The
“kid” that arrived was not the surly young man that lived with us for nearly a
year after his arrival. In all, he lived with us just short of 2 years and I’d
say less than half of that time was without conflict.
While
we made progress, like pushing him to attend Anoka-Ramsey for a school year and
getting his driver’s license – everything we did, every minor step forward took
an immense amount of effort. With one notable exception: his finding a job. He
stopped in at CVS, liked the manager and took the job immediately.
This
was after he couldn’t cope with working at all and needed help tearfully
resigning from a job when we first had him move in…he said he was “just too
anxious” to work—and then suddenly he was working with the public at the
Financial Aid desk at his school and working with the public at CVS. His
self-proclaimed social anxiety became a complete non-issue. This boggled the
mind as it was a significant sea-change from what we’d seen at first.
About
a year or so into his living with us he began having what appeared like
out-of-control outbursts. They were terrifying to me. One was when he was
driving to school with me (while he had his learner’s permit) and he nearly hit
a car. When I asked for him to pull over, he got into the passenger’s seat, let
off a huge amount of verbal abuse and then essentially jumped from the (slowing
down) car while it was moving.
I
parked and met him on the sidewalk offering him his winter jacket (it was below
zero) and he cursed me out again and then ignored my effort to give him the
coat.
We
sought out family counseling just before this time. He had made some hurtful
comments to our daughter quite a few times and she considered the
relationship broken beyond mending. We were still trying to figure out how to
better integrate him in the family. He decided he hated Jeff and that Jeff was
too demanding and he couldn’t stand him.
He
tearfully hugged me and said I was the only real mom he’d ever had. This was
all touching, but it all flipped on its head at the end when Jeff was the good
guy and I was the evil spawn of satan, fat cow c**t, and every other expletive
he could hurl my way.
At
one point, months ago (probably over 10 months ago) he had a large enough conflict
that he left the house and stayed overnight for a couple of nights with a
friend (who later moved into our house) and during that time he self-harmed and
decided to get tattoos on his FACE and neck. He then hid them from us with
Band-Aids and make up for some time. I’m not sure how he thought we wouldn’t
notice eventually, but it became a common thing for him to lie to us (he said
he had an injury to his neck).
Looking
back, he probably lied to us constantly. With some notable exceptions. A
frequent excuse he had was that he was “too lazy” to do something. He meant
this as a genuine excuse—that he shouldn’t be expected to do something because
he was “too lazy” to do it.
This,
of course, was unacceptable to us. “Too lazy” to bring up his dirty clothes for
us to wash, fold and return to him was crazy-making. Too lazy to put away his
clean work clothes he SAT on them on the chair they’d been placed on rather
than put them anywhere else.
He
began actively ignoring us months ago. I would greet him (I work in the
downstairs), so when he would get up at 1pm or so I would say: “Hello!” or
“Good morning!” and he would intentionally not respond and just walk past me.
All
of this behavior was SO different than the “kid” we took in. At first, he was
so thrilled to have a family. Our entire extended family loved on him, gave him
gifts and he was treated identical to all our kids. Same or more gifts at
holidays, same shopping where we bought him as much or more clothing than our
kids. We tried for the same rules. Regular sleeping hours and consistent meals
with the family. We bought him ANYTHING he asked for. Any food, clothes,
protein drinks, lifting weights or poster.
We
constructed, at great expense, before he moved in, his very own bedroom. It is
literally the nicest bedroom in the house with a fireplace, built in TV and DVD
player, huge space and the largest walk-in closet, by far, of any room in our
house.
We
had him select any color(s) he wanted for the room (which, frankly, were
hideous) and did all the painting for him. He didn’t seem all that grateful
which…at the expense we paid was a bit tough to swallow.
The
same goes for the car we bought for him. We’d been driving him back and forth
from Anoka-Ramsey which was hard for us (work schedules) and time consuming.
About 2 hours per day of effort. No gratitude on his part.
So,
we pushed for him to get his license. When he failed, we pushed for him to
STUDY this time and take it again. Jeff quizzed him constantly in hopes it
would help. We were thrilled he could drive himself, but nonplussed that he
seemed ungrateful for the nearly $3,000 we spent on his car and fixing it up
further to have Bluetooth connectivity for his music, etc.
--
In
summary, after less than a year with us he came to EXPECT rather than be
grateful for things that we did. He expected that I would take care of all his
medical appointments and getting him there. He expected that if he overslept
Jeff would get him up in time for school. He expected laundry service and to
have all meals prepared for him. Jeff even packed him lunches. (Initially)
He
never offered help the way our other kids would jump in. Examples: He’d see us
come home from grocery shopping with lots of bags and just look at us as we
carried them in. Our kids would, right in front of him, offer to help and start
carrying in bags.
When
confronted he claimed his “autism” (never diagnosed) made it so he didn’t
notice. So, I tried a direct approach ASKING him for help. He gave it minimally
and begrudgingly and always expected profuse thanks.
Jeff
and I once left for a brief two-day weekend trip with friends. Lucy was out of
town at a debate tournament, we were out of town, Michael went to stay with
Grandma and Grandpa so that he wouldn’t be troubled to feed him. It turns
out he couldn’t be troubled or able to remember to feed the pets, so the dog
was without food and water for the entire 2.5 days we were away.
Every
time after this, if we left, we had to take our dog to Jeff’s parent’s house,
too, because a 24-year-old self-professed dog lover could or would not feed a
dog.
These
are minor examples of minor things he did—but larger, very scary outbursts
including him punching a whole in the drywall of his room, scared me.
I
wanted him to have immediate care and wanted him to be hospitalized for his
mental health, but this just caused him to run away in his car. (Which was
worse because I worried about him driving in that mental state.)
We
are certain he has mental health issues, but this doesn’t excuse his pattern of
lying (he dropped out of college and continued to go there daily to “pretend”
he was still attending classes) and disrespect.
We
asked for very minimal things:
Please
bring up dirty laundry
Please
don’t sleep until 1 or 2pm
Please
help plan one meal a week (this happened only twice)
These
are ridiculously minor requests and yet he didn’t do any of them.
His
room, with its giant walk in closet, was covered in a mix of dirty and clean
clothes strewn across the floor in piles – with open half-empty pop cans.
He
wouldn’t eat and began seeing a food therapist because he kept losing weight to
the point where he appeared to have anorexia. Again, we had to push for
everything to get him care.
We
babied him when he had his wisdom teeth out, bought him new glasses and new
clothes. I took him to no less than 5 dentist appointments to fix multiple
cavities from lack of dental care for nearly 6 years. We did everything to help
– and in the end, received nothing but vitriol for our care.
I
genuinely think he will continue to think of himself as the “victim” of our
actions. He has this mentality that he’s always the victim and everyone else
hurts him – and he’s never at fault.
He
has followed this pattern, bouncing from relative to relative, girlfriend to
girlfriend’s house, even a stint in the military staying with no permeance. He
told me that his father, on hearing that him was staying with us, said:
“Well, that’s good. Maybe a family setting will finally help you.”
This
should have been a giant red flag.
An
additional red flag was when, without telling us, he booked flights to spend
Christmas with his friend L in California rather than spend it with us, his
supposed family. It would have been his second Christmas with us and everyone,
including our extended family, bought him gifts.
I
knew the relationship was deteriorating and it was clearly not working in
family counseling because he always played the victim.
I
also knew he was talking behind our backs about how terrible we are/were.
M also living in our house, would try to come up and defend whatever
outburst he’d had, suggest ways he might be a victim (probably suggested by
him) and generally try to be a peacemaker. This put her in an awful
position.
Before
he left, he spat in our faces that everyone he’d talked to at all his jobs and
on the internet and to everyone else thought we were evil and horrible.
He
videotaped me trying to calm him down while he screamed and said he’d post it
to the internet to show what a monster I am.
Every
lie hurt. Every out-burst terrified me that he might hurt our kids.
I
know Jeff thinks my fear is excessive, but I knew his sister threw him out
because she feared for the life of her baby.
This
made me scared. Scared that he could, in the night, take a knife from the
kitchen and attack us in our sleep.
This
is what really pushed me over the edge – and broke the relationship
irrevocably. Being scared in my own home. That was too much.
Like
I said, I know he thinks he’s the victim. I know he thinks we’re in the wrong.
I don’t expect he’ll ever come to think of the things we did for him, from
construction, to buying his car to all the support in enrolling him in
college…I don’t think he’ll ever appreciate these things. He polarizes things
too much – so we are “100% evil” or bad, and I don’t expect that will change in
his mind.
Frankly,
I don’t care. We know our efforts. We know we went above and beyond. We feel
hurt and lied to, and now that he’s gone there is a new peace that is settling
over our house and a relief I couldn’t imagine until now.
He
threw away perfectly good clothes. Expensive posters we bought for him. Shoes
and more. We salvaged some from our garbage, but we know the bulk of it he
threw in a dumpster at CVS.
This
was also heart breaking. Jeff is taking what we were able to find in our
garbage can to Goodwill.
When the YMCA case worked helped him move out, she asked us to host again. I was
horrified. She said: “I know you found him on your own…but would you
consider hosting again?”
Please
know that we are scarred. Perhaps for life. This level of dishonesty, this
amount of hidden mental illness and how positively it started to the crash and
burn of his departure has led to deep, deep distrust.
If
we could find such a positive, upbeat and talented young person who had a hard
luck story that looked like it could be fixed by just having a loving home—and
it could turn into this nightmare of my feeling scared in my own home…I’m not
sure you could find a more ideal initial homeless young person yet it ended
with us terrified. We need time to heal.
We
need time to heal as a family. Our kids are hurt emotionally. Can you imagine
the guilt I feel that I brought someone into our home that called them names
and caused immense family conflict, shouting and scary pounding on the walls?
No,
we won’t host. Not for the foreseeable future. Maybe we failed, but at least we tried.
