Can You Keep a Secret?

by Caroline Overington

  Comment (3):

  Another post where you do nothing but complain!! Yes, it costs good money to get children the help they need but you asked for this problem. Maybe your husband was right when he said it was a bad idea to adopt a child that could have any number of problems? How is he feeling about you now, I wonder? He probably wishes he’d been firmer with you in the first place and now he wouldn’t be in this mess! But we don’t hear much about him, do we? I wonder why????

  Chapter 28

  The (Alternative) Book of Benjamin

  Hello again! The title of today’s post is ‘Don’t Expect Help From Anyone’.

  It has now been five months since Benjamin moved into our home. I have not been able to enrol him in any school, and we have had real problems getting him involved in any activities at all. Although I had resisted taking him to see a psychologist – I just kept thinking and hoping that love would be enough, and we would bond on our own without help from professionals – last week, I caved in and I got an appointment with one of the top psychologists for adopted kids.

  Once again, I won’t use her real name. I know that some of you see her as a guru, so I’ll just call her Dr Hannah, and if you think you know who I’m referring to, well, good for you.

  Colby came with me, which was really nice as he’s been working longer and longer hours these days, probably so he doesn’t have to come home, ha ha! We arrived on time, but there was another mum already there. Her son – I presume he was her son – was nestled close to her hip. She was reading from The Very Naughty Puppy book and he seemed to be paying very close attention. I was so envious. Her boy did have some of the same behavioural problems as Benjamin – he had clumps of hair missing from where he’d been twisting it and pulling it out – but I noticed that he still seemed happy enough to be up close to his mum, even if he was still twisting his hair.

  Benjamin sat on the floor, knees up under his chin, rocking. I have given up being embarrassed by his behaviour. Like most people who have been to Dr Hannah’s office, I knew we had quite a wait in front of us. Everyone says it’s frustrating, but they also say it means that when you do get into her office, she will give all her attention to you for as long as you need.

  And so she should, given what she charges.

  When we were finally called in, Colby and I sat opposite Dr Hannah’s desk, with Benjamin on the carpet. Dr Hannah had, of course, suggested that Benjamin sit on a chair, but Benjamin rarely sits on a chair. He basically doesn’t know how.

  Dr Hannah took all the normal details – Benjamin’s name, and where he’d come from, and how long he’d been an orphan, and when he’d arrived in America – and then she said, ‘So, how can I help?’ I wasn’t sure how to say: we’re drowning. We think we might even have made a mistake. Our child seems to hate us. So I said, ‘We’ve been having some problems with food.’

  That was true. We are still having some problems with food.

  I mentioned in an earlier post that Benjamin does not like to eat. He squeezes his food. It doesn’t matter what it is – sausages, Cheerios, cheese – he takes it and squeezes it. The first few times, I thought, ‘Okay, it’s because he can’t use a knife and fork.’ Then I thought, ‘Okay, Cheerios are new to him. Maybe it’s the bright colours. Maybe, like me, he doesn’t see that brightly coloured muck as food.’ So I tried toast. But he’s happy to squeeze toast, too. And I’ve seen him squeeze boiled eggs and pastrami and tuna salad. And maybe that would all be fine, if he then ate the food he’s squeezed, but he doesn’t eat it. He mashes it and throws it around.

  And it’s not just food. Anything I give him, he immediately tries to destroy.

  He did it with that first book I gave him. Since then, he’s done it with the Buzz Lightyear I bought him (he twisted the hands off the ball joints and when I didn’t react to that, he twisted off the head, so now he’s got a white-and-green plastic barrel chest that says ‘To Infinity and Beyond!’) He’s wrecked his train set. He’s wrecked his Pokemon cards.

  I don’t want to make this post all about me, but I’m at my wits’ end. Remember that first night when he was home with us, and he scratched all the lovely wallpaper off the wall?

  I moved his crib into the middle of the room, so he wouldn’t be able to reach the walls. Then, when I wasn’t looking, he shoved his crib back into the corner where he’d already done so much damage, in the process completely running through the wooden train set we’d set up for him.

  I mentioned this to Dr Hannah but was told, ‘Oh, children will do that. They will crash through something they’ve just built themselves, or something that you’ve built for them. You can’t take it personally. It’s the way they are.’

  I was dubious, but I was also new to being a mother and I didn’t want to argue too much, so I set about trying to be patient. Whenever Benjamin is in one of his single-minded wrecking moods, I’ve tried to say, ‘Now, be careful, we don’t want to smash this or that,’ or I’ll say, ‘Benjamin! You’ve just kicked all the train set down!’

  I’ll get on my knees and let him watch me putting the tracks back together again, and I’ll show him how the train can now run around the tracks. Then, when I’m mid-explanation, he’ll stand up and walk right back through what I’ve done. He’ll kick the whole thing out from under me, when I’m still sitting there putting it back together.

  I tried to explain all this to Dr Hannah, starting with the food, but all she said was: ‘But why does he take his meals in the highchair?’ I said, ‘Well, because he won’t sit still on a chair, and certainly not at a table.’ And since Benjamin was sitting as he usually does, on his knees on the floor, with his forehead resting on his knees, surely she could see that I wasn’t making it up?

  Anyway, at some point Dr Hannah went over to Benjamin and attempted to lift him off the floor, and of course he went to bite her hand. It’s what he always does. Dr Hannah snatched her hand back and said, ‘Right. I see. We obviously have a problem here.’

  I couldn’t help feeling a bit smug.

  Dr Hannah took a seat behind her desk and I could tell that she was a bit shaken, but she said, ‘I still think you need to persevere with a normal table and chair at meal times, not a highchair. We aren’t in Russia anymore. He should be eating at the table.’

  I said, ‘It takes all my energy to strap him into a highchair and force food into him. He clamps his mouth shut. He turns his head from side to side. I don’t put the bowl on his tray anymore. He’ll pick it up and hurl it across the room. I’m not sure serving him at the dinner table is going to work.’

  Dr Hannah said, ‘Try to pick him up then. I notice he is very thin. Have you had him weighed recently?’

  I shook my head. ‘No. It’s not possible to get him to stand on scales. I can hold him and weigh the two of us, and deduct me from the total, but to be honest, I don’t need the scales to tell me I’m not getting any food into him. It’s got so bad that I’ve taken to leaving bottles of Sustagen around the house for him to find.’

  Dr Hannah said, ‘And that works?’

  ‘It seems to work. I make them up in the morning and they are mostly gone by early afternoon.’

  ‘So you have Benjamin prowling around the house, finding food bottles and sucking on them?’

  I said, ‘Well, he seems to like it. But obviously I can see that it’s not ideal. I mean, I can’t help thinking it’s a bit like throwing food into an animal cage. Benjamin will find a bottle, drain it, and leave the bottle on the ground.’

  Dr Hannah said, ‘But why don’t you leave the bottle on the table, where you eat? And if Benjamin wants the bottle, explain that he has to take a seat?’

  I was a bit stunned. To myself I was thinking, ‘I thought you were supposed to get all this stuff?’

  ‘Benjamin doesn’t follow instructions,’ I said. ‘Benjamin doesn’t speak, and he doesn’t listen.’ I motioned over to where Benjamin was still crouched on the floor. ‘Surely you can see that for yourself?’

  Dr
Hannah said, ‘But you can’t just leave bottles on the floor for him. He’s not an animal. He’s a child and he needs to be raised with the good manners of any other child.’

  I thought, ‘Oh really? I need you to tell me that?’

  Dr Hannah went on, ‘And the other problem you’ve put down here –’ she was looking at the answers to the long questionnaire we’d had to fill out before we went to see her ‘– is bed-wetting. He’s still wetting the bed? How old did you say he was?’

  I said, ‘He’s five. According to the report we got from the orphanage, he turned five sometime this year. We picked a day. We tried to have a little party – no guests, obviously – but we might as well have been having it for ourselves. We had little hooters and candles and he ignored the whole thing. But anyway, yes, he wets the bed, and he wets his pants. In fact, there is only one pair of pants that Benjamin won’t wet: the corduroy pair that he came out of the orphanage with. Anything else he’ll pee in or poop in. He’ll also pee on the floor, right in front of me. What he will not do is use a toilet.’

  Dr Hannah smiled and said, ‘Well. That’s challenging.’

  I tried to smile back, but I don’t think I managed it.

  Colby had been listening to all this, and I could tell by his body language that he was doing his best to be patient, but now he butted in, saying, ‘Listen, my wife needs a bit more than that. She doesn’t need somebody to tell her that what she’s experiencing is challenging. She needs some help. She’s tearing out her hair. We expected some adjustment problems, but nothing like this. Benjamin has already been told that he cannot go back to the local pre-school. With his habit of throwing food and wetting himself, we can’t take him out in public. What are we supposed to do?’

  Dr Hannah was sitting with her fingertips together, like some wise sage. She said, ‘Well, you know, it’s true that most children have stopped wetting the bed, and wetting their pants by the age of five, but some of them do continue on until seven or eight, so Benjamin may not have a problem with that. He may actually be quite normal, in that regard.’

  I leaned over towards our file on the desk in front of her.

  ‘We got this file when we adopted Benjamin,’ I said, tapping it. ‘Can you see what’s written here? “Benjamin is toilet-trained.” He wasn’t having problems with toilet-training in the orphanage. He came to us toilet-trained. See this box? “Toilet-trained?” They’ve ticked yes. When we picked up Benjamin, he was wearing underpants. And they were dry. Until he got in the van with me. Then they were wet. He knows what to do. He just won’t do it for us.’

  Dr Hannah said, ‘Well, yes! Adoption is obviously traumatic for children. And bed-wetting, and pants-wetting can be a response to trauma.’

  Colby was exasperated. ‘I’m not sure we’re not dealing with something a little more calculated than that,’ he said. I’ve been listening to my husband’s voice for years. I know the different tones. I could tell that he was getting frustrated. He was using the same tone he used with his mother, when she called to complain about something she’d seen on the news. He continued, ‘Benjamin seems to get a kind of pleasure from not using the toilet. He will come into the kitchen when my wife is cooking and pee directly on the floor.’

  Dr Hannah nodded. ‘Part of the problem, I suspect, is that none of us knows what happened to Benjamin in the orphanage.’

  Now it was my turn to get angry. ‘Do you know how many times I’ve been told that Benjamin’s behaviour may well have something to do with what happened to him in the orphanage? Please, I get that. I really do understand that. That’s not why we came here, to hear that. What we’d like to know is what we are supposed to do about Benjamin today. Here, in America, right now. Because he’s tearing us to pieces.’

  Dr Hannah said, ‘He’s tearing you to pieces?’

  I said, ‘Of course! Can’t you understand that? We didn’t go blindly into this adoption. We knew that it could be challenging. We expected a few hiccups, but nothing like this. Of course it’s tearing us apart. The tension in our house, you could cut it with a knife. Our experience of being parents isn’t the wonderful adventure we wanted. It’s destroying us.’

  My voice had been rising, and by the end of that little speech, I suppose I might have been shouting. Dr Hannah linked her fingers together and smiled at me, like she was trying to be patient. She said, ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Colbert, but there is no need to raise your voice and get cross with me. I am not to blame for this.’

  ‘But look at him!’ I pointed again at the crouched ball of a boy on the floor. ‘Can’t you see the extent of the problem we have here? This is not a child who is having trouble settling. This is something else.’

  Dr Hannah nodded. ‘I can see that you have a problem,’ she said, ‘and my advice is this: try not to take your frustrations – and especially not the problems in your marriage – out on Benjamin. He can’t take that pressure. He’s going through a big adjustment. And, in terms of practical help, maybe the best idea would be to put him into bed in his Pull-Ups, even if you think he’s getting a bit old for that.’

  Well, Colby nearly exploded. ‘That’s really your advice? Put him in bed with his Pull-Ups?’ He was standing now. ‘Do you think we haven’t thought of that? Would you like to try to put some Pull-Ups on Benjamin? Caitlin, do you have some in your bag? We’re paying Dr Hannah – it’s Hannah, isn’t it? – $750 an hour, so let’s see if she can get Pull-Ups onto Benjamin, for $750 an hour.’

  Dr Hannah looked quite startled. She pushed back in her chair. ‘Please sit down, Mr Colbert. There’s no need to be annoyed with me. I can see that you’re frustrated …’

  But Colby had really lost it. ‘Dead right I’m frustrated. I’m frustrated as hell. We adopted a child, believing it was the right thing to do for him and for us. Now my family life is destroyed. My home is quickly becoming destroyed. My wife is …’

  Dr Hannah looked quite distressed. She was saying, ‘Please, sit down …’

  I tried to intervene. ‘What my husband is trying to say,’ I said, ‘is that we have tried Pull-Ups. Of course we have. Benjamin doesn’t like to be touched. He’ll wear only what he wants to wear, which is what you see him in today – the mustard jumper and the corduroy pants – so what my husband is saying is, yes, we’ve tried Pull-Ups, and Benjamin has deliberately removed his Pull-Ups and peed all over the floor, right in front of us. I have been looking on Google. I have been reading everything I can find. I’m wondering if there isn’t something more going on here than the fact that Benjamin is taking his time to settle in. Clearly, there’s something wrong with him. We’ve come here in the hope that you can tell us what that might be. Is it autism? Is it Asperger’s? Did something happen to him in the orphanage that we can do something about?’

  Dr Hannah smiled. ‘Well, these things do tend to take a little time to diagnose,’ she said, and at that point Colby got up and walked out of the room.

  Comment (1):

  Good on you, Caitlin, for exposing that woman to some criticism. Yes, I think I can guess who Dr Hannah is! I had a very similar experience with her and I get so sick of these so-called experts charging a fortune for advice that is absolutely useless in the real world. All they ever say is ‘Be patient’ and ‘Things take time’. Like you say, we’re living with children who are tearing up our homes and our marriages – how much more patient are we meant to be!

  Chapter 29

  The (Alternative) Book of Benjamin

  Hello again. I hope this isn’t becoming a blog of misery – just one bad week or bad month after the other – but I really feel I need to update everyone. So the title of today’s post is ‘What to do when you think your child might be seriously disturbed’. I know that some of you won’t approve of me saying this, but the longer this goes on, the more I’m starting to think we aren’t having the normal problems that people have when they adopt a child from overseas.

  We have adopted a child who is seriously disturbed!!!

  Example one:
I took Benjamin to the park today. I felt that I had to get him outside. I can’t let him lie in his cot, or stand watching the TV all day. But he refused to play on any of the equipment. The only thing he would do is run around after pigeons. I wouldn’t mind if he ran like a normal child, but Benjamin doesn’t run like a normal child. He runs on his toes, like a ballerina, and he flaps his hands, and what’s worse, the expression on his face never changes: it’s stoic. So, he’s running on his toes with his hands flapping and no expression at all on his face.

  I could see other mothers looking, wondering what was wrong with him, maybe even feeling pity for me. I said, ‘Come on, Benjamin. Don’t chase the bird,’ but who was I kidding? Benjamin pays no attention to anything I say. He’s never once – not in the entire time we’ve had him – even made eye contact with me.

  I have now taken him to see THREE different therapists to see what might be behind this behaviour, and none of them has given Benjamin any kind of formal diagnosis. I don’t know if they’re scared of doing it, or whether they’ve just never seen a child like him or what’s going on, but it’s so frustrating.

  Which brings me to Benjamin’s new habit, which is wandering through the house at night, taking food out of the pantry and hoarding it in his bedroom.

  I only found out by accident that he was doing it. I was in bed with Colby – a rare enough thing these days, since he’s taken to spending every possible hour at the office, claiming that he’s got to ‘watch the overseas markets’, whatever that means – when I heard Benjamin heading down the attic stairs.

  He’s easily able to get out of his crib and, in fact, has taken to sleeping mainly on a pile of blankets that he’s thrown on the floor.

  I heard the pantry open and I thought, ‘Oh, okay, he’s hungry. And maybe this is an opportunity for us to bond.’ So, I shuffled my feet into slippers, and went down the hall. The kitchen was in darkness, and the pantry door was shut – we have a walk-in pantry – but I could see under the door the pantry light was on.