His trauma our trauma

I've learned throughout our adoption journey with the boys not to get too comfortable for too long.  As a matter of fact, I've become rather good at sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for the other shoe to drop, hoping and praying it won't, but it always does...at least for now.

When Asher came to us, he was nothing short of two handfuls of trouble.  As small, innocent looking, and adorable as he was, and still is, his 6 year old butt could turn the house upside down before you even knew what was coming.  Spunky and full of life, every therapist we came in contact with warned us we'd have a roller coaster ride with him. Boy were they right. Lol!  From day one we struggled with him and his ornery behavior, at home, at school, EVERYWHERE!! Let me put it this way, he's the kind of boy that not only craves attention, he DEMANDS it.  Positive attention, negative attention, whatever else kind of attention, he doesn't care as long as all eyes are on him. He's willing to scream, cry, say terribly mean things, lie, cheat, steal, break things, poop his pants, manipulate his brother into getting in trouble, sneak around the house in the middle of the night taking and hiding things, disrupt class, refuse to do his schoolwork, refuse to follow directions, and whatever else you can think of...ALL...FOR...ATTENTION. Needless to say it's been a very difficult ride with him, and at times I'm not sure I'd do again if I knew then what I know now. For five whole months we went through this with him over and over, always the same thing, day in and day out. Some behaviors would come and go, and some would rotate back around, but it was always something. There were days when my stress level was so high, I didn't know how I made it through.  But then one day in October of last year, all the drama just seemed to fade away and what was revealed was an incredibly bright, sweet, and eager to please little boy.  He started embracing adoption, embracing us as his parents, becoming more trustworthy, being sweet to his teacher, excelling in every subject, and for the first time in his entire life he came home with good behavior at school consistently. My what a breath of fresh air that was and I thought we'd finally arrived!  Thought.

I knew better than to get too comfortable but this time was different, it lasted three three whole months for God's sake!!  Yet, what I assumed was our 'real child' turned out to be a small glimpse of who he truly is underneath all of that hurt.  After all of this progress, sometime at the end of January and little by little, things started going backward.  Stuff started disappearing again, misplaced items, broken things shoved into drawers they have no business being in, instances where he'd dupe Noah into getting in trouble etc.  Then came the lying, argumentative/disrespectful attitude towards authority again.  It was almost overnight.  I noticed a few things here and there but it wasn't until his teacher called me out of the blue one day asking if someone had died in the family or if something had happened to him because she was that concerned!  The only thing going through my mind was, HERE WE GO AGAIN!  And there we went, right back down the same dark path I thought we were finally free from.  I questioned him if someone had hurt him or if someone was bullying him but the answer was always no.  But the fact of the matter was, he wasn't the same kid, he didn't even look like himself in the eyes, and it was clear that something did happen to him, we just didn't know what.

One sleepless night after pining about it for a few days I asked some fellow adoptive mothers to see if they had some insight and one of them made a comment about triggers of past trauma that flicked the light bulb on in my head. I remembered that when I read their CPS file, I wrote down some important info/dates and tucked it away if and when there came a day when we needed them.  Figuring there might be a clue somewhere, I pulled that paper out and glanced at it. When I was almost to the end, my heart almost fell out of my chest.  Right there scrawled sloppily across the paper in black ink was, "Asher was reunified with bio mom and sister 1/26/12, Asher was returned to the children's shelter 2/21/12." My poor son.  Here was a kid who'd been removed at a year old, whose life was seemingly always foster care with short visits here and there with his biological parents, who had finally found himself at rest...a place he thought was HOME. Yet not even a month later there he was, ripped away, heading back to the children's shelter. Yeah something happened alright, something terrible, something absolutely unequivocally painful happened.  Let me tell you, the mind can forget, but the heart never forgets.

Since finding this out I've attempted to get him to verbalize his feelings to see if any of this would come out but it always fell on deaf ears until today, but I suppose he was finally ready.  Of course he's been grounded for his behavior because we can't just stop the discipline, but instead of leaving him behind with Bob today while I shopped, I decided to take him along to the store with me.  Not even a minute into the car ride there it came, memories long forgotten just rolling right off his tongue like it was yesterday.  He started off by saying, "Most of the time I forget, but if I think back far enough, back back back, I can remember it all..." and then came the tales of being back with his bios at their apartment for that short month.  I sat quietly listening to him tell me about them leaving them with a male neighbor sometimes but other times all alone at 4 years old with his younger disabled sister while they worked, sometimes even putting a few dollars into his pocket before they left. Sneaking out of the house and down the street alone to the corner ice cream/candy shop, no doubt to see what he could steal. He said sometimes he'd even hide behind the store by the dumpster and just watch people but he always came back home before 'mom' caught him. They didn't have a car and walked just about everywhere they went but sometimes they'd ride in a taxi. He said his parent's really 'trusted' him and 'trusted' that the neighbors would watch over them when they left. I was dumbfounded, I didn't even know what to say. All I could think of and still up to this minute was, who the hell are these people??  What caseworker in their right mind would do something like this to my son?? What parent leaves a 4 year old and his DISABLED little sister alone?? I just can't fathom it.  What an injustice they did to my sons heart by sending him back there, and not just to him but to us because we're now paying the price.  His trauma has become OUR trauma, and FOR WHAT??  Reunification above all else?  PLEASE!!

I'm just thankful to God for watching over him and thankful that he didn't spend any more than twenty seven days back in their care because I'm certain he wouldn't be here if he did. I can't even imagine the emptiness and confusion he's been dealing with. My only hope now is that all of this will pass as we head into March and his heartache and pain subsides for a while. I know it'll just cycle back around again but I'll welcome any kind of break we can get. At least by this time next year we'll know what to expect.

Please pray for my kiddo's and for God to give us the wisdom we need to get through times like this.