Wounded Sacred Dementia

My last foster care-provider
and -receiver story
is also a sad story
of my last special needs adoption
of bipolar born,
and oppositionally reared,
alcoholism.

My BiPolar Wounded Child
turned an auspicious five
on the day I first saw her,
and promptly rejected her,
not in dipolar person,
but in a picture of Little Brown Girl
with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
surrounded by huge multicolored balloons
like a bubble bath
gone delightfully wrong
for a demented princess,

And so has life proved to be
living in her often queenly raging
perpetual-childhood Reign,
not so wonderfully benign,
now mid-adolescent,
at least hormonally.

Dementia,
like Fetal Alcohol,
was on my list of
“Will not consider even meeting,
much less living and dying with.”

The local Department of Children and Families folks
knew I had a too-empty bedroom
and restorative therapeutic experience
and special needs caregiving training
they had provided,
patience I had practiced
retained
restrained
rewoven cooperatively.

I was certified for FirstAid, but not Last,
and administering medications
and receiving ecotherapies
and what to do when a child is choking
and not yet choking
and mouth-to-mouth heart palpitation,
and avoiding ear-to-ear mind pulpitization.
Although, truthfully, I believe my Permaculture Design certification
was more helpful
for restorative WinWin therapy consultations
with wounded kids,
and their not-well-trained adults.

SocialWorker specialists
invited me to consider four kids
waiting for a less toxic residence.

One was Dementia.

Another older girl,
also AfricanAmerican,
wanted to wait for a home
without any male presence
in a threatening house,
due to past unthinkably unfortunate events,
furthering her internal climate
of ZeroSoul Zone pathologies.

A one year old white boy
would never walk.
I couldn’t see how I sprint
through a successful WinWin family outing
with two wheelchairs to push around.
It was already discouraging enough
with one
to often choose exploring voices outside,
now rather staying more too sedately home muted,
ZeroZone diluted,
inside.

The fourth was an older hispanic boy
who looked WinWin perfect
but then was suddenly hospitalized,
for reasons never ominously or even reassuringly explained,
and it looked likely he might never leave alive;
LoseLose.

This was one of those moments
to pause
and wonder about therapeutic timing
and nutritious choices
creating WinWin nurturing branches
or not, more WinLose,
in others’ BusinessAsUsual lives,
not just my own ZeroZen SoulZone.

Dementia’s Social Worker
was WinLose pre-disposed and concomitantly desperate
to close her unfortunately least marketable case.
At five,
this BiPolar Dementia already had two priors.

Prior attempts at WinWin adoption
that ended LoseLose,
at best,
a toxic six weeks later.

She had bounced
from one unsuccessful
They Lose and I Lose foster home
to the next
and no one of them
trained for WinWin special needs alcoholic placements,
should there actually be such a training thing,
because they didn’t want such needs
demanding in their already too complicated
indoor lose some-lose Sum
ZeroSoul too dissonant lives.

I agreed to meet Dementia
because her SocialWorker had persuaded herself,
whether through ignorance
or incompetence
I still know not,
although I’ve heard no WinWin rule
that one is less ignorantly likely
to incompetently appear
without the other,
She was persuaded
Dementia was not alcohol baptized
BiPolar Competitive more than DiPolar CoOperative,
Marked for a lifetime of Trumpian Wounded Child struggle
with bipolar cognitive-affective dissonance,
dismay, despair,
dissonant eruptions,
in addition to her cerebral palsy lifetime
of stinky and wet incontinence.

I met Dementia
in her most successful
(least tragic) foster home.

Mom was surrounded by so many kids
she did not know what to do.
But remained wise enough
to promise strong toilet-training skills
if only so someone else
would finally change Dementia’s messy climate diapers.

I brought a Dorah doll
for her recently past fifth birthday
and asked her if she spoke Spanish.
I have no idea what she said in response,
probably not Spanish,
but she delighted in tearing the packaging
into confetti
with a suspiciously satisfied smile.

Dorah would live on for a few months,
gradually losing body parts.
An arm here,
a leg there.
She went bald,
unexpectedly one scissored night.
Then her capacity to speak
and sing evaporated,
a mixed blessing
in my opinion
not that it was often asked for,
or ever heeded,
or even appreciated when received.
Finally
Dorah’s merciful beheading
led to a tearful cremation.

I had a lot of questions
for FosterMom
because I could not understand a word
Dementia mumbled.
I wasn’t even sure
of distinguishing between Yes and No
other than the too obvious non-verbal communication
that filled in for NegativEnergy
dissonant messaging systems.

So I asked why she seemed to have no resonant consonants
and could she hear clearly?
resiliently?
creolizingly?
Is that a lazy left-brained eye?
Hard to tell because she needs both Left
and Right eye surgery
for lids she cannot bicamerally lift
enough to see the warm brown gleam
of her smiling therapeutic eyes.

What are those bald patches
in her hair?
How is she coming along,
or merely commingling,
with incontinence?
Why is she a choking risk?
Why does she gulp and swallow her food whole?
Why is she throwing her food
and other nutritional
nurturing elements,
toys,
soap,
colored markers?
Who is she talking to now,
because I can’t see anybody
in front of her eyes and ears
can you?

Lots of questions.
Not many informed responses.
So I told Dementia’s SocialWorker
I would take her as a pending pre-adoption placement
but only if she promises to leave her with me
long enough
so we can get her medical attention
needed for better long-term health-wealth results.

Wounded Sacred Dementia: Part Two

Dementia’s derelict WinLose SocialWorker
suboptimizingly hesitates
when I tell her
I have not changed my mind
about not adopting Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
into my vulnerable home
with a seven-year-old AfricanAmerican boy
blind
and unable to defend himself,
or even run paraplegically away,
in the likely event of predative attack
by a jealous younger girl-child
who needs to be the ego-nurtured baby addict
of her household.

My older two AfricanAmerican sons
could defend their Nubian Princely selves,
and most certainly would,
after all,
they had experience living with Tyrant
who was older
and bigger
and louder.

The SocialWorker commits to giving me six months
unless someone else comes along
as WinWin qualified
and ready to commit
to bipolar alcoholism
for ZeroZone Soul life.

We both knew how unlikely
this would unfold
in our shared HereNow
4Dimensional RealTime
of ZeroSoul understorying TaoSpirit.

So we got Dementia’s ears tubed,
all the better to hear our creolizing consonants with.
Her eyes WinWin opened
to communication’s PositivEnergy integrities
all the better to watch us form our cooperative consonants.
Her brain pictures
all the better to predict her bipolar
ZeroSoul RightBrain emotional swings.
Her scalp de-ringwormed
all the better to fill her pretty head
with ribbgons
and butterfly berets
on her own tiny yang-braids.
Her now open eyes
wearing glasses
all the better to watch us WinWin smile back
and too often LoseLose frown,
to be incontinently honest,
holding our noses and heads
against each LoseLose other.

By the end of the first week
she no longer needed to take food to bed with her.

By the end of the first day
she taught me
When Dementia rises from her feeding chair
during a meal,
more of an athletic event,
a wrestling match really,
to jump Yang-up and Yin-down
and run around,
this does not mean she is done eating,
or feeding,
or whatever.
She has other
messier ways
to let me know
when she’s All Done!!!!

Jumping during mealtime
is something about liking the food,
absorbing PositivEnergy nurture,
and needing to calm down
and express Yang-enthusiasm.

So I stop removing her food
until the pink plastic bowl is serenely empty.
Although she usually takes care of bowl removal
for me,
or against me–
not entirely sure she is sure.

I put out another bowl
if she asks for it
(no judgment)
and leave it out for her
to eat or feed on, again,
depending on your dipolar-bipolar perspective,
or to just check on from time to time
to be sure it remains there
and not yet LoseLose empty,
until she learns to trust me
to listen to her good food to eat
PositivEnergy messages
as much or little as she wants to share
whenever she wants.
All I require is a Please?
Not even ThankYou!
although that would be nice,
and PositivEnergy appreciated.

So, no need to hoard food
or bolt it down without chewing
or LoseLose throw it
before someone takes it away.

Eventually,
more like a slow groaning year,
Dementia’s SocialWorker
threatens to remove her from my care
rather than leaving her with me
until she finds a more appropriate pre-adoptive placement.

Is this a WinWin promise
or a WinLose threat?

I offer to help her recruit an ego-ecotherapeutic adult
or two
without young vulnerable children
and pets,
and too awfully many sharp knives
and scissors
and voices,
who might agree to adopt
if I provide monthly respite.

But the Professional SocialWorker
in her infinitely divine
ZeroSum Win-Lose wisdom
does not want my help.
She refuses to look for a household without high risks
of further Dementia dings,
or to even disclose Fetal Alcohol labels
to prospects for WinWin adoption,
Or to even find an appropriate foster placement
in which Dementia could more successfully
more restoratively,
with further resilience and self-sustainability,
wait and heal and hope
for that just-right therapeutic parent(s).

I am now persuaded
that Dementia’s best restorative justice and peace hope
is to be rescued from her demented SocialWorker
and, to be fair,
from a retributive lack of welfare committed system
designed to reward the heavily mortgaged SocialWorker
for punitive anti-BirthFamily decisions
not in Dementia’s best
short-term
or long-term healthy interests.

My AfricanAmerican husband and older sons agreed,
given SocialWorker’s issues,
fueled by denial of internal climate pathologies,
we should proceed toward WinWin committed adoption
and hope for our mutual therapeutic best,
and not worst,
somehow both care-giving and care-receiving democracy,
mutual creolizing acclimation
as a resilient Left and resonant Right
multiculturing household,
environment,
habitat,
home,
sort of a PositivEnergy networking nest.

I would have asked my youngest son
but would not have known how to ask,
nor how to misunderstand his non-verbal benign response.

So Dementia is still with us,
turning seventeen later this year,
our only post-millennial girl
living with five trans-millennial males,
deep listening with Dementia
teaching hard lessons:

Resilience is to LeftBrain cognitive dissonance
as RightBrain Resonance
is to affective disintegration,
as notnot PositivEnergy
WinWin democratic trust
is to NegativEnergy LoseLose autocratic anti-trust
in self or Professional SocialWorker other.

Resilience Left and Resonance Right
polypathic Yang and Polyphonic Yin
nurturing nutrients
for rich dense resonantly complex
WinWin attitudinal
and behavioral co-empathic systems.

Just as chaotically dissonant
WinLose angry
and LoseLose fearful ecopolitical systems
can grow wickedly complex interdependencies
unraveling GoldenRule cooperative
WinWin strategies
to sustain self-other perpetuating equanimity.

Resilient healthy gains
sustain
despite fading outdoor voice losses
of RightBrain therapeutic polyculturing resonance.

Dementia
has her own wild
outsideLeft–insideRight
polarizing resonance of voices
as deep and sacred
with each new outdoor RedSky dawn
as resilient resonant DNA-RNA Solidarity
Blues-inside imparts.