You know what they say about all therapists?

That they need their own therapist. Which makes me wonder what that means for foster moms with chronic illness and a psychology degree. For me it means I have 5 therapists in my life. My own. JB's therapist, LM & Gabby's therapist, LM & Gabby's trauma therapist, and the new family therapist. It means that I am CONSTANTLY talking about feelings and techniques and trying to analyze and figure out where feelings are coming from. It means that at every turn we stop and talk about the feelings even if its in the middle of Target.

Which was the case the day before school started. We finished getting the last of the supplies and sat down to eat at the Pizza Hut in the food court at Target. School starting was/is a big trigger for my kids. It is their big obvious marker of time (even though they came into care at the end of June). And it finally dawned on them that "oh hey I've been in foster care a year. My Mom said she only gets 2 years and that doesn't leave much time." In entered the anxiety and fear and along with them came rage and tantrums.

So Little Mama turns to me in said food court and says "Mom I have a really important question to ask you and I need you to be totally honest with me." Uh WOW. Can we just stop and recogonize how well she model this? So I said ok. And she says if we don't go back to my Mom would you and Dad adopt us. And no joke the food court lights were shut off since they were closing.

Its a good thing she asked me this BEFORE school started because the following week I'm not so sure I would have answered with conviction like I did. I said Yes if this was something the judge would allow us to do. And then of course reitterated that this wasn't the goal...Everyone's working hard.... But apparently this is something being given a lot of thought since Gabby asked if she "stayed with us" if she could still go to her doctor.

Unfortunately, the case worker doesn't see a clear direction for the case. We go back to court for an update next week. We are waiting for a pysch eval on Mom and to see how family therapy goes. This weeks adventure was unsupervised time eating and putting on makeup after family therapy when the therapist left and the driver/supervisor never came back in the house.

In an effort to calm the craziness I'm reading Beyond Consequences Logic and Control which talk a lot about being in touch with your own emotions. I've been made painfully aware that Jelly Bean is a trigger for me because she brings up my childhood issues. She is my brother living in my house agian. My ADD brother who was always getting in trouble which meant I was constantly being overlooked. It also meant I feel tremendous pressure to overachieve and be perfect as to not add to the yelling. Don't worry about Foster Mom she's so independent she can do x, y, z on her own. Which meant I didn't know HOW to ask for help or SHARE with others that they were hurting my feelings. And I spent the year prior to the kids arriving working really hard at overcoming and healing. And I have to admit I'm having a little trouble with that lately.