GET OUT

I hate the foster care system!  I hate it and there are not enough synonyms in the English language to fully explain my depth of hatred for a system that is ruining or has been ruining my son.  He is 16.  He has been in state care for almost 5 1/2 years!  The last year has been with me.

We are finally through step one, the termination of parental rights.  Rights which were supposed to have been terminated long ago, but the birthfather "came back to life." .... Nothing was being done until we said "We want to adopt him.".  Now he has been with us 11 months.  Rights are terminated.  He turns 17 in less than one month.  And all we can do is sit still because the foster care contract is switching hands in June and everyone is in a tizzy and things will take time to get ironed out.

Add to that the fact that this child exhibits and deals with some very big issues that make life very hard, and you have one mad Mama!  My hands feel so tied.  HE is not afraid to hurt himself to spite me, or to "protect" himself and claim it is what he wants.  The prime example being he wants to be adopted and likes us when he is able to get his way, EXACTLY his way.  This usually involves my car, my money, and my having my husband mad at me.  If he doens't get his way.. he hates us, calls his worker, and can't wait to leave.

Now his worker came out today, tells him he doesn't have to be adopted, it is up to him.  The judge can't let him be adopted without his consent.  WELL THANK YOU  for that piece of information!  Let's just give this 16 year old, going on 5 ALL the power to decide how his life will go!

What does she care?  She hasn't invested EVERYTHING she has in this child for 11 months?  It isn't her window, her car, her car radio, her closet doors, her walls, her expensive and beautiful dresser, her coffee cups, her millions of other little things lying about broken!  IT isn't her tears that hit the pillow at night.  It isn't her little ones that flinch sometimes when he walks by.  It isn't HER life, HER heart, HER pride, HER marriage, HER family that is battling finding the balance between surviving and drowning, between helping and hurting.

So yes, I HATE the stupid, worthless, unsafe system!  There is a real chance that by court on Tuesday that he will be mad at me again, and so his "Yes, I want to be adopted" that he gave this morning, could change again to "NO, I don't want to.  I want out of this "effing" house."

How can you let a child decide where he will live, and if he needs a family, this family who has been good to him and for him, if he can't even decide his own curfew, can't hold a job, can't figure out planning between point A and point B?  Hello stupid people?  Are you getting this?  Is this making any sense?  Are you really, truly going to sit back and let my child destroy the ONLY thing and the ONLY family that has stood by him through shit that no family should have to deal with???  

I am scared to death.  I love this boy with all my heart!  I don't get a fostercare payment, we are doign this out of kinship care.  SO instead of the $900 + that his last 2 homes received, we get a paltry $84/month.  Thanks, that covers pretty much nothing!  So it isn't about the money!

I would walk through fire for this son of mine.  I basically have, or at least it feels that way.  His rages can sure leave me feeling signed by the heat.

Yesterday I told him he couldn't drive into town.  We are having trusting issues, as in he keeps breaking my trust.  He wasn't grounded, just had to find a friend that would come pick him up.  He was livid, and before we were back to a good place he had broken a stereo speaker AND a very nice and expensive pine dresser... with a baseball bat!

 He then threatened to "bash my head open" with the bat if I didn't... how did he put it?... "Shut my stupid "effing" mouth."  I told him "If you need to hit something else with the bat, could you just hit the couch?  It will be less bloody." Never thought I would be in a position to say that!  He would not ever hit me with it... at least not unless I backed him into a corner, and then it would only be about survival.  I would never scare him like that.

But I am tired of parenting this child with a whole mess of cooks trying to make the stew!  You CAN"T parent a child like him in this way!  THEY play the system, THEY triangulate, manipulate, and aren't interested in your feelings when they are just trying their hardest to survive!


I need the states hands OUT OF THIS POT before it is too late!  Praying God has this because I don't see a good end.

Scary Times...

He is terrified.  I saw it tonight, that terrified and lost little boy.

 As mad as I am, my heart is hurting for him.  He thinks he hid the scared side from me.

 I don't know what to do.  How do you talk about feelings to a 16 year old young man who is like a 10 year old emotionally, and more disconnected from his emotional state than anyone I have ever met?  Full of pride.  Full of bravado.  Full of survival mode.  Full of denial.

I can't even put my finger on what he is so scared of specifically.  I know that in the months he has been with us we got through the beginning rough patch to a good couple of months, and then it all went south and got rougher... and wouldn't quit going downhill.

School is out, his birthday is coming up, parental rights are finally terminated and the adoption can move forward, he quit his job, he flunked 5 of 8 classes... these can all be triggers, but I don't think they are the main reason.

I think, regardless of how many times I say it, he is scared he will have to leave.  I think he likes me, maybe even loves me, and that terrifies him.

He keeps threatening to run away.  I am pulling out all stops and scrambling to recall everything I have read and all the advice people have given me.  I repeat what he says.  I suggest what he might be feeling inside.  I tell him how worried and scared I would be for him.  How my main concern would be to know he was safe. How I would drive around to everyone and everywhere I thought he might be.  How much I love him.

He went from saying he was running away and no one would find him for at least a week, to saying he might come back after a day.  I asked him twice for a hug, he will almost always let me hug him from behind as long as he isn't in raging.  He couldn't do it this time.  He couldn't even look at me.  I think he was protecting his heart.

I keep putting my heart on the line.  I don't want to show vulnerability.  I sure don't want to feel vulnerable... because I know how it will end.  I will keep getting hurt over and over.

But I know you can't love someone from a place of survival.  I know that because that is where he is at.  I know you can't embrace someone with your arms folded.

I love him so much.  I just wish he could trust that.

The Puzzle

The downward spiral.

It is happening.

I am watching it.

Right before my eyes I feel like I am losing him.

I don't think he can stop it.

His "friends" change constantly, but each time they are his best friend.  Day or night, Sunday -Saturday, he wants to do something with them.  But slowly they start to disappear.  And a new friend or two moves in.  He is friends with everyone and no one.  I don't think people can "take him" for long.  He is intense, dramatic, and to my surprise socially awkward and inept.  I don't think people see that right off the bat.

He lies over inconsequential things.

He can't even plan how to get from point A to point B.

He isn't holding himself together as well in front of people now.

He flunked 5 of his 8 classes this nine weeks.

I think maybe he is like a puzzle that got put together wrong.  To put it together right, it has to broken completely apart.  You have to start back at square one.

So maybe saying that I can see it happening, see the downward spiral is actually a good thing.  Maybe healing can only begin once all the pieces are broken apart.

Monsters

I let the monster in.  

During the hard times and sleepless nights.  During the screaming rages and destructive tantrums.  During the times I see my blind 7 year old daughter or my one year old son flinch when my 16 year old walks by.  During the times I catch him, at age 12, looking at pornography, taking inappropriate self portraits, emailing inappropriate material.  During the times he yells at me that I am a "stupid fucking bitch".  During the times my 7 year old repeats things that a 7 year old should not know.  During the times when a simple family outing is never a simple family outing.  During the times I can't hold my crying 1 year old because my 16 year old needs help calming down and me holding the baby is a trigger.  During the times I talk with my littles once again about body parts, correct names, private areas, telling an adult, bad touch/good touch.  During those times I see their innocence lost.  During the times I wish I could close the closet door, but can't because he broke it... along with the car stereo, the TV, holes in the wall, the picture window, the airbag, and multiple little things.

It is during those times I falter. My faith waivers.  My heart breaks.  My tears fall.  And I think to myself....

I let the monster in.

I held the door.  I invited it right in.  Even welcomed it.  I let my protective walls crumble and fall
and I let it into my home.  I gave it a bright red painted target on each of my children.

Don't mistake my words for a minute.  My children are not the monster.  The monster is EVIL.  Plain and simple, pure and unmistakable EVIL.  It struck my two precious boys, whom we adopted [are adopting], as infants. Today they are 12 and 16. Their birthmom didn't even try to keep the monster at bay, it had probably struck her as an infant too.  These cycles are repetitive.  The monster had a long time to terrorize them, and no one stepped in to protect them.  

I had to let the monster in.

 It had a hold on them and they couldn't come in without it tagging along.  I had to trust that my GOD was stronger than the monster, stronger than the EVIL that had them.  He asked me to trust Him, He asked me to let them in, He asked me to let EVIL in.  Let it in, and let HIM overcome.  He asked me to live a life that I can't live without HIM.

I falter.  I waiver.  I break.  I fall.

 But HE doesn't.   It isn't even a fight for Him!  He just doesn't waiver.  He doesn't lose.  I don't even have to hold onto Him, I don't have enough strength.  All I have to do is reach for Him!

He asks me to love.  Love who He puts in my path.  Love the children He shares with me.  Love the hurting, the sick, the tired, the needy, the orphan, the fosterchild, the challenging child, the struggling child, the outcast, the aging, the suffering, the sinner, the homosexual, the dirty, the ones evil has an all too tight hold on.... I can't love while holding up a shield.  I can't love by guarding my heart.  I can't love by saying not THIS house. I can't love by remaining just like the world.  I can't love by drawing lines in the sand.

 Katie Davis always says it so well.

 "I can’t fold my arms and simultaneously reach out for my Savior." -- Katie Davis

So yes, I let the monster in.  I didn't "take a chance" on God.  It's a sure thing.  This is NOT a GAMBLE!   HE has already overcome EVIL!

I falter.  I waiver.  I break.  I fall.  But I am reassured.  My resolve returns.  My heart heals.  I get back up.  And I am once again their mom.  Fully committed, fully in love with them, fully humbled that He called me to stretch and blessed me so greatly in the process.

 ⁸ We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair;⁹ persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.  ~ 2 Corinthians

Hallmark Doesn't Live Here

I admit it, Hallmark commercials make me cry. <3

They used to make me cry because they reminded me of the life I was living,

the beautiful and loving family I was raising.  We weren't perfect, there were

plenty of arguements, but always with the comfort and hope of beauty to come.

Of family holidays full of love.  Of phone calls from across the miles sharing hopes,

dreams, news about life.  Of shared secrets, shared traditions, motherly advice well 

received and mayhaps even treasured.  I saw the Hallmark commericals in the

eyes of my children.  

But Hallmark doesn't live here anymore.  

Intead of family holidays full of love, we have stress, yelling, anger over things not

being completely fair.  Instead of phone calls across the miles sharing hopes and dreams,

I fear we will have phone calls of needing money, followed by hate and anger when

it isn't forth coming.  Instead of shared secrets, and traditions... we will share

trauma, anger, threats, manipulation, fear, self-loathing, and insults.

Hallmark doesn't live here anymore.

Trauma has come in.  Trauma has taken root.  Trauma has brought fear, pain,

emotional drama, anger, and survival to the forefront of every special occasion.

I hear comments about who should not be in the family.  I hear comments of how

someone is babied and favored.  I hear comments about the stress and noise of 

the everyday.  I hear comments about my children just wanting to be old enough

to get out of here and get away from the drama.  "The one person who annoys me

more than anyone else on earth, you choose to adopt!" screams my middle son.

 I see how my "little ones" now know things that others their age don't need to know. 

 I see how they go and retreat/hide when the yelling and anger and raging start.  

It breaks this mama's heart.

Hallmark doesn't live here anymore, but pain and heartache do.

Mothers Day is coming up.  I should want this all to end.  I should want him

to just leave.  I should want to walk away while I still can.  I should be done with him,

sick of him, disliking him, protecting myself.  

But HOPE won't leave.  I love him.  I AM his mom.  Every "F- You".  Every "Stupid Bit#h".

Every "I hate this shit hole, I am leaving".  EVERY.  INSULT.  HURTS.

I am his mom.  I love him.  I can't let him go, nor do I want to.  Sometimes

I feel so guilty over that, over what my other children now

live with.  But life wasn't meant to be perfect.  Life and a forever family

 weren't meant to be only for a select few.   

My children are getting stronger.  They are daily living out compassion, 

compromise, courage,tolerance, and love.  They are so strong.   They 

will not only overcome, but thrive.  Adversity can make you better.

I want Hallmark to come back, my heart says it will. 

Give me a Hallmark moment.