I have promised to blog more but have so much to update that I don't really know where to start. I guess this post will start with the boys. With that out of the way, hopefully I will be more motivated to tackle the other stuff. Okay.
Izaiah has been in a children's psychiatric hospital for almost 11 weeks now. I struggle with sharing the "psychiatric" part of the name because I feel like so many harsh judgments come with that. He began to get too strong for us, and even with Mark staying home during the day to be "on call" we were all so exhausted and unable to keep up with his special needs. He got very violent at one point and the police had to be dispatched.
I am sharing this because it is real and because I believe in being genuine and humble. It is my biggest prayer that God will take all of this craziness in our lives and with our family and completely flip it for His glory in the future. In the meantime, I don't want to get accustomed to hiding behind secrets, even if it makes me feel vulnerable.
We could not keep Izaiah safe anymore. He was too big, too smart, too strong, had too much endurance, etc. We made one of the hardest decisions we have yet to make and admitted him to Hawthorne. We have since been on an emotional roller coaster. We get to see him two nights a week and on weekends for a few hours. He has been very clingy, very emotional, very angry, apologetic, tough, brave, loving, hateful, kind, etc. all depending on the day. It has been really hard to leave him each time. We have family therapy with him each week and have made some pretty big process. "Pretty big process", though, still seems like a tiny drop in the bucket. The doctors have been weaning him off most of his medications, and now we are at the point of finding which ones need to be added and which ones are unnecessary. Once a medication is added, we have to begin at a small dose and wait 2-4 weeks to see how it affects him. They can then begin increasing the dosage very slowly. If the medication does not work well with his body, we have to wean him off it and start over with a new medication. The whole process has been so slow. It has been crushing, watching other people parenting your child, and having to leave him day after day after day. We are pressing on, though, because we want to get this all figured out in hopes that he will not have to be hospitalized again for a long time.
Normally Dre is the easy one, but as soon as Izaiah left he made a string of very bad choices. His judge told him to straighten up or he would send him to a residential facility for the summer. Dre said he wanted to move out anyway, so fast forward a few weeks and the judge ordered him to go to residential. He has been there for 2 1/2 weeks. He is so mad at us and says he will never come home. I'm sure it is a very hard thing to be loved so unconditionally by an entire family after feeling so rejected by the first one. He is self sabotaging and it is so sad. Dre is, by nature, a good kid. A genuinely good kid. He has to work hard to get bad grades and to make bad choices. Mark is having a really hard time with him being gone. I am, as well, but am not as much of a basket case I thought I would be. I see this as a time for Dre to understand what it is really like to be without us. He thinks we are so strict and all up in his life, and of course he does - he's a teenager. Please pray for him. I'm trying to tough it out and not go visit him, as he requested.
While having the boys out of the house is maybe the best thing for right now, it is very difficult to be without them. As parents, Mark and I feel so helpless and inadequate. We are trying to trust God with it and not rely on medication and our own knowledge. I feel contradictory, though, because we are relying on medication and trying all kinds of different parenting method. It's like, at what point do you stop asking God for food and just go find a job? I don't think there is anything wrong with being proactive like that, but we are trying to get in the habit of seeking God's wisdom first. Please pray for us while we try to not be backseat drivers.
