Can You Keep a Secret? (21 page)

The (Alternative) Book of Benjamin

Hello, everyone!

Well, it’s now been four months since Benjamin arrived in our life, so I suppose it’s now time to update everyone on how we’re progressing. Short answer: not very well!

Some of you will remember that when I went to see Dr Roth – not her real name – she advised me to take Benjamin to see a psychologist, but I really wasn’t convinced. The reason I wasn’t convinced was that I have spent a bit of time – and a lot of money – in therapy and I’m not sure that it’s all that helpful. In fact, I recently gave my sessions away (something my husband isn’t happy about) because honestly, I’m not sure these people know as much as they want us to think they do.

Anyway, my idea was to get Benjamin some more practical help, such as with an occupational therapist – somebody who can assist him with the basics, like sitting on a chair, and using cutlery.

We had our first appointment yesterday with a therapist who looks at things like co-ordination, and tries to link their physical problems with their emotional ones. I won’t use her real name; let’s call her Dr Silber.

We went through the usual routine of dragging Benjamin from the house and into the car and out of the car and into the doctor’s office, and we sat through the predictable long wait, and then it was our turn.

The first question Dr Silber asked me about Benjamin was, ‘So, what can he do?’

That was actually a nice change from people asking me, ‘So, what’s wrong with him?’

I thought hard, and then I said, ‘Well, he loves TV.’ And that’s true. He’s obsessed with the television. That has been our godsend, the fact that he will stand there – not sit, but stand – and watch just about anything on television. Doesn’t even matter what – he can watch the shopping channels. He has picked up quite a bit of language from the TV, which is definitely a good thing. He can – and does – now say quite a few words, almost always to himself and never really to me. He doesn’t want me to join in. He just wants to stand and stare, usually with the volume up incredibly loud.

‘Alright,’ said Dr Silber. ‘What else?’

Well, there wasn’t much else to tell her. Benjamin is particularly good at resting his head against the floor? Benjamin is good at wrecking toys? Benjamin is good at scuttling into corners to get away from me?

Anyway, we went through a range of different tests, which were supposed to show whether the two sides of Benjamin’s brain are
working in harmony. If not, we have to coax them to work together, or else he’ll just get worse.

In the first test, Benjamin was given a long roll of modelling clay and he had to pinch the clay along its entire length, so that it would end up looking like the back of a Stegosaurus. But the key thing was, he was only supposed to use one hand to do it. He found that very difficult. He very much wanted to pinch the left side of the clay with his left hand, and then finish off the right side with his right hand.

Dr Silber was very excited.

‘There are two sides to him,’ she said, ‘literally two sides, working not in harmony, but in dispute.’

I wasn’t sure about that, but then, I’m not the expert. So I sat there while we did a few more tests. Benjamin was given a small cardboard box, with a slot cut in the top, like the slot for a money box. Then he was given twelve plastic coins. Dr Silber scattered the coins all over the table, to Benjamin’s left and to his right. She wanted him to use one hand to pick them all up – one at a time – and put each of them in the box, through the slot. He wasn’t allowed to swap hands. And just as Dr Silber predicted, he couldn’t do it. He picked up all the coins on his right side with his right hand, and when it came time to pick up the coins that had been placed to the left of him, he tried to use his left hand.

Dr Silber was sitting right back in her chair, nodding and smiling, like she was finally seeing something she’d read about, but had never actually seen in a patient.

‘It’s so fascinating!’ she said.

I was thinking, ‘Maybe for you! But what does it all mean?’

I don’t mean to sound horrible, but I was really resenting everything about her: the slim figure, her lovely wool jumper, her shiny ponytail, her easy life, watching other people who had problem kids.

‘Let’s try something else,’ she said.

From her cupboard, she took a flat trolley – it was no more than ten inches off the ground, with small wheels at each corner – and she asked Benjamin to lie face down on it.

‘See if you can propel yourself along,’ she said, making the hand movements.

To my surprise, Benjamin gave it a good go: out the door and into the hallway he went, but instead of going straight down the hall, the trolley kept veering to the right. Dr Silber followed behind, lifting the front of the trolley whenever Benjamin went too far to the right and threatened to run into the wall.

‘Okay!’ she said, as if this was the most fascinating thing ever.

She picked up Benjamin and managed to get him to sit in the chair beside me. ‘I will make out a report for you, but I can say now, your son is weaker on his left side than on his right. The two sides of his brain don’t communicate as well as they should.’

I don’t know if I’m being stupid, but the way she said it, it sounded like a breakthrough. I leaned forward, keen to know what we could do about this problem. Part of me was actually thinking she was about to say, ‘So, now I’m going to write you a prescription and once you start giving him the pills, Benjamin will be fine.’

That wasn’t what she said.

What she said was, ‘Benjamin should be given a bike to ride. You should encourage him to steer the bike in a straight line. That
will force him to use the left hand as much as the right, and in the process get both sides of the brain working together.’

I was gob-smacked, so much so that I don’t really remember leaving Dr Silber’s offices. A week or so later, I got her bill. You guessed it: $750, to tell me to get my son a pushbike and to encourage him to ride it.

Comment (1):

Oh, Caitlin, I just had to write and say, you have my sympathy. It must be so frustrating to be out there looking for help and paying good money for it, and then hearing things like this! But I commend you for your drive. You are like a warrior for Benjamin! Go girl!

Comment (2):

You might not want to hear this, but what your ‘Dr Silber’ said actually makes a lot of sense. There has been a lot of research done in recent years which shows that children who grow up with abuse and neglect – and that includes children from orphanages overseas – develop differently, both emotionally and physically. And you can’t have a healthy child, emotionally, when the pathways in the brain are all confused. So you really do have to think about what physical activities you can do with Benjamin that will encourage his co-ordination and get his brain working properly. This is not meant to be a criticism, just an observation. Don’t give up! You are doing amazing things.

Comment (3):

Another post where you do nothing but complain!! Yes, it costs good money to get children the help they need but you asked for
this problem. Maybe your husband was right when he said it was a bad idea to adopt a child that could have any number of problems? How is he feeling about you now, I wonder? He probably wishes he’d been firmer with you in the first place and now he wouldn’t be in this mess! But we don’t hear much about him, do we? I wonder why????

The (Alternative) Book of Benjamin

Hello again! The title of today’s post is ‘Don’t Expect Help From Anyone’.

It has now been five months since Benjamin moved into our home. I have not been able to enrol him in any school, and we have had real problems getting him involved in any activities at all. Although I had resisted taking him to see a psychologist – I just kept thinking and hoping that love would be enough, and we would bond on our own without help from professionals – last week, I caved in and I got an appointment with one of the top psychologists for adopted kids.

Once again, I won’t use her real name. I know that some of you see her as a guru, so I’ll just call her Dr Hannah, and if you think you know who I’m referring to, well, good for you.

Colby came with me, which was really nice as he’s been working longer and longer hours these days, probably so he doesn’t have to come home, ha ha! We arrived on time, but there was another
mum already there. Her son – I presume he was her son – was nestled close to her hip. She was reading from
The Very Naughty Puppy
book and he seemed to be paying very close attention. I was so envious. Her boy did have some of the same behavioural problems as Benjamin – he had clumps of hair missing from where he’d been twisting it and pulling it out – but I noticed that he still seemed happy enough to be up close to his mum, even if he was still twisting his hair.

Benjamin sat on the floor, knees up under his chin, rocking. I have given up being embarrassed by his behaviour. Like most people who have been to Dr Hannah’s office, I knew we had quite a wait in front of us. Everyone says it’s frustrating, but they also say it means that when you do get into her office, she will give all her attention to you for as long as you need.

And so she should, given what she charges.

When we were finally called in, Colby and I sat opposite Dr Hannah’s desk, with Benjamin on the carpet. Dr Hannah had, of course, suggested that Benjamin sit on a chair, but Benjamin rarely sits on a chair. He basically doesn’t know how.

Dr Hannah took all the normal details – Benjamin’s name, and where he’d come from, and how long he’d been an orphan, and when he’d arrived in America – and then she said, ‘So, how can I help?’ I wasn’t sure how to say: we’re drowning. We think we might even have made a mistake. Our child seems to hate us. So I said, ‘We’ve been having some problems with food.’

That was true. We are still having some problems with food.

I mentioned in an earlier post that Benjamin does not like to
eat. He squeezes his food. It doesn’t matter what it is – sausages, Cheerios, cheese – he takes it and squeezes it. The first few times, I thought, ‘Okay, it’s because he can’t use a knife and fork.’ Then I thought, ‘Okay, Cheerios are new to him. Maybe it’s the bright colours. Maybe, like me, he doesn’t see that brightly coloured muck as food.’ So I tried toast. But he’s happy to squeeze toast, too. And I’ve seen him squeeze boiled eggs and pastrami and tuna salad. And maybe that would all be fine, if he then ate the food he’s squeezed, but he doesn’t eat it. He mashes it and throws it around.

And it’s not just food. Anything I give him, he immediately tries to destroy.

He did it with that first book I gave him. Since then, he’s done it with the Buzz Lightyear I bought him (he twisted the hands off the ball joints and when I didn’t react to that, he twisted off the head, so now he’s got a white-and-green plastic barrel chest that says ‘To Infinity and Beyond!’) He’s wrecked his train set. He’s wrecked his Pokemon cards.

I don’t want to make this post all about me, but I’m at my wits’ end. Remember that first night when he was home with us, and he scratched all the lovely wallpaper off the wall?

I moved his crib into the middle of the room, so he wouldn’t be able to reach the walls. Then, when I wasn’t looking, he shoved his crib back into the corner where he’d already done so much damage, in the process completely running through the wooden train set we’d set up for him.

I mentioned this to Dr Hannah but was told, ‘Oh, children will do that. They will crash through something they’ve just built
themselves, or something that you’ve built for them. You can’t take it personally. It’s the way they are.’

I was dubious, but I was also new to being a mother and I didn’t want to argue too much, so I set about trying to be patient. Whenever Benjamin is in one of his single-minded wrecking moods, I’ve tried to say, ‘Now, be careful, we don’t want to smash this or that,’ or I’ll say, ‘Benjamin! You’ve just kicked all the train set down!’

I’ll get on my knees and let him watch me putting the tracks back together again, and I’ll show him how the train can now run around the tracks. Then, when I’m mid-explanation, he’ll stand up and walk right back through what I’ve done. He’ll kick the whole thing out from under me, when I’m still sitting there putting it back together.

I tried to explain all this to Dr Hannah, starting with the food, but all she said was: ‘But why does he take his meals in the highchair?’ I said, ‘Well, because he won’t sit still on a chair, and certainly not at a table.’ And since Benjamin was sitting as he usually does, on his knees on the floor, with his forehead resting on his knees, surely she could see that I wasn’t making it up?

Anyway, at some point Dr Hannah went over to Benjamin and attempted to lift him off the floor, and of course he went to bite her hand. It’s what he always does. Dr Hannah snatched her hand back and said, ‘Right. I see. We obviously have a problem here.’

I couldn’t help feeling a bit smug.

Dr Hannah took a seat behind her desk and I could tell that she was a bit shaken, but she said, ‘I still think you need to persevere with a normal table and chair at meal times, not a highchair. We aren’t in Russia anymore. He should be eating at the table.’

I said, ‘It takes all my energy to strap him into a highchair and force food into him. He clamps his mouth shut. He turns his head from side to side. I don’t put the bowl on his tray anymore. He’ll pick it up and hurl it across the room. I’m not sure serving him at the dinner table is going to work.’

Dr Hannah said, ‘Try to pick him up then. I notice he is very thin. Have you had him weighed recently?’

I shook my head. ‘No. It’s not possible to get him to stand on scales. I can hold him and weigh the two of us, and deduct me from the total, but to be honest, I don’t need the scales to tell me I’m not getting any food into him. It’s got so bad that I’ve taken to leaving bottles of Sustagen around the house for him to find.’

Dr Hannah said, ‘And that works?’

‘It seems to work. I make them up in the morning and they are mostly gone by early afternoon.’

‘So you have Benjamin prowling around the house, finding food bottles and sucking on them?’

I said, ‘Well, he seems to like it. But obviously I can see that it’s not ideal. I mean, I can’t help thinking it’s a bit like throwing food into an animal cage. Benjamin will find a bottle, drain it, and leave the bottle on the ground.’

Dr Hannah said, ‘But why don’t you leave the bottle on the table, where you eat? And if Benjamin wants the bottle, explain that he has to take a seat?’

I was a bit stunned. To myself I was thinking, ‘I thought you were supposed to get all this stuff?’

‘Benjamin doesn’t follow instructions,’ I said. ‘Benjamin doesn’t speak, and he doesn’t listen.’ I motioned over to where Benjamin
was still crouched on the floor. ‘Surely you can see that for yourself?’

Dr Hannah said, ‘But you can’t just leave bottles on the floor for him. He’s not an animal. He’s a child and he needs to be raised with the good manners of any other child.’

I thought, ‘Oh really? I need you to tell me that?’

Dr Hannah went on, ‘And the other problem you’ve put down here –’ she was looking at the answers to the long questionnaire we’d had to fill out before we went to see her ‘– is bed-wetting. He’s still wetting the bed? How old did you say he was?’

I said, ‘He’s five. According to the report we got from the orphanage, he turned five sometime this year. We picked a day. We tried to have a little party – no guests, obviously – but we might as well have been having it for ourselves. We had little hooters and candles and he ignored the whole thing. But anyway, yes, he wets the bed, and he wets his pants. In fact, there is only one pair of pants that Benjamin won’t wet: the corduroy pair that he came out of the orphanage with. Anything else he’ll pee in or poop in. He’ll also pee on the floor, right in front of me. What he will not do is use a toilet.’

Dr Hannah smiled and said, ‘Well. That’s challenging.’

I tried to smile back, but I don’t think I managed it.

Colby had been listening to all this, and I could tell by his body language that he was doing his best to be patient, but now he butted in, saying, ‘Listen, my wife needs a bit more than that. She doesn’t need somebody to tell her that what she’s experiencing is challenging. She needs some help. She’s tearing out her hair. We expected some adjustment problems, but nothing like this. Benjamin has already been told that he cannot go back to the local pre-school.
With his habit of throwing food and wetting himself, we can’t take him out in public. What are we supposed to do?’

Dr Hannah was sitting with her fingertips together, like some wise sage. She said, ‘Well, you know, it’s true that
most
children have stopped wetting the bed, and wetting their pants by the age of five, but some of them do continue on until seven or eight, so Benjamin may not have a problem with that. He may actually be quite normal, in that regard.’

I leaned over towards our file on the desk in front of her.

‘We got this file when we adopted Benjamin,’ I said, tapping it. ‘Can you see what’s written here? “Benjamin is toilet-trained.” He wasn’t having problems with toilet-training in the orphanage. He came to us toilet-trained. See this box? “Toilet-trained?” They’ve ticked yes. When we picked up Benjamin, he was wearing underpants. And they were dry. Until he got in the van with me. Then they were wet. He knows what to do. He just won’t do it for us.’

Dr Hannah said, ‘Well, yes! Adoption is obviously traumatic for children. And bed-wetting, and pants-wetting can be a response to trauma.’

Colby was exasperated. ‘I’m not sure we’re not dealing with something a little more calculated than that,’ he said. I’ve been listening to my husband’s voice for years. I know the different tones. I could tell that he was getting frustrated. He was using the same tone he used with his mother, when she called to complain about something she’d seen on the news. He continued, ‘Benjamin seems to get a kind of pleasure from not using the toilet. He will come into the kitchen when my wife is cooking and pee directly on the floor.’

Dr Hannah nodded. ‘Part of the problem, I suspect, is that none of us knows what happened to Benjamin in the orphanage.’

Now it was my turn to get angry. ‘Do you know how many times I’ve been told that Benjamin’s behaviour may well have something to do with what happened to him in the orphanage? Please, I get that. I really do understand that. That’s not why we came here, to hear that. What we’d like to know is what we are supposed to do about Benjamin today. Here, in America, right now. Because he’s tearing us to pieces.’

Dr Hannah said, ‘He’s tearing
you
to pieces?’

I said, ‘Of course! Can’t you understand that? We didn’t go blindly into this adoption. We knew that it could be challenging. We expected a few hiccups, but nothing like this. Of course it’s tearing us apart. The tension in our house, you could cut it with a knife. Our experience of being parents isn’t the wonderful adventure we wanted. It’s destroying us.’

My voice had been rising, and by the end of that little speech, I suppose I might have been shouting. Dr Hannah linked her fingers together and smiled at me, like she was trying to be patient. She said, ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Colbert, but there is no need to raise your voice and get cross with me. I am not to blame for this.’

‘But look at him!’ I pointed again at the crouched ball of a boy on the floor. ‘Can’t you see the extent of the problem we have here? This is not a child who is having trouble settling. This is something else.’

Dr Hannah nodded. ‘I can see that you have a problem,’ she said, ‘and my advice is this: try not to take your frustrations – and especially not the problems in your marriage – out on Benjamin. He can’t take
that pressure. He’s going through a big adjustment. And, in terms of practical help, maybe the best idea would be to put him into bed in his Pull-Ups, even if you think he’s getting a bit old for that.’

Well, Colby nearly exploded. ‘That’s really your advice? Put him in bed with his Pull-Ups?’ He was standing now. ‘Do you think we haven’t thought of that? Would you like to try to put some Pull-Ups on Benjamin? Caitlin, do you have some in your bag? We’re paying Dr Hannah – it’s Hannah, isn’t it? – $750 an hour, so let’s see if she can get Pull-Ups onto Benjamin, for $750 an hour.’

Dr Hannah looked quite startled. She pushed back in her chair. ‘Please sit down, Mr Colbert. There’s no need to be annoyed with me. I can see that you’re frustrated …’

But Colby had really lost it. ‘Dead right I’m frustrated. I’m frustrated as hell. We adopted a child, believing it was the right thing to do for him and for us. Now my family life is destroyed. My home is quickly becoming destroyed. My wife is …’

Dr Hannah looked quite distressed. She was saying, ‘Please, sit down …’

I tried to intervene. ‘What my husband is trying to say,’ I said, ‘is that we have tried Pull-Ups. Of course we have. Benjamin doesn’t like to be touched. He’ll wear only what he wants to wear, which is what you see him in today – the mustard jumper and the corduroy pants – so what my husband is saying is, yes, we’ve tried Pull-Ups, and Benjamin has deliberately
removed
his Pull-Ups and peed all over the floor, right in front of us. I have been looking on Google. I have been reading everything I can find. I’m wondering if there isn’t something more going on here than the fact that Benjamin is taking his time to settle in. Clearly, there’s something wrong with
him. We’ve come here in the hope that you can tell us what that might be. Is it autism? Is it Asperger’s? Did something happen to him in the orphanage that we can do something about?’