Dillon caused us some major stress this week and got us involved with CPS.
To understand what happened, you need to understand a little about his Reactive Attachment Disorder which I have mentioned in previous posts. He does what is called "triangulation" -which means he will say anything to get adults to believe he is a victim of his parents or any other adult who makes him do something he doesn't like. It's his way of attempting to get attention and receive unending coddling and sympathy.
So last week on his birthday, he was standing next to Neal while Neal was helping Halle get out of the truck. The wind, which is super strong on the front of our house, swung the truck door closed and it caught Dillon in the face. Since Neal's back was turned, he only saw that his lip was cut so he cleaned that up for him. We didn't realize it had gotten the whole side of his head until bruising showed up 24 hours later because he didn't complain of any other pain.
Anyway, that night he decided to show off and see what he could get away with while my parents were there for his birthday. He jumped up on the table and his legs came out from under him which landed him on his back. Again, more bruises, so by Friday evening he was looking pretty bad and you can see where this is going.
He's seen CPS come to his birth home over 15 times, so he's been asked abuse questions more than once, and he also knows he gets special treatment if he answers them a certain way. This time, he was with his brand new PSR worker who didn't take the time to read anything in his history. She asked him on Monday morning how he got hurt, he instantly said, "my dad hit me," and then she reported it and he was taken from us.
After hours of phone calls notifying our therapist, his neurologist, our lawyer, his doctor, and our foster care licensing worker who knows us almost intimately, they didn't file anything with the court and we got him back. But it took a lot of people coming to our defense, and even a past history with the prosecuting attorney that certainly helped.
At first, the caseworker who had custody of him treated us like complete criminals. The police came to our house late that night -at our insistence. We weren't going to pull Halle out of bed to go down to the police station for hours of grilling. We took them through a short history of our last year with him and after showing them his shredded sheets, the destroyed closet door, and other effects of his behavior, they were totally on our side. Then the caseworker showed up and wouldn't listen to much that we had to say. She insisted it would be at least 30 days before we saw him again. Neal told me later he thought I was going to lunge at her from the couch, but I restrained.
Here's where Heavenly Father was watching over this boy. His neurologist had to cancel his appointment last week due to an emergency and she only had one appointment left this week. It happened to be the next morning. We asked if he could still make it to that appointment because it was so hard to get in to see her, and the caseworker said it was absolutely important that he kept that appointment and she would be there with him. That's all we needed.
Dillon eventually realized that after all the attention he was getting, the part of his life that's predictable had also been taken away. He wasn't going to be sleeping in his own bed that night and he had changed his story three times by the next morning when we met them. The caseworker spent the first 20 minutes trying to get Dillon to tell the doctor what he had told her, but he wouldn't give her any sensible answer by then - welcome to our world where at least we have Halle to play interpreter for him. She even tried to take him out of the room and see if he would answer without us around but still apparently didn't get anything.
After that, the neurologist literally spent the first hour of the appointment berating the caseworker about the actions that had been taken against us, and then the next hour summarizing his past and his behaviors that we deal with, and then the last hour evaluating his medicine over the past month with us. It was good to have someone actually defending us.
By the time we made it back to the prosecuting attorney's office after the appointment, the petition had been dropped. Dillon apologized to the caseworker on his way back home for lying to her and to "Chuck and another guy (the police)." And the first thing he did when he got home was make his bed. The caseworker was not exactly apologetic because from our experience, they would never admit an error, but she was defintely more understanding.
What have we gained from this life experience?
We have a lot more confidence in our service providers and certainly more patience with their quirks. We learned that all that time going to therapists and doctors may or may not be helping him personally (and some days it definitely feels like it's not), but it's certainly giving them time to know our situation.
Our hearts are a bit more sympathetic for his birth mom. She may not have done everything right, but some of her stories were absolutely true from our experience. We can also understand now with different eyes what parents are experiencing when they lose their kids to CPS, no matter what choices the parents have made.
I also know now that I need to educate every single person Dillon works with. I can't assume they have knowledge even when their credentials dictate it. His 2nd grade teacher will be first on the list.
As my title suggests, not all days are like this one ended. He is actually making major strides now that we have taken him off of his ADHD medicine. The seizure medicine has brought him down to normal activity levels and he is finally teachable. He's getting dressed and making his bed after a full year of constant prompting and redirection. He can also empty the dishwasher and sort and fold laundry without supervision now. He can sleep at night now without tearing up the room and great things are coming from it.
He's a pretty messed up kid and our Heavenly Father is the only one who knows his true story. We can only be tools in the Master's hands to turn his life onto a different path than where it was headed, and I think we are at least going in the right direction.
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