One More "What If"

I don't know that it would have made a difference for Frankie or not...this what if is so far from what we did experience that I can't project us into it and predict an outcome.

But still...what if Frankie was the only child?

So, so often I think placements end because of conflict between siblings.

Ann left Mandy because she got into a fist fight with another girl. She left me, in large part, because it was too hard on Andrew and Brian to see her scream at us. Well, you know, that and she insisted on being moved and threatened to harm one of us if she didn't -- but the risk assessment there again involved the boys.

David's younger brothers lost their last pre-adoptive placement because of the stress they were putting on the previously adopted son. (There are more details, but they are irrelevant).

This is not an argument for separating siblings (although I do think that sometimes they replicate in their own relationships the abuse they experienced from their parents and must be separated), but it is an argument for more single child adoptive and foster homes.

One child plus one child does not equal two children. One child plus one child equals two children and their relationship.

Before, there were just your needs and the child's needs. If the child needed quiet time, the child got quiet time. If the child's anxiety regarding food meant that you needed to keep plenty of food in plain sight, you did. If they child needed to rage, you coped.

But when you have one child who needs to SEE that there is plenty of food, and another who is a compulsive eater and needs for a good deal of food to be out of sight. Well, then you have a problem.

When one child needs everything to slow down and be quiet for a while, and the other needs to express rage ... you get the idea.

Ann has been moved and moved and moved again. I have said since she left me that she needed to be the only child or a child with much older siblings. I don't know if she would have succeeded in that environment, but it was never tried.

And I wonder if Frankie would have managed better in a family with no other children. I don't know.

But I find myself wanting to beg all of you who are parenting one traumatized child not to take another. I want, without really knowing the details of your home, to say that if things are going well, maybe that is because your child is getting what he or she needs.

I don't know really what is going on in your homes. I don't know what is best for you.

But I wonder how many placements have ended primarily because of concerns for children already in the home.

I'm turning anonymous commenting back on...at least for this post. If you have a disruption experience you are willing to share, please do. And you can leave it anonymously if you like.

Conversation with Carl

Well, I got to talk to him.

There is nothing terrible, just the blues. He has a history of falling into melancholy and then feeling like he has to make a dramatic change in his life (like move) because he can't be happy where he is.

He seems to be able to recognize the pattern and was willing to talk about the need to address the depression itself.

He likes his job, is making more money than he ever has, likes where he lives, and yet everything feels empty.

He'll be okay, or at least he has the resources to be.

He is 24 now. He has had five years of living independently to struggle with the whole growing up thing.

In any case it was good to talk to him.

Hindsight

Maerlowe asks whether the "911 night" might have been partly Frankie's way of controlling how he left my home. You know, he left us...not the other way around. Maybe...but certainly not at a conscious level.

But since I am inclined to go over everything in my mind, all the things we might have done differently, and whether would have made a difference, and a few of you are wondering the same thing, I think I will go ahead and write that post. This is not, by the way, a self-recriminating post. I am not thinking that if we had just done things differently the outcome would have been different. Still... one wonders what might have been different.

So here are all the things I wonder about...what would have happened if....

1. We took the decision-making process more slowly. What if we had refused to visit with him until after we had read the file? What if we had insisted on at least two visits? What if we had given the boys more information and included them on the decision?
A: I think we would have taken him, but he might have missed the beginning of school. Brian may be have been more prepared and that would have helped him.

2. We had got him a PSR and kept him in regular high school?
A: I think this is the first decision that might have made some sort of difference, or should have. I don't think he would have been able to manage regular high school, even with a PSR. I think now though that it wasn't really fair of us to come to that judgment without him having a chance to try. I want to believe that he would have either succeeded (possible but unlikely) or that he would have understood and accepted that he needed to be at the learning center. Given his disordered thinking though, I doubt he would have learned from those consequences. If he did not succeed in the regular high school, I don't think he would have admitted that it was because he need more help. But he might have. He should have had the chance.

3. What if we had "protected" him from things that frustrated him?
A. Hubby is convinced that keeping him from video games would not have made a difference. I'm not quite so certain. Of course all sorts of things frustrated him. With each passing day his melt-downs happened over less important things, and become more extreme. As Marelowe points out in her comment to the last post, and as AidelMaidel had in a earlier post, there are reasons why what happened on the "911 night" happened that night.

Sometimes I think abut whether he would do better with a foster parent I know who deals with difficult boys. He says the key is physical exertion. He takes the boys to the gym every day after school and works them out. Of course Frankie's motor skills are poor and if he was taken to a gym to play basketball with other boys he would have ended up rolling on the floor crying, but maybe it would have helped if he could have had a more structured day, in which he was kept busy doing things that did not frustrate him.

On the other hand, that is part of what they were trying to do at the learning center, and he was insisting he be moved out of there from the beginning.

So I wonder if there was anyway to direct his time and energy so as to minimize his frustration. Someone else suggested that. Was it Mrs. Butter B? I know that my response was that he might need it, and we were not able to provide that.

Now I think that it is an impossible situation: he needs far more structure than he will admit he needs. So he is either frustrated by the world or by the structure itself. I just can't imagine a balance that would have prevented those increasingly exhauting and frightening melt-downs.

3. It is like the WoW thing. It was bad for him. He knew it wasn't real, but he wanted it to be. Playing WoW was causing problems, and taking it away caused other problems. If we had refused to allow him to play from the beginning he would have been justifiably angry that the other boys got to do something that he wasn't allowed to do.

So much of dealing with Frankie was a fricative dilemma (or trilemma, whatever). Every single option wouldn't work, although for a different reasons.

4. And what about respite?

Lordy... I have never sent a child away on respite like that. I hope I never feel the need to again. Sending all the kids away so Mommy and Daddy can have some grown up time is very different from sending the foster kid away so that everyone can rest. He may have concluded that it was the beginning of the end, and probably sending him off on respite did escalate him.

The other choice though would have been for him to stay, and for me to call the social worker and say that we were too exhausted to continue. Would that have been a better ending for him? I don't know. I know this end, as difficult as it is, is easier for me. That night was bad, but it was also so bad that I felt confident that I was doing the right thing. In some ways he released me from guilt.

I don't know that means. I don't know which path would have been the better one. Prior to him going on respite the only real issue was whether we were going to colapse from exhaustion before or after he errupted in self-destructive violence.

When I start trying to describe what sort of environment he would need for that not to happen, I end up describing the group home he was doing so well in. It is not an environment that I am capable of re-creating for him.

5. What if we hadn't cleaned his room?
I shouldn't have done that. If I had to do it again, I wouldn't. I think that I did had something to do with out exhausted I felt -- how out of control I felt everything was. One of the things he was melting down about was not being able to find his things. I had a fantasy that I could fix things by cleaning the room. I would find the lost things and he would have one less thing to get upset about. Unfortunately I did not find the things that he was most upset about losing. I am sure he felt violated by having all of his objects sorted, pawed over, while he was gone. And it made him have less hope that he would ever find the things that were still lost.

Of course the room had reached a level that was unsafe. I would have had to clean his room or make him clean it with me -- neither of those options are good. No amount of telling him to clean his own room would have worked. I don't think he is capable of it. So I would have had to do it with him. No...that would have been a nightmare.

My standards for cleanliness really are outrageously low. Really.

Oh...I can't think about the room any more.

For me every "what if" ends up like this. I can imagine things happening differently, but I can't imagine the final outcome being different.

I really do believe that he simply needed a level of care that was beyond what I could provide.

Of course that doesn't make any of us feel better about it.

Still Thinking About It

No one answered at Carl's house again last night. Worrisome. He is supposed to be renting a room from someone. Why isn't anyone home? But then again they are young people, so who knows. It could be anything. I refuse to let myself obsess. (Not that I am really succeeding...but you know.)

I spent time last night trying to figure out WHY I was so miserable over Frankie.

Hubby, being the brilliant man that he is, suggested that I feel so bad because I feel like I and he and Brian are too wore out to do this again, and yet I am mourning the thought that I would never do it again.

You know that someone has hit upon part of the truth when it makes you start bawling.

And the dear, sweet man let my cry and patted my hair and said, "We just need a break. You need a break. But you know we will do it again. There will be another kid. It won't be soon, and we know that we can't help every kid who is or might be GLBT, but there will be another kid eventually. Even Brian will be ready to do it again at some point. It isn't over."

I dreamed about Frankie all night long. I kept waking up and trying to shake off the dream. I am not sure what exactly the dream was.

I think I just kept trying to tell people the story. I think I keep trying to go over it and make sense of it.

Well, that and I keep re-living what I have come to think of as the 911-night. I remember him slamming his fist over and over and over into that box of ... I don't remember what was in the box. The things were plastic; the box was plastic; the box was sitting on a cement floor; his fist was bloody and he would not stop pounding. How many times did he do that? I try to count in my memory, and I know that is totally unreliable. Was it five times before I said "You have to stop or I will call 911"? Was it ten times by the time I got to the phone? Was it twice that? How many times did he continue before Hubby walked out of the room to nod at me and tell me he had stopped?

And everything before and after that...everything he said that just didn't make sense. How much of it was because he went on respite and we went through all of his possessions? I think that did cause a great deal of anxiety for him -- but I also think that if we hadn't done that something else would have set him off.

If he were a three year old I would have grabbed him and held him tight and said, "I won't let you hurt yourself." But though he is short for his age (5'3"), he has the body of a fifteen-year-old and there was far too much power there for me to restrain. (That and it is against the rules, although rules alone are not that meaningful when someone is in danger. If I had thought I was strong enough to do it, I would have done it.)

I think in my dreams I kept saying to people, "He isn't a bad kid. I just can't keep him safe. He has to be someplace where he will be safe."

And I know the whole thing triggered another trauma, a time when someone I love was in need of psychiatric treatment and did something self-destructive, something that could have killed him before I got him the treatment he needed.

Only Frankie frightens me SO MUCH because he does not believe he needs help. He does not think that his rages are unreasonable. He thinks that the meds that he takes only cloud his thinking.

I am so afraid of what will happen to him when he is 18.

Will he still be too mentally ill to know that he is mentally ill?

And there is nothing I can do. I know that he is where he needs to be.

I just keep feeling bad.

And I am so tired of feeling bad, you know? I want to say to myself, "Self, it's time to shake and shimmy it off."*

And I always feel a little better after I write these posts, even after the ones I delete, and there are a lot of those. I think, okay, I've talked about it. I had (another) good cry. I've come to terms. Now I will feel better.

And then the next day I still feel crappy.

___
*Same Buffy episode. You may have figured out that I am a Buffy fan, but I always love movies or songs or TV episodes that capture those complex, mixed emotions. And "Something Blue" (Season 4) does such a good job of dealing with that phenomena when you are as much tired of feeling miserable as you are miserable.

Carl Lives

I was getting really worried about Carl -- especially when his birthday came and went and he did not call. You can usually count on kids to contact you (for no particular reason) a week or two before their birthday. You know, just to say hi, and make sure that you have their address.

Saturday on the way back from the play we debated what could be going on. If he hadn't called to ensure a birthday present, then it must be bad. We shared our version of How Bad Might It Be, and Would He Call If It Was [insert horrible thing here]. We had a pretty short list: broke, fired, homeless, and illness.

But that night he sent an email! Sunday morning I read this:

I appreciate the birthday greetings, to be honest though it was not a very happy birthday at all. I don't have the time to spell it all out here, so would you do me the favor of calling me at my home ###-###-####. I would have called but I'm without a phone and have been relying upon the house phone.

I guess we can rule out homeless and any illness that would make typing impossible.

We called seven times (really, I counted) on Sunday and three times today. We just get the answering machine. I sent him an email telling him that he had to email me back with a time when he would be home.

So I'm glad he is alive and all...but it would be nice to know what the heck is going on.

Just Today

Brian told me yesterday that though he does think it would be strange to be the only kid in the house for all four years of high school, he is tired of getting attached to people who move out.

He is relieved that Frankie left, but the pain he feels associated with that placement is not all that different than the pain of all the other boys moving away and leaving him.

He knows it is normal for kids to grow up and leave, but he is tired of it.

He is very happy that Carl and David and Evan are part of his life (I asked). He would not for anything go back in time and have us make a different decision. Whatever pain there was in adjusting to them moving in and being sad that they moved out was worth it. He is glad that we took them.

"But, Mom, I think I have enough brothers."

I hear ya, babe. I might have enough sons.

Though as AidelMaidel points on in a comment on the previous post, maintaining our license and doing respite periodically is not difficult, and getting re-licensed should we let it expire is a big deal. I think we probably will maintain the license, if only to do respite care.

And none of us are making any decisions about what me might want to do later. All I know is where we are today.

Today we have enough sons and brothers.

Today Hubby and I are thrilled at the idea that we could go out to dinner and not have to get a sitter.

Today we are still tired.

Will it be different later? Maybe, I don't know.

If it were just me I would be confident it would be. I will feel better and be willing. I know that.

But will they? I don't know.

I can imagine a day when the agency would call and tell me about a kid and I would respond with excitement.

But today, just today, I cannot imagine a future in which I turn to Brian and say, "Hey Kiddo, do you think you can do it again?"

Are We Done?

I don't think so, but we talked about it.

Of course we always talk about it, especially after a difficult ending.

When we had Carl we hadn't really planned on taking any more kids. When he moved out I thought I would like to do respite care, and maybe we would do another, but I wasn't sure. I had known Carl for years before I became him mom. The idea of taking in a kid I didn't know was very anxiety-producing.

Then things were so difficult with Ann. That ending was so hard, so brutal. We both wanted to crawl into a shell and never come back out again.

But we did, and we got David. For the first year and a half it was wonderful, then again, the ending was difficult. My response, though not so much Hubby's, was "I do not want it to end this way. I need to have a placement with a happy ending."

And of course I got that with Evan. Oh, our story with Evan is not over, but the point is that the placement ended well.

And after Evan left I was just wanted a break and then another kid.

As soon as Frankie moved in though I felt like maybe I was over-committed. I don't mean that at that time I thought he was too much -- just that I now had SIX kids. I know, compared to a bunch of people who blog that's nothing, but it seemed like quite a few to me: too many birthdays to remember; too many Christmas presents to buy; too many children who may legitimately need something of me.

In general, I am more enthusiastic about doing care than Hubby is. At one point years ago he said that he viewed this as "my calling" and he felt obligated to support me. I wanted it to be our calling, and with Frankie it was.

Now he is again suggesting that maybe we should be done, maybe Brian needs us to be done, which is an odd thought because prior to Frankie moving in Brian's needs weighed towards having another kid. Not that we had any illusions that we would get a child who would be a companion for Brian (anyone else nauseous at the thought of "getting" one child to meet the needs of another?), but just that Brian had grown up in a crowded house. How strange and lonely would it be not to have anyone to fight with? And maybe this is as many young adults as we are meant to be responsible for.

And for the first time since Ann left, I am wondering if he is correct. Maybe it is better to have a bedroom open for all the boys when they want or need to come home for a visit. Maybe it is time to say, "this is our family."

Maybe.

Hubby said yesterday that maybe they won't need us anymore. They are working harder to train all foster parents to be open and accepting; a home particularly for the GLBT kids might not be necessary -- and Hubby has always been clear that his motivation is his perception that those kids need us in particular.

I can imagine being done. I can imagine Brian being the only child in the home through high school. I can imagine giving him more dedicated attention, or at least being willing to be.

I wonder, what would I do with all that time and energy if I didn't not have a needy kid in the house?

The thought frightens me, and excites me.

But no decisions need to be made until next spring. Right now we are a licensed family and if they come up with a kid they want us to consider we will. The decision will be about that child. Next spring we will have to decide whether to sign the paper requesting that our license be renewed. Right now, I think it would be difficult to turn it in.

I'm glad to know that it will be more than six months before I have to decide. I won't be tired and grieving then. I'll be able to make a clearer decision.

Big night out

Friends of ours invited us over for dinner and out to a play. They have season tickets and all they knew was that this was supposed to be humorous and we could us a break -- you know from all the insanity.

Um yeah.

The play was about two psychologically damaged people snowed in together and each forcing the other to confront the traumas that brought them to where they were.

When the woman was overwhelmed with a decision she had made and felt worthless she fell on the floor crying out "Oh what is wrong with me!" and I swear to the Powers That Be that she behaved and looked exactly like Frankie. It was this powerful moment and many people around us were getting emotional. Hubby and I glanced and each other and started to laugh.

Oh we kept it stifled. Only our friends next to us, and probably the people behind us, could tell we were shaking with laughter.

I laughed silently most of the way through the second half of the play. Not because it was funny (although there were genuine moments of comic relief), but because I kept thinking, "We came here to get away from this" and it was all so absurd I couldn't stop myself.

Ever watch The Producers? Hubby and I were that audience -- stunned and then laughing.

Unfortunately everyone around us was moved by the way the characters slowly dug up and shared their pain, coming together and connecting and maybe beginning to heal. So when the curtain went up we were surrounded by people wiping tears out of their eyes and we just had to make a run for it.

We got outside and our friends turned with apologies on their faces. I said, "Thank you so much"' and suddenly all four of us were laughing.

Highly inappropriate considering other people were talking about how powerful and moving it was.

Still here

I'm here...still feeling sad, still processing, still trying to pull it together.

I go through all the "what ifs." Some of them, I think, would have pushed the stream of our journey in one direction or another, but not much. No matter how we turned the stream it would end up in the same lake.

I wonder about how Frankie is feeling, but there is no comfort there. I think that at some level he knows he is where he needs to be. I think he will continue to feel angry and frustrated. I know he is safe.

I want to write to him, but I am not certain what to say. I am not sure what he will "hear" at all. I know that when I wrote the Evan in rehab he did not even open all the letters, but he kept them. It was the getting of them that mattered. But I still have to write something. "I hope you are doing well" or "I am glad to know you are safe" or "We miss you, but don't let that confuse you because you can't come back." No, definitely not that last one.

Maybe just, "Just wanted you to know that we are thinking about you. I'm sorry I couldn't find your glasses or your ring. I'll let you know if I do. Take care of yourself." (It can't be any longer than that. That is about as much as he can read in one sitting unless he is very, very interested.)

Or is it better not to write at all? I don't think so...

There is just no fast track through the pain, is there?

I can fantasize about it...I could cast a spell that my will be done so that I could heal myself...and then demons would attack my friends, Giles would go blind, and Buffy and Spike would get engaged.

Sounds like a plan....

So tired

Sorry...there isn't much in this post other than a bit of a whine.

Lordy, yesterday was a rollercoaster. Tension in the morning, relief at hearing from him and from Guy, good time with the fam in the evening.

And now...

I miss my cat. I want to find her and hold her. She always let me hold her when I felt sad.

I miss Frankie.

I want Carl to call. I want to know he is okay. I don't know how to find him, and right now I have such a need to know all that all my kids are okay.

I want to fast-track the grieving process.

I want to feel better and get caught up on my work.

I want to believe Frankie is going to be okay, but I really don't know that he ever will. I believe he is where he needs to be, but I have no illusions.

I want to feel better.

No (well not many) regrets

If someone came to me who could send a message back to me when I was deciding whether to take Frankie this is what I would write:

"It isn't going to work out, but take him. You will have him barely more than two months and it will break your heart, but take him.

Frankie is a kid who has problems that stem from his abuse and neglect, but also from something else. It may be fetal alcohol effect, it may be a mental illness that we already know is heavily genetic, but whatever it is, Frankie's way of processing information and of experiencing his world are fundamentally different. That will make him delightful, annoying, endearing and, eventually, unsafe. In just over 10 weeks you are going to realize that he needs something more than you can give, that he isn't safe in your home, and you are going to ask for him to be moved.

But in those 10 weeks you will give him something that is potentially valuable.

He will come out to you. He will tell you that he wants to be a girl and he will learn what "transgendered" means. You will introduce him to Jane and buy him girls' clothes and for the first time in his life he will have brought this desire, this thought, out into the world and been accepted. He will learn that there is no shame in it. When he leaves, you will not be certain that he is "really" trans or if wanting to be a girl was the way his disordered brain came up to deal with severe physical abuse which he suffered and his sisters apparently did not. Whichever it is, when he leaves you, and you are helping him pack his things, Hubby will say, 'What do you want to do with your girls' clothes?' He will laugh and say, 'Put some in everything! I'll tell anyone who helps me unpack that I am transgendered!'

And you will know that you helped that sense of shame go away, at least some, and he will be better able to look at that desire and figure out for himself where it comes from.

And though he won't be able to cope with the stress of living outside a controlled environment, neither he nor the powers that be will believe that until he tries. His thinking is so disordered that he might not come away really understanding that he needs more, but he certainly won't if he doesn't try.

There is just one part that is unacceptable that you need to be prepared for. When you realize he needs help, you will go through three days of not being able to get that help and being anxious about how long it will take. You and Hubby and the kids will feel emotionally wrung out. But it is just three days. You will make it."

And if my time traveling messenger said, "Whoa. Gotta make it short woman!" I would say, "Take him. Time from red flag to adequate response is three days."

I'm not saying that I will ever take a kid like him again. It is pretty clear to me that if I want to keep either my career or my family, I can't. We will never again take a kid who has no experience being successful in a family, but maybe we also needed to learn where our limits are, and maybe we can only do that by trying.

So I couldn't do it twice, but if I could only do it once, I am glad that it was with Frankie.

First News of Frankie

The guy from the center (shall we name him? who has an idea? How about "Guy"?) came by for the things Frankie wanted. He said that Frankie cried himself to sleep in the car. When he got there so many people greeted him and welcomed him back that he started feeling at home.

I like This Guy from the center, and he clearly likes Frankie. I am so happy to know that Frankie is someplace where he is liked.

He says he also thinks that Frankie knows this is where he needs to be. Guy also said, as so many of us have, that Frankie will probably need a supportive environment all of his life. I don't know that there will be one for him as an adult, or that he will accept it if there is. I hope so though.

I told him that it was important for Frankie to understand that he could not come back here to live, but if he understood that then I wanted to be able to visit him and maybe even have him visit here.

It turns out that Guy is a foster parent with my agency! So he understands how I feel about having made a commitment to this kid, even if I can't be his parent.

I asked Hubby, "Can you imagine working at a residential treatment center and then coming home to be a foster parent?

And he said, "I wonder if it is like being a special education teacher and a foster parent."

Um, yeah...probably something like that.

OH! And the social worker said she is going to see if she can arrange for Frankie to go to the same counselor he has been seeing -- you know the one who is a child counselor with experience in sexuality and gender identity? If she can arrange it, the agency will continue to pay the counselor and even for transportation back and forth from the center. It's about a 45 minute drive, one way.

Oh I hope so. Even if it is only once a week instead of twice. He is so good with Frankie.

In other news, today Brian had a band concert with his school. He is in Advance Junior High Concert Band, which is sadly hampered by one terrible trumpeter and that Different Drummer whose beat all the eccentrics are marching to. Seriously, this kid was staring off into space beating out his own irregular little rhythm while the band struggled to stay in some sort of time. It was so bad that at one point I really had to struggle not to laugh. They played two songs. The second piece had two kids on drums and the new one could keep a beat and the Different Drummer followed him. So with the exception of the occassional sour note from the trumpet, it was okay.

But Brian is also in Jazz Band, one of the only two 8th graders, thank you very much. They were really fantastic. I mean, it is a high school band, but I have sat through a lot of junior high and high school band concerts over the past six years, and they were good.

And then the four of us went out to ice cream.

You know, oddly, I feel like today was a good day, a very good day after quite a few difficult and bad ones.

Franke Called Already

"Hi Yondalla, I'm sorry about how I acted earlier."

"It's okay, Frankie. It's okay to be angry."

"Can you send my caligraphy things? They are in the little suitcase."

"Sure."

"There is the pad and the pens and the cards with the Old English letters and the Elvish."

"Okay."

"And can you find my other box of contacts, the ones for my right eye?"

"I can try. Do you know where they are?"

"No. But will you get them and can you find my glasses too? I don't know where they are."

"I'll look for them."

"I don't like the glasses because they won't stay on my nose. Wouldn't it be nice if you could get your nose frozen so that your glasses would stay?"

"You come up with the craziest ideas."

"Yeah. And my oracle cards, do you know where those are? And the scarf you found this morning and my book on druids, can you find all those things?"

"I think I can. You know the guy who got you this morning has to come back for your meds, should I just give it all to him?"

"Yeah. Thank you. I'm really sorry for this morning. And thank you."

"It's okay. I love you, Frankie." Very short pause before I jump back in, "So you're welcome."

"Okay. Thank you Yondalla. Bye."

"Goodbye Frankie."

Before you ask...

Hubby announced last night that he wants a break for a while. No new kids.

Not disagreeing I said, "How long?"

He said, "I don't know. Several months. If they call before it had better be a very, very special kid."

I nodded.

In other words, situation pretty close to normal.

I won't hope, as I did before, that they actually look for the right kid, but if one of the ones who needs us comes along, they should call.

But hopefully not for a month or two, at least. It would be nice to have the bedroom available to Evan for the holidays, and I need to catch up on a lot of sleep.

At least two months. Four would be okay. They could call next summer. Unless Evan wants to stay here next summer. He could have the room. They could call us in a year.

That part where I need sleep? Yeah.

Choosing Honesty

This morning I was honest with him. He claimed that I was "in on it" and that I had lied to him. I was slightly tempted to try to explain that technically all I did was withhold information, but I didn't. Besides, I did lie. I told him I did not have information that he was wanting.

I told him several times this morning that I wanted to stay in touch with him and everything I did was because I wanted him to be safe. I don't know that it "got through" but I know that the man who took him heard me and can reinforce that message.

I have his address and can send him letters. I will keep them very short. I will also have to make myself print carefully because he can't read cursive.

I know now that lying to him last night was absolutely the right thing to do. Given what he was saying and trying to do this morning, I am sure he would have attempted to destroy his belongings since, "I can't take them with me and they will all get lost and I will never have them again anyway." We would have had to call the police and he would have destroyed things he cares about.

I think it was right to be honest with him this morning too.

See, I really would like to see him again. I don't think he could ever live here, but I would be willing to let him have a respite weekend here (months from now). I really do care about him.

But I can only have a relationship with him if it is based upon honesty. If he leaves and builds up a fantasy that I did not know what they were going to do and that maybe I even would have tried to stop it if I did, well, that would be bad.

But I'm okay. Sad, but not overwhelmingly so.

I know he is going where he needs to be.

And I am relieved for us all.

Thursday Morning

I'm not going to publish this until after Frankie leaves. I figure it is kinder to you all to let you have the whole story at one time.

8:00am
We woke up late this morning (nearly 7:00am), which wasn't a problem for me or Frankie as I was planning on working at home and he is being picked up at 9:00am. It did mean that the rest of the family ran around like crazy and there wasn't much time for sentimentality. He has been saying sadly that he will miss everyone. He even hugged me last night. He looked like he wanted to get close for a real hug, but could not tolerate that much physical closeness.

We got just about everything packed last night. I keep finding odds and ends which I will put into the bags. everything he owns is in three suitcases, two duffel bags, and four largish boxes. NO BAGS. I understand why garbage bags must sometimes be resorted to. When I have moved I have packed a good deal of things in garbage bags myself. When Evan moved into the dorms I saw a lot of kids with things in garbage bags. On the other hand, for kids who tend to feel like they themselves have been thrown away ... well suitcases (which he brought with him) and study boxes are better. Fortunately I am usually able to get good boxes on very little notice at work.

I kept trying to persuade him to separate out the things that I knew he was allowed to take to the center. He wouldn't. I know where they are though, so he can dig them back out again if he is calm. He has his MP3 player out so that he can listen to it in the car, but he will not be allowed to take that.

Last night in the car I said, "You know how David and Evan have moved out but are still part of the family?"
"Yeah."
"Well, you are moving out A LOT sooner than we expected but..."
"I'm still part of the family?"
"Yes. I doubt you will live with us again, but I want to be in your life. You are still part of our family."

I happen to know that the plan for him after some months is to send him out on short stays with foster families. They would like to find him more than one that he can visit regularly. I told the social worker than I can't make that decision for the family, but when they are ready to do that, they should call us.

9:45
The man from the center showed up. Frankie raged. He banged disks into the table, leaving scratches.

I told him that I wanted him to know why he was leaving. I had to get him to stop and re-start my sentence more than one but I finally got out the words "After you hurt your hand on Sunday I knew I couldn't keep you safe."

And what he concluded was that I was "in on it." I did not deny it. I told him several times that everything I did was to keep him safe.

And he yelled and said that he wanted a home, not a rat hole. Everyone had lied to him.

An hour ago he hugged me awkwardly and quickly, smiled and said that he would miss me.

Five minutes ago he left the house without his shoes because he was too distressed to look for them and the ones he had left out were suddenly not good enough to wear. He walked out the door saying, "Thanks a lot Yondalla!" (Not nicely of course). He climbed into the back of the car, turned to look out the window, and gave me the finger.

He's not stupid

On our way out to the counseling appointment he spoke about how he hoped they had found him a good family and remarked that he had no idea they would find him a new family this quickly. Last time it took months and months.

By the time he got to the counselor he worked it out. This was just too suspicious. He must be going to one of those rat holes. He would rather live on the streets. He did just fine on his own in the streets.

He and his counselor had a pretty good time together. They played with light sabers and were finished a little early. I think the counselor found it emotionally exhausting. Like the rest of us he has to pretend not to know something that he knows. Frankie said he would miss him, and I think he meant it.

We went to Frankie's favorite hamburger joint for dinner. He asked if he could order the monster burger even though he thought he probably couldn't finish it. I said, "What am I going to do, ground you?" He looked at me trying to puzzle that one out and I said, "You can order anything you want."

All the way home he talked about how they couldn't fool him, there was no way they could find a family this fast. They were taking him to one of those rat holes. He doesn't seem that upset though -- more triumphant that he has figured out the plan and is too smart to be fooled. Fortunately he is not so smart that he has guessed that I must know the truth.

Or maybe it is just that he trusts me.

But I think part of him knows that he needs to be in a residential treatment center.

He knows.

I told him

I told him that he was being picked up tomorrow and I lied and said that I didn't know where he was going. He looked a little troubled and said, "So I have to pack up all my things tonight?"

"Well, I could do it for you, but I thought you would feel better if you got everything sealed up yourself."

"We could do it together!" He grins, offering me a last fun activity we can share.

"I'm going to play my game until it's time to leave for counseling. Is that okay with you?"

"It's okay."

Tomorrow Frankie Leaves

They just called. In the staff meeting they decided to send him back to the residential treatment center (the place before the group home) where he did the best.

I was asked if I wanted for him to be picked up today or tomorrow. I said tomorrow so that he could see his counselor one last time and pack up his own things how he wanted them packed. So two people will be coming in the morning for him. They provide everything at this treatment center so all he can bring would be a couple of notebooks that he has been writing in.

When we were imagining last night all the places he might go and we suggested this one he said that he couldn't go back because he had a bet with a staff member that he wouldn't ever have to go there again. He was supposed to go back when he was 18 to visit in order to "win."

But every time he talks about how much he hates his school he explains how they did school at this location. That was the sort of school environment that he thought he was signing up for.

I am recommended to tell him that he is being picked up but that I don't know where he is going so that he will stay calm.

I hate that idea because it feels is deceitful and I like him, but I am almost certainly going to do it because I am afraid of and for him.

There it is...I am afraid that if I tell him the truth he will rage and hurt himself and destroy his things.

I told the man from the treatment center that he would feel like he lost a bet and let someone down. He agreed that he would emphasize to Frankie that this is where he felt he was getting the best education.

I feel sad.

And I feel relieved.

His Perspective

I wonder what it is like for him. I mean really.

He has complained about the school since the beginning. He has wanted to move. He has called Diane and she has said things like, "I will talk to my supervisor." Nobody told him, until yesterday, that it just wasn't possible.

I mean, he knew, but he didn't know. He knew that it wasn't supposed to be possible, but he asked if something could be done and he was told "maybe."

I see that his behavior has become more outrageous, but does he?

He always sees his behavior as reasonable. He thinks being defiant and uncooperative in a behavioral program will help people to see he does not belong in a behavioral program.

He thinks that, with the exception of stabbing his pooh bear, shredding two shirts, and pounding his fist in the floor, that his behavior has all been reaonable responses.

And in one way they are. If you know all his history and you understand what it means you can predict that there is a high likelihood that he would behave this way.

But he doesn't understand that it does not seem reasonable to others.

I have wanted to talk to him, but his mind works in such a different way that it doesn't seem possible. I mean -- he really thinks that being defiant at school is reasonable and should be interpretted as and indication that he should be in a less restrictive environment. He believes that.

So he doesn't know that while he has been saying "move me because I don't like this school," we have been talking to each other about how difficult and unstable he is, and how his needs outstrip our abilities.

I don't know how this all seems to him.