Sunday, September 30, 2012

From best to worst.

We are under DYFS investigation.  They came here last Tuesday because they had to see the boys.  They actually checked to make sure we had food and they had clothes.  This is what we've come to.  We were foster parents, approved by DYFS, and the adoption agency used to have us come up and talk to parents that were in the process of adoption.  Our counselor used to call us adoption super-heroes!

And now they are afraid we aren't feeding the boys.  Because Avena didn't like us.  Avena didn't want to talk to us.  That is the only thing that happened.  Avena didn't like us.  DYFS initially came out to 'offer more help for Avena'.  Their idea of more help was to get us to agree to family counseling.  Which we did.  Which never happened.

Then Taishauna wrote Avena a letter and told her how angry she was and how she wished we never adopted her.

DYFS was horrified!  Really?  A teenager writing a hateful letter?  Yeah, I'm sure that hardly ever happens.  So they removed Avena from the home.  Now, mind you, we have been trying to get that done for 6 months.  But now theres a catch.  We have to pay child support till she graduates.  Which could be 3 more years.  Whatever, totally worth it.

The day she left they called and said, "Okay, counseling is available!"  WTF???

I said no, they said yes, so now we have to get family counseling.  They have to make sure the kids aren't traumatized by her leaving.

So to recap:

  • Avena comes here and is miserable.
  • We try EVERYTHING we know how to help her for 2 years.
  • She gets pissed cuz I take her phone and threatens suicide.
  • Karen (from the outpatient program) wants us to get family counseling to work it out.  
  • We agree on the condition that we see Avena make some effort.
  • She makes NONE.
  • Karen insists we call Perform Care for counseling.  We say no.
  • Karen convinces me to let her call DYFS so they can remove her from the home.
  • DYFS says they can't do that.
  • But now DYFS is involved.
  • DYFS asks us to call Perform Care.  We agree.
  • Karen knows we only said yes cuz we thought we had to.  She implores us to call DYFS and tell them the truth so they can remove Avena.
  • We do and DYFS threatens us with court.  We agree to call Perform Care. (Does Karen have ANY idea how to do her job?)
  • DYFS calls out of the blue and says they are going to remove Avena from the home.  The need a team meeting.
  • We go to meeting and discuss Avena's needs and goals.  (it's always about Avena's needs)
  • They agree to move her, will call tomorrow.
  • Four days later, they call and say they changed their minds.
  • They send out an 'adolescent worker', Steve, who asks us to agree to counseling.  We agree.
  • We get a letter from Perform Care that they won't take Avena cuz she is already in a program.  WTF?
  • Another month passes and another visit from Steve.
  • Taishauna writes a letter to Avena.
  • They remove Avena from the home.
  • We get a call that counseling is now available, we decline. (Don't need it now, right?)
  • DYFS insists on therapy.  We agree.
  • DYFS is concerned about the boys.  We are under DYFS investigation.


Now I will admit, I have glossed over the letter. It was really awful.  But it was still from a teenager.

The only other question that pops up is WHY wouldn't you want family counseling?  Wouldn't that have maybe fixed everything?  And at least appeased them?

Short answer, yes.  Had I been able to see the future, and known it would turn out like this, I most definitely would have agreed to family counseling.

The reasons that I didn't want it, (and no-one ever asked), include the fact that we as a family had already tried so hard with Avena.  I had asked Taishauna to start again and try over a million times, only to get hurt again.  Taishauna was really struggling.  I felt I just couldn't ask her to try again, to just forget about all the bullshit that Avena had pulled, unless I knew that Avena wanted it, that she would actually change her behavior and make some attempt of her own.  Otherwise, it would be for nothing and Taishauna would be that much more hurt.  That applies to myself, too.  I was so stressed, so angry at Avena.  This was all because she didn't want to talk to us.

And I tried to imagine therapy with the family.  Avena would say look pitiful, say she knew it was all her fault, say she would try to act differently, and nothing would change.  She did it again and again with the outpatient therapist.  We would set up exactly what Avena should do and she would agree to it and then do none of it.  And the therapist would make excuses for her.  It would be our fault that she didn't do it, she was scared, she didn't understand.  The list went on and on.  I wasn't putting Taishauna through that.  The first time I did.  After we had a meeting and decided what Avena should do differently, I had a talk with Taishauna.  And she agreed.  Try again.  She canceled all her plans for the weekend and made herself available.  And Avena never said a word to her.  She waited until Taishauna was out of the room before saying anything.  And Taishauna was in tears by 6pm.  I was done.




Saturday, September 29, 2012

I'm back.....

So...much time has passed.  Avena is no longer living with us, and the emotions that statement conjures up varies from anger to relief to confusion and back to anger.  Enough time hasn't passed to look at it all objectively, but I am going to try.  I really think I need to write about this.  And I really want to get back to blogging.  I stopped while Avena was here because I didn't have anything nice to say, but maybe that was a mistake.  I may have been able to process much better and truth be told, this blog has become a scrapbook about my kids, and now I'm two years behind.

Part of me wants to process, part of me wants to explain, and part of me wants to be exonerated.  The short story is 'Avena chose not to be a part of our family and DYFS has found her another place to live.'  But of course it is not as simple as that.

Obviously, when we brought Avena home, we intended for her to be a permanent part of our family.  We proceeded to try and integrate her into the family as best we could.  I should state here that we were woefully misinformed about her.  We were told that she had completed school up to eighth grade and was doing well, when in truth she couldn't read or write at even a first grade level in her native language.  We were told that she spoke and understood English and was learning French.  She spoke no English.  We were not told that she was severely depressed and was into self harm.  I'm not even sure today that she wanted to come here, but we were told she did.  This may have not been all the agency's fault.  Avena has a way of fooling people, and she certainly says what she thinks you want to hear, but I do think we were intentionally misled to a degree.  Which really makes me angry.  As if the goal is just to get a kid adopted, the agency can put a tick in the win column, and to hell with the long term consequences.

While we are on the subject of the agency, they followed up for six months, which is the law, and we have heard from then one time since then.  Nick let them know when she was hospitalized and asked if there was any other information that might help us.  They said sorry, no.  Then the case worker emailed and asked if there was anything she could do.  I was too angry at the time to respond, so I didn't.  And we haven't heard from them since.  It has been 7 months.  So I think its safe to say that once the child gets here, and their initial follow-up is done, it is 'out of sight, out of mind'.

(I think it is also safe to say that this post is going to be all over the map!)

Things were difficult  right from the start, as you would expect with a 'new' addition that is 15.  It was awkward, of course, and the language barrier didn't help.  It was kind of a bizarre homecoming, as we had a blizzard soon after she arrived.  Nick had taken the week off, so it was a vacation all around.  Soon after we tried to get into the groove of normal life things didn't go well.  Avena was fine as long as she could watch TV to her hearts content, but once we explained that she had to start working on other things, and that the TV couldn't be on all day while we were doing school work, she balked.

She was set up with an iPod and a computer in her room.  We bought a software program for her to learn English and enrolled her in an adult English-learning type program.  But often instead of working on that she would be watching videos.  Or sleeping.  She wanted to sleep all day.  About a week after she arrived Sammy got a stomach virus.  That night we woke up to Avena sitting in the hall, holding her stomach and wailing.  I mean wailing.  Nick thought she had a stomach ache, tried to find out what was wrong with hand signals, to no avail.  The wailing went on for TWO days.  We thought it was cramps, (she was always holding her stomach) and we tried everything we knew to figure it out.  Offered her medicine, a hot bath, etc.  All were rejected.  We finally got a friend that speaks Haitian to talk to her on the phone and she said she needed tylenol.  Really?  We showed her the medicine cabinet and the choices many times and she always shook her head no.

When she first arrived (for about the first two weeks) she followed Taishauna around like a puppy dog. It was really kind of sweet.  We made sure we included her in everything we did.  Showed her the ropes of how we do stuff.  Tried to explain all the time what we were doing and why.  Soon after that, though, the relationship with Taishauna disinegrated.  I'm not sure of the time frame of things, I wish I had kept a journal of exactly what was happening but...  I know she went to the prom in April or May and it was already getting bad. We went shopping for dresses with friends, and I remember the friend telling her that her behavior was bordering on rude:  she walked behind us, had her arms crossed in front of her, sat a little away from us and wouldn't talk.

Everyone tried.  My friends tried, my family tried.  Everyone at church tried.  She made it hard.  She didn't want to do anything.  For the first few months we would go get her to eat, to go outside and play, to watch TV with us.  It was like everyday was her first day here.  By this time we realized she understood the English language quite well, but when it was convenient she pretended she didn't.  That kind of stuff gets old really fast.  I can't tell you how many times she would be sleeping during the day and I would tell her she had to get up.  And tell her again.  and again.  She would either act like she couldn't hear me or just ignore me.  She started saying that she didn't feel good.  Not anything specific, just didn't feel good.  I finally told her she had to get up anyway.

I could see the signs of depression, but I didn't feel like I could take her to a therapist until she could speak English better.  But I tried to teach her all the coping skills to feel better: eating right, taking a walk, being productive.  Being productive.  I tried to encourage her to do something, anything.  Work on the computer, try to read, color, do crafts, go outside.  She would finally get out of her bed and go sit in the dark living room by herself.  and do nothing.  Very frustrating.

Nick started bringing her to a church in Asbury that has a strong Haitian community, thinking that she needed to talk to someone in her own language.  She refused to talk to any of them.  Nick started teaching Sunday School at our church so he could be in class with her.  She refused to talk to anyone.

She told us in May? that she wanted to attend high school, so we signed her up.  She really liked it.  But she would come home and go to sleep.  So of course she had trouble getting up in the morning.  Ah, the morning.  Nick would wake her up before he left for work.  It usually took 5 or 6 attempts.  All we heard in the morning, "come on Avena, you have to get up".  "Avena, you HAVE to get up now."  And on and on.  Finally the following October, after school had started up again and we had to go through this all over again, I told Nick to get her an alarm clock.  I figured she wanted to go to school so she would have to get up.  And it worked.  She got up as soon as the alarm went off.

I started to see a pattern.  As long as she could push the responsibility on someone else, she didn't shoulder it.  But if she had to, she could.  There weren't many things she cared about tho.  I knew she liked school so I tried to make her responsible for her homework.  If she needed help we would guide her but make her do the work.  She didn't like that so she would say never mind.  I figured she would suffer the consequences in school.  But it turns out, she never did.  Because she was classified, she didn't have to do anything and she would pass.

So back to Taishauna.  They quickly stopped talking to each other.  Taishauna would swear that whenever she came into a room, Avena would leave.  I thought she was exaggerating.  We would sit them down together and talk to them about being sisters and having to work it out.  It would be good for a few days and then fall apart.  So now I have two teenagers (alien creatures) living in the house.  I didn't know if Avena's behavior was because she was a teenager, because she was depressed, because she was angry, or what.

And Taishauna was acting out.  In hindsight, I can't imagine how hard it must have been for her.  She was so looking forward to having a sister.  She went WAY out of her comfort zone to try to make Avena feel welcome and connect with her.  But now she has this girl living in her house, with her family, that won't stay in the same room with her.  She and I started to fight.  I was angry all the time.  I was just so damn frustrated.  Of all the scenarios I imagined, I NEVER imagined someone coming here and having zero self-motivation.  Avena just didn't want to do anything.

Nick and I started to fight.  He had said right from the beginning that he felt called to do this and God would provide.  Same kind of bullshit my mother used to say.  So I would ask him, "Has your God said anything to you lately?  Any clue what we're supposed to do?!!" That always went over well :)

Meanwhile I have two young boys.  And Johnley is still Johnley.  The stress level just kept getting higher and higher.  This went on for about 18 months.  We tried everything we could to connect with Avena and help her, and she just refused.  She was fine in school, she seemed to like it and came home everyday with a smile.  And then she would shut down.  At one point we found a therapist but of course she wouldn't talk to him.  She said she was fine, she just doesn't want to talk.  After a few months, he told Nick there was nothing he could do.  She still can't read (and yet she is getting A's and B's in school).  We tried to teach her.  I know how, I taught the boys, but she would just sit there.  She would mumble, she would put her head in her hands, or she would just stare.  So of course we gave up.

We tried everything.  We tried asking her what she wanted: "I don't know.  I want to be a part of the family...."  We tried having her talk to other people.  Like I said, we went to the Haitian church, we took her to therapy, she joined the soccer team (and would talk to Taishauna when she called and said "Can you pick me up, please?" and then nothing).  Nothing.  She seemed fine as long as she wasn't around us.  With us she sat with her back to us or in her room.  I tried consequences.  If you don't want to be part of the family, you don't get the privileges.  She didn't care.

And it wasn't just that she didn't want to be part of the family.  She was hostile.  This house was like a time bomb.  I could go on and on.  We always took family bike rides.  When she got here she refused to try and learn, so we stopped going as a family.  We couldn't just go and leave her alone, that would be mean.  She went to church with us every week and sat next to Taishauna in the car not saying a word.  But we couldn't just leave her home, that would be mean.  And on and on.  She got an iTouch for Christmas, because its Christmas.  But now she has something else to ignore us with.  She already had a phone, Taishauna bought her one soon after she got here.  She would talk animatedly on the phone and the hang up and not say a word.

It was exhausting.  I know I am all over the place and not explaining myself well, but....

She would wait till Taishauna wasn't around and then play with the boys.  She would wait till I wasn't around and then ask Nick for something.  She would approach Johnley and try to get him to play with her and not Sammy.  She would sit at the table and we would all say what we were thankful for and she would say she couldn't think of anything.  Oh and the clothes.  She refused to follow our rules about wardrobe.  And we don't ask much.  We don't want to see your bra or underwear, or your crotch.  You cannot wear tights two sizes too small with a short shirt.  You cannot wear a shirt that is too small and shows everything.

We went shopping.  She didn't want clothes that fit, she wanted clothes that were inappropriate.  And would get very angry if we said no.  She made sure she went food shopping with Nick every week and would pick out the junk food she wanted.  And you don't know what to do.  Of course you are going to buy the snacks, for God's sake, she's gone without so much.  But her eating is so bad, shouldn't we be setting good examples, trying to teach her.  We wouldn't let the other kids eat like that, but how can we say no?  And she was VERY good at manipulating the situation to her advantage.

And on and on...

It got worse and worse and finally completely broken.  We gave up.  We told her she we tried everything and nothing worked.  That we were done.  We wouldn't try and get her out of her room anymore.  She was 17 at this point and could make her own decisions.  If she didn't want to talk to us, we wouldn't talk.  We were done.  And she seemed fine with that.  She came out of her room if she wanted to and stayed in if she wanted to.  She would come out of her room very pleased with herself and get something to eat.  Say hi if she felt like it, nothing if she didn't.

Of course we weren't fine.  We were all at our breaking point.  Even the boys reacted to the stress.  Our home, our lives were a mess.  She seemed perfectly content.  One day I was passing her room and she was happily chatting on the phone.  When she hung up I asked her for her phone.  When she gave it to me I put it in my pocket and said she didn't need a phone, that I would keep it.

Two days later she pulled out a business card from her former therapist and called him and told him she couldn't live like this anymore.  He took that as a suicide threat and called us and told us to take her to the ER.  Biggest mistake I ever made.  That's when Karen and DYFS entered my life.

And that's a tale for another day...