Linda, sending you hugs. I know first hand and have the 20 yr old school damaged difficult child to be able to be fearful and sympathetic for you and for kt.
I did everything I could, had difficult children very well known psychiatrist involved, trying to get our school to do the right things....I had NAMI reps at our school- <sigh>
Buffy was NOT disassociative before her HS experiences.
Ironically, today difficult child Buffy wanted to go to her HS.....normally if we even drive PAST it she panics and then disassociates.....I took her.she went in, and she met with the ONE teacher that she did adore, the one teacher who handled her decently, as if she were a human being and not ..I do not know what......
In our due process hearing this man was amazing and wonderful. Today he told Buffy he is so so sorry, so sad, and now he fully agrees with everything I tried to put into place for Buffy. He did agree with me, then, too, but our school fought him tooth and nail, as they also fought me and even our due process hearing officer.
I am so glad kts docs are not pushing school......sadly, today I was working in my basement clearing to make room for my new grandbaby to be.....and I came across several papers of Buffys from grade school and elementary school, and several photos.
Tears ran freely down my face while I looked at those pictures of Buffy....so happy, SO smart, letters from her teachers, her standardized test scores, 96-99th percentile for the nation.....and I look at who she has been the last couple years and well, our school does NOT make me the least bit happy, to say the least. SOme schools just seem to not want to do the right thing. THis man teacher Buffy visited today apologized to her....becuz in recent years more knowledge has come to light regarding our special children....and this man has kept abreast of the information. BUT he admits our district STILL is not even willing to even TRY to work with these kids, the current policy is to send these kids out, far from their homes......
This man has seen Buffy in public since she left the school- and he SEES first hand how much better her symptoms are now compared to when she was struggling and fighting to hold her own IN school.
I still struggle with hurt, anger, resentment at our district, for letting 2 of my children down and not educating them and worse- makeing them far more ill than they ever were to begin with. I wish I could tell you our 1-1 aide helped make things better, but the reverse was true, our 1-1 made things MUCH worse.
I finally decided that school was literally killing my Buffy. AND they stoped teaching her academically by 8th grade. They simply refused to try to work with her in any other way aside from being completely controlling, demanding, and triggering her on purpose so they could "prove" THEY were "right" so they could have justification to pull her out and send her to a far away rsidential program. While I was going thru some of the things I found in our basement, I found several little notes Buffy wrote to friends etc that I found in her pants pockets when doing laundry. Most of them were sobs and pleas for peers to be "nice" or even for teachers to not call her names anymore.
Buffy was bnorn with her symptoms- to a milder degree. BUT she also was very outgoing, very vibrant, e xtremely smart all thru 7th grade. 8th grade school began to treat her quite different...and in HS if she had good days those would be used against her on her bad days. When she trialed a medication notorious for triggering mania, the school lateched on to the hypomania and used THAT behavior by which to then later judge her ability to function....they said well, she behaved that way for that time, so we know she can behave that way all the time if she chooses.
For Buffy, every single day of attending high school was a very difficult struggle. It took every single shred of her just to BE there every day.
Buffy never ever lashed out, no matter how hard her school tried to trigger her to be violent, she never did-----teachers would see her in hall and accuse her of things she had nothing to do with...and they would physically grab her, shake her..calling her a liar to her face. Buffy was a difficult child, BUT she was NOT a liar. and even when they would grab her by both arms and shake her, she would not lash out. Buffy was into self harm. she would then come home and cut. But being AT school, just being there, took all her concentration, focus, and will. there was neveer enough of Buffy left to learn much even if they would have tried to teach her (which they didn't- they spent days in Special Education ed bd class listening to music or eating pizza)
There was a terrible bully in her class- he had vandalised our home to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars. He was arrrested for it, and it was going thru the court system.....Buffy had a hard time being in class with that boy......that same boy had been physically violent to all of my children several times over the years and charges had been filed several times. The school, in their infinite wisdom continued to TEASE Buffy and us and LOL at us and say watch- Buffy and that boy are going to marry one day. and they continuously demanded Buffy and that boy sit together in calss. Even if they hadn't, the class only had Buffy and 7 boys in it. it would have been hard to seperate them.
I believe in education.I truly believe in it. I went to college at 18..and took classes every single year for over 20 years, I got my cosmetology in late 70s, real estate license in early 80s, and STARTED nurseing school when I turned 40. I could only go part time, becuz I always worked 2 full time jobs since I was 12 years old. BUT I aced all my classes, solid straight As all thru college. Even with 3 kids, even with my seriously ill husband and even after I got sick myself. I do believe in education. BUT.......there are some times situations where things are just not good.
If this place is toxic to kt......and if school is not doing enough fast enough, it is possible they might not ever properly do the right thing. Our due process hearing officer warned me she could order the school to finally do the right thing properly, BUT the track record for our school, and the history with our dtr-----even IF they FINALLY did the right thing? They likely would not really do the right thing properly, and would continue under the radar to hurt difficult child.
Of course I have NO idea what your district is REALLY like. ANd I know our experience is extraordinarily negative. I understand we are not the norm at all.....AND their is some benefit to the kids now as compared to 10 years ago-----EVERYTHING our district NOW offers special kids has come about only since I took our district to due process. - so ALL our services have really only been in place a couple years. There are still a LOT of kinks to work out, still a lot of mindsets in the school staff to change, to get them around to understanding special needs kids, to get the staff to understand kids are not behaving these ways willfully. Becuz even tho they might SAY they understand......the truth is inside each staff person, some of them still do not get it that this is NOT necessarily willful, not in control of the child.....many do not understand that you cannot discipline this diagnosis out of a child. ANd if school staff is still thinking that way, they are going to teat our children that way, as if the child CAN control all the behaviors.
Reality is it has not been that long since schools or the general public accept these diagnosis'es. And until they accept them fully, they cannot begin to even try to understand, and until they do, they are not going to be able to SEE how they are affecting our children, or our childrens future.
Here I am with 2 extremely intelligent bright kids.....homeschooling both of them.....one becuz school caused her disassociative PTSD and major extreme panic....and the other becuz he lost his eye to traumatic injury and becuz of his older sibling, the school would not even try to do even the most minimal accomodations for his VISION issues.
Here I am, was a uqadriplegic with a very seriously mentally and physically ill husband in the home......homeschooling 2 special needs children.and continuing to pay the exorbitant real estate property taxes that fund our school here.
Buffy stopped at our HS in 2004. it took her 4 YEARS to be able to approach the building. Until today whenever we even just drove past the building, she hyperventilated, stopped breathing, broke out in hives and disassociated.
Our school was quite toxic to her.
