We got a date picked for my leaving training home. Well, Arda got one. It’s going to be June 1. I’m too confused to write a clear entry on it. Renee informed me about the decision this morning, and pointed it as if it were cause of my behaviour. I namely freaked out quite majorly on Saturday cause of a big parents fight Friday night. The thing is, on Sunday, Arda was still telling me that they wouldn’t kick me out cause Arda and the manager are the ones deciding on kicking people out and Renee could decide not to want to be my coach anymore, but that was “her professional responsibility”. I didn’t agree and still don’t – I think Renee is pretty fair not wanting to be my coach anymore. She isn’t my coach anymore after all.
Now the worst thing is not that I got kicked out – I’d expected it and that’s why I tried to call Arda on Saturday when things were getting out of hand -, but that Arda lied to me. When I spoke to Arda this afternoon, she didn’t want me to call it being kicked out, but I thought that was one of her usual diplomacies that says that kicking out means saying I’ll have to leave tomorrow – while on May 31, June 1 will be tomorrow. According to Arda, I’m done training and this conclusion requires one to decide on a leaving date. Then I wonder how come they decided exactly last Monday that I was done training, while four weeks ago, Arda was still talking about the goal being completely independent living (well, with some housekeeping assistance) while being in college. Now I do think the current picture – that I do require assistance with some structuring (for lack of a better word) tasks -, is more realistic, but why in the world did she realize this exactly this Monday? And why did she tell me this afternoon that the picture had formed itself mostly within the last three or so months, while last month she still had such a different opinion? We’d planned on actively seeking a living place for after training home starting after last Monday (the reason we didn’t start earlier was cause I had lots of exams), but now it seems the staff have already drawn the picture while I was still picking my colours. I do think serious decision-making has to be done and I’m extremely willing to do that, but it just feels like what I wrote about on February 2: the thing where we’ll just pick a date and tell me to just seek that I get a place to live and something to study and go ahead and we don’t care. Arda did say she was willing to help me get the studying stuff clear by calling the student counsellor etc., and that she was willing to write to SSHN (student housing) asking for an urgency declaration and stuff. Still, I do feel they’ve just stopped caring. Well, Renee has never cared and all the tiny bit of caring that she did have, was gone last Saturday – and I can understand that. I thought Arda cared, but I’m sooo confused by all this. Besides, I do feel really bad about the fact that Arda is blaming the June 1 thingy on her colleagues, cause they were supposedly pushing her to pick a date. Still, I feel kind of let down.
The thing is, I don’t think I ain’t done training. I think it’s time to concentrate on seeking a new place to live and study indeed, and if I can find those, I’d be eager to leave training home tomorrow. The problem is that I can’t get housing by June 1. My parents refuse to let me live with them. When Mum told Arda so, the first thing she said was that then I should be living on the streets. Really, I do feel so extremely hurt by that. It only reinforced my feeling that Arda just plain let me down, even though by then Arda had already talked to me and informed me about the whole done training, required to pick a date etc. thing. She also said that, if SSHN isn’t going to offer me housing by then (which I’m pretty sure about they don’t, but well), I could also temporarily live in some other Philadelphia living project. As if that project is looking for a behaviourally disturbed girl like me.
Speaking of behavioural disturbance, my mother did convince Arda that they’re supposed to wait for the mental health thing to be finished before kicking me out, because they were the ones starting the whole thing. Arda added that what might come from this, might influence the picture of my situation – even though labels or the lack thereof never change anything and Arda said she could write a final report about me today and would be able to convince CIZ of my need for assistance in areas that I don’t consider blind-related. By the way, my parents are supposed to speak with the mental health folk next Wednesday at 3:00 PM – to my surprise, they agreed.
I do feel confused by all that’s been happening this week. First, on Friday, the mental health folk called and so I had to talk my parents into speaking with her. Then, cause of lots of different topics being discussed, we ended up in a major fight Friday night and I left the house in the middle of the night. I called Rakkersveld (the place we’re supposed to call when we’re in trouble and the staff’s gone) and later a cab, which drove me to my house. Then, on Saturday, I had the major trouble with Renee, mostly over the parent fight. I was still confused on Sunday morning, so Arda allowed me to come over to her house to talk with her (she was coming to training home to drive a new girl to church). That was when she said all the stuff about not kicking me out and all. Then in the afternoon I figured out my communication skills assignment was getting nowhere, cause the interview had already gone extremely bad and futhermore, the tape was damaged (even though we tested it three times) so my analysis was bad, too – analysis means typing out the interview and commenting on your performance. Then on Monday I freaked out over lots of schoolwork still left to do. School was surprisingly nice, but I do think seriously about quitting. I also broke my radio by throwing it to the ground – the CD player is as fine as it used to be, but the radio doesn’t work. Then yesterday, I found out a girl who used to live here, has died at the age of 22 from a brain tumour. The cremation will be on Friday. And then today I was told about the June 1 thing. Really, it’s all too much and I feel like no-one cares. My sister was telling me that it was my fault (the June 1 thing). Mum kept telling me how I was supposed to live completely independently and “you’ll have to live independently in half a year”. Three months, she should’ve meant. She said I would “just” have to do housekeeping and cooking and learning routes and studying. Sure. And of course, I should “just live”. Obviously, I asked how I would do that, and the reply was that I should solve my own problems. Well, I guess a better idea is to live as fully as can be. I started thinking of possible solutions to my problems – all unsuccessful – by 1998. I’ve long decided that if we find something that works, that’s great, but there is no pill for my problems and that means I’ll have to live with my situation as it is. That’s quite exactly what my mother was telling me to do, but we seem to have different definitions of what living with a situation is supposed to be: for me, it means finding and using (alternative) techniques, methods and strategies that enable me to live as fully as possible in situations that I may not be able to deal with (ie. most situations that involve other people or unclear expectations); for my mother, it seems to mean avoiding all difficult to deal with situations. I know that we should just agree to disagree, but I feel my attempts at “just living” are denied by these statemetns.
