Gosh I hate bullies!

Alex has been being bullied for awhile at school.   The principal and the many teachers and assistants haven’t done much but fail Alex.  Alex finally fully broke.  It wasn’t enough I said he didn’t have to go back.  Alex is in a full cycling back to drama at the orphanage and what it caused him to think and then act out. 

 I never knew that when I witnessed village children yelling vile things and hurling rocks at the windows of Alex’s baby rooms in the orphanage I would one day see him replicate that behavior on my street.  Toward my house.  Toward the houses of neighbors with young children. 

I am going through a week plus of the police coming, calling for the emergency personnel, them strapping my nine-year-old son to a gurney and then driving away.  That has happened three times in the last week.  I am lucky I live by a Bible college and most of my street is of a like mind with me.  We are a gentle but loving and helpful crowd.  This morning my sweetie told the doctors if they released him he would simply run and harm again. 

They did, so he did.  It took nine of us today to bring him to ground with the many police, firemen and emergency personnel showing up after we had him in a hold.  When I called the Doernbecher Pediatric Unit of Emergency to ask them what to do, they refused my calls.  Because it is the premier children’s hospital in the state and it is also where Alex is treated for bilateral cleft palate, back to those people he went.

I am not sure why help is so hard to get.  Alex tells them he cannot stop.  He tells me what it helps him do – not think – when he does it all.  I tell the doctors.  They still send him home.

It is not because of insurance, because I cleared that hurdle with my people.  They wanted to commit last week but today they refused.

Maybe it is because he is still so young.  He is now only nine.  The monsters that live within him are not.  The head doc asked me if there was somewhere, a room he could be, so that I could open a door to let the dogs out or go to the potty.  I told him all the rooms have windows he can kick out.  Alex has disarmed a second floor alarm, kicked out the screens and hung from the window seal.  He did not let go because he was afraid to break something serious.  He only told me when he was running so as to let me know he can run, no matter what.

I asked the doctor this afternoon if he wanted me to lock Alex in a closet because that was the only option that fit his requirements.  He laughed and agreed that not even he could tell me to do that.  But then they sent me home with this child that cannot help but run and still they do nothing.

Alex was not put in a closet so do not worry.  He would never be put in one - for a variety of reasons.  He stayed close to his grandmother and then went to sleep on the couch where he can see me.  Anyway our closets are simply stuffed full.  And I would never let him in one anyway since he kept trying to hang himself from the clothes poles with bits of yarn when he first came home from Russia.  He was five then.

 I wonder what room the doctor was thinking about?  He asked me if any of the doors to the rooms locked.  I said no of course.  If your child is five and suicidal one of the first things you do as a parent is swap out all the door handles so as to make sure your kid cannot bar you from a room.  By nine, that kid needs what – I kind of don’t know.

We are all trying tonight.  Me, to not blow apart and keep it all together.  My mom struggles too.  His sister, home just a year and adopted literally from a crazy place, is taking it all in stride.  She plowed through a serious pile of homework, ate dinner and then slept.  “Her Alex” seems fine to her.

Alex is trying hardest of all.  He laughed a little hard at shows he does not like tonight.  He tells me he does not want the run but he is not sure he can stop it.  Thank the good lord for heavy rains tonight.  Maybe my son will survive another day. 

My son has hardened my position about adoption.  I remember an agency director of an adoption agency who was involved with Alex’s adoption from Russia telling me one day he should have never been made available for adoption.  I cannot imagine Alex without the protection of his family, friends and community all working for his survival.  He tries so hard and needs so much.

Since his break due to being bullied for being a partially repaired cleft palate child, I have cried a lot.  I simply sit down and cry when I am not chasing him down to keep him safe.  I seriously cry every time they take him away strapped down.  I have cried so many, many times.  I am not mad, I am just so scared for him.  I grieve too.  This is not why I adopted:  this is not what I wanted for my son. 

Then, through my tears, I ask my Mom in between her driving me back and forth to the children’s hospital, “what would it have been like if he had never come home?”  What if he was still there, where I found him?  There is no question in my mind – he could already be dead or even worse.  My beautiful, sweet, so trying to survive son – the monsters are back in his mind, may God watch over him.  The rest of us will do our very best to help him and keep him safe. 

I would not change a bit of it.  I will be here for him always.  He has hardened my position about adoption.  Children need help sooner and more of it.  They need families!  They need support systems!  They need doctors and specialists to help them.  They need people to step up.  Schools, doctors, therapists and other specialists need to get behind the adoptive parents as they help their kids. 

I am lucky.  We have lots and lots of doctors to help.  Because Alex is a complex cleft child we are always scheduling the next reconstructive surgery and so many people are involved in all those steps.  He is due back into surgery mid-July.  Of course he has to be alive and able to deal so lots of doctors watch and help. 

I am also lucky because I live on the street that I do.  So many people on my street come out every time to help.  People who can barely walk or cannot see come to help.  I live behind a bible college and many of those on my street either go there and/or have graduated from there.  We are a kind people.  Even tonight, neighbors across the street had brought in back-ups to help if my son ran again after being discharged from the hospital.  They will help as I keep him safe.

My son is nine.  He is a survivor.  He struggles.  His family loves him.  Many of his doctors are working to save him.  My heart breaks because his ability to survive life and/or be institutionalized is separated by such a thin barrier. 

My son has hardened my position about adoption. 

May God bless this humble home.  We love each other so much.  Please pray for us. 

Life is short.  Make the most of it.  Eternity is forever.