I agree with you, I wish there was some kind of service like that to support families like us. If a therapist could really understand what we go through, it would be nice to get help on dealing with the issue of guilt and loss and hopelessness.

It was to be an open adoption, the mother told us that her family didn't know about the baby. She told us that the father was a dealer and had shot a police officer and was in jail. Who knows what to believe. She also said she wasn't drinking or doing drugs. Not sure I believe that either. We heard from her occasionally and then one day the police came to the door and told us that she had died. The next day we received a call from the grandmother she was living with. We were told that she had left a letter that said in case something should happen, she had delivered a child and gave him up for adoption and gave our address and phone.She wanted to know all about the baby and said he had a brother who was causing serious problems at elementary school. I wanted to know why his birth mother died. She said it was a seizure in the middle of the night. I think with a note left behind, it must have been suicide. We started getting letters from a man who claimed to be his birth father, threatening to get a lawyer and take him from us. I think he was trying to extort money from us. But I wrote him a letter explaining that I had letters from the mother that said she wanted no contact with the birth father and why. And the adoption was completely legal and I had no legal reason to have anything to do with him. I can't even be sure he was the father, but recently I wish I could find him and send the boy to him.
There is no respite available because he was voluntarily relinquished in a different state. We have been told that there is no foster home equipt to take him, but even if there was, because it would be at our request and not the state removing him due to abuse, we would have to pay the monthly foster care payments. I have thought about the possibility of an adoption dissolusionment, but that would take attorneys against the state he came from on the other side of the continant. Mostly I've felt like I'm the failure. That I committed to this child for life and I shouldn't give up on him. My husband is very tenderhearted also. But that's the other thing, he is much older than I and his blood pressure is going out of control. I'm worried I'll be left alone and with the boy.
I have tried the ignoring and he just ups the anti. If he doesn't get a rise out of me by knocking over chairs or threatening, then he will actually go and hurt one of the other children knowing I can't ignore that.
We take away priviledges such as going to a friend's house, and he will tell his friends' family that we are abusive parents to get their sympathy and that we hate them and are racist against whatever race they are. When we remove his belongings such as TV or video game machine, he goes into explosive rages where he puts holes in walls and doors, pushes children around or even punches them, my 4 year old is terrified of him, and kicks dogs.
We can't physically restrain him anymore and he will cry child abuse if we use any physical punishment. Of course he likes to do that anyway, if I reach over to lightly pat him to get his attention to ask him to quiet down in church, he will say loudly, "Don't hit me." Stuff like that.
The irony is, he is constantly telling us and others that we treat him differently than the other children. He doesn't see that he treats us different than his siblings. They do their chores and respect our rules and don't go off on tyrades.
The detention I talk about is through the juvenile justice system here. It is a temporary kiddy jail for kids who need a wake up call for petty offenses and truancy. If they have room, they lock them up for a few days. He has a probabion officer who is overloaded with kids and my son is very submissive and charming to him and to the judge. So until he does a serious crime, we have these little court dates (take time off work,and go through my son's pleas and rages,) where I have to stand in front of a large number of people for my 30 seconds and try to explain to the judge, (and be careful I'm standing in the write place and don't speak out of turn or I'll be humiliated,) that I am terrifiied and helpless. Most of the time, he is just told to be good and come back the next week. If I've said too much, I will hear about it and possibly have reprocussions. He has learned to keep what he does just under what we could call the police about.

Hi Jan. My son was adopted through birth mother choice with an adoption agency. I first started noticing a difference in behavior when he was a toddler. He would be unconsolable for long periods of time when there was nothing wrong. Then he would suddenly snap out of it and be happy and cute and funny, making faces etc. I already thought I was going crazy then. He was my 6th child, so it's not like I hadn't had any experience with babies. When he got into preschool, the teachers would say he was an angel all day and then as soon as he would get off the bus, he wouldn't even make in the house before he would drop in the drive and start raging. It could be 2 hours before he was done. As he got bigger,(like 6, his rages became violent. That's when he started seeing a pediatric psychiatrist. He would push his little sister down the stairs if she was in his way. He actually beat up his older sister who was babysitting. He would throw things and put holes in the walls, he would take knives and cut anything in site, took a shovel and bashed out the van window, burned the legs of dolls on the stove, started fires on the floor of his bedroom, he had a compulsion to break glass like light bulbs and jars,painted his feces on the wall (he still does this behavior at 13). I could go on and on. I used to be able to wrap myself around him and restrain him while he had these rages so he wouldn't hurt himself and others. He would spit at anyone who came into range and threaten horrible things like, "when I get a chance I'm going to throw the baby out the upstairs window or Daddy and I are going to leave you." I would be exhausted by the end of the day when my husband came home. My son would be a sweet baby talking child to him. It was years before I could convince my husband that things were as bad as they were. Now, he doesn't care who sees him at his worst because they deserve to be treated that way because "they made him mad." He's mad nearly all the time. He can have people believing he's the nicest young man and counselors even wondering what's wrong with us. That's why we are tired of going to counselors, they don't make any difference. They tell him, "Just go to your room when you start feeling angry or take a time out." But that's not something he wants to do, he wants to continue engaging and torturing us. Or they want to come take him out for icecream and shoot some hoops and think they've made some huge difference. I've had family counselors come out to our home and ask my children if there is alot of yelling going on. Duh. There isn't any when he is in detention, it's peaceful. I had one therapist say his theory is to put down the child's family so he will be defensive of them and see the error of his ways....... The courts think he should still be in counseling, (we owe thousands of dollars for nothing.) He's been on depakote, resperdol, abilify, clonidine, zoloft, etc. At one point he was taking all of them. No difference whatsoever. Except melatonin at night. At least he has a diagnosis from one pediatric psychiatrist last year. Conduct Disorder, which from my research doesn't leave much hope. Can't believe I wrote this much, but I've only just begun. Thanks for listening.

Hi Exhausted

No wonder you chose that name! I really feel for you. I thought my story was bad but yours is far worse and it’s not surprising that you are exhausted. At least we could pack my partner’s kid off to his doting grandmother. Do you get any respite care for your son? You mentioned detention and I presume you mean legal detention that doesn’t have special treatment for CD children?

Having a diagnosis of Conduct Disorder can’t be any consolation as it doesn’t offer any solutions so I suppose the only way you can get help is to have him removed permanently into legal custody. It sounds like you have tried going down every route without success.

Do you know anything about the birth parents, the mother in particular? Although I don’t suppose knowing if there was anything in their background to cause any in utero damage makes any difference now you have a diagnosis.
I do know of another parent who had a child with exactly the same set of symptoms especially the rages and they tried ignoring as much as they possibly could so the child had less to rage against but having other younger children it must have been difficult to have one set of rules for him and another for the other children. He eventually went to live with his grandmother where he was the only child.

I fully understand that you felt like the crazy one especially when you are so experienced with children, these kids have a great way of fooling the audience.
What strange advice telling a CD child their family is at fault! That person shouldn’t be practicing any form of therapy if they come up with such BS. I found the counsellor we had just as useless, he told my partner it was his fault his kid had problems because he didn’t pay him enough attention! I don’t think I have come across a single professional who has lived with a CD person let alone a psychopath so they haven’t a clue what the reality is like. Granted they may have met plenty in their line of work but the nature of the beast is to lie and charm. They won’t see the sneer on the face of the patient when he/she fools them.

It’s all well and good the court telling you he should still be in counselling but what would that achieve apart from honing his skills? I don’t suppose there is any financial help for that anyway? From what I understand the child has to have a diagnosis of something that can be ‘cured’ for that to happen through insurance.

As you have tried every avenue it seems the only thing you can now do is look after yourself and the other members of the family. This boy needs to be somewhere safe ….safe for everyone.
I don’t know how the system works in the US and whether a child can be taken into care for this sort of problem. I suppose the only alternative is to wait until he does something and taken into permanent custody.
We had got the point that was what we expected to happen but fortunately my partner’s kid decided to go back to his birth mother as he had exhausted us mentally and financially. It has been bliss since he went and he obviously doesn’t miss his father as he hasn’t phoned once since the day he left.

It was hard for my partner and it took him a long time before he could come to terms with the whole thing but so easy for me as I couldn’t bear to be in the same room as the kid. It must be hard for you to give up on any affection you have for your son. It’s not a normal experience and something your son won’t be troubled with. You will have the consolation of knowing that wherever he ends up he won’t feel sad for anyone but himself.

I wish I could say positive, inspiring things to you to make you feel better but I can sense the hopelessness.

It helped me hugely to be able to come here to the forum and vent so please feel free to say what you need to, we will be here listening even if we can’t offer constructive advice.

I think Di’s information will be good to follow up on.

Regards
Jan

Hello Exhausted,

Don't worry we are here... Day, night and indeed after work!
I remember the time I first came to this forum.. It became my lifeline..Like with a lot of us.. People around the world come here to be heared or share there feelings and thoughts. Many of them leave again and many of us stay and try to help others to survive...
You will get to know us more, like we will get to know you... And the more we know the better advise we can give. We will probably ask you a lot of questions. This is not to make you uncomfortable or anything like that, it is so we get the most clear information in order to see what we can do..Maybe it can help us think back to the time we were in the same position.
My son is now 27 years of age and is not living with me now for almost 10 years..The best 10 years of my live I may add..Like Jan, I have seen it all, been there and hope we can tell something that can be of help for you.
Just take your time and maybe this can be a place for you to relax a bit?
See you soon
Segaya

I am copying all my correspondences to this thread so I can keep track of them, sorry if they aren't in order. Thank you all.

Hi Exhausted, the forum has plenty of space so go at it. Many times putting things in writing with a group like us can help see things more clearly and get the support you obviously need. It is quite common that the father sees the different side at least for awhile.

Not to be scary but I saw a TV show where the father thought the mother and adopted son needed bonding time so he took off the weekend to go golfing. The kid was a monster and into self mutilation and killed himself with his actions, the courts and jury didn't understand how a kid could do this and the woman spent several years in prison for murdering the kid who in reality had killed himself.

I know one couple very well, their son was a suspected Psychopath and when they took custody of his kids who were both diagnosed with RAD. During one of the court appearances they were blind sighted by both of the kids and accused the foster parents of sexual, mental abuse etc. I can vouch from knowing them for years, they were very caring people and in no way would do such things. These kids are crafty unless you get a step ahead of them which is an impossible task. When it came to the hearing the kids were removed obviously because the court appointed evaluator believe the tales these kids cooked up.

I would let your son call 911 and not try to reason him out of it. You are not giving him what he thinks he deserves and enough calls of false accusations I would suspect the state would take over. I know this is a terrible situation but one that may work.

If it were me and certainly I am not in your shoes, I would call the police everytime your son did something like bash out a window etc. Hopefully eventually they will get him into the system, you may take the hit for his lies but if they take him off your hands I could live with false accusations.

He sounds very, very dangerous. The impact on your other children can only be negative.

Since he is a repeat offender and if the cops are called each time he does something negative he would more than likely go into the system.

As far as seizures for the birth mother, they can be a variety of issues, drugs, too much alcohol etc.

Have you been able to stay in touch with the grandparents? Maybe they might start thinking you are lousy parents (which you are not) and want to help him get away from you?


Di

I am not sure why replies to you are showing your name as the author and will ask our computer expert to explore the situation.

computer expert!!!!!! - lol - I'm just posting this to test

Well, I just came home from the hospital where I took my husband this morning for having all the symptoms of a heart attack. His blood pressure was through the roof even though he has been on medication for it. He's actually a very active and heathy man for his age. They have stablized him but kept him there for tests. I needed to come home for the night to be with the kids. Got a call that my son was punching 2 of his siblings over a remote control.

I have a son-in-law from Western Samoa who has offered to send him there to be with his Samoan family. Not sure how long he would survive there.

I believe the grandmother has past away now, but I don't have the information anymore. I've been trying to do a people search to find the guy who claimed he was the birth father, but with no success.

I'll take the blame for the posting problems. :0)

He's in custody tonight. I called 911 because he was out of control punching doors and yelling vulgar stuff at everyone and threatening to hurt us. I told them my husband is in the hospital tonight and it isn't safe. The problem is, there may not be bedspace for him......I'm waiting to hear. Also, because I live on a reservation and I'm not native, they have to send a county sherriff out and that's a hastle. But right now, he's being held by tribal police at least. If they bring him back tonight, it might be even worse. Talk about drama, I'm so tired.