Then I sat down and said okay

I am so sad.

My son has been telling me for days he is unlovable and that he hates himself.  He also told me I need to stop loving him.  He will use any means possible to save me from him.  He can be such a super hero.  He is saving me from him.  And he will not stop.

Saturday, he got up, took his meds and then immediately proceeded to violence that resulted in a trip to ER and the anti-psychotic meds.  We went home.

Today, I took the family to lunch at one of our favorite places and then we shopped for a backpack for Alex.  He is so looking for a Scooby Doo one.  After today he started to try and change his expectations but I told him we would keep looking and maybe buy one online.  Then we picked up some groceries.  Alex kept asking when we would get home. 

Finally we did and Alex got out of the car.  He immediately armed himself and started banging on the cars of neighbors.  I had no choice, I called for the police and and an ambulance for transport. 

Alex was so ironically calm about it all.  He has mastered the level of violence necessary to keep the police and medics engaged but he does no real damage.  Even when we got to the ER, he was so calm.  Yeah, yeah they had to restrain him but it was all game to him.

It is not a game to the doctors.  It is not a game to the nurses, medics and hosiptal security.  It is not a game to me.  It was clear to everyone today that Alex is willing to put himself in harms' way in order to disrupt this adoption.  He will escalate dangerous violence until he gets his way.   He simply meant to make us all do what we did today.  Because we are the nice people that keep him safe.

So I sat down and said, to myself, okay.

When there was the fight with his day treatment last week about putting him in the hospital, Alex heard all of that.  It came with us to the outside treatment sessions, it made me crazy as I talked with so many people outside the program about how make the right choice.  What Alex heard around the edges was a way to keep me safe - from him.  From loving him.

I do not know leave when he throws at me the rocks that the village kids once threw at his bedroom window.  I do not leave when he hits me with sticks.  I do not leave when he attacks my car after leaving so many dents on the house.  The metal front door is so dented, it is unbelievable.  I gave up thinking paint would make it better.  I never leave, no matter what.  Alex is turning to other power sources to make me leave.

For super hero Alex, I must leave him in order to be safe.  I am the Mom who must be protected.  There is no other option in his mind.  The day treatment people gave him an opening.  They gave him a weapon.  Alex will stop at nothing to gain access to that control. 

I actually sat down yesterday and said okay.  It gave in when, after they put him in a five point restraint at the childrens' hospital ER and his arms started turning purple and swelling up - the restraint became a turique cutting off blood supply because he had struggled so much.  Nobody else was in the room to see. 

My son will kill himself to get away from me.  He does not value himself but he values me.  You do the math.

So I had the restraints removed and was only trying to get through the weekend with no further damage to Alex.  We went to the ER today but Alex was safe.

Alex sleeps tonight because the docs there have developed a system about giving him the anti-psychotic drugs with benadryl.  This is no way to raise a child.

Letting him go to a 24/7 treatment facility when they have failed to note even basic facts in day treatment doesn't feel much better. 

So I sat down, and after I said okay to this option presented by Alex, I think the best option will be a facility that did not fail at the day treatment level.  Alex gets his way but the people that failed him and armed him in day treatment, do not benefit.

How tomorrow will go, hard to tell but I will concede to Alex and his attempts to keep me safe from himself.

He remains such an awesome guy.  So I sat down and said okay.  We will do it his way.  It is not my damage, it is his.  Alex needs his life to go how it will.  The rest of his family is okay with that.


I had a Romanian nurse help us out tonight.  We talked.  It is hard for everyone who knows pieces of the story.  There is a clean-up nurse in the ER (both sides) that is Russian and she always lingers, but never speaks.  She watches how we all are with Alex.  I wish I could speak to her.  I think what she sees hurts her heart a lot.  I often think the responses of the people that see what is happening are complex.  I know they are because my reasons for adopting who I have, are complex.   

This is an issue that touches many people deeply.  It goes beyond our simple family.

Some conversations circle back to the lady in Tennessee that sent her son back after failing to do her first post adoption report and sending him back.  I do not know what to say.  I think she is like lots of adoptive parents that sort of skate on the surface of what it means to be a parent.  I think they think the choice to parent can easily be reversed like a bad wardrobe choice.  That is so not true.     

Being a parent is just being there - however your child needs you.  Adoptive parents kind of get a leg up when compared with birth parents.  We are told, to the extent possible, what kind of child we get and what they need. 

I knew my son was in a deep mental hole when I walked him out of the orphanage in 2008.  I got all the peeps on it and we worked a miracle.  Alex became a normal little boy.

And then teachers in America kept letting kids hit Alex in the face, threaten him with a knife and taunt him.  Alex the normal little boy became one who again lived in hell. The monsters came back.  In America.  And his day treatment program gave him a way to leave home.

I am not happy.