Thought Soup

I have been busy getting ready for KC's birthday bash tomorrow but Fiona has been much in my mind despite the ramping up toward our festivities.  Or maybe, in part, because of it.  In 9 yrs I have never been able to give her a birthday party.  She can't handle it. My most successful effort at celebrating her birthday involved bringing cake a day after her actual birthday.  She was never able to come to Robbie's parties.  He has had a lot of typical "kid parties" at roller rinks and bowling alleys.  Lots of whooping, boy energy that she could never handle without losing composure and raging.  It is so sad to me that her mental illness, her trauma history, and more, have deprived her of something like that.

One of the things Jane emailed me recently was that Fiona's mom was searching for her on a popular internet search engine where people try to find 'lost' family members.  I think it likely that her mom thinks Fiona is 18 and on her own now.  None of the the bio family members I have spoken with have ever seemed to grasp the mental health issues and the cognitive delays that Fiona has.  I am not sure whether they don't want to get it or just flat out don't. 

Jane was sending Fiona's social worker the info regarding the search.  I don't know what if anything would come of this.  At one point, I wanted desparately to make contact with Fiona's mom.  One of the therapists we were working with at the RTC felt that there was a possibility for healing if mom could give Fiona permission to attach, to move on and to not feel that she had to spend her life making excuses for what happened to mom and the other kids.

In an odd twist of fate, through my job, I came  in contact indirectly with mom.  In a paperwork way, not a face to face way.  I wanted to give this information to Fiona's therapist and social worker so that they could attempt a contact. At that time, the social worker had no idea how to contact mom.  Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, (who really knows in these tangled situations) my job's confidentiality laws precluded me passing on this information in any way.  I went to the top of my company to try and explain why it could help my child.  But it was not to be. 

I don't know what it would be like if Fiona were to have contact with her mom now.  She spent a lot of time when she was calm, feeling angry with mom for the family falling apart.  For the fact that she had so many children that she could not take care of and keep safe.  I always tried to explain that I was sure Mom never intended for things to happen as they did.  Sometimes people make mistakes even when they love their family very much. Sometimes they just are not able to do things they think they could do.

And here is the really sticky part.  I know that Fiona's mom has another child.  A child right around Lissa's age.  To the best of my knowledge she is parenting this child.  I fully support birth family importance, but I can't begin to wrap my mind around how that will look to Fiona.  I don't know how Rob would feel either, but I suspect that at least he feels loved and secure enough that we could work it through.  And there is much more ability for deeper thought, even though because  sharing emotions scares him, we would need to work slowly.

Of course thinking about it is all very silly anyway.  It is not anything I have any control over.  It isn't my decision.  I just hope that whatever the decision is, it is the right one for Fiona.