Scootch over...

JJJ

Active Member
While Kanga hasn't turned 18 yet, she is out of our home for good and our issues with her seem to belong more on this board. So, please scootch over and make room at the table....I brought pie!

:thanksgiving1:

Pretty sure everyone here "knows" Kanga but let me know if you need a recap.

I seem to be a glutton for punishment. While I have enjoyed not having to speak to her outside of family therapy for a couple of months, I'm torn about allowing her to cut off all contact with us when she is still, at least technically, a child. So I suggested that she be allowed to e-mail us. No response yet. They aren't going to force her if she refuses.

How do you deal with violent adult children when you need to keep them at a significant physical distance for your safety but still feel the need to somehow still provide emotional support??? I have the 'keep her at a distance' part down cold. What I am struggling with is creating a way that she can contact us without being able to harass us. I'm really hoping e-mail solves that issue.
 

klmno

Active Member
LOL! JJJ, that's why I've been taking peeks over here for the past year or so. I NEVER would have dreamed that when difficult child was arrested two weeks after his 14th birthday and after 6 psychiatric hospital stays in 3 mos that we'd only have 3 more mos living together, with him underage. BUt I'm thinking more and more that I might as well get used to the PE area now.

I don't know the answer to your question though- I'm here to gain knowledge for next year.
 
P

PatriotsGirl

Guest
Actually, JJJ, since I am kinda new to the site - I don't know the history of Kanga. I just read everything going on now and a part of me wants to feel kind of bad for her, but I am sure that is because I am absolutely clueless on her past.

Welcome to PE :)

I thought a magic switch would turn once difficult child turned 18. Only difference is that I am no longer legally responsible for her, but she is still in my heart and I still worry daily. :(
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
JJJ, do you think email and maybe a specifically made myspace or facebook page just for Kanga would work? If none of the rest of you use say Myspace, then I would go for myspace. However I do think you can have more than one FB page. You could have a Kanga one and a real one. Im thinking of myspace or FB because if you choose to put up a note or a picture or something...heaven only knows what...or should she ever want to do something like that for you...she could.
 

Kathy813

Well-Known Member
Staff member
JJJ,

There is always room for one more at the table. Would that happen to be apple pie? I like it warm with vanilla ice cream, please.

After all that you have been through, I would be worried about physical contact. How are you going to keep her from coming to your home once she is 18?

In the meantime, I think email is a great way to go. Will that satisfy the requirements to keep the funding? I know that you were worried about that.

~Kathy
 

Nancy

Well-Known Member
Welcome JJJ and pull up a chair, we have lots of room here. I'd love a recap, it's hard to keep everyone straight.

Many of us here are in a limbo kind of state. Out difficult child's are not kids anymore, they are legal adults, but they can't yet take care of themselves. And so we are forced to decide how far we are willing to go to support them or what contact we want to have with them even though they are no longer living with us.

I think email is a good way to go, you can always just ignore it if it's abusive.

Nancy
 

slsh

member since 1999
:rofl: JJJ, I thought you were bringing *scotch* (long day at work, LOL). I was so excited.:wine:

I think e-mail is perfectly reasonable (a new email addy, of course, in case she takes to raging in writing). By this age with- thank you, I had pretty much stopped initiating contact with- him, because inevitably it turned into the usual garbage (cursing, everything was my fault - you know the drill). That last year in TLP, we didn't hear from him much. And once he left, it was a solid 4 months of nothing and then only sporadic for quite a while.

Of course, still had the monthly goal reviews, the ever so frequent AWOL calls from staff, the IEPs and such, but in terms of non-TLP/treatment related communication with- him, not much.

Absolutely - wouldn't force communication. That can only end badly.
 
S

Signorina

Guest
Welcome, I do not know the back history...so I will just scootch over and add another cushion to the bench...(I saw Scotch too LOL)
 

svengandhi

Well-Known Member
I would set up a new email addy just for her that is password protected so your other kids can't accidentally read the mails before you vet them. I wouldn't set up anything with pics because you said you fear for your other kids if she knows what they look like now. I had to stop sending my parents pics of my kids because they insisted on forwarding them to my psychotic, Borderline (BPD) sister who had threatened to kill me to get control of my kids and their imagined money.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
I think that a fb page would be bad if it is in ANY way connected to your other page or any of your friends. She can still get one, friend someone who knows you, and see things that you have posted that they comment about or whatever. It is one of the things I don't like about fb. I just don't like having pics I sent to one relative popping up on anothers, esp with some of my relatives. I don't care if they talk to each other, but gfgbro isn't the only crazy relative and I don't want many of them to know too much about us.

So maybe myspace because you don't use it often?

But email would be better. Separate email acct, maybe "[email protected]" or whatever that you ONLY use to contact her? It also gives you more proof of what she says and when than I think fb does. I wouldn't share pictures, at least not the first couple of years she is an adult. Also don't let the other kids contact her if you can stop it.

For those that haven't been around long enough to know the history: Kanga is in Residential Treatment Center (RTC) wth limited contact because she was not only violent, she made more than one serious attempt to kill the entire family, or to kill one or another sibling at a time. She is determined to do what she wants when she wants, is manipulative as it is possibel for a person to be, and feels the family has wronged her by putting limits/boundaries on her/her behavior and by not providing everything she ever wanted. She is skilled at the poor little orphan girl who's adoptive parents don't love her and LOTS of people fall for it, esp the tdocs/Residential Treatment Center (RTC) staff the first few months. For YEARS Kanga has been on "in sight" supervision or stricter because she will take/create any/every opportunity to behave inappropriately with members of either sex, and can turn violent in the brink of an eye. She is also a runner, who makes plans that are fairly well planned/executed. She is far more hard-core than the other kids at Residential Treatment Center (RTC), no matter what Residential Treatment Center (RTC) she has been at. JJJ has done ALL that is humanly possible and yet almost zero progress/growth has happened in all the years I have known the family. EVERY time she gets a teeny bit of freedom she uses it to take advantage of someone/something in ways that are pretty scary, in my opinion.
 

JJJ

Active Member
Thanks Susie...that pretty much sums it up. Gosh, she is so scary....that is the hardest part.
 

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
I'd go the email route. She can communicate, but you don't have to respond to anything abusive.

Welcome to PE. :)

And I hope that's pumpkin pie with real whipped cream. Yum! (which just reminded me of another last minute item I have to pick up from the store lol )

((hugs))
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
I was thinking more long term into the future when she might actually grow a brain. Thats why I considered Myspace if you didnt use it. though I do know you can have two completely separate FB pages with different names. I know someone who does. She simply doesnt invite anyone who knows her from one life to the other. One is her professional page and the other is her private page.
 

JJJ

Active Member
Kanga wants her own facebook so I think I'll do the secondary page there. I'm so hoping that she doesn't remember anyone's name from her 'friends' when she lived here. I'm going to have to be very vigilant for a while and check the kids pages every day and defriend anyone that friends her to keep her away from us.

Facebook is awesome for normal people but a nightmare for those trying to avoid a stalker. But so many people use FB as their main method of communicating that it is almost impossible to be part of most social groups or teams without a page.

I wonder how long it will take Kanga to stumble across her "loving" birthmom's page that lists her phone number and asks "her" kids to call her. Kanga will buy any story that bmom tells her. I get that the truth is too painful (birthmom knew what bdad was doing to Kanga and did nothing to protect her, stopped visiting Kanga long before we came into the picture, signed her rights away because she was tired of coming to court, and never used the agency to send us even one letter.)

Ugh...my thoughts about Kanga's coming adulthood are not kind.
 

CrazyinVA

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Welcome, JJJ :) Plenty of room here! I agree that a separate email account is a good idea. Another option as far as phone calls: I recently brought up Google Voice in another thread, where you can get a free phone number that forwards to your regular phone. You could set up a special "Kanga number" so that she'd be the only one who'd ever call it, and you'd know it's her when you see it come through. You'd be able to easily screen calls and texts. Better than caller id, in my opinion, because she can't just call you from a different phone.

Now, about that pie .... I have some awesome home-brewed Pumpkin Ale that will go with it.
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
oh good idea on that phone number Crazy...that would be excellent for JJJ. Everyone could get a Kanga number...lol

unbelievable about the "loving birth mother" ugh.
 

JJJ

Active Member
I love the Google number! That's a great idea. She knows our current numbers but we may change them and then get her a Google-number.

Right now she has limited, supervised computer use but they anticipate unsupervised use (at public libraries, etc) by mid-summer at the latest.
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
well if she has unsupervised use, she will have a facebook page in no time. I would block yours down tight and then set up a very public sanitized Myspace page just for Kanga. if and when Kanga says why arent you on FB, tell her you dont do that but you are on Myspace. Let her use that. Keep your worlds apart.
 

dashcat

Member
The google number is definately a great idea. I'm so sorry for all you've been through with her. I'm crossing my fingers that she - as Janet says - grows a brain someday.
Dash
 
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