I'm back online

Whew! I really missed my internet last week. We're finally settling into our apartment. My brother delivered our furniture yesterday. Finally, I'm no longer sleeping on the floor! That got old really fast.

Work is coming along. One girl called me a "fat ass" a couple nights ago. It was hard for me not to smile. She was angry, with no real need, and when I attempted to intervene, she told me to keep my 'fat ass' out of her business. The reason I had to not smile was so she wouldn't be more antagonized and also because once they start to call you names, it means you are starting to matter to them. Woo hoo! I'm finally on my way to being accepted. She did later sort of apologize for being mean to me.

Two nights ago, a girl got mad, stormed out of the house and away she went. We are on a pretty large campus and she just walked and walked for three hours. One staff had to track her at all times because if she left campus, we had to call the police and report her as a runaway. She never left campus, but boy did all of us get a work-out! Eventually, she pulled it together and was fine. The thing is, most of the girls in the home I'm in do not have the IQ to figure out how to leave the campus and get where they want to go so most of the time, they just walk and we have to track them.

Last night was pretty ugly. We had a couple girls get into it at dinner. Thought it was all resolved, but it came back again late in the evening. We took the girls to see "The Da Vinci Code". We tried to tell them it wasn't a movie they'd enjoy, but they were determined to see it. We gave in and away we went. Well, they were rude with laughter, comments, swearing and we almost got kicked out of the movie. That has NEVER happened in all the years I worked with this type of girls before. I was so embarrassed! I even had a woman approach me after the movie, telling me how the girls ruined it for her. I apologized and assured her they were being held accountable.

Back at the house, things got out of control as consequences were issued. One girl in particular got really angry and loud. She was swearing and threatening the staff. She picked up pillows and tossed them at the staff, first. When they deflected them, she then started hitting the really hard in the heads with the pillows. She was targeting the two evening staff who had worked with me. Eventually, she put her hands on one of the staff and another staff pulled her off, allowing the two staff to escape into the staff office. Before they got in and the door closed, the girl managed to get loose and kick the other staff. It was ugly but it de-escalated rather quickly. Not a pretty evening at all!

On the dieting front (or I should say life change front) I weighed in this morning and am officially at 400.5 pounds. The month is pretty much going to be a wash for me and I'm going to end it with a gain for the first time in my journey. I'm okay with it though. The lymph edema has gotten really bad and I know once it starts to go down again, things will be okay. Hopefully, that will start this week now that I don't have to sit or sleep on the floor anymore. I have maintained the weight of 400 pounds for almost a month now, and feel that proves to me that I will be able to maintain when I get to my goal.

I'll be working on getting to everyone's blogs in the next day or two to get caught up and continue on. Thanks for stopping to check on me and follow my journey.