Anger and self-harm

Things have been pretty much the same for the last two weeks. Good highs with lovely days and deep lows. No matter what we try, Robbie is still very prone to getting angry over the smallest thing. We've had violent episodes every two or three days. We've been responding as calmly as we can, and giving small, appropriate and consistent consequences. Something's eating him, but he blocks our every attempt to get him to share whatever it is.

On Sunday Glen and I got our wires crossed. Glen had planned for a nice dinner and to watch a DVD he'd bought. I'd told Robbie he could play Wii online with my nephew instead. Robbie decided to play on the Wii, and Glen was understandably cross. After we'd finished playing, it was Robbie's bedtime and Glen was still sulking. Even though Glen explained to Robbie that he was cross with me and not with him, Robbie interpreted this in a different way. He felt he'd done something wrong and got very angry. As tends to be the case when he gets angry with Glen, he went after me and started taunting and poking me. I remained calm and did my best to ignore him, but Robbie just escalated it more and more. Glen intervened, and Robbie swore at him and bit very hard on Glen's wrist. Glen cried out. His wrist went so red that both Glen and Robbie thought it was bleeding. Robbie, who had been up to that point completely irrational and overtaken by anger, suddenly "came to" and realised what he'd done. He was immediately ashamed by his actions, crying and refusing any attempt for us to come near. Eventually Glen was able to show him that he wasn't bleeding after all and he calmed down a bit. We both empathised with him and how terrible he must be feeling. Glen told Robbie that he understood that Robbie must have been hurting so much inside that he wanted him to feel the same pain as he did. Robbie nodded. We said it was ok, he'd made a mistake and he'd learn from it. We read him a story and put him to bed.

A few minutes later Robbie got up and proudly showed me his arm. It was covered in bite marks, with one particularly deep one. He felt that he hadn't been punished as hard as he deserved and had taken it upon himself to punish himself. It was heartbreaking.

Our assessment with the private adoption agency starts this week. It couldn't come at a better time. We need help.

There's always another day

Last week was the anniversary of our celebration day in court. We wanted to mark the occasion with a meal out just the three of us, but Robbie was in a foul mood and in the end we decided against even reminding him about the anniversary (he hadn't remembered the date). It was a pity, but for the best as we were sure he'd try to sabotage the occasion. Maybe next year we'll be in a more celebratory mood.

Someone asked me last week if I enjoyed being a dad. I sometimes wonder if my posts on this blog when we have problems make it seem like life is horrible in our household. It's not. 90% of the time, Robbie is a delight to have around. He is sweet, funny, cheeky, curious, loving... And yes, the other 10% of the time can be very difficult. But hopefully we can get the help we need and make it better.

I love being Robbie's dad. That's why I struggle so much when his anger and fear stop him from being able to accept love, because all I want to do is give him a happy life after all he's been through. A tall order that requires patience, love, understanding, curiosity, empathy, a healthy mind and body and much more. Sometimes I only have some of those and things don't go so well. Others we manage. But we keep trying, and will continue to keep trying. The past shouldn't shape your present or your future. If things don't go well one day, there's always another day.

Sibling direct contact

Robbie had contact with his siblings yesterday. With all the stuff that's been going on lately, it was the the last thing we felt like doing. Robbie's been all over the place and we were worried that contact might unsettle him even more. Still, these things aren't easy to arrange and we agreed to stick to it, so we went ahead. The weather was hardly conducive to a nice afternoon in a park, so I suggested we meet in a small theme park near where we usually get together and everyone agreed. As it happens, it worked really well. The rides and soft play areas provided the kids with structure and something to do that fitted their different ages. We ended up staying for five hours instead of the scheduled two!

The old sibling relationships fell back into place the moment the kids got together. Robbie's sister still mothers him and he allows her to treat him like a three year old despite the time that's elapsed since they lived together. On the way back, Robbie was really sad and wouldn't accept any consolation when I reached for his hand or tried to caress his face. I talked out loud about how sad it is that he can't live with his siblings, and also about how different their relationship would be if they were together all the time. After an hour or so, his spirits lifted.

Once home we had a nice dinner and wound down watching a bit of TV. Robbie tried to create a situation at bedtime but I managed to de-escalate it. After we'd put him to bed he got up twice with a faked pain in his foot (which looked perfectly fine and had suffered no injuries throughout the day). I'm not sure if it was an excuse to get up and get some cuddles from us or his emotional pain was manifesting itself in physical pain.

Donate to New Family Social

As many of you will know, New Family Social, the LGBT adoption charity, has been instrumental in our adoption process both before and after we adopted Robbie. They're currently collecting money for a new online service, and anything you can give will be of help. I've written literally hundreds of thousands of words and never asked for anything back. If you could spare some money, NFS will greatly appreciate it. 


To donate please click here

Thank you very much.

LGBT Adoption and Fostering Week (20th-26th February)

LGBT adoption and fostering week is coming in just over two weeks. Have a look at this website for all the information you need including events near you.

http://www.lgbtadoptfosterweek.org.uk/

Sinking to new lows, but there's hope on the horizon

The situation's not improving. Robbie is going through a period of grief about losing his birth family. Whereas he used to talk about them in quite negative terms and only remember the bad things that happened while he lived with them, at the moment he's going through the opposite: saying how life wasn't bad with them and he wishes he hadn't been adopted. He's always referred to his birth mother by her name, but now it's "mummy" he talks about. He's also constantly reading a book she gave him. Alice, our attachment counsellor says this is positive, and means he's acknowledging and processing what happened to him. To a certain extent, we're glad he's not talking about his birth family in completely negative terms. There must have been good times and it's good that he can look back on those. Unfortunately, all this is also making him very angry and his behaviour is frankly appalling on occasion. On Wednesday he hit both of us again, and he called Glen a "c*nt" (his vocabulary range never ceases to amaze us). We're trying to be understanding as we know the reasons behind the behaviour, but it's quite hard, and Glen in particular is struggling to empathise as Robbie never used to be so rejecting and violent towards him.

But there's hope on the horizon: his placing authority have confirmed that they'll pay for an assessment by the private adoption agency I mentioned. Then, based on what they recommend, they'll consider paying for therapy as well. We're very pleased about this (the assessment alone costs £1,000) and it gives us hope that things will improve even though at the moment we're finding the situation very hard to cope with.