Ongoing Damage part 2

Over a year ago, my preteen girl was diagnosed with mono or a malady very like it.  It was almost impossible to wake her for school.  I had to dress her like a doll and still often couldn't wake her afterward.  Every day felt like the improv game of dead bodies where I had to manipulate a floppy person who was almost as tall as I am.  I finally just let the school know she was not coming or coming late every morning we couldn't wake her.  Summer couldn't come soon enough.  Over the summer, she got better but not all the way.  She showed every sign of chronic fatigue. 

Recently, I called the doctor's office to get some ideas of how to help my girl through these symptoms, which still haven't faded entirely.  I figured she still had the mono, which I had heard could become chronic.  When I talked to the nurse and told her my perception of the situation, she suggested good vitamins and getting her walking in the sun for vitamin D.  But the doctor said these symptoms are psychosomatic, that they have their root in psychology.  He recommended we get a therapist and/or have her work through a kids' therapy workbook. There's no pill to fix her.  There's no easy fix.  And it all started with the early trauma and tragedy of losing her sister on which the trauma of a bully, of a teacher that created an emotionally damaging environment, and other life events have only built to change her from an extreme extrovert who trusted the world to an extreme introvert drained by too much "peopling." 

On one level, she's done a lot of healing since her traumas.  She's gained a lot of confidence and self-assurance in her gifts and abilities.  On the other hand, it's hard to know how far she has to go and what being healed looks like.  All I can do is be there for her, give her those workbooks the doctor recommends since she has no interest in therapists, and help her turn toward God for the healing the atonement offers. 

Deja Vu

6 1/2 years ago, we went through hell with the state after my baby's death.  They tried to blame us for her death, even though it was clearly an accident.  I want to say it was a nightmare, but you wake up from a nightmare.  I am still scared of knocks at my door.  As I said a few weeks ago, they committed multiple crimes and lied in multiple ways in an attempt to frame us for negligent homicide.  For ten months, they could knock at any time and take our kids away just because they had the legal right.  And we could offer no proof nor defense that they'd accept, even upon the admitted and proven lies of one of their workers.  I'd rather face a firing squad than face losing my kids.  All of this is a big reason we have struggled to heal from my baby's loss.

This last week, I had a representative of the state show up on my doorstep unannounced.  Why?  Because somebody in the cafeteria saw my boy eating cold ramen and my girl expressing frustration about being hungry.  Did that busybody bother to ask why?  No.  She assumed it was because they didn't have food at home.  So she reported us to DCSF.  And my kids were interrogated in their school because we hadn't yet filled out the Reverse Miranda paperwork that would protect them from the state and give them the rights they should have to only be interrogated in the presence of parents and a lawyer.  That paperwork is now in place, so my kids don't have to be made to feel insecure in their school and pitted against their parents by people who pretend to care.

Later the day the DCSF worker showed up most recently, I made the inquiries that busybody in the cafeteria didn't bother to make.  My boy was eating the cold ramen he packed himself because he decided he preferred cold ramen over waiting for the lunch monitor, an upper-grade kid, to cook his food for him.  He figured it took too long.  Why did my girl complain about hunger that day? Because a lunch monitor screwed up the food my girl packed for herself then threw it away.  And to top it off, the person who made the call to the state was in charge of lunch monitors.

So basically, this woman blamed me for her negligence, thereby making my kids' school feel less safe and launching me back into the nightmare that was the ten months following my baby's death.  And it did feel like we were launched back in hell for the days that followed that knock on the door a little over a week ago.  Over cold ramen and a misunderstanding of the reason for a nine-year-old's histrionics.  This is called jerky behavior on the part of that school employee.  The reps of the state disappeared when we proved conclusively the latest call was based on misinformation and that they had no grounds.  But will there be any negative consequences visited on the cafeteria worker for a false report?  There should be since it's illegal to misreport, but there won't be.  Instead, we get to live with the thought that there is a dangerous person in the cafeteria, one who thinks trivial items like one day's unsatisfactory lunch and cold ramen sound like abuse, one who would rather sneak around and conduct witch hunts rather than ask questions and communicate openly.

For 6 1/2 years, I feared the state's visit since the first time, when they showed how unethical they could be in a legal system that validates anything they want to do under the false assumption they wouldn't lie.  I should feel triumphant that we fended off their attack.  Instead, I feel insecure in my home, in my kids' school, everywhere because the illusion of safety for me and my kids is gone again.  And the memories of those tragic days of loss and victimization have resurfaced.   I'm trying to regain my peace.  But it will take a long, long time.