by Angela Hart
Sandy agreed to this. She listened very patiently as I spoke and she reassured me that she would do her best to find out what had gone wrong with the system. Some time later we discovered the report was actually in Keeley’s file all along but had simply been buried among several years of notes and other documents, which didn’t really surprise me. This was not the first time information had been inadvertently hidden or misplaced, and it was symptomatic of a very stretched system in which social workers were constantly overloaded with work.
‘So, Angela, are you all ready for the holiday?’ Sandy asked at the end of our phone call, no doubt trying to finish our conversation on a positive note.
‘Not really. I’ve got loads to sort out. It’s always a lot of hassle getting the shop staffed and taken care of, and Keeley’s got her second visit with her dad to fit in, not to mention a therapy session . . .’
‘It does sound like you have a lot on your plate, Angela, but it’ll all be worth it in the end,’ Sandy reassured. ‘I’m sure you’ll all have a lovely time.’
‘I hope so. I really need a break. Bye, Sandy, I must dash now, got lots to do. Bye.’
My head was crammed full with mental notes. I needed to check the car insurance, pay some household bills, buy Keeley some flip-flops, pack factor 50 sunblock for Phillip, who had very sensitive skin, double check our accommodation bookings, and so on and so on. The list felt endless; I had a headache just thinking about how much I had to do before the holiday. Normally I would have completely agreed with Sandy’s optimistic view that it would all be worth it in the end, but that’s not how I felt. My mind kept wandering back to the stressful weekend in Wales, and I was starting to dread packing Keeley into the back of the car alongside Carl and Phillip. Would she behave herself? What if she aggravated Phillip again? I wouldn’t be able to relax, and I was seriously wondering if it was worth going on holiday at all. After all, what was the point, if I’d feel frazzled and on edge the whole time?
The phone rang about half an hour after I’d ended my call with Sandy. I picked the receiver up reluctantly, thinking rather irritably, Who’s this now? As if I haven’t got enough to do . . .
‘Angela, it’s me again.’
‘Oh, hello, Sandy. Did you forget something?’
‘Not really, but I’ve been thinking. Would you and Jonathan like to talk to a counsellor too?’
‘What for?’
‘To help you deal with Keeley, perhaps unload a bit. I’ve been thinking about this for a while. The situation you’re in with Keeley isn’t ideal, having to cope with her on top of caring for the boys. I know it’s not easy. We’re still no closer to finding a more suitable placement, as the situation with her father is still uncertain. I know it’s very tricky for you, not knowing how long Keeley may be with you . . .’
‘In what way is the situation with her father uncertain?’ I asked bluntly, as this seemed a much more urgent topic than whether Jonathan and I wanted to chat to a counsellor. ‘Is there a problem with Keeley’s dad? I thought it all sounded positive. That’s the last I heard.’
‘There’s not a problem as such. It seems he’s not averse to the idea of having Keeley live with him; in fact he’s quite keen, from what I can gather. The issue is that of course it’s very early days and there’s a process to go through that will take time, which I’m well aware doesn’t help you. In the meantime, I think you and Jonathan might benefit from some extra help.’
‘Are you worried we’re not coping, because honestly, Sandy, even though it’s tough at times we are managing—’
‘I know you are doing a very good job in the circumstances, Angela. However, there is such a thing as “transference” and I am wondering if you may be suffering from a touch of this.’
‘Transference?’ I stuttered, wondering what on earth Sandy was talking about. It sounded serious, if not a little sinister. ‘What’s that?’
Sandy explained that she’d heard about transference on a training course, and she told me in very simple terms that it meant a child like Keeley sets out to make their carer unhappy. Sandy said the youngster subconsciously thinks that if the person who is looking after them feels unhappy like they do, and shares their hurt, then somehow their own pain may be reduced.
‘For example,’ Sandy said, ‘the way Keeley winds you up and gets you feeling cross and irritated is not about her trying to punish you gratuitously. Rather, it’s possible she is trying to get you to feel how she is feeling. She wants to drag you down to her emotional state, so she has an ally, if you like.’
‘I see,’ I said, feeling quite shocked by this but also a little comforted. I had definitely not been feeling my usual upbeat self of late, and I could see that the holiday preparations were getting on top of me much more than they should have been.
‘I think you may have a point, Sandy . . . I’ve never really analysed it, but this is ringing all sorts of bells in my head.’
I thought back to several incidents that had occurred recently, when I’d been much more short-tempered than I ought to have been. The time I said Keeley couldn’t have a glass of milk at bedtime, after her mum’s visit, loomed large in my mind. Keeley had been rude and had even insulted my mother, but it was completely unlike me to deny a child a drink like that, under any circumstances. Jonathan had also been uncharacteristically grumpy, shouting at Phillip about the mud in the hallway, I thought.
After hearing a little bit more about how the counselling would work I agreed that Jonathan and I would go along for a session together, to talk through how we were dealing with Keeley. Sandy reassured me that the session would be informal and was simply an opportunity to get things off our chest and find out more about transference and how to deal with it. Whatever we discussed would be confidential, and the fact we’d had counselling would not go against us as foster carers. One session might be all we wanted; it was up to us.
There didn’t seem to be anything to lose and, very impressively, we were swiftly offered a slot before our holiday, which tied in conveniently with Keeley’s next therapy visit.
Before that, Keeley also had another contact visit with her dad, which she said she was really looking forward to. This time a social worker collected her from our house, and Keeley was ready well in advance and stood waiting in the hallway, jumping with delight when her lift arrived. She was all sweetness and light as she said goodbye to me and headed to the waiting car, her favourite doll tucked sweetly under her arm.
‘Bye bye, Angela,’ Keeley said in her prettiest voice. ‘I’ll miss you when I’m at my dad’s. So will Jinty, won’t you?’
With that she lifted up one of Jinty’s rag arms and gave me a little wave.
‘Oh, that’s sweet of you,’ I said, feeling quite touched.
‘Will you miss me, Angela?’ she called.
‘Of course! See you later, sweetheart. Hope it goes well.’
The contact social worker smiled at us both and I stood at the door waving them off. A feeling of wellbeing swept over me. It meant a great deal to be treated this way by Keeley, and I drank in the moment. I watched Keeley obediently buckling her seatbelt in the back of the car and thought what an unexpected turn of events this was. She looked as pretty as a picture too; her long hair was flowing in shiny ringlets and she was positively beaming as she looked me straight in the eye.
I grinned back, but moments later the smile froze on my face. Keeley suddenly stretched out the corners of her mouth wide and stuck out her tongue very cheekily at me. Then, to my absolute horror, just as the car disappeared around the corner Keeley pushed her hand up to the window and stuck her middle finger up at me.
I went in the house and allowed myself a little cry. It was very upsetting to be treated like that, but once again I dug deep and made allowances for Keeley’s behaviour. She is an abused child, I reminded myself sternly. If Sandy is right, Keeley is just trying to make me feel rubbish about myself, so she is not alone in feeling that way about herself. I was very glad I’d agreed
to the counselling; I was starting to feel I would need all the help I could get to survive the holiday.
When Keeley returned from seeing her dad she was in an extremely annoying, belligerent mood.
‘How was it?’ I asked, having told myself to treat Keeley as I normally did, despite what she’d done earlier. My plan was to talk to her gently later, when she had settled back at our house and was hopefully in a responsive mood.
‘How was what?’
‘Seeing your dad.’
‘What would you care?’
‘I care very much.’
‘You only care about how much longer you’ve got me here. You’re worried I’ll tell everyone what you’re like!’
‘I beg your pardon, Keeley. What are you talking about?’
‘I know you don’t care about me. I can tell, but I don’t care. I’m going to live with my dad. He told me. SO THERE!’
Keeley pushed past me, went into the kitchen and helped herself to a chocolate biscuit.
‘I’d rather you didn’t eat that now,’ I said.
‘Why?’ she said, taking a bite.
‘Dinner will be ready soon, and that biscuit will spoil your meal. Plus you didn’t ask me, and you know that you must ask before you help yourself to biscuits.’
‘God I hate this house!’ she announced, before finishing the biscuit in one bite. ‘Can I ask you something, Angela?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Why are you such a boring person? And do I really have to come on holiday with you and the Invisible Man and those two dorks?’
‘Keeley,’ I said, taking a deep breath and thinking to myself, Don’t fall for it. Don’t let her drag you down, Angela. ‘Your behaviour has upset me today. I was very sad about what you did from the window of the car, and I don’t like the behaviour I’m seeing now. You’re being rude and ungrateful when I know that inside you are a lovely girl. I was very proud of you when I saw you earlier today, before you went to your dad’s. You looked lovely and you were very polite and a pleasure to be around when the contact worker picked you up. I think it would be so much better if you could be like that more often.’
‘Why? To make your life easier?’
‘No, Keeley, not to make my life easier. It would help you. You would be happier, I think. Nobody is happy when they are being rude and upsetting other people.’
‘Well I am, and I’m very happy now I’m going to live with my dad!’ she shouted, and then she ran off to her room.
Once again I found myself stooped over my diary, writing a log. Before Jonathan and I went to our counselling session I looked back over all the notes I’d made on Keeley during her time with us, and I was shocked to see so many irritating incidents and reports of bad behaviour recorded. It had been one thing after another, and when Jonathan and I chatted about how we would handle our forthcoming meeting we found ourselves agreeing on two descriptions that we felt summed up caring for Keeley, which we would attempt to share with the counsellor.
‘I know we’ve said it before, but I still say it’s like being on a roller-coaster ride,’ Jonathan said thoughtfully, ‘but not a normal roller coaster; a very rocky one with lots of twists and turns and unexpected plunges into darkness and despair . . .’
‘Very good,’ I said, smiling, as Jonathan had finished his sentence with a slightly tongue in cheek flourish. ‘Quite poetic actually, Jonathan! I’m impressed.’
‘Are you taking the mickey, Angela?’ he smirked. ‘How would you describe it then?’
‘I think I would say that the effect Keeley’s behaviour has on me is like a dripping tap. Drip, drip, drip. I don’t always notice it, but it’s there; chipping away, wearing me down. One day, if I’m not careful, whoosh! It’ll break down my defences completely and there’ll be an almighty flood that washes me clean away and smashes me into the rocks!’
Jonathan laughed, but it was a bittersweet moment. We may have gone deliberately over the top with our florid descriptions, desperate as we were for some light relief in our lives, but there was a lot of truth in what we said.
The counselling session turned out to be useful and enlightening. It took the form of a fairly relaxed and informal chat with a lady called Jackie, in which Jonathan and I shared many of the experiences we’d had with Keeley. The counsellor listened sensitively and carefully to us. Jackie didn’t offer any practical advice and I knew not to expect any; I’d learned over the years, through the experiences of several children we’d looked after, that therapy is focused on talking, not action plans.
Jackie confirmed that she thought Sandy was right in suggesting we had experienced a ‘touch of transference’, as she put it, and she talked to us in general terms about being vigilant about our own state of mind, and continuing to talk to each other and to Sandy regularly.
‘It’s not uncommon for foster carers to suffer some degree of transference,’ she said, ‘and this isn’t helped by the fact you have to keep your work confidential, as of course you can’t communicate with friends or unload in the normal way that other people do about difficulties they have in their jobs.’
I agreed with this; I’m a great believer that ‘a problem shared is a problem halved’, but Jonathan and I had nobody to share our troubles with besides each other, plus our support social worker, who was obviously very involved herself in Keeley’s case. I found it really helpful to talk to Jackie. Just having a new person listening and caring was very therapeutic, and I felt she understood and supported us. I felt more confident in our abilities, too, because Jackie said several times that we were doing all the right things with Keeley, and that our reactions were perfectly normal in the difficult circumstances.
The counsellor smiled when we told her the analogies we’d come up with involving the rocky roller coaster and the dripping tap, and she suggested one of her own after we told her about the recurring problems we’d had with Keeley sharing the bathroom with the boys, for example, and refusing to take regular showers.
‘It’s very irritating because even if I feel I’ve made progress and got through to her one day, the next we’re always back to square one,’ I lamented. ‘The bathroom is a regular battleground.’
‘Yes, it sounds like Groundhog Day,’ Jackie replied, and we smiled wearily and agreed that it was a pity this was real life and not a film, or we might find that comparison very funny.
Jackie went on to provide us with some rather dense information about transference, which was slightly different to how Sandy had described it. Jackie explained that it wasn’t as simple as Keeley trying to get us to feel just as bad as she did, to dilute her pain, so to speak. She said that transference was a bit more complicated than that, and that it also occurs when a person takes the perceptions and expectations he or she has of one person, often from childhood experience, and projects these onto another person.
‘For example,’ Jackie explained, ‘a child who is lucky enough to come from a happy home may view their foster carer as an idealised version of their mother or father. They feel safe and protected when in care, as they transfer how they feel, or felt, about their natural parents onto their foster carers. However, the opposite may also be true. In Keeley’s case, it’s likely she was expecting to be treated badly by you and Jonathan, as she wasn’t treated well at home. Potentially, she then transferred her expectations of a mother or father figure onto you and Jonathan, and then carried on behaving as she did at home, as she knew no different.’
‘So are you saying this is subconscious, not deliberate?’ I asked, trying to get my head around it all.
‘Absolutely. Keeley’s current behaviour is a reaction to her past, and she’s heavily influenced by what happened to her as a younger child. Imagine she has one very definite blueprint of a mother figure in her head, based on her natural mother, and she simply can’t shift from that. She sees you, Angela, in exactly the same way as she saw her natural mother in the past, when she was being emotionally and physically abused. She had to fight back then, an
d she was deeply unhappy. Now she’s replaced you with her mother in her mind, so you are on the receiving end of her difficult behaviour, even though you don’t deserve to be, and despite the fact you treat her very differently to how her mother did.’
This was all quite mind-blowing to me back then, and not easy to get my head around. As I’ve said before, Jonathan and I had done our fair share of being amateur psychologists over the years, but this was extremely interesting news to us. We found it fascinating, slightly alarming but also strangely reassuring. After all, I’d spent months telling myself that Keeley needed careful handling, and that it wasn’t her fault she behaved the way she did. Until this point I was basing my reaction to Keeley on the little I knew about the emotional, physical and possible sexual abuse she had suffered in the past. My default position was simply to think ‘she can’t help it’, but I had barely scratched the surface of understanding exactly why. Now I felt I had some professional psychology backing up how I was handling her, and this spurred me on.
Today, transference is more commonly known as secondary trauma, compassion fatigue or sometimes vicarious trauma. When it’s talked about in fostering circles it now generally refers to the carers and how they start to take on the childrens’ problems as their own and get ground down as a result, although Jackie’s descriptions are still valid.
In hindsight I can confidently say that this had happened to Jonathan and I, to a degree, when caring for Keeley. We really weren’t ourselves, the longer the placement went on. We’d lost some of our natural humour and had become quite careworn and unsettled; in other words, Keeley’s discontent had certainly rubbed off on us. Seeing the counsellor helped us recognise that, and quite possibly stopped us from slipping further into total burnout.
30
‘Let’s all try to get along and enjoy the holiday’
My mum had volunteered to stay in our house while we were on holiday, and she was going to lend a hand to the assistant we had managing the shop. Despite living close by, Mum arrived with a large suitcase and a cool box of food she’d brought from her fridge, which she explained would otherwise have gone to waste.