Annoyed

I went into the office today, and it was a busy day.  We finished the material for this Sunday, and Administrative Assistant and I both brought some things home to work on to make next week a little easier.  We'll be in the office Monday and Tuesday, and then won't be back until January 2.  Next week the focus will be finalizing the January newsletter. 

This afternoon I tackled the paperwork I needed to get in for Daughter.  I also dealt with the pharmacy again.  I've called several times.  Each time they tell me there are mistakes in the bill.  Each time I ask for an itemized statement.  I've never seen an itemized statement or a credit.  Daughter's Case Manager tried to get the agency to deal with it.  They told me to wait until they got things straightened out before I paid the bill.  They never got back to me.  Today I sent them a check for $171.  That  was all of Daughter's allotted spending money for the last three months plus a check I got from the insurance company.  It paid less than 10% of her bill.  I've been avoiding this stuff, so I thought I'd feel better once I was done. 

A forum of clergy types that I am a part of was discussing a hymn with the following verse:

For just and unjust, a place at the table,
Abuser, abused, with need to forgive,
In anger, in hurt, a mindset of mercy,
For just and unjust, a new way to live.

The discussion was about whether the verse would be too hard for the abused.  Administrative Assistant and I marked the hymn in our hymnal so we won't sing that book, and I entered the discussion.  Someone said the hymn was fine and that anyone who couldn't sit across the table from their abuser had some work to do. 

I didn't like that comment.  I responded that I thought it was fine for the abusers to have a place at the table, but Daughter's abusers would never sit at the same table with her if I could do anything about it. 

Adoptive parents are told that with love and stability the child they are adopting will heal and be fine.  That's not always the case.  If there has been extreme abuse and neglect, it's not the case in most cases.  Daughter did not have enough verbal interaction when the language center of her brain was developing:  the result is Central Auditory Processing Disorder.  Her receptive language skills are at the level of a 3 year old.  She has severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  She doesn't understand cause and effect thinking.  She is permanently damaged.  She has done a great deal of healing, but it takes a bunch of psychiatric medications to keep her close to stable.  I sometimes wonder where she'd be today if she'd been with me since birth.  I suspect she'd be working and living independently. 

I think she has forgiven her abusers, but to be in their presence would trigger her PTSD, and the results would not be pretty.  She can't even handle phone conversations with them.  There are so many people who don't understand.  They point out she was too young, and doesn't remember what happened.  She was young, and she can't tell us anymore (though she told me about performing oral sex on a family member when she was much younger), but her body does.  Her body responds to triggers, and it's not something she can control.