A Chance For My Son

I have written about my teenage son that I placed for adoption before. I was reunited with him about 2 1/2 years ago. As I have mentioned before, he is also diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder and is a drug addict. He currently is sober as he has been locked up in a state run facility here in Utah for the last six months.

He and I have had many visits over the last few years. He has come to stay with me many times now for some weekend stays and we have had a really good chance to get to know each other pretty well at this point. The more I get to know him the more I see what a brilliant and wonderful spirit he is. He has a very special soul that shines, even despite his challenges, he shines.

Due to home circumstances and my son's behavior, his adoptive parents no longer have custody of him as of about 7 months ago. I do not know the exact reason why this decision was made, but I speak to his parents often about him and believe that they were at a place where they did not and do not know how to help him anymore. They are kind and loving parents, but not sure what else to do for him at this point.

The State of Utah's plan for him right now is to keep him in the group home he is in for the next two months. (this place consists of very uneducated therapists, young staff with little to no experience working with adolescents and very displaced youth with many different serious issues) Then at the end of August, he will go to a Foster Home for two months until he is seventeen. Once he turns seventeen, they will do what is called Independent Living and the State will pay for him to live in his own apartment about forty five minutes from both where I and his adoptive family lives. They will drug test him once a week, sign him up for school...and that's pretty much it. Yeah...sounds like a brilliant plan to me. (Note the sarcasm)

I have been very concerned about this "plan" since I heard about it months ago. Something about taking a recovering drug addict teenager with borderline and putting him in his own apartment just seems so irresponsible, ridiculous and it's absolutely setting him up for failure. Here is this child who wants to be sober, wants to live a life worth living...but doesn't know how to do that yet. I am 35 years old, have more maturity and life experience than him and I am just learning how to do the things that they are expecting him to do right now. The most insane part is this idea that his therapists and counselers are telling him to stay sober and everything will be ok. "All he needs to do is just stay sober, his disorder symptoms will improve with sobriety and he just needs to hang in there, we don't want to get "hung up" on labels like Borderline and addict. Etc...etc..

I agree that sobriety is absolutely number one. But the piece that is missing from this brilliant, educated master plan of theirs is that he has no more skills than he had six months, a year, many years ago... and they are unwilling to even discuss getting DBT therapy for him. In fact, when I spoke to his therapist last week, he did not even know what DBT therapy was. On top of that he was throwing out the same old uneducated beliefs and myths about Borderline to me. When I heard "attention seeking" come out of his mouth it was all I could do to keep from leaning over his desk and bitch slapping him. I did however spend a few minutes giving him an update on what has been happening in the mental health community over the last twenty years and suggested he might want to read up a bit.

So, I am done sitting back and watching this train wreck happen. It is my turn to try now. I have been considering for a while now what I need to do and its time for me to step in. I am going to move forward with attempting to gain custody from the State and having him live with me full time.

I am very realistic about the challenges and potentials this situation will present me, my other children, my family etc. I have been doing pros and cons...and using other DBT skills to determine what I should do. I am terrified of it to be truthful, but he is my son and I have come to the clear conclusion that I must try to help him. In discussing these thoughts of taking custody of my son, my therapist mentioned that he is starting a DBT adolescent group in September and would be willing to add him to the group, and have him see the adolescent DBT specialist that will be working out of his office. Holy shit... this will be the only and first DBT group for adolescents in the State of Utah.

I do not often mention my Faith or talk openly about it as I am still discovering for myself what my beliefs in God are, but I cannot help but mention how miraculous this whole situation is. Here is this amazing son who I wasn't sure if I would ever even see again. But here he is in our lives again. He is struggling with the same disorder and addictions that I have myself begun to heal from. I have begun to get answers of understanding healing for myself, and now I can turn around and give him the same answers he so desperately needs.

I've suffered in the incredible pain of borderline symptoms for most of my life. They did not know what was wrong with me when I was my son's age. No one knew how to help me until a few years ago. But now I know there are answers, real answers and real help in DBT. I see it working in my life in just this short period of time in therapy. It just so happens that MY therapist is the one therapist in the whole state of Utah who is starting an adolescent program...and right now? Not a year from now when it would be too late... but right now?? It just so happens that his parents no longer have custody, which puts me in the position for the first time to have as much say so about him as they do. Not a year from now..not a year ago but right now? It just so happens that I moved to Utah from Minnesota two and a half years ago to get sober and get help for the first time in my life. It just so happens that I am a Borderline and addict who knows and understands his symptoms in a way that those who are not cannot even begin to grasp...and I know of a therapy that can help? Had this whole situation come about even six months ago, I wouldn't have had the means to help him. But it all is happening right now. Like a perfect, intricate, complicated and unfolding of events all happening simutainuously to create a possibility for him that would not have other wise even existed.

I do not know who God is, what he looks like, or where he is. But I do know that this cannot all be coincidence. I prayed for this...I've prayed and prayed for an opportunity to help him. I believe that God has provided that opportunity to me. He has layed it out in right in front of me...and I'm going to take it, appreciate it, and do my absolute very best to make the most of this awesome gift of a real chance for my son that He has given to us.


Kelly