Foster Brat
"Why didn't you call me?" When I came home my wife told me that our foster son has had a break down. She didn't expect I take it well, did she? Now I'm more than agitated.
"You said you had an appointment at court today. I wasn't sure when and how long. But I managed it."
"After what you told me, you had some trouble." I don't know what to do with this kid. He starts to behave like a rude bastard and that's so unlike him. He never had acted like that and…we both can't imagine he realizes his behaviour.
"But I managed…I don't know what's wrong. He behaves like a teenager who hits puberty – very hard." If this even described what went on with him.
"Or he just behaves like every normal foster kid that has lost his whole family in a row." I answer. Ryan was no normal teenager, so his hormones couldn't be an explanation for his behaviour.
"You mean it's something emotional?" I shrug my shoulders. I'm no shrink to answer this question. I'm only a public defender who had thought of having enough experience to handle such a kid. I'm faced with the fact: I haven't.
"What did the doctor say what caused his break down?" I ask.
"Exhaustion and he asked whether he was under a lot of mental stress. I told him about the last months and he suggested watching how his behaviour develops and then see a therapist if it doesn't get better any soon."
"You know what Mrs. Turner had said." I remind my wife. Maybe this woman was right. Maybe this was the only solution to get him back on tracks. Antidepressants weren't meant to be used a lifetime. Only as long as he needs to come to terms again.
"But you also know I don't agree with these drugs." I sigh and sit down. I rack my brains since weeks only to find a solution for us. But I can't seem to find one.
"Regular sessions with a therapist?" I ask.
"Do you think that will work?" She suspicious and I honestly don't think that this will work. The boy won't talk and try everything to manipulate the work. But going through this alone is too difficult for us. I hate myself for this thought but someone needs to clip the boy's wings, otherwise we never can get control over his actions. Not that we want to control him at all. But fact is: as long as Ryan isn't reliant on us, we'll never be able to make him trust us. And we'll never able to solve his problem.
"But we need to make him trust us. Only then he'll let us help him … touch the sore points." I say.
"How to make a boy - who only met violence, crime and loneliness – trust you? This is what we're trying since months and it's not working."
"Maybe he needs stricter rules than before." This could help. He would depend on sticking to them, if he wanted to get his freedom. Or it would make things only worse. But Ryan never has had to arrange his life around rules – he figured out by himself what's right and what's …maybe this was the problem. He only knows what he can do and what not.
"He doesn't know that these rules also exist for others." I mumble not noticing I started to speak out loud my thought.
"What?"
"Ryan knows that he has to take responsibility for his actions and he can do so. Maybe he doesn't know that this is also valid for others. This could explain that he doesn't trust us."
"At least nobody in his family had stuck to rules – he had felt it more than once. Might be an idea worth a try." My wife says. She's tiered. We both are, but we have to fight for the boy. We had agreed to give him a new life – a family – and we had known it won't be too easy. We have to pull through this now. And honestly: I don't think it's easy for him.
"Can I talk to him?"
"On your risk." She says. Hell, this behaviour would match Seth when he had been five. Ryan was sixteen now and used to be a lot more mature than his behaviour shows us lately. I go upstairs. The door is closed. Of course it is. The boy needs a lot privacy and we dared to take it away from him, by putting him into the main house. Who real parent liked the idea having one kid staying in a pool house which could be easily blown away by only some heavy wind? I – for my part – have the feeling as if I can sleep a lot better, since he moved in. But this also could all be only an illusion. I knock on the door, but don't wait before stepping in. I never do so. He's sitting on the bed and reading something.
"Didn't Kirsten tell you something about resting in bed?" I say. He shuts the book – physics – and looks at me. I go and sit down on the bed.
"Do you want to tell me what had happened today?" I ask him. His glance goes down, focusing his hands.
"Didn't Kirsten tell you?" He asks. It's not a smug kind of question, more a defeated one – accepting.
"I want to hear your version." He sighs.
"I had a little break down at school today and … then I was in hospital." Clear facts, no judgment, no excuses.
"A little one? You woke up in hospital. I won't consider that as little." He only shrugs his shoulders. I start to ask, whether he had only once cared about himself and his wellbeing. I'm sure if it had been Seth who broke down at school, Ryan wouldn't take it as easy as he takes it now. But nobody ever had taught him that one had to take care of oneself as well – not only for others. He was never taught that he was worth it, to be cared about, that's what's making him indifferent about himself.
"Did you think about what had caused this?" I ask on. But his face tells me, he had already shut down.
"I'm sorry for touching sore points, but the fact that… this news report made you break down, shows me I'm faced with a teenager who still can't handle his mother's death; his brother's and is far away from handling his father's death. And I didn't even mention all those matters of abuse you went through."
"Why the fuck do you tell me all this?" Oh. I have hit a nerve. No wonder. When the boy started physically to suffer under his emotions, all this must be close to the surface – not difficult to touch.
"Because I would like to know, how you feel about this situation and what you think, to do about it." Again the boy only shrugged his shoulders and then he got up. He makes a distance between us.
"Okay, after I told you how I feel about the situation I'm now going to tell you, what I'll about to do, if this doesn't start to get any better. If you don't start to open up to anyone of us, I'll force you to a therapist no matter if I have to tie your hands and legs. The time limit is set for Friday. If you haven't had a word to anyone of us since then, you'll have an appointment with a therapist by Monday. Did you get that?" Now I'm harsh. But the boy needs to understand that this is serious. At least he understood what I was saying. He starts shooting angry glances at me. Angry? If I wasn't sure about him, I now would be afraid he might seek me living.
"You can't do that." Now I understand what my wife meant with: he hit puberty.
"Oh yes, I can."
"My Dad might be dead, but I guess the guardianship court would like to have a word in this too." Ouch. This hurt. He didn't see us as parents at all. Thinking this makes my heart clench. Fact: this statement hit me hard. What have we done to deserve this? We did everything to be his family and…he…he's such a brat.
"Don't even start with this." I have to control my temper. If it wasn't his past, I'm sure I'd slapped his face. But hell knows what further damage this could cause in this…not really existent relationship between us.
"Why not, it's the truth."
"Maybe it's your truth and the legal truth. But Kirsten's and my truth feels a little different." Why doesn't he see that we love him like our own son? Why doesn't he feel that we love him? He can't be that numb, can he? He heads for the door and wants to leave.
"Where do you think you're going?" I call after him.
"Away." He's such a rude brat. I can't believe the boy who came here first is the same I'm faced with right now.
"Would you like to explain me why?"
"I can't take this any longer." He yells at me. He knows very well nobody yells in this household.
"What? What can't you take any monger?" I scream back.
"This whole fucking shit about family! Don't you realize what a bullshit you're talking, when you try to make me believe this?" This was hard. I don't know how long I'll have to stomach this. But this might be the most honest confession we ever could get from him. I take a deep breath. Truth? I only want to scream into his face how fucking wrong he is.
"Okay Ryan, I guess we're faced with even bigger conflicts we thought. So maybe it's better if we find someone who can help us with this already this week. I don't think anyone of us can handle this." I admit. My wife appears and looks questioning at me, but one look at the boy tells her what's wrong – again.
"What the fuck are you talking about? First you give me time until Friday and now this?" Oh yeah, he's angry. It seems as talking to a therapist is the worse thing one could do to him. But there had been so much worse things done to him. So, I don't know what this fight is about.
"Ryan, you admitted yourself that you don't believe in things like family and that's not normal. Not for a teenager at your age." I try to explain him.
"I'm not doing this." Now he plays the stubborn teenager. I only want the boy back he had been. What was so damn difficult about it?
"Ryan, maybe Sandy is right. Maybe a therapist could give us some helpful advices how to handle the situation." My wife steps in. She always has a calming influence in these heated arguments between the boy and me.
"So now I'm officially a nutcase."
"Nobody thinks of you as a nutcase. But this is no condition. It can't go on like this and we think we need help to solve this." My wife goes on.
"I don't need someone who tells me how broke I am." Another confession and it becomes clear to me that he's only afraid to be faced with his own fears.
"Nobody will tell you this. Listen, we just need some advices how to handle this situation. Nobody will ask you about your feelings and things like that. We go there, explain this someone what our problem is and listen to what he or she can tell us to do. No analyzes, not much talking. Just some help." My wife tries to take his fears away. I only hope she manages to, because I'm at the end of my tether. The boy doesn't answer. The tension in the atmosphere grows bigger and bigger. There's nothing left but tension.
"I…I can't do that." He whispers, but these four words pull the trigger – my trigger.
"It's done, as Kirsten suggests. There's no more discussion about it." I determine. This needs to have an end. I won't allow this situation destroying me and Kirsten…and him. It's the best for all of us. He's only too young to see it.
"You can't decide this just like that!" He now screams again. And we're back to where we've been a few minutes before, but I'll show him what we as 'only foster parents' can do.
"Oh yes, I can and I will!" I yell back. I have no clue how to make him understand that there will be no more discussion about this.
"No, you can't. You aren't my parents!" I wish so hard he hadn't said this. I wish it for me, I wish it for him and I wish it for my wife, who seems to break into tears after this sentence. I lose control. I don't know what I'm doing. So, when my hand slaps his face, I haven't really thought about it. Only when I meet these cold eyes and the reddened cheek, I notice what I've done.
"You should know that this can't impress me." He says cold and then leaves. I'm frozen in my tracks, thus I don't follow him.
Since hours I sit in the living room. Brooding-time as my son would call it. This should rather be Ryan's part than mine. I have no clue about what to do now. My wife has gone to bed early. What he had said had hit her hard – too hard. It had hurt her awfully and I'm not capable of comforting her. I myself am hurt by this sentence. I try to find out what went wrong. There could be so much being wrong. But considering these mistakes from another point of view they seem correct again. I had thought of being able to put myself in his place. I thought I could understand him. But I don't. The only common ground we have is the surrounding we grew up in – nothing else. I underestimated his past. I didn't think his past was influencing him that bad. I hear the door opens. At least I don't have to pick him up drunk from somewhere at the beach.
"Ryan?" I want to talk to him – once again. But we need to sort this out and if this lasts the whole night. He enters the kitchen – head ducked.
"Can we try a new start?" I ask carefully. He shrugs his shoulders. I get up and go to the kitchen and pour us two mugs tea.
"Would you like to sit down?" I ask him. He doesn't say anything, but obeys.
"There is one thing I would like to know. Do you notice how much it hurt us, when you tell us that we aren't your parents or family? Because it does. It hurts us a lot." He lifts his head a little and I meet this sad and despaired face again. He shakes his head. He turned mute again.
"Do you understand that we feel like your parents?" I beg for an honest answer. I look at him. He's thinking carefully of what to say. He always does, despite in our arguments. Thus I don't know whether I should be glad about them, as these are the only situations in which he offers me some honest emotion and insight. Again he shakes his head. He doesn't say these words. They would make it to real for him and this would make him realize something was utterly wrong – wrong with him. Sad to admit, but truth is he's broke. He only tries to run away from his problems, instead of solving them.
"Do you understand that anyone could feel like a parent to you?" Again he shakes his head.
"You know that this is wrong, don't you?" I ask again. He shrugs his shoulders.
"And you need to understand that we don't want to hurt when we suggest a therapist. It's only to help you …us to understand the situation and to get to know how to handle it. Okay?" The boy nods.
"I…also wanted to say sorry for slapping you. I shouldn't have lost my composure and done that." I say. He needs to know that things are different here – that we're different from the others.
"Never mind." He answers and gets up. I'm stunned at this answer. I had thought of hell what would cause this in him and he just doesn't care?
"But you should mind…Ryan…it's not okay if someone slaps you…not even if it's me."
"Sandy, it's okay. I got the difference okay?"
"But Ryan you can't…"
"Sandy, listen: you slapped me because I forced you to. My Mum's boyfriend did it because they were drunk or just wanted to have fun or both. Okay? There's a huge difference and I got it." He wasn't serious or? He tried to explain me why it was correct when I slapped him. I understand more and more how broke he is. There are too many things wrong in his way of thinking and feeling. Nobody ever should think it was okay, when he was slapped.
"Okay, I just say it once again. Thinking it's okay if anyone slaps you, is wrong. And those thoughts are making us worry. But let us talk about this tomorrow. It's already late and you need to rest. Besides, did you drink?" I beg him to be honest. I couldn't bear it, if he lied to me. He ducked his head and nodded. I feel relieved that he at least had enough courage left to be honest to me. Or is this a glimmer of trust? I shouldn't read too much into his behaviour.
"Much?"
"Don't worry I'm out of training, so you would notice if it was much." He answers. I look at him.
"One beer." I was even more relieved. This was nearly nothing for his standards.
"And you smoked."
"Sorry. Bad habits die hard."
"Okay, so now to bed. You know you need to rest." I say and he nods.