Cutting to the Chase (Part III)

(Continued from Part II)

What is it about the mention of the police that sends you into a panic?
What did the police want? Were they going to arrest her? Lock Cinderella away for her own good?
SIL needed to know where Cinderella's therapy appointment was. The name of LCSW, her phone number, office location.
(How they did not know this is beyond me. She's only been LIVING WITH THEM since January!)
I ask to speak with the officer and provide him with all of the details need to track Cinderella down.
Then I call my friend, LCSW and then Prince Charming to fill them in.
What is she fucking stupid???
PrinceCharming's reaction is less about Cinderella's behavior and more about his own insecurities over how to parent from a distance while still recovering from Traumatic Brain Injury.
It doesn't not surprise me.
She's just looking for attention!
Yes. Yes she is. Of course she is.
I remind him of a night not that long ago when I received a suicidal text from him.
"Would you have liked it if I told you to knock it off and stop looking for attention?"
He got my point. In his silence I knew he was recalling my empathetic ear that night. How I talked him in from the proverbial ledge and helped him see things a little clearer.
Cinderella needed that same kind of empathy and guidance now.
We knew she was ok. 
She was doing what teens do best...complaining in an over-the-top melodramatic fashion to a friend.
Only this time her complaints triggered a domino effect that she could not have anticipated.
Out of concern, her friend reported her "threat" to a school guidance counselor, who in turn notified the school Psychologist who then contacted the local police.
Once again, valid or not, this is the reality we were given, and it was met with the only response that made sense.
LCSW contacted the state troopers as soon as Cinderella arrived for her appointment to assure them she was safe and sound, in one piece, and very much ALIVE.
Prince Charming hopped a train that night to head back up to his parents' house so he and Cinderella could figure out next steps.
Two days later, Cinderella was admitted into a psychiatric hospital.
Safe within the walls of this sanctuary, she would undergo intensive group and private therapies for two weeks. She would finally get that psych evaluation LCSW asked for two months prior and was prescribed Zoloft to ease her anxiety.
Her visitors were restricted. Based on her initial intake interviews, the hospital staff determined that her mother was 70% to blame for Cinderella's emotional stress, and that it would be in her best interest to not have any contact with Maleficent while undergoing treatment. Her father, myself and her grandparents were the only people allowed to call or visit.
The night before she was admitted and for close to a week following, PrinceCharming tried contacting Maleficent to let her know what was happening with their daughter. True to form, Maleficent refused to answer or return Prince Charming's calls. Instead, opting to call Cinderella's school daily to see if she was in attendance.
Ultimately, at my urging, PrinceCharming left the details of Cinderella's hospitalization in a voicemail.
I mean, why would he want to force a phone conversation with her anyway?
That weekend, Prince Charming and I visited Cinderella.
Together we let her know she has a support system in us. That we loved her and were proud of her bravery.
By the time she was discharged, Cinderella was stronger. She had begun to learn valuable tools on how to stand up to her mother and those around her.
She learned that her feelings matter. That she has a voice and it deserves to be heard.
She learned radical acceptance - that she can't change the behaviors of those around her, but that she can change her reactions to them.
A lesson that I learned along my own personal journey as her WickedStepmom.
Unlike me, she was learning these lessons much sooner.

And somewhere along the lines, in finding her voice, she's expressed her wishes to live with me once again.
Though, not to Maleficent...who is planning to try and get custody of her (yet again).

Cutting to the Chase (Part II)

(Continued from Part I)

The revelation of Cinderella's cutting behaviors was shocking to say the least.
At first I didn't want to believe it.
"Are you sure? I've never seen any evidence of it...how can this be?"
I was a SAHM for fuck's sake! How did I not see this?????
PrinceCharming's reaction was similar.
She's just looking for attention.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Nevertheless it was out in the open now. To whatever extent she was doing it, she was now talking about it openly and asking for help.
This was the reality we were presented with, so this is what we had to respond to.
LCSW was reluctant to take her on as a client because she didn't have many "cutters" in her practice, but made an exception in our case.
Cinderella promised to commit herself to the therapy process and not to hurt herself.
PrinceCharming promised to get to her in for a Psych eval so she could be put on some meds to lessen her anxiety.
For two months, I dutifully took Cinderella to every appointment. She liked LCSW. She opened up to her and spoke honestly about her worries, her feelings towards her Mom and her experiences while living there, her grandparents... how she feels like a burden.
Unwanted & Unloved.
Daddy didn't want me.
Mommy couldn't handle me.
Now Grandma and Grandpa make me feel like a burden.
I don't know if it was because I was now aware that she was cutting, or because now that she admitted it she wasn't trying so hard to hide it from us, but Cinderella's scars and scabs suddenly became blatently obvious.
Red, angry lines across her forearms. Deep scabs on her knees and her thighs began appearing in greater numbers.
It was like her inner pain began to take on a life of its own and was forcefully trying to claw and scratch itself OUT from within the deep recesses of her psyche.
Her unhappiness was bubbling up to the surface. Feelings that she had been stuffing for so many years were being acknowledged, exposed and dealt with.
It overwhelmed her.
Then... I got the phone call.

Wicked, it's SIL...is Cinderella with you?

"No. But she's on her way to her therapy appointment."
My mother was having surgery that day, so I was unable to drive Cinderella to her weekly therapy appointment that week.  I asked a friend to take care of it for me.
SIL's voice is high-pitched and panicky.
Something was wrong.
Then, she tells me...

Well it's really important that I know where she is. Cinderella told a friend at school today that she wanted to kill herself. The state troopers are here looking for her.

It had been about an hour since my friend texted that he was on his way to pick Cinderella up.
An hour since I had any confirmation that this day would be like any other normal therapy day.

Cutting to the Chase

With Cinderella now living closer to home with my ex-inlaws (UN-laws, as the case may be), I'm better able to lend my support when needed.
And believe me, it's needed.
(After all these are the same people who raised Prince Charming and his siblings...and none of them escaped unscathed.)
My first priority was getting Cinderella back into therapy.
She had been seeing a lovely girl for over a year prior to her exile to Maleficent's. It helped.
But for one excuse reason or another, Cinderella's mother had not found a therapist to continue therapy while she was living with her and Diablo.
As soon as Cinderella was relocated back into our Kingdom, I broached the subject to Prince Charming with a sense of urgency.
After her recent disclosures of what she had to emotionally endure while living with Maleficent, and hearing her fears about turning our just like Mom, coupled with Prince Charming's accident, injuries AND our non-yet-final divorce... oh boy....
Prince Charming and I agreed it was needed, and after giving him ample time to take care of it himself I volunteered to make the calls.
Cinderella's prior therapist was about to go on maternity leave, so we chose option #2.
My co-worker, mentor and friend - LCSW. The same therapist that helped me navigate these past two years and reclaim my life and power.
Cinderella was comforted to know that LCSW was familiar with most of our fairytale and she was relieved to not have to re-tell her entire Tale of Woe to a stranger, and that she had many 15 year old clients.
It was instant *like*.
LCSW was cool (she texts her teen clients), older (like a mother) and most of all - alternative and holistic. She's quite in tuned with the 6th Sensory stuff that my kids all seem to be pre-disposed to.
With Prince Charming's approval I make the necessary arrangements, set up her first appointment and agree to handle the weekly transportation.
Twenty minutes in to her first appointment, LCSW emerges from her office, leaving Cinderella inside for a moment.
She audibly exhales. Rolls her eyes. And makes a pretend motion as if she wants to choke me.
Umm...
Wicked, this child needs to be hospitalized AND medicated. Do you know she's been cutting herself since 6th grade?


(to be continued...)