playground bully

Son was moody all Friday night and ended up screaming himself to sleep. In the morning he kept being moody and cheeky to his dad, and had one almighty tantrum, complete with slamming doors and screaming once again. He wasn't much better on Sunday.

His Dad had a word with him, what was the matter? Turns out he's fallen out with his best mate at school and there was some sort of physical altercation in the playground, hence his behaviour with us all weekend. Just goes to show, we can do everything right at home, but if something out of our control upsets him, we all get it in the neck from him anyway. We just can't seem to move him towards dealing with life's little problems in a more proportionate, age appropriate way.

Whatever happened between Son and his best mate was not the only issue in the playground last week. Daughter ran out of school before the bell had even ended its last ring on Thursday, wetting herself with excitement to tell me that Son had smacked her across the head at playtime. Between the two of them a story emerged that went something like this: A girl in Son's year approached Daughter to ask her to stop Son from hitting her, Daughter went over to him and he whacked her, whereupon Daughter told a Dinner Lady who made him apologise.

I am worried about Son's liking for whacking other kids in frustration at playtime. This is far from the first week this sort of stuff has happened. I have alerted the school to my worries, verbally and in writing, and today I phoned up again and gave the Learning Mentor chapter and verse about his latest behaviour.

My hope is that, as Son can behave himself in the classroom in front of a teacher, that if he knows teachers at school will get to learn about his bullying behaviour at home, then this gives him motivation to control himself. I would also really like for them to keep an eye on him at playtime, or even just keep him in, reinforcing the message that he cannot be left to hurt people.

We'll see. I still think it will take a major event before the school really take me seriously.

food

I'm shoveling crap down my children's throats, thought you should know. Not literally, mind. What I mean is that I'm feeding my children those highly packaged, shockingly expensive lunchbox food assimilation stuffs.

I'm lucky in that my children like fruit and vegetables and so they get plenty of fresh, nutritious stuff. The problem comes with carbohydrates and protein. They like this, then they don't. They like that then they don't. They like this just what the other one doesn't like at any given moment, but then they won't eat that when they loved it last week.

I used to bend over backwards to give them what they liked, until I realised that they didn't know what they liked, they just liked to be in charge of what went on their plate. Even if they then didn't eat it.

We now have a policy of you'll have what you're given and they are not allowed to make any comment about the food they have to me unless it's a compliment. Anything less than that is not polite, I tell them. This has reduced my irritation levels, but it hasn't made them eat much more.

And they need to eat, get the calories in, because they are small for their ages. Both are the smallest child in their year. My Daughter who is 10 years old and two forms higher than her brother, is smaller than him. Nutrition is important, but they need their calories to grow. They love their puddings and chocolate, but there is definitely a tipping point, where too much of the sugary stuff and their appetite for normal food goes.

And also they need to keep their blood sugar levels up. I am convinced that not eating enough at school during the day contributes to Son's after school moodiness in particular.

And so I'm buying crap like Dairylea Dunkers, Kraft food lunchables and Nestle's Munch Bunch yogurt drinks, and I'm shovelling it at 'em in their school lunchboxes and at weekends. I'm not giving them a chance to settle on a favourite which they can then reject, I'm just getting loads of that type of crap and giving it to them randomly.

It's painful to do because I'm a free-from-cruelty, organic, free trade type purchaser myself, and it's expensive, and the packaging is very bad for the environment, but the thing is the kids are actually eating more. They're getting the carbs and the salts and the calories they need to get through the day, as they are actually eating this stuff because they see them as treats rather than obligatory food stuffs their parents make them eat.

At this stage, I'm willing to give anything a go. Anyway, in my school lunch box I used to have jam sandwiches and a Wagon Wheel and I survived into adulthood.

Addendum

Husband went to do the lunchboxes last night and discovered that for lunch on Friday Daughter had opened all the food packets but eaten nothing. The mind boggles. Today she will find a note in her lunchbox saying that she is not to open anything unless she intends to eat it, because we cannot waste such expensive food. I do hope that note doesn't embarrass her in front of her friends.

an interesting strategy!

Today Son came out of counselling session beaming with pride and showed me a calendar he'd been making with the Social Worker. The Social Worker explained to me that Son might not remember certain things he has to do, so they've written a few things down on the monthly calendar. This, apparently, will stop me having to always keep telling him what to do. He can just look at the calendar and he'll know what to do.

So there's stuff on there like 'tidy my room' and 'help dad in the garden' and also 'mind my manners' and 'not bully my sister'.

It's an interesting idea, that Son's behavioural problems are mostly down to him forgetting how to behave, but we'll give it a go.

I've been told that I can add anything I want onto the calendar and so I'm thinking of putting 'hug grandma not hit her' and 'do not call my mummy a fucking bitch.'

therapy

Son had his first therapy session last Friday. I'm a little confused about a few things. Mostly about why he's having therapy from a Social Worker not the Psychiatrist. I'm trying not to think of that as a fob off.

As the Social Worker had never met my Son, I dropped her off his Life Story book and a two page documentation of his emotional and behavioural problems, with covering letter. I thought she ought to know something about him before she saw him.

We had a quick chat on the phone too. I told her I just wanted a better understanding of why he has this rage in him. The Social Worker told me he is angry because of his early life experiences (stupid me!). But when I asked what her aim was over the six therpay sessions she said it was to find out what makes him so angry.

Erm, yeah.

I also queried why I wasn't allowed in the room with him and was told because the idea was to give Son a safe space to talk about his feelings.

It's most definitely not attachment therapy. I know this because the first thing Son said when we left the building after his first session was that his and the Social Worker had a secret, and he's not allowed to tell me.

The other thing he told me was that the Social Worker had told him that when he was angry he was to breathe in through his nose and breathe out through his mouth. But I've done all that stuff with him. He's even got a card telling him what to do when he gets angry and sometimes he does do it. It's more the frequency with which he gets angry that's the problem. The fact that he gets angry over minor stuff. Every day. And that if nothing presents itself to make him angry he'll create something to make him angry. Unless we make him live the life of a Category A Prisoner which he seems to quite like.

My main worry however is that Son is absolutely besides himself that he gets taken out of school to go play glove puppets with a really nice lady. You should have seen the joy radiating off him when he came out of the room with her. He kept asking me do I really get to do this every Friday? Instead of school? I haven't seen him this happy in months and months. I really hope that one session he'll blow up so bad she'll have to press the panic button. Then we might get somewhere. But I doubt it. He'll probably carry on being joyous and the professionals will start to wonder if me and Husband are the problem. Just like I suspect the school do.

reboot

I had this idea that if adopted children experienced therapeutic, attachment-focused parenting, in the context of a loving and stable home, from a Mother who was always present, then the children would flourish and begin to heal as time went by.

No matter how tough things were, I always had the luxury of thinking they will get better and would imagine using babysitters more, having the odd weekend away just me and the Husband, and a time when I could leave them unsupervised giving me more freedom. It won't always be as intense as this, I would comfort myself. Whilst my children will always have special needs, I could console myself that their needs would become less over time.

So, my thinking has been in need of a reboot. When Son first came to us we learned too slowly that he could barely cope with life. My ideas of fun, action packed weekends doing stuff with the kids had to be revised into plenty of downtime, plenty of rest, plenty of calming jigsaws and boring fucking board games. I wanted their lives to be full of Beavers and acting classes and parks and daytrips. But when it became clear that Son couldn't even cope with the pressure of having to brush his teeth at night, all that had to be revised.

I thought it would get better over time, that he'd settle and want to do more stuff. I thought this because that was what I wanted to happen and because that was what the professionals - who at the time knew my Son and Daughter better than I did - said would happen.

I realised too slowly that that wasn't happening. I see now that he blatantly wasn't coping with a life beyond jigsaws and boardgames at home. All his oppositional behaviour and his infuriating ingratitude was all pointing towards the fact that he couldn't cope with the life we were giving him, but I didn't get it. I even once threatened him with taking away all the treats in his life if he didn't stop being such a little shit (didn't quite put it like that to him, but that was the gist of it), so that he could learn to appreciate just what he had. Little did I realise then that in effect that was what he was asking me to do.

Son's life is once again just about calming little games at home. I have thrown away two plastic bags full of rubbish, containing all the broken crap he had destroyed and had cluttering up his room. I have taken the posters he hadn't yet destroyed down from his walls for safe keeping. I have moved all his books and some toys downstairs. The Memory Box, full of special things, which he threatened to destroy, has been taken away. I am restricting the TV and there is no wii or ds. I have built in times which he and his sister spend apart, sometimes with me or dad, sometimes alone. At weekends he is staying home, and either me or Husband will take Daughter out. I am not asking him to do homework. He can keep his Friday Sports club, but I will stop that if it appears that even with support he can't handle it. We are not inviting people over and we are not visiting others. I am not buying him the treats he used to get and reject. His life has stopped, for now.

For neuro-typical well-attached children, this would be cruel punishment. For my Son it appears a blessed relief. He is calmer.

I find myself grieving for the life I thought we were all going to have. I am depressed. This is not how it was supposed to be more than two years in. He's supposed to be doing Scouts by now, and learning to swim and karate, and we're supposed to be looking forward to do foreign holidays and camping and walks in the country. He can't even handle a trip to Tescos.

So, another great lesson on the adoption journey. Prepare to make your life boring forever for the sake of your children's mental health. They don't teach you that on the preparation course.

adoption in the media

I am getting pretty sick of most portrayals of child protection, the care system and adoption in the mainstream media. I can't even remember the last time that I read or saw anything that didn't concentrate on the birth parents' loss, as if children and their right to live free of abuse and neglect is an utterly secondary consideration to the wishes and needs of adults. Take for instance this offensive article by Joanna Moorhead in the Saturday Guardian last week, where a child protection worker is interviewed as if she were some evil child-snatcher and the birth parents are portrayed as harmless saps with society against them.

The following is my response to the Guardian letter's page:

Joanna Moorhead describes herself as perhaps appearing an 'over-emotional, woolly liberal' ('Removing a Child is Terrible' Family, Saturday Guardian 14/01/12). Actually to me she came over as immature, ignorant and offensive. To ask Sallyanne Jones, a specialist in child protection, how she would feel if she had to give up her child - as she cradled her seven-month old baby - smacked of a childish 'how would you like it to happen to you then, eh?' and was downright nasty, something I suspect the writer was half-aware of considering she spent the first part of the article defending the question.

I adopted my children and am all too aware that birth parents who do not abuse or neglect their children find Social Workers, the care system and adoption frightening. The idea of someone taking away their child and losing them to a bunch of nameless people is too horrific to contemplate. But what people like Sallyanne and other people caught up in child protection and its ramifications, like Foster Carers and adopters know, is that child protection is exactly that; it is about protecting the child. Hard as it may be for Joanna Moorhead to acknowledge that some parents abuse and neglect their children, it absolutely does happen. We now know that such trauma damages the growing brain, causing the child to suffer all sorts of mental and physical dysfunctions. That cannot be allowed to happen because we might be squeamish about causing distress to the parents.

She may think that 'removing children from their mother is almost always tragedy', but she is wrong. It isn't 'almost' always a tragedy, it is always a tragedy for everyone involved, most especially - Joanna Moorhead should perhaps contemplate - for the child who needed protection from their own mother.

two mothers

My Daughter once told me that one of her 'friends' at school said I wasn't her 'real Mum'. So I pinched myself and said that I felt pretty real to me. I then said that as far as I could tell I really bathed her, I really cooked for her, I really did her laundry, I really loved her, and that I really did all the things that a mum does for her children, so that really made me her mum. I then pointed out to my Daughter that, actually, she had two Mums, her Birth Mum and me, and her 'friend' only had one Mum, so ha! Who's the loser?

Well, I didn't quite put it like that, but you know what I mean.

I used to have real difficulty with the fact that my children love their Birth Mum. I mean, after what she did and everything and all that. But that was when I was sort-of competing with her. I wanted to be the best Mum, the loved Mum, the one they wanted most. Otherwise I felt I'd failed them, lost the game. But it's not a game. It's real life. Christine Moer often reminds us that adoption is built on pain and loss. They grieve the loss of their Birth Mother, I grieve the loss of the children I never gave birth to. That's the way it is.

But something I've been thinking about lately is how I have two Mum's too. Technically speaking, she's one person, but she has two personas. The first persona, the one I like, came out a little over the last week, when she's caught me being vulnerable. Alright, she was a bit weird, referring to TV shows at odd moments, and still talking about her own crap when clearly I was in the middle of an emotional storm and in no place to deal with it. But the point is that despite all of that, I could tell that she genuinely cared and was shocked to see me so shaken, my confidence in pieces. Upset at the state I was in on Friday she phoned me on Sunday to see how I was, and I spoke to her and then to Dad for some time. For the first time in a long time I was the Child, receiving good counsel and care from my parents. I was allowed to be vulnerable and they comforted me. I can't tell you what unusual rest that was.

Then there is my other Mum. I felt more like myself as I went about the day. I was aware that I was keeping myself unnaturally busy, but I wasn't sitting on the sofa in my coat and boots sobbing, so that was OK with me. We had a phone conversation, my Mum and I, and I realised too late that I was now talking to my Other Mother. This was the Mother that felt very sorry for herself and very resentful that there should be any expectation at all that she should care for me. I got minutes and minutes of agonizingly dull detail about the cold she has. A blow by blow account of something Dad had done wrong. I handled those complaints as sympathetically as I could, but despite being in passive mode, I still managed to say something wrong on three occasions and got shouted at. Yes, my Mum shouts at me. She gets so paranoid that any deviation from 'yes Mum' makes her Attack Attack Attack. It's unpleasant at the best of times, and this is not the best of times.

She also messed with my head. I told her that Husband had been golden this weekend and given me a rest, and that it made me realise just how hard I work, that I am always doing stuff for this family. She could have applauded me taking care of myself, and said something complimentary about her Son-in-Law. Instead she replied by saying how hard men work and it's nice for them to have time off at weekends, but sometimes things couldn't be helped. She wanted to make me feel lazy. I know she did that because she's jealous as she doesn't think dad ever helped her enough, but that's not my fucking fault.

There is always payback with Mum. I knew it was going to come. As much as I enjoyed the warm maternal comfort she afforded me for a few days, I knew there would be a cold blowback. There always is. That's why I don't bother going to her with anything, and haven't for decades.

Because I am fragile at the moment, that one phone call tore down the delicate membranes of healing I'd been carefully covering my emotions with and left me exposed again. I was back to sobbing and smoking fags. Thanks Mum.

If I can take anything from this it's that I must be careful that I am not making my emotional problems my Children's responsibility. Care has to be one way, from parent to child, it should not be the other way, or even mutual. A parent should be there for their child. I need to grow up.

the limp

Towards the end of the Christmas holidays I sent the kids outside to ride on their scooters. They can't practically do it in the back garden and so this always has to be done on the path of the quiet street at the front. Normally they are supervised, but Husband was ill in bed and I was at the end of my tether, and I just said to them 'you know the rules, go out and play'. This was in response to the fact that every time I left the living room they were festering in, they would either fight or be in some way destructive (the drink getting knocked over was the final straw) in order to get me back within eyesight, and I was sick of constant attempts at controlling my movements.

They have never, in all their 9 and 10 years, been outside alone before. Inside 60 seconds Daughter was banging at the front door crying because she'd fallen over. That'll teach me! Except it didn't. She was checked over and sent back out to play again.

The fall resulted in a grazed knee, and we all know how gloriously bloody knees can be. Daughter soon had a lovely thick scab develop that saw her dressing in skimpy clothes in order to show it off at its best. She also developed a limp. Now we all know that when the skin is healing from an abrasion it will pull tight and restrict movement for a little while and so to help I bathed her knee in warm water a few times and put vaseline on it to the sound of her screams and wails.

Soon she was able to curl up on the settee as normal and play kneeling on the floor with her toys, but her limp got worse and worse. It was like some comedy peg-leg walk, like she had a false left leg that was unbendable and two inches longer than her right. And she went up and down stairs like she was crippled with arthritis and just after having a hip operation.

Oh the good old days were back. Daughter had sustained some minor, slightly irritating damage to her skin and this was going to define her and colour every waking moment of her day.

Yesterday we were pottering around Tescos together, Daughter and I, when wandering down the confectionery aisle empty of other shoppers, I ventured that Daughter couldn't stop limping because she was upset about recent events at home. I recalled that when she had first come to us she told us she had headaches/bellyaches/ leg aches when really there was nothing wrong with her body, but actually it was her emotions that were upset. Then I went over the old ground of being able to identify her emotions and verbalise them rather than pretend she had a headache, or, on this occasion, a limp.

She didn't say much whilst I was wittering on, but after we'd chosen our rice pudding, she said Look mummy, I'm not limping anymore! Unfortunately she was limping again by the bread aisle, but at least I had broached the subject with her and given her something to think about.

This afternoon I took Daughter out for a walk in order that she might practice crossing roads, something she has no experience in and something she will have to do a lot of when she goes up to High School next September. The exaggerated hobbled limp came with us. I chatted to her and the limp as we meandered the streets, talking to her about the independence that was within soon to be within reach. High School might be scary, I said, but it brings with it lots of great things. I talked about how she could just arrange to meet her mates at the cinema to see a film she wanted to see, rather than rely on me and dad to take her. She could get on a bus and meet friends in town for lunch at McDonalds. She could walk herself down to the local shops with her pocket money and buy whatever the hell she wanted.

I'm not sure she's convinced. I think the idea of freedom is not that far removed from neglect to her. Goodness knows she fights against any encouragement of independence in the home.

Anyway, having done our fair share of side roads, we started practicing using a couple of pelican crossing situated across a main archery road into the city, which was busy even though it was a Sunday. I thought this would be the easy bit because, well, all you do is press a button and wait. But I quickly saw that any chance of getting her to cross one of these without me was none existent. She's like some sort of fairy that's only been used to the odd fairy cart bumbling along a dirt track, suddenly transplanted into the big bad city. My advice to just check if the cars had stopped before walking out in front of them saw her hesitate to the extent that had I not been there to shove her across she'd have been quivering in the middle of an A Road like a human version of Bambi.

The positive side of her being terrified of being crunched under a ton of metal however was that she forgot to limp. She realised this as we were walking back home I'm not limping mummy! I told her to keep it up, and that if she wanted to talk to me and tell me she was upset rather than limp I was all ears, but speak she did not. Little did she know how lucky she was to lose the limp when she did. I was almost sad not to be able to act out my plan to embarrass her out of it by doing the exaggerated peg-leg walk with her.

Friday 13th

A week yesterday, after Friday Sports Club, our Son went berserk, directing his anger at me and his dad, and things in his room that had been given to him with love. The anger lasted hours and it has left this family feeling very sore.

Since that night, Son has been maniacal and the threat of him tipping over into rage again has been ever present. I spent the week trying to get us some support in one form or another.

Writing to key members of staff at school and copying the letters to the Head turned out to be worthwhile. The school arranged for both Son and Daughter to be taken out of their classes just before the end of the day on Friday, and given somewhere quiet and safe to sit whilst they had something to eat and drink, given by me especially. Then before the end of the club, they were taken out again and given somewhere quiet to change and eat some more. The Head of Physical Education at the school, Mr H, called me into his office when I came to pick the kids up and might have made me cry with his kindness were I not so tense.

Then the kids were called into his office and they were all smiles; sweet children, small for their ages, looking vulnerable and worried. My heart went out to them. Little waifs in a big ugly horrible adult world. Mr H said some wonderful encouraging things, said he wanted them to check back with him on Monday to tell him how things had gone, and winked at me encouragingly as I softly said thank you when we left.

Things were fine until we got out of the main school door, when daughter whipped from her pocket the sweets she had been given during school that day and Son then went into a jealous mood.

I got us home through distraction and a calm and happy tone of voice, stuffed them with healthy food for tea as soon as they walked through the door, and then stayed the hell out of their way.

I should have stayed around, been present for them, kept an eye on then. But I couldn't do it. I can't do it. Not anymore. That week I'd been writing a letter to the Social Worker who is going to start therapy sessions with Son next week. I expected to write a paragraph or two of general stuff with some bullet points of concern. Instead it has turned into a two page list of the everyday dysfunctional behaviours that Son employs on us all, and I haven't even started on the major stuff yet. It's made me realise just how abnormal our life is. How much of it he controls in one way or another, with his threats of emotional showdowns.

I am, finally, worn out by Son's attempts at sabotage. I am also worn out by the children keeping constant surveillance on me. I am being watched all the time, monitored, prodded and checked for any sign that I'm going to do whatever the hell it is that their birth mother used to do. I feel I must constantly walk around my own home proving that I am innocent and not up to anything. It's unhealthy living here and this week has been worse than most.

Luckily, I had been busy all week and despite the fact that I was emotionally fragile, at least having lots of things to do kept me from stewing on the present situation too much. On Friday, I had nothing to do. I had nothing to do but think about how at 4.30pm I would be picking the kids up from sports club, and this time I would be alone. I would be in charge of the two children alone until Husband came home from work at 6pm. If Son attacked me, I would be alone.

I woke up with this thought and pretty soon I was taking my angst out on a sleepy and perplexed Husband who could not understand why I was so 'tense' first thing in the morning.

It got worse. With no jobs on I came straight back home after taking the kids to school. I went into the garden to have a cigarette, but I drew on it so hard and so much it left me feeling dizzy and physically sick. So I went back inside and sat, still in my coat and boots, on the sofa in the adult room. I could not even look into the family room, which is a shame because that's where the DVD and decent TV is and I'd planned to watch a film. Films always help. But I couldn't go in that other room and so I just sat crying until a good friend texted me and I fessed up to being in a state.

Luckily the school then phoned me and assured me of the plans we'd got in place to help Son through the sports club. This calmed me and I felt better, and I texted friend saying this had happened and I was OK now. I sat, trying to propel myself into standing up and taking my coat and boots off.

Then Husband phoned me and once again I got angry at him, cutting him off telling him not to phone me again that day which I immediately regretted because I love him and I needed him.

Then Mother phoned, and for the second time that week I sobbed before her, right down and dirty, can't breath, saying any old thing, panicky sobbed. In response Mum told me about a program she saw the other day where an adoptive mother couldn't cope with her son and she left, and the dad was a drinker and then the son was taken off them. So that really helped, as you can imagine. She offered to come over and I declined.

Then Husband phoned again, thank goodness, and I sobbed some more. He told me he was coming home for lunch. This calmed me enough to go and take my coat off and put my slippers on. I got a hot water bottle, wrapped myself in a comforting blanket and read adoption blogs on the internet until he came. When he did I lay on his chest and felt safe, and after he'd gone back to work I fell asleep.

Thus passed my day. By pick-up time I was washed and dressed with shiny straight hair. You'd never know I'd been a basket case all day. As Friday 13ths go, I wouldn't want another one like that.

Today, Saturday, I have allowed Husband to take charge of things and even do all the cooking and washing-up. I feel washed-out and heavy hearted.

Son has been edgy and has had two tantrums. At bedtime, I sat on his bed and tried to connect with him. I stroked his hair and told him that I love him and how I wished the best for him. I told him I think he has a great sadness inside of him that kept making him so angry, and how I wished he would trust me and tell me about his sadness. He told me he never would because he his thoughts were secret. I talked about how I hoped so much that the lady he was going to talk to next week would help him talk about his worries, and all the thoughts that hurt him, because maybe then he wouldn't need to keep sabotaging things and could accept he deserved a nice life. He responded with cockiness and an insistence that he would keep being angry because 'that was normal to him'. When I left his room he tore up more of his posters and made sure I saw them. When I asked why he did it he said he was angry, but he wasn't. He was deadly calm.

Not for the first time it crosses my mind that he holds inside of him a secret that tortures him, and drives an engine of fear and rage. But at the moment the connection between us is down and there is no way he is going to communicate anything to me, never mind a secret that hurts.

calling in the cavalry

Husband and I went to CAMHS appointment this morning. I had already spoken to the Clinical Psychiatrist (CP) on Monday to tell her that I wanted her to come into the appointment knowing what help was going to be offered to Son. I didn't want to sit around talking anymore.

So we met her and the Social Worker (SW), and despite CP's efforts the meeting ran away from her and Husband and I got to explain just what it is like living with Son. Much to our relief SW got totally on board and we ended up having an actual conversation about our life, about Son's previous life, about why he was acting as he acted, about what support we had had so far (none), what therapy the children had had so far (none) and what support this family needed. Then when time was up SW stood up and said she wanted to talk to CP for five minutes. They left the room and Husband and I talked about things like the fireplace in the room and the drive over, as you do.

Upshot is that Son gets therapy starting next week, and we get a referral to our local authority's adoption support team who seem to be able to offer all sorts of magical things, like discounts on massages and respite ideas!

I am a bit confused as to why we have not been referred back the placing authority, as we are less then three years into placement, but we were assured that we are entitled to post adoption help from local Social Services. Our local Social Services are crap btw, but anything is better than nothing.

In the afternoon I finally got a call back from the drippy Learning Mentor at school who has previously promised me anger management courses and SENCo involvement, and delivered fuck all. I dare she's what might be called a 'nice woman' but nice on its own is a bit useless. I like my professionals to have skills and professionalism too. Half of the phone call was a low-level attempt to exonerate herself from her lack of action, which would infuriate me if I had the energy.

She offered a referral to counselling for Son, which might lead one to question why this has not been raised before. She also suggested that I might like to talk to the School Nurse, to what aim was not explained, but it didn't matter because I have met her and she is insufferable, so no. Then there were some practical suggestions that she had cooked up with two other key members of staff to some specific situations I highlighted, which were much more worthwhile.

Isn't it wonderful what a frank letter copied to the Head Teacher can achieve?

I'm quite tired and would benefit from doing something enjoyable that didn't include sticking rockets up the arses or professional people, but that has to wait until I can see me bestest mate on Thursday. Tomorrow I'm over at mum and dad's to take mum shopping, and the other night my gran was taken into hospital and is most likely dying. Life on this planet stinks sometimes.

repair

Having ignored Son for most of the weekend I got to a place on Sunday afternoon where I felt able to talk to him. We went to his room. I explained to him that how he had behaved on Friday night was abusive, and I explained what abuse was, and how it affected people who experienced it. How his abuse had affected me and his Dad.

I told him that I accepted his apology but that I had not yet forgiven him. I explained about trust and how I didn't trust him. I told him that his parents patience with him had worn out, and that because he clearly could not handle sports clubs, cinema, soft play centres, play dates, trips to the park, supermarket shopping, or being given any sort of present or gift, that for the time being these things were no longer on offer to him. The routine at home would be the same, I said, but life was going to be very quiet for him from now on.

Then I talked about a little boy called XXX who must be so hurt inside to get so very angry. And how his dad and I were talking to Doctors who helped people with their minds and their emotions, and that this mind Doctor was going to help him. I reflected that it must be very hard to be XXX and not be in control of his emotions and to want to hurt people who love him, and I said that I really hoped the Doctor could help him. If he was poorly with an ear infection, I said, or a broken leg, I would take him to the body Doctor, so as he has trouble with his emotions he was going to see an emotion Doctor.

Then I told him that you cannot rip up love. That although he ripped up the painting his granddad did for him, that it wasn't possible to rip up his granddad's love, or mine, or his dad's. That once love was in the heart it never went away and you couldn't get it out.

I reminded him that his birth mother still held love for him, just like he held love in his heart for her.

I couldn't honestly tell if he was sneering or trying not to cry, or perhaps both.

I went over and hugged him and he hugged me back. Then I breathed warm air onto his neck and said 'That's what love feels like.'

He spent the rest of the day in a manic state whilst his Dad and I just waited for the night to come.

secondary trauma or what?

I think I might be experiencing secondary trauma.

I can't go into the living room downstairs that the kids use, even when they're not here. I can't look in their bedrooms. I can't look at the kids themselves. I have isolated myself from the family. I have become cynical. I am refusing to do anything for the kids beyond the absolute necessary. I have told Husband that I am not taking Son out anywhere other than school for the foreseeable future. I am staying up late at night because I can't close my eyes at night for being tormented by nightmarish scenarios involving Son damaging, hurting and killing things. I wake up early with my mind racing. I feel like I am in a state of grief. Like somebody has died.

Thing is about secondary trauma is that everything I've read on the internet repeats that it's about 'listening to the traumatic stories' of our children. My children don't give me stories, they don't verbally communicate a single thing. They communicate through their behaviour. And it's all about professionals who work with traumatised children. There seems little recognition that adoptive parents, whose home has been invaded by trauma, who do not get to clock off from their charges and go home, can suffer from this, other than among the adoptive community themselves.

Maybe it's more post traumatic stress I'm suffering from? Maybe I've got both secondary trauma from absorbing the trauma the kids shed, and also post traumatic stress from being attacked on Friday? Delightful mix. Or maybe it's Acute Stress Reaction on top of burnout? Spoiled for choice.

I am quite glad that I do not appear to be suffering from depression. Depression is like a fog that drains and prevents action, whereas I am fully functional even if I am wired.

Why do events always happen on a Friday so that you have to get through the weekend before you can get anything done?

trapped

A woman sits on a chair in a room. The room has two doors and no windows. On one door a sign says 'do not exit' and on the other door a sign says 'do not enter'.

That's me. I'm sat here, with two difficult children having pushed me to the end of sanity over two years and I need a break. However, when I do have a break, leave the children with my Husband, or relatives, or put them in clubs, my Son gets stressed and becomes violent. I'm trapped. There is no way to get out and no where I'm allowed to go.

Yesterday, I let the children do an after school sports club. It was against my better judgement. They can be vile after clubs. Tiredness, low blood sugar levels, and having to 'be good' for that extra hour; they find it tough. I thought I'd let them start next week. But, no, they were so keen and I so wanted that extra hour, so I let them do it.

Son was moody when I picked him up. His sister had won a certificate and he hadn't. I should have treated him like tinder on a dry day, but I didn't.

He exploded over some minor issue. He verbally abused me and Husband as he crashed around his room like a wild animal, then spent the evening wrecking stuff in his room whilst the vilest words came out of his mouth. At first he was in a rage, but the chilling thing was that after a while he calmed down and continued to break his things out of pure nastiness. He even ripped up the little framed picture his granddad had painted for him when he first came to live with us of Thomas the Tank Engine.

I can't get over that. How much hate do you have in you to do something like that out of pure spite? And I'll never forget the venom in his eyes as he called me all the names under the sun. I have never, in all my near 40 years, felt such force of anger projected at me. He has never verbally abused me before, and I've never felt hated before.

I hardly slept. Imagine if you had been abused on the street for nothing, just a stranger had come up to you and threatened you and started smashing things up besides you, and how you might feel afterwards, vulnerable, shaky, scared, upset. Then imagine the person who abused you was sleeping in the next room, and could abuse you the next day and the day after that, and every day for all the long years that stretch ahead of you.

He's getting worse. I worry he will hurt himself, or his Sister or our beloved pets.

I phoned our Social Worker. She told me to phone CAMHS on Monday and impress upon them that he needed urgent intervention. We have our fourth appointment with CAMHS on Tuesday, but so far all we have talked about with this psychiatrist is our adoption journey and parenting styles. We first went to them over six months ago when Son had tried to suffocate himself with a plastic bag and since then his behaviour has been getting progressively worse. When he attacked his grandmother it's like he's broken a taboo and seen how bad he can be, and he's willing to go there again.

I did hold sympathy for him before now. I was always able to hold the thought how awful it must be for him to be hurting this much. I've lost that at the moment. I don't feel any sympathy for him, I just feel scared of him and what he can do.

I see the year stretching ahead, dotted with school holidays, and I can't stand the thought of being in charge of him alone. He screamed his way through last summer, what will he do this summer?

And yet, the payback after clubs and such is so terrible, that the only thing I can think of to do would be to stick him in some club for kids with emotional and behavioural problems. For that I'm going to have to get funding and, in case you hadn't noticed, funding for all services, especially children's services, is being cut.

Whilst writing this, Son came in of his own volition and said he was sorry about last night, he didn't mean to swear. I accepted his apology without any warmth, but the trouble with me is that my attachment style dictates that I cut dead anyone who I feel is toxic to me. I just do not tolerate anyone I don't like. And right now, I don't like him.

will this holiday never end?

I'm suffering from end-of-holiday irritableitus. Again.

School holidays are always a day or three too long. If they just left school on the Friday and went back on a Monday I swear it wouldn't be so bad. But there always seem to be an excuse for an early break-up and then those bloody teacher 'training days' delaying the return. Ours don't go back until tomorrow (Weds) but they were ready to go back on Monday (Yes, I know it was a Bank Holiday, but even so).

I thought this week would be easier on account of Husband being off work on holiday. I was even looking forward to it. Kids go back tomorrow giving us three days alone together.

But, of course, he's friggin ill. He's been ill nearly all holiday. It's nearly 11am as I type and he's still in bed. Great. I was up and out the house before 9am to do a business job, came back 10.30am soaked to the skin and the kids had only just got up. He might as well not be here.

Daughter's got a grazed knee and she's milking it for all it's worth at the moment. This morning she got her brother to make her breakfast for her because of it. This was happening as I got home, so I wet a tissue with warm water and came to bathe the graze to soften it up a little. Naturally, this caused Daughter to start screaming. I could understand a flinch or something, but a soft tissue, warmed with water really shouldn't equate with the pain of having finger nails pulled off with plyers. Not in my book, anyway.

I told her to stop screaming because she was scaring her brother (he was edging away down the settee away from her, his face contorted as if he was witnessing a scene of torture) but scream away she did.

She's sitting over yonder now with a glob of vaseline on it. Yesterday we went over to a friend's house and she refused to wear anything but a summer shift dress and her knickers because of her knee. No socks, trousers, long skirt, jumper, fleece, and no, not even a plaster was allowed to grace her body. No, just a summer shift dress, despite it being the middle of December. Presumably, this is lest any material on her arms rubbed against her knee, or maybe she was worried her socks would escape from her feet and crawl up her leg. Or perhaps she just wanted to draw attention to a graze on her knee and get lots and lots of attention. Who knows. I wonder what 'special conditions' her knee will continue to dictate today.

Son is in a mood with me. I got out the laptop and made it plain that I was buying some waterproof trousers for myself. Even so, he got very excited and started chatting away about the Skylander figures I could buy him online. Nope. I said. And reiterated I was buying something for me and then using the computer for my own entertainment. Radical, I know, that a mother might want to do something for herself, cruel maybe to leave her children to their own devices, wrapped in blankets, warm and well fed, watching TV, but that's the type of cowbag mother I am.

Any minute now he'll be getting out his attention-seeking cough... and there we go! Before I even finish the sentence, out comes his annoying cough.

Children, with these psychosomatic disorders you are really spoiling us!

But of course, as irritating as my children's little ways can be, the real reason I am especially irritable this morning is Husband. During school holidays 90% of the time I am effectively a single parent because his stupid Dickensian company make it very difficult for him to take time off full-stop, never mind take time off during useful times like school holidays. This was one holiday we were supposed to share. And he's in bed friggin ill. With a cold that's given him toothache, of all things. And rather than take my super-duper Syndol tablets, which, along with Ibuprofen, would zap his discomfort and make him a functional family man, he prefers to friggin take crappy paracetamol and lie around moaning in the manner of a heroin in a Victorian novel.

I just fought one of my tension headaches for 3 days and had to walk around like a zombie dosed up on morphine just so that I could get things done, but Husband? Pah! Well he can just lie in bed and leave it all to someone else. What must that be like.

Sympathy in short supply. For anybody. All day.

ps nearly 12 noon and Husband still in bed. Am. Not. Moving. From. Computer. Till. He. Gets. Up.

pps Husband now up and seems much better. He's lovely, really.