Group Therapy/Parent Support Group

Probably not the result they expect…

Saturday morning we attended our first parent support/group therapy session with our therapist. She has a group that she has been seeing for years, and while they don’t currently have room for another family, one family could not make it this weekend and we could attend in their place. There were three other families in attendance—each at different stages of their adoption experience, but all having had their kids for 2-5 years. We had so many similar experiences with our detached kids, but with us being the newbies, they focused a lot of their attention towards us, as requested by the therapist. She explained to them that we were at a very difficult part of our relationship with DD and that we are pending dissolution, if none of the current intervention efforts from Lutheran Social Services succeed.

We watched all the women and one man grab for the tissues as they shared their experiences—their pain, their frustration, their disappointment, their guilt, their sense of failure, their sense of obligation, their sense of despair. Two families had familial kids—nieces or nephews they took in from an irresponsible sibling. These families had a greater sense of obligation, and the non-blood relatives were really struggling with the decision to keep this damaged child in their homes, but didn’t want to disappoint their spouses who were also struggling with the decision, but felt a stronger drive to succeed—somehow.

One woman in particular finally let the tears flow easily as she talked about her sense of loss from the whole experience. She felt, as we have, the loss of friends and family who are no longer comfortable spending time with them because they do not know how to handle the kid or how to react to how the parents handle the kid. She admitted that she is now in weekly individual therapy, on top of weekly family therapy, and once a month group therapy. This is a woman who had NO THERAPY until they took in her husband’s nephew.

All the families tried to encourage us with little quips like, “OK- so today was rough. Tomorrow will be better!” and “finding the right combination of meds made a huge difference.” These are families who know exactly what we are going through. They truly have the exact same frustrations and confusing thoughts, and guilt about how to handle this situation—and they were doing their best to be supportive. It all felt more like a “misery loves company, so don’t leave me” campaign.

We listened to them all. We watched them all lose it at one time or another. We watched them all smile and encourage each other, and encourage us. They laughed at the shared pain. They laughed at the progress and regress they have all seen in each other’s kids over the years. Not one could say that any growth or progress they witness ever stuck 100%. They all regress at some point—maybe temporarily—but always. They all talked about the constant need to alter the med dosages and combinations, to accommodate changes in the kids. The meds never stabilize. One talked about his kid’s four stays at a Residential Treatment center and how the last time really helped—although he and his wife were still struggling on a daily—sometime hourly basis. They all talked about the things that they no longer do because they can’t take the kid along and no one wants to baby-sit the kid. They talked about abandoning expectations as a coping mechanism. They talked about the monster inside of them that they never knew existed—the monster that would rise in reaction to the kid’s behaviors and how shocked and disappointed they were that they had this monster inside them. But--------- it was all “so much better now” and we should “just keep trying new things.”

In the final minutes of the two hour session, the therapist asked if this session helped us at all, and would we be interested in returning when there was another opening. I turned to the woman in multiple therapy options and stated:

“You’ve had your kid five years. You got him when he was 5 and with all the therapy, treatment, love, guidance, and the ‘right combination of meds’ you are still struggling."

To her husband I said, "Your wife is in tears here, trying to figure out how to ‘survive’ this”

I turned to the man, whose wife was sick at home, and who adopted two brothers:

“You’ve had your kids since they were 1 and 4 and still have problems after 2 years of therapy. You talk about fearing when your boys get to the age of our kids, well I fear my girl getting to the age of other kids I’ve learned about. Teenage kids who do turn violent against the family; who do make false accusations to authorities; who do destroy your home and get in a psychotic state so that the police have to remove them from your home. I’m told it is not a case of ‘if,” but a case of ‘when.’ I am not seeing any hope here. I’m more frightened than before. I thought, ‘if we had only known sooner, perhaps we could have helped her more,’ but you had your kids earlier in their lives and you KNEW earlier than we did EXACTLY what their diagnosis was, and yet, here you are, years later still struggling on a daily basis, with the decision you made to bring these kids into your home."

"You all seem like really nice, loving people who are being tormented because you are responsible adults and you wanted to love and you wanted to help someone. This is not what any of us expected. Yes, these kids are damaged through no fault of their own—but it wasn’t our fault either and no one within the system is taking this issue seriously enough to give these kids any real help. We are at the point where WE now need help. WE need therapy. I guess I am selfish. I want something more from this relationship other than the thought that this kid might be better off with me. I’m certainly not better off with her. I can’t look past all the damage she causes me and my family. I can’t just ignore or tolerate the daily drama and conflict and the fact that it will all only get worse.”

I left there totally drained and more convinced than ever that this will not work. There is no “fixing” or “helping” this child. I do not now have, nor have I ever had, a daughter. I have a hostile ward in my home who cares nothing for me or my family, and the state knows this and continues to set-up other families for the same experience.

There are many successful foster adoptions in this country—probably the majority of cases, but there is an alarming amount of well-meaning families out there, who do not have completely altruistic intentions themselves—they also have expectations, dreams and hopes about a new child in their family—who are being tested, tormented, and pushed to their limits. Everyone agrees the “system” must change, but nothing real is being done to change it. No one wants to publish the facts about Foster Adoption for fear that no one will want to adopt these kids that desperately need loving homes, but perpetrating the myth of how beautiful and life-fulfilling foster adoption is while delivering severely damaged children to unsuspecting families and communities should be criminal. Hiding the truth is what will make it harder and harder to get anyone to adopt for fear that they are not getting full disclosure on a child—a child that may be perfectly adoptable or may be so severely disturbed that you will never bond or find any peace or joy with them in your life.
There are no decisions to make today. We still need to play the game with Lutheran. We all know it is a game—possibly a stall tactic, as we jump through all the prescribed hoops—but we all seem to talk with each other knowing what the ultimate conclusion will be.