Friday, March 16, 2012

Road Trips

To catch up, Calliope was removed from our home January 18 by County Mental Health Crisis. She was transferred from SLO inpatient to Aurora Vista Del Mar in Ventura even after I talked with the SLO doctor about how poorly run a hospital it is. We had decided that we needed to find a longer term treatment option and decided on one in Sherman Oaks. The morning I was to drive her from Ventura to Sherman Oaks became a circus.
Child Welfare Clowns contacted the hospital and told them Calliope had to know where she was going. Of course she flipped out and found out later that she was threatening to crash the car to kill me. Our plan to break the news was to do it at the hospital with staff present and make it sound like a cool place filled with cool teen girls. If she freaked, she'd be readmitted to the hospital. If it was cool, I'd drive her and check her in. Sooooo… we had to hire a guy to drive her. I drove to Ventura to give the driver a check for $450 and Calliope's suitcase.
Calliope's stay at the Sherman Oaks house was short. LA County Sheriff came to take her after she make threats to staff and injured a girl that had to have a head injury treated at the hospital. She stayed at Aurora Charter Oaks Hospital for maybe a week, and she threatened me when I visited her there. It was decided that she needed to go out of state where there aren't as many laws restricting staff's ability to keep her and other patients safe. She agreed to allow her grandma and grandpa to drive her from Covina to Bakersfield then to Reno, Nevada.
She's been at this new place for over two weeks and has had both sets of grandparents visit. Our family went up for a therapy session (only grown ups), and it was a quick one. She was perseverating on this list she sent and us not bringing every item on that list. We were in the little room with the therapist a couple minutes when Calliope kicked the coffee table into my leg, several times. The therapist asked if she needed to call someone to help, and Calliope said no. She was excused, and the therapist took her back to her room. Chris and I waited.
It seems that these people all want to start in square one and ignore all the other times we have taken that first step. They aren't seeing that Calliope's brain is really sick and needs treatment. She threatens to punch the doctor in the face, and they are still wanting her behaviors to be 'attention seeking' because she doesn't have the relationship she wants with her mom. How can these professionals be such dummies?!