Failing My Girls

One of the hardest things about losing Alexis, Zoe, and Quinn was the feeling that I couldn't protect them. I tried, but it was out of my control and I completely failed to protect them.

The other hardest thing was that, at least with Quinn, I knew what to do to protect her, and the doctors ignored/didn't believe/wrote me off.

I am somehow back in the hell of being unable to protect my girls and unable to get medical professionals to take me seriously.

A has had issues with aggression since around age 3.25. We've been seeing a pscyhologist and OT since age 3.5. That gave him new skills, and reduced the aggressions some, but did not eliminate them. I worried that he'd get a reputation as, "that kid" at school when he started K. So we started medication shortly after he turned 5. The medication plus the skills made a huge difference. I could cook dinner for 20 minutes, or clean up after for 20, and let the kids play with each other on the same floor with no one getting hurt. Mornings were even better, with hours of collaborative play.

Then he woke up June 1 as if a light switch had flipped. Now I couldn't step away for 2 minutes, without him really hurting his sisters. He'd be happily sitting at the breakfast table making up Paw Patrol stories one second, then stabbing them with a fork the literal next second. I couldn't walk away to get a second helping if someone asked, or help E use the potty, or get a towel to clean a spill, or anything, without him hurting someone. He'd just transition from happy to violent in an instant. 

MrLines and I tried everything we could think of. More frequent therapy. Emergency medication change. Hours a day of dedicated A and Daddy 1:1 time, in case this was attention seeking behavior. The violence didn't waver at all. A shut T's arm in the door. He pushed E down the stairs. He bruised my ribs by kicking me there, and stabbed me in the hand so badly I couldn't use my thumb for a few days. He and T were still sharing a room, and for the first time ever, he'd wake up early (unsual for him), and before anything at all happened, he'd walk over to T's bed and hit her while she slept.

And just like that, I'm back in the hell where I can't protect my girls. My beautiful, living, breathing, thinking girls, who both now flinch when A runs toward them. It's the damdest thing, because 30% of the time when he comes over, it's to give a hug or a kiss, or to bring them a toy or play. Of course, when they flinch, or I block him because I assume he's going to hit, not hug, it reinforces with him this message that he's not safe, and it makes the behaviors worse. So not only can I not protect my girls, I'm damaging my little boy when I try to do so. He seems genuinely distraught by some of this. He can't figure out what's happening with him any more than we can. He is so sad, as is T, that we moved him into a different room. 

This is long enough I'll save the 'writing me off' part for another day, but I'm struggling. In some very real ways, this is worse than losing the older girls. That was a moment that was out of my control and then a lifetime of missing them. And I don't think they ever actually knew that I failed them. This is an ongoing failure on my part to help any of my kids. The girls are looking to me to protect them, and I can't make it work 100% of the time. Closing T's arm in the door? We were coming home from school and T and A got out of the car first, because they can undo their own buckles. In the time it took me to get E out of her seat, A had done that to T. It doesn't help that T and E won't always follow my instructions like, "stay in the kitchen with me until I put the food away." or "T, come to the bathroom with me while I help E with the potty." They want free range of the house, and in pushing past me to go where they want to go, they make themselves vulnerable to their brother. When they do that, I lose physical separation I'd bee maintaining, and someone gets hurt. So I'm failing, every single day, and I don't know what to do.