lied before about horrible abuse then during family therapy sessions admits he lied for ridiculous reasons. This time during the session I asked him if he ever thought about how bad he was hurting other people when he lied like that and with a very flat tone, he told me “no, I don’t ever think about other people’s feelings, I don’t have a conscience.” Wow. I didn’t know how to react. I just thanked him for being honest. That whole day I could feel my heart breaking into a million pieces. I guess that is the Reactive Attachment part of his illness that makes him that way. 

Three Days With Miles and Ms. ADHD

Last week I made the drive to Salt Lake City from Las Vegas to visit Miles. I planned to make the trip alone since his dad , a musician, is on tour all month. At the last-minute, I decided to bring my 4-year-old granddaughter along with me. They love  and miss each other and the last time they saw each other was February. Sounds simple I know but this 4-year-old happens to have ADHD. That added a whole new element to this trip to Utah!!!  I packed the car with plenty of items to keep her occupied and we stopped often for restroom breaks and for her to run off steam! 

When we arrived to the treatment center we met with the therapist and discussed the plans for our day passes. We were able to pick him up each morning and had to drop him back off at the center at 8:00 pm. Since we arrived a bit late in the day we checked into the hotel room and then went out for dinner. Miles enjoys going to restaurants where we can sit down and order from a menu and have dinner served. Keep in mind, a lot of planning comes into play with this scenario because the dining area can’t be too crowded, or noisy or a lot of odd decor. We made what I thought was a good choice and then I was quickly reminded that Ms. ADHD was present and that was going to impact the whole experience. She was so excited to see her “uncle/brother” as she refers to him that I don’t know how either of them ate with her jumping in the booth next to him and hugging and kissing him. I chose to take most of my dinner back to the hotel with me. I could tell that al the excitement was beginning to cause Miles some anxiety, not to mention the fact that I could tell that we were beginning to disturb other diners. I was really getting the “stink eye” from a couple of tables and I couldn’t resist as we were leaving (thank goodness the kids were walking ahead of me) telling them what I thought of them. They appeared to be in their late 60s or so and I informed them that “they really shouldn’t be so judgmental about a situation they had no knowledge of and that they should enjoy their dinner because it was clear that their days of eating out were numbered because it wouldn’t be long that diapers and bibs on people their age would probably not be appealing to other diners.” I know, I was exhausted and just completely lost my filters for a moment but I said it and I really don’t feel so bad about it. By the way, the rest of our meals were fast food and take out!! 

The rest of the visit went pretty well. We went to an aquarium that started off and ended pretty rocky. As you enter the aquarium there is a HUGE shark suspended from the ceiling. Miles has a horrible phobia of  large statues and such. Between him having an anxiety attack and Ms. ADHD I wondered what the hell I could have been thinking taking them there! We all survived. 

We left the aquarium and went to an indoor trampoline gym. Immediately Ms. ADHD took off bouncing like crazy. Miles came and sat next to me with his head ducked and a sad look on his face. I asked him what was wrong and he told me he felt like everyone was staring at him. I assume that was the schizophrenia talking. I assured him that was not the case at all and we sat together for a few minutes. Ms. ADHD noticed him sitting with me and came running over and took his hand and said “come on uncle! come jump with me!!” He got up right away and followed her and for the first time during the whole trip I was super happy she was there with us! Unfortunately she led him right into the dodgeball pit!!! Ugh!! It took just a few minutes for me to realize that Miles didn’t get the concept and was getting annoyed about getting pounded by the balls. I called him over and explained the game to him, I guess he had never played dodgeball before. He recovered pretty quickly and went back and seemed to have a lot of fun although left the dodgeball pit and opted just to jump. He was off by himself and I was shocked as Ms. ADHD ran up to a kid that appeared to be the same age as Miles and tapped him on the arm and said “hey, come jump with my uncle/brother, he’s your size!” He actually followed her over and they all played together for a while. 

While we were on our last day pass Miles asked me to dye a red mohawk on his hair. That was fun, kind of!!! I told my husband we were going to do it and he said “are you crazy??” My response was “No, he’s 13 and that’s a normal 13-year-old thing to do!” So we went to the beauty supply store and bought what we needed and headed to the hotel. As I am preparing everything, Ms. ADHD tells him his hair is gonna fall out!!!  Miles looks at me with this big questionable expression. I assured him his hair would NOT fall out and we proceeded. Never having dye in his hair before he started to get a little panicked when he felt the dye getting warm on his scalp. I assured him it was fine. Ms. ADHD blurts out “ya, that’s your hair burning off!!!” At that point I am back to wondering if it was a good idea to bring her along after all!!! When we were all done he was happy. It made me feel good to let him have that experience. 

Saying goodbye was really hard like it always is. I don’t even know how many miles I drove with tears running down my face. I just had to keep reminding myself that we were doing the best that we could do to keep everyone safe at the moment. I also prayed that something would happen and things would get better for Miles. 

Wait A Minute!!! I’m SICK????

I guess when dealing with any 13 year-old there are always going to be those moments that leave you scratching your head. I have had numerous conversations with Miles about the medication that he has to take and why it is so important and how if he starts to feel differently while taking the meds that he needs to communicate with us. In the past couple of years I know I have compared him needing to take medicine to someone who might have high blood pressure or other illnesses a minimum of a hundred times or so. 

The other night we are talking on the phone and he asks what I have planned for the rest of the evening. I tell him I am going to a support group to talk to other parents that have kids or loved ones that…then he interrupts ” are like me???”.  I go on to tell him , ” Well, they aren’t exactly like you. Their kids are all older, in their 20’s but they are all sick in one way or another.” He then blurts out, “Hey!!!!! Wait a minute!!!! I”M SICK?????” Oh man, all I could think of was ” Well damn!! I never meant to open a can of worms here!!”

I kind of laughed about it to myself later but it’s really sad. I am pretty sure that he feels he is in residential treatment because he is a bad kid, not a kid that has an illness that makes him do things that put himself and others in danger. Ugh!!!

Mental Health Care Deficit

This past month has been absolutely a nightmare waiting to find out if the insurance company is going to continue to cover the treatment that Miles needs at the Residential Treatment Center. They waited until the very last minute to agree to cover his treatment until November. At that time I assume that his progress, if any, will be re-evaluated and we will go through the waiting game all over again if it appears he needs continued treatment in a residential type setting. 

I lost track of how many people I contacted within the mental health community here in Nevada trying to find out what we would be able to do for Miles if he were to be discharged the beginning of August like we were initially told if the appeal was not granted by his insurance. It was absolutely terrifying! He is still a danger to himself and others at this point. I was actually told by one mental health professional that in this situation, if he were to be released, the best option would be to refuse to pick him up from the treatment center!! We would be charged with abandonment but the state would be forced to get him continued treatment!!! I can hardly believe we may have to literally abandon our son one day in order to get him the help he needs!!!! Unfortunately this may be our reality at some point. 

This is not just a tragedy for our family. This is a national tragedy that there is such a deficit in mental health care.