[rachelsmom]

Hello,

My husband and I have been matched with a sweet 12 year old girl and she was very excited about becoming part of our family. We've started weekend visits, and TPR is set for the first of June. Now, the girl has started having issues. She's using ugly language at school, says she's angry and sad about losing her siblings (although she hasn't seen them in years) and is having suicidal thoughts. Now she's hospitalized and under observation. It's just thrown us for a loop. Anyone else experience this?

[stevenstwin]

I'm sorry to hear that things are so rought right now. I think this is to be expected in some form or other, although it does seem that her issues are particularly severe. ANY change in placement, even a "good" one, is still a disruption, and would certainly bring up any unresolved grief and loss issues. Our therapist described it this way - we are always one loss behind. If they continue to pile up without being dealt with, each new loss throws us right back to the first. My foster son deals with that - his mom died when he was six, and he's since had other sorts of losses. Now that he is facing TPR, he *seems* to be grieving the death of his mom, and the loss 5 years ago of siblings placed separately MORE than the imminent loss of this family (an uncle, his wife, and their two kids). I hope that they can get a timely and accurate diagnosis for your daughter - trauma, attachment disorder or whatever, and get her back on track with appropriate treatment. ((HUGS)) to you, too - the suicidal ideation must be pretty scary for you.