Lisa & Scott

I grew up thinking there were good kids and bad kids. I was a good kid. My friends were good kids. My siblings were good kids. When I was a teacher, I still thought there were good kids and bad kids, but I began to believe that if I could get a bad kid at a young enough age (before twenty!) and give him/her lots of love and structure, I could turn the bad kid into a good kid every time. Then we adopted Sam, who was five and whose mom had a brain disease. His dad was abusive and ended up fleeing the country to avoid charges. As mom got sicker and sicker Sam, then a toddler and pre-schooler, was neglected more and more. We knew him through family and had a beautiful, perfectly behaved two year old, a big old house and forty acres. We believed we would be Sam's salvation. I imagined Sam would become tame (he was like a wild animal in some ways) and love us, and grow up exceedingly grateful to us for rescuing him. At first he was just loud and had terrible table manners, didn't understand the concept of dinnertime or eating what was being served. He also had no physical boundaries, was constantly bumping in to people and knocking them down. He hugged by starting at one end of the room and hurtling toward you like a cannonball and ended by leaping off the ground, throwing himself on you and grabbing on as tight as he could with arms and legs. We tried to teach him to "hug nice" but in the end made a no-hugging rule for him because we were so bruised. We did not know about attachment disorder until Sam was seven and had been lying, breaking things, stealing, not able to follow directions (had his hearing tested) and tried to order everyone around constantly. he also played violent games and liked to frighten baby kittens--one he tried to choke to death because it was "bothering" one of the other cats. he saw two therapists in two years, none of whom made any progress. Then we went to a Foster Care Conference and heard Tom Price talk about Attachment Disorder. He described our boy to a t, and a psychiatrist (when the school insisted we take him for assessment) said, "It's obvious he's Attachment Disordered, and sorry, there's no pill for that." but couldn't tell us what we should do. Followed drug use, temper tantrums that turned into abuse against us, throwing things, breaking glass, more therapy (told the therapist things were great and he didn't feel the need to come back after two years with her on the day he got kicked out of school for sexual harrassment)and in patient then out patient drug treatment. Each time his behavior sabatoged his success. A new Psychiatrist diagnosed RAD, Explosive Disorder and Conduct Disorder. We tried meds. They took the edge off, but Sam was still constantly in lock up and court. Got into RTC last Marcha nd out in August, stabilized on meds and is going to make it through his first school year since sixth grade. Still needs attachment therapy, we are waiting for the Attachment Center to get Blue Cross. Int he meantime we fostered twenty two other children and made a lifetime committment to one who is RAD and has PTSD, won't go to counseling and won't take meds, does drugs, was sexualizing everyone and everything and ended up getting dropped by the county at 17, is married to a woman ten years older who has even more mental health problems and worse drug habits than he does. Both are in and out of jail. They have a two year old, my grandbaby, and I try to work on attachment with him, because he doesn't have to end up like that. So far, so good.