Today was marked by a series of family meetings. I had individual meetings with each of the four oldest kids to discuss solutions to problems that they identified. It went very smoothly with Savannah and Mariah (unsurprisingly) but not quite so smoothly with Isaac and Alyssa. Of I had guessed I would probably have guessed that Isaac’s would be the hardest (he’s less rational than Alyssa) but that wasn’t the case. Isaac and I were able to talk through the problems he identified – possibly because we were tossing a football back and forth the whole time – while Alyssa was openly disdainful of the process from the beginning. When she finally complained that she didn’t want to talk until she was ready I was able to use that to show I was listening by using the process to define the parameters of when she would initiate the conversation. She came back to initiate it less than two hours later and we were able to address concerns because she came willingly.
In the evening I drove to Marsha’s house to meet with Laura family. Steve, Emily, Becca add their spouse attended as well as Marsha and I. Andy (Sr) even joined by video from Odessa we it was 3:30 AM. The first half of the meeting was mainly me explaining the latest on Laura’s situation and what we had learned over the last few days. Afterward we talked about what Laura and the family needed to heal and be supported. I find it interesting when Steve brought up the idea that Laura would be well served to find something she she could feel successful and fulfilled outside of her role as mother (part time work, volunteering, etc). I think there is something to that and we will expire it with Laura. We also talked about the need to connect with others, be held accountable for things, as exercise and made what plans we could to support those things.
Of course everyone wondered about the idea of removing Alyssa from the house under the assumption that Laura couldn’t live under the same roof as Alyssa. I talked that discussion citing the psychiatrist who told Laura that such a decision would have to take time. I also found it challenging to convince Marsha that Laura wasn’t prone to taking more decisive action to take her life in the future. She eventually let her concerns be silenced when someone pointed out that impulsive suicide steps were qualitatively different than premeditated ones and that impulsive ones didn’t tend to predict premeditated ones as well as the fact that impulsive ones could be protected against while premeditated ones can’t truly be prevented. Despite her subsequent silence on the matter I expect that Marsha will harbor that far for the rest of her life (out at least until she feels that the relationship between Laura and Alyssa is drastically differently/safer than at present).
All in all it was a very productive meeting and I feel that everyone is in alignment and accepting of she the responsibility for decisions lies for our family.
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