I got this FABULOUS bumper sticker from a dear friend a couple weeks ago. It made me laugh outloud, because she does know us well. On the first day it wasn’t raining, I plopped it on the back of my car. It so describes our life…we’re STUCK! (And I don’t even have one of those vacation t-shirts with the catchy phrases to show for all my labors).

There are two things of basic “stuckness” around our ranch:

1. Trauma. LuLu, through the advent of puberty, has made it abundantly clear that she’s still stuck in a certain area of her trauma. Her therapists advise that it is the “core” of the abuse she endured and that much of her emotionality and response to the world is rooted there. We’ve known for some time about the trauma, and tried many different approaches to reach it. But, it remains deeply imbedded, much like a severe splinter that you can’t dig out. LuLu’s response it to try to rid herself of this trauma. She tries in very odd, dysfunctional ways. Probably because of her OCD, she obsesses on the trauma and things associated with her life at the orphanage…babies and diapers. It’s heart wrenching to hear her sob, “No one should have ever treated a baby that way.” And it’s overwhelming to watch her so severely impacted by something that happened so long ago that none of us can change. But, then, that is the damage of trauma, isn’t it?
2. School District Battles. Just like we can’t get LuLu over the trauma, we can’t get the school district to understand it. They appear to have no clue as to why placing her in an alternative school with children with severe emotional and behavior disorders would not be a good fit for her. They don’t understand the level of anxiety that would be triggered by seeing a classmate restrained daily, or “escorted” to the de-escalation room. They don’t understand her need for low sensory stimuli, not a classroom of 12+ students, each with their own severe behaviors. They don’t seem to grasp how much more difficult it will be for her to learn appropriate social skills in a setting of similarly disabled peers. We tell them…but we’re stuck…they don’t get it.

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