My Support Forums - View Single Post - I feel like my adopted son doesn't even live with us!

SkyBluePink · 03:06 AM

Hi everyone. I've been reading all the threads on Psych forum for a number of months, and so I made an account so I could ask my own question.

DH and I recently (about a month ago) adopted a little boy from Russia. He's eight. We didn't know too much about him until we met with the social worker two weeks before he arrived. She told us he was severely abused and would need counselling, family therapy sessions and careful monitoring. DH was also abused as a child, and I suffered (well, still, but I feel like I can talk about it in the past tense now) from PTSD, so we felt somewhat prepared for the situation.

We weren't. When he first arrived he didn't speak and did exactly what we told him. I figured he was just shy and needed time to adjust some. Four weeks later and the only thing he has protested to is letting us bathe him and having to watch us cook all his meals.

The social worker was rather vague on what exactly happened to him, where he was; but she thinks it was some sort of drug den. We do know he wasn't with his real parents, who have been dead since he was a baby. The counsellor thinks he was held underwater for long periods of time because of the way he reacts to us being near him when he's in the bath. He's drawn pictures of us putting things in his food, like laxatives or sleeping pills.

He also doesn't seem to be connecting with us emotionally; it's obvious he wasn't cuddled or praised at all, and whenever I try he just sits there. I'm desperate to know what goes on in his head. I don't think any of the abuse was sexual in nature (thank goodness), but he won't allow strangers (anyone he hasn't been introduced to and spent several hours with) to be out of his line of sight or touch his neck/face area.

He got into a fight with my nephew (who is thirteen)

Possible trigger:

and by the time DH could pull him off he'd broken my nephew's nose and attempted to strange him with a piece of string. I later found out my nephew had been bullying my son; sneaking up behind him, pretending to put things in his food and pushing him into the pool (100x worse than the bathing reaction). I think my nephew overheard me talking to my brother about my son's fears and anxiety about those subjects and used them for his own amusement. I punished my son for the fight (well, it was less of a fight and more of my son pounding his fist into my nephew's face until he fell unconscious...) by giving him a timeout in his room. That didn't go too well.

When DH and I went to talk things over with him, he spoke for the first(ish) time and begged us not to leave him locked in his room forever. I talked to his counsellor and she's added isolation to the list of things he's been forced to deal with. I'm just not sure what to do!

Anything I do seems to make him upset, or has a bad memory attached to it. No punishments because it causes him to have a panic attack, we can't hug him because he hates it and school is out of the question because they wont let us sign him up until he gets his 'issues sorted out'. DH and I are at a loss. We love him even though he's only been with us a month, but most of the time it's like he's not even there. He just sits on the couch and stares at the wall, waiting for us to tell him what to do.

Sorry about this long post, but I felt like I had a lot to get off my chest. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get him to open up to us or do things for himself? And how to help him slowly get over his anxieties and the paranoia that everyone is out to get him? Thank in advance for any help or advice!

-Blue