If only they’d listened.

Like most people who adopt, we went through several years of desperately wanting to give a loving home to a child who needed one. We were a loving home.
But now, that loving home is broken beyond repair. Our child is damaged beyond repair. And I am damaged beyond repair.
Our little boy came home to us at 21 months. The social worker said he was a “dream”. We had nothing to be worried about.
When he was two, it took two of us to change his nappies. He would thrash around, making sure we couldn’t undertake this simplest of tasks. He would throw his lower half into the air every time we attempted to put his clean nappy on. One of us had to hold his legs down, while the other, tried to get the clean nappy on. Even at two, his strength overwhelmed us. It sounds funny, and it was, for the first few times. But after two years of the same game (because he took that long to come out of nappies), it was utterly tiresome.
I used to collect him from nursery, and he would run out to the other Mums, straight past me as though he didn’t know me. I knew why he did this; I knew about attachment disorder. It wasn’t unusual or surprising given his start in life. But knowing this and being able to rationalise it, didn’t stop the pain in my heart. Very often, I would still be there after collecting him from nursery, in the car park an hour later, just trying to get him into the car seat. He would thrash and kick and refuse to let me get him strapped in.
If I walked him home, he would sit on the floor, refusing to get up, so a half mile walk would take an age.
When I got him home from nursery, he would run to his room, he would get every single item in his room and throw it on the floor, along with the mattress on his bed. Every. Single. Day.
I used to cry. A lot. What kind of mother couldn’t get their little (and he was little), boy to do the simplest of tasks. What was wrong with me?
To the rest of the world, he was a gorgeous, funny, loving little boy. I felt so alone as nobody saw what went on when it was just us. If I tried to tell anyone, they would laugh or dismiss it. He was gorgeous and funny and loving (and still is), but he was also so incredibly challenging.
At around the age of 4, we started to suspect that our gorgeous, funny and loving little boy had FASD. We dared to voice this to the social workers and the doctors, and we were instantly dismissed. He now has a very clear diagnosis of FASD and has done since the age of 6. But we had to fight and fight and fight to be heard.
He started hitting us when he was 5. Hitting, kicking, biting. We asked for help. We attended countless “parenting courses”. We listened, we acted on the advice, but it didn’t stop. He would continue to hurt us and our cats when he was dysregulated.
Just getting him to bed every night was like Groundhog Day. We would stick to a strict routine (as we had been advised), we would bath him, read to him, sing night night songs and them wham. It would kick off. Hours and hours of up and down, hitting, screaming, kicking, on and on until he wore himself out (often in the early hours of the morning). We asked for help over and over, and we were told we needed to do this differently, or that differently. We took the advice, nothing changed. And nobody listened.
Then, the bottom fell out of our world. My husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer. We had 18 months. Relentless treatment, constant appointments, and then eventually, tragically, two weeks before Christmas, my husband, my little boy’s daddy, died. Throughout all of this, my poor little boy struggled hugely. He was brave and loving and sad. I wanted so much to take his pain away. Every day of his life with us, I have wanted to be able to take his pain away.
But I was his nurturing enemy. And when his dad died, the violence ramped up tenfold. I was exhausted from his grief, my grief and the never-ending violence. I asked for help. I begged for help, but all I got was more and more parenting courses. And then more and more criticism when I couldn’t take any more parenting courses.
We moved cities to be close to my sister and her husband. They wanted to help us. Then ten days after we moved, lockdown happened.
The violence increased. My mental health spiralled. I asked for help. I begged for help. I needed respite, I needed a break. My sister and her husband were supportive at first. But then the vilest of social workers became involved. She decided I had personality disorder (because social workers can diagnose these things!), she told me “Your son doesn’t have behavioural issues, YOU have mental health issues”. She told this to my sister as well, and my sister turned against me. We had moved to a different part of the country, and I knew nobody aside from my sister and her husband and now I was completely alone.
Despite these very obvious reasons for my mental health declining, I continued to be blamed. My mental health was the cause of my son’s violence. If only I were a better mother, then things would be different.
I begged and begged for respite and was continually refused. “We don’t provide respite, you need to be a better mother, a better person”. The more I unravelled, the more control my son had. He swore at me, mocked me, kicked and punched me, pushed me down the stairs, threatened me with knives, threatened to kill me
I got to the point where I had a complete breakdown and had to insist on my gorgeous, funny and loving, but extremely violent son being taken into care. I just could not cope anymore.
My overriding memory is of him, one morning standing over me on my bed, kicking me repeatedly in the stomach, half laughing, half screaming. We were both in agony. The look in his eyes, I will never forget. I knew if he didn’t get some help, he would be doing this to a partner in years to come.
Once he was in foster care, he was initially an angel with the first foster carer. This of course reinforced the fact that it was all my fault. To get him back, all I had to do was “get better”. I told them that my son desperately needed help and support, but the evidence was there. He was a joy to care for. There were no behavioural issues. It was all my fault.
If only they’d listened.
Then, after a while, things began to unravel. I remember the foster carer (a single female) telling me on the phone one day “I thought you were making it up. I now know what you went through”.
She gave her notice and another “really experienced” single male foster carer was next. He alienated me from my son from day one. And from day one my son thought he was the bees’ knees and attached really quickly to him. Nobody listened when I said this was because of his attachment issues. Because of this, the (now 3rd or 4th) very inexperienced Social Worker, wrote a glowing report to court for this “forever placement” and a full care order was granted. Within two months of the care order, that foster carer had given their notice.
In fairness, the third foster placement has lasted for two years. More “very experienced” foster carers. They let my son vape, let him out at night to roam the city until 9.30pm on school nights, later at the weekend, don’t encourage him to do any homework. In his own words “they feed and clothe me, and I can do what I like”. No wonder he hasn’t kicked off.
But devastatingly, he has just recently been accused of rape (at 15), and a whole host of other sexual allegations have happened. The foster carers lack of boundaries has no doubt contributed to his ability to do whatever he wants, when he wants.
The foster carers have now given their 28-day notice. Weeks before he is about to start his GCSE’s (amazingly, despite everything, we have actually got to this stage and he is hanging on at school, by a thread. This time last year he nearly ended up in a PRU, but his amazing school have given him so much support).
So now we are most likely looking at residential care. A specialist one, hundreds of miles away, as very few will accept him. And Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards. That’s if he doesn’t end up getting locked up.
My heart is completely breaking and most days I feel like I can’t go on. His life is in ruins (as well as the lives of others he has hurt) and I am absolutely terrified for his future.
If only they’d listened.
Lou