Sparkling Adventures in Child Neglect: Whee! Polyamory

[August]

She posted on FB four days ago. She goes for long blog breaks.

It doesn't stop me freaking out that some bushwalker is going to discover the bus somewhere remote.

[lipstickgoalie]

Went looking and came across this on her open Facebook page.

It does not make me feel at all better.

Red Gypsy Lauren

20 hours ago · Edited

It's an absurd notion: that grief is travelled through and that there is a grief-free destination on the other side.

Grief is more like having a chronic medical condition that necessitates open-heart surgery -- without anaesthetic -- every single day for the rest of your life. If you can imagine feeling your heart being torn out through the lump in your throat, that's what it feels like.

Some days, the surgery can pass quickly, but other times it lasts all day. Even when you're not in pain, you remember your loss and know that grief will envelope you again.

Each day doesn't get better. The sadness ebbs and flows like the tide. Each smile is masking the grief, not surpassing it.

Until you know true grief, you cannot understand.

[flubber]

God I hope she is somewhere safe with those girls and getting the support she and they need.

[August]

God I hope she is somewhere safe with those girls and getting the support she and they need.

Me too.

[Ms Jess]

Went looking and came across this on her open Facebook page.

It does not make me feel at all better.

This does not sound neutral at all.

[happy atheist]

It's good to see her admit that not everything is sparkly all the time, but I share the concern for the girls. I wish she would acknowledge that she needs help.

[SiameseIfYouPlease]

I think Lauren posted that comment about grief on Elijah's birthday. No, not at all neutral.

[justmissedquiver]

Went looking and came across this on her open Facebook page.

It does not make me feel at all better.

I actually think this is positive. This sounds reality based. Although it is heartbreaking, it sounds like she is having insight and making realistic observations about herself. :clap: good job Lauren. In turn, she may also be having insight and making realistic observations about the girls. **hope**

[lipstickgoalie]

I actually think this is positive. This sounds reality based. Although it is heartbreaking, it sounds like she is having insight and making realistic observations about herself. :clap: good job Lauren. In turn, she may also be having insight and making realistic observations about the girls. **hope**

I don't think that has anything to do with the girls, it is absolutely all about her. Always has been always will be. I won't believe she has had any real insight until she pulls that shit show off the road. If you are clinically depressed you need to take care of yourself. Not that Lauren actually takes care of her remaining kids but having to be with them 24/7 can't help with the process.

[Blahblah]

Lauren refuses to believe that she is not the perfect parent, providing her girls with a perfect upbringing. Therefore she will never admit that the girls have any feelings other than neutral or sparkly ones because it would mean she would have to admit that she has, in her mind, not been perfect.

I think she feels entitled to her own grief but denies it for her girls because it is her "job" to protect them from it. Why she doesn't understand that it is normal and healthy for them to grieve is anyone's guess.

[August]

I actually think this is positive. This sounds reality based. Although it is heartbreaking, it sounds like she is having insight and making realistic observations about herself. :clap: good job Lauren. In turn, she may also be having insight and making realistic observations about the girls. **hope**

Unfortunately I doubt it's going to translate into safety and security for the girls. She's always liked to wax stupid about herself and her feelings.

[chaotic life]

Lauren gives herself plenty of grace and latitude to feel her grief, to even be overwhelmed by her grief and to completely shut down. It is the girls who are NOT ALLOWED to grieve. She has stated many times that she will not allow the girls to see their brother's death and their father's incarceration as anything but neutral in their lives. She has stated that HER CHILDREN will not be like every other child she has ever heard of in that losing a sibling is a life-altering event that you never, ever are the same from. That will NOT be her children. Her children will not still hold onto the death of their brother when they are adults, because she will frame his death as neutral and not negative so they can continue to live a charmed and sparkly life as they did before.

The problem is that she has a complete and total disconnect between her own sometimes debilitating grief and her children's need to grieve. They got ONE therapy session at a victim's advocacy program after Elijah died. She liked the toys there, but felt there was simply no need for the girls to return. She does not allow them to grieve, does not acknowledge they have a reason to grieve. She doesn't seem capable of connecting that they have suffered JUST LIKE HER and JUST LIKE HER they cannot control or deny that grief. It will happen. They will grieve, and they can be given the freedom to do it in the manner that THEY need to work through it, or she can continue to suppress it and deny it and it will be worse as the years go by.

She truly believes that it's just fine for Lauren to grieve and state she will never be the same. However, her daughters are simply not impacted by the events and certainly do not grieve over them.

It's a ridiculous premise she holds between the juxtaposition of her own acknowledged and painful grieving journey and the total suppression and denial of the same for her daughters.

[chaotic life]

I have to say this.

I think Lauren has it ALL wrong in how she denies her children their own grieving process. But, I think beyond that her paradigm is wrong for why she does it. She says she doesn't want her children to be forever changed by what happened. She says that as if being changed is the ENEMY of her children.

I want my children to be changed. I want them to walk through this journey and to find beauty and strength within themselves. I want them to integrate their love and their memory of their brother into their entire personhood. I believe that by integrating those into their souls several things will happen. First, what is left of my son is what we all carry inside of us, the memories and the love. When they integrate that into who they are, he will never be fully gone and forgotten and I do not EVER want him gone and forgotten.

I expect that my children will tell their children and their grandchildren, who may well tell their own grandchildren about their crazy, larger than life, amazing brother who defined this family as something more than ordinary just by his presence and by the privilege bestowed upon all of us in loving him. Yes, I even want these children to tell their children and their children's children the bizarre stories about a profoundly Autistic little boy's obsession with his own poop, because it was part of what made him him.

Second, I want my children to go out into this world confident in what is important in life, and able to interpret those priorities into a life that impacts the world and makes differences for those whose lives they touch. This too is the legacy of their brother, that he will forever change who they are and they in turn will change the world by being changed themselves.

It is my desire that every March we will take a family vacation and celebrate his life, when he would have turned another year older. Every year in July, we will escape, to contemplate and to be in silence. As they grow, they will know where to find me if they need that refuge in those months. If they don't, then they will simply know I will always do those things myself and they are welcome to join me or not as they feel the need throughout their lives. It is my hope that we all FEEL this grief as deeply as we must, that we be knocked over with chocking, blinding waves of salty tears and uneven ground beneath us. But, that we also stand back up and learn how to steady our stance, not because the waves will stop coming but because we know they will come and when they come, we will remember him, we will mourn him, and we will be stronger because we loved him so fully.

I see beauty born of these ashes in the lives of my children eventually. Not today, maybe not tomorrow, but long-term, I see the strength that sustained a dying little boy will be strong enough to sustain the family that lost him as well.

[dora]

Chaotic Life, that was beautiful. You are an amazing mother.

[So Many Lies]

I think she's probably alright. She may be feeling sad just now but a break from the blog and the facebook and instagram may be coincidental and it isn't that unusual for her. I hope they're just at some friend's place in the bush with poor/no Internet having "fun". She's got a serious self preservation streak, she's tough. I do wonder what this errand is though. Anyone got any ideas?

[ladyaudley]

new post up: she is considering divorce!

[Vex]

Wouldn't divorce essentially be an admission that the situation with David was negative after all? You don't get divorced over neutral events and feelings.

[So Many Lies]

Hmmmmm....Maybe this has come from Marcus? I don't know if its conceding negativity, maybe just a new phase. Also they may will need to settle that house. 50/50 split. That money will come in handy.

[lilith]

Hmmmmm....Maybe this has come from Marcus? I don't know if its conceding negativity, maybe just a new phase. Also they may will need to settle that house. 50/50 split. That money will come in handy.

If she wanted to Lauren could get the entire proceeds of the sale of the house - she'd get more than 50% as the sole caregiver of their four kids, and if she sued for victims compensation she would be awarded the remainder.

I suspect a house sale could be about David though - a private secure facility doesn't come cheap, and public facilities are pretty grim and usually attached to gaols. And a non private psychiatrist may not keep writing the reports that keep delaying trial and keeping David on remand, which is in many ways less restrictive than most prison facilities, as the inmates haven't been convicted of anything therefore have more rights and less restriction than convicted inmates. In fact, if David is found guilty I'm pretty sure he would have to be moved to a prison hospital, or possibly general population - there are plenty of mentally ill inmates in the general population, although David would be in protective custody, as his victim was an infant.

[happy atheist]

Oh joy! She's a "focaliser" for the next Rainbow Family gathering. She gets to make rules for everybody! She's so new to this lifestyle. I wonder if any of the other focalisers resent her butting in.

As for divorce, it's certainly not neutral, but in Lauren's case I think it's a good idea. I think that it will in fact help her move on, which has got to be good for both her mental health and, by extension, for the girls.

[ladyaudley]

she must be somewhere with internet again. Massive post dump!

they're in Tasmania. The post about elijah's birthday today is heartbreaking :/ but that and the divorce one and the fb grief post almost seem like something is actually happening! Let's hope some of this gets passed down to the girls.

Oh, and she drove the bus into a ditch.

The "seeding" that the "focalisers" do sounds like my S1 classes trying to have a civilised discussion. talking stick and all.

[flubber]

I haven't read the posts yet...but really...she's supposed to be keeping this blog for her kids, surely she should think about some sort of censorship - pretty sure her kids aren't going to want to read about her divorce thought process.

[chaotic life]

Yes, I consider her processing and expressing her grief a GOOD development. I can only hope and pray that, as you said, she allows her daughters the same liberty as herself.

[happy atheist]

In case we needed any further convincing that Lauren is neglecting her daughters' education:

When Albert Einstein said “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination,” he was confirming that creativity — not the ability to retain or regurgitate facts — is what we need to cultivate in our children.

Because if there's one thing Einstein didn't have it was the ability to retain facts.

She goes on to say how awesome it is that her kids all play together:

I don’t ever want them to grow out of their little worlds.

I agree that imagination is a wonderful thing, but it's not going to do them any good to be adults who lack the skills to accomplish anything.

[thoughtful]

I have to say this.

I think Lauren has it ALL wrong in how she denies her children their own grieving process. But, I think beyond that her paradigm is wrong for why she does it. She says she doesn't want her children to be forever changed by what happened. She says that as if being changed is the ENEMY of her children.

The rest of your post was, as ever, beautiful, strong and considerate of your children.

I quoted the beginning because the bolded struck me as especially ironic (and aggravating) when it comes to Lauren.

Those children can't get away from the fact that their father killed their brother. She could help them through how it might change them, but she won't.

But, despite being so fearful that this tragedy will change them, acting like change and adapting to bad things is so terrible, she has put them through more changes than a Burlesque queen on a 3-matinee day, just because she feels like doing Sparkly new stuff.

:angry-banghead: