It is almost a year since I last blogged and the truth is that life became too difficult and painful and my qualms about protecting the privacy of the individuals involved overcame my desire to write. I have realised that life will not necessarily get easier and the challenges increase rather than diminish as the children get older, so here is a brief summary.

Billy struggled in ‘supported’ housing, which was pretty dreadful. He stopped pretending to engage with any sort of education and sunk to the bottom in terms of behaviour and attitude, although still wanted to spend time, as much time as possible, at home. He seems to have spent most of his time playing on his Xbox with other lads, hanging round the streets at night, sleeping during the day, smoking, some drinking, probably getting a fair quantity of cannabis. He certainly had too much money which encouraged his life style, and the charity running the place were making a good profit from his housing benefit. Billy was asked to leave when seen on CCTV letting  friend who had been banned from the property in at a window. The state of his room was a continual source of tension with staff. He would occasionally be given warnings to clean up but not actually helped to do so. Just telling him has never had any effect. He never mastered the laundry system, any more than he did at boarding school. He was always well turned out as he either bought new T-Shirts rather than retrieve dirty ones or brought his stuff home for me to wash. The main problem however was his girlfriend, not in herself, we were very fond of her, but their relationship was toxic. She was also in supported housing and as mixed up as Billy, but without the same level of family support. They started going out in January 2016, and from the start the relationship seemed very volatile. Billy could be verbally cutting and tried to push her away emotionally and using language, but the more he did so, the more she clung to and pleaded with him to keep her. As Billy became emotionally closer to her, and often thoughtful and caring, he also became increasingly possessive and controlling. We tried several times to suggest to her that she should  leave him but to no avail.

Things came to a head in May/June – we managed to find a rented flat for Billy as he was once again homeless, and his girlfriend immediately quit her accommodation and persuaded us, against our better judgement, to let her move in with him (not that we could have monitored them at a distance, and they were over 18). A few weeks later, with another homeless friend permanently lodged on a sofa bed in the front room, and Jo staying for the weekend, Billy assaulted her. I went to collect Jo on Sunday morning and saw that the girlfriend was covered in bruises.  I could go into detail of what followed and the next few months but won’t as it is unnecessary and distressing. The whole thing was somewhat predictable and we had tried hard to get appointments for Billy with CAMHS and an NHS psychiatrist. When we finally managed after a great deal of persistence from us and his GP, both services dismissed him, despite the fact that he was clearly distressed, disregulated, hearing voices that ‘told him to do stuff’, suffering lapses of memory, increasingly violent and frightened… CAMHS told him to contact ‘Teens in Crisis’ which he tried to do, but without success. The psychiatrist said after a brief interview that he was not schizophrenic, although noting that we thought he had signs of personality disorder, and discharged him. The girlfriend meanwhile was finally persuaded by her family to press charges of assault – and added rape for good measure, but didn’t understand that she couldn’t do that and still go out with Billy at the same time. She was actually in our house for the weekend when the police and her hysterical mother turned up to arrest Billy some weeks later. Since then she has alternated between wanting to be with him and wanting to destroy him. Billy was kept in custody overnight and released on police bail. Nearly eight months later the case is still waiting to go to the CPS. The (ex) girlfriend has made it her business to stalk Billy online, as well as by direct contacts, and ensured that anyone else he might go out with or befriend knows his past. This meant that Billy was unable to take up the college place he had intended in September and moved to another town to do a similar course, only to be ‘chased’ from there after a few weeks. He has now made a third move to still try to catch up with his Level 2 qualifications, but finding accommodation has proved extremely difficult. He evidently still loves her but accepts that for the moment at least they can’t be together. Her feelings seem as ambivalent as ever, and we can only assume that she is suffering from shock and trauma from the whole experience.

Meanwhile we attended the magistrates court last week where Billy was answering charges going back to 2014/15 for inappropriate Internet use. It took the police nearly two years to present the case to the Crown Prosecution Service who, much to the surprise of Billy’s solicitor, decided to prosecute. It is hard to see how it is in the public interest, but that is where we are. The solicitors did suggest that the delay had more to do with waiting until Billy was 18 (he was 14 and 15, and out of school when the offences occurred) and could be treated as an adult, rather than the merits or otherwise of the case itself. We are now at the stage of assembling medical and other evidence that can be used in Billy’s defence. He is convinced he is going to get a custodial sentence, which he may, and is suffering frequent crippling stress migraines. He had the unpleasant experience of having to disclose the details to his current college. We can only hope that he has learnt something about what you do in secret coming to the light eventually, and are glad that he was caught and stopped when he was. The one positive note is that with the help of the Adoption Support Fund Billy is getting around 25 hours of therapy from a charity. It probably helps him cope day-to-day but does not get to the roots of attachment, abandonment and sensory issues that lie behind much of his behaviour. What is frustrating is that he has been explicitly barred from receiving any treatment for inappropriate sexual behaviour as the case was still open.

The most interesting and effective treatment Billy has had so far is from a small group of
healers who broadly adopt the approach outlined by Tom Zinser in his book Soul-Centered Healing. Billy has seen one practitioner face-to-face on two occasions, and other work was done on his behalf remotely. The idea that he has sub-personalities, probably created at
points of trauma in his past, or possibly even past lives, makes sense to me. His personality changes and lack of awareness of what he does in different moods or persona is very apparent to anyone who witnesses them. I took an odd little drawing of a ghost-like figure along to one meeting of healers said that Billy had denied drawing it, but that it looked like his style. The therapists present said with one voice ‘he didn’t’, which I later realised meant that he didn’t do it consciously in his ‘Billy’ personality, but in some sub-ego state which he could not remember. Therapy consists in helping Billy connect to his ‘Higher Self’, as well as removing any unwanted negative energies.  Although subtle these sessions have generally been marked by step changes and improvements in attitude. Billy has stopped saying that he is fine as he is and doesn’t need any treatment, and realises that he needs help. He spent a lot of time using a Ouija board and summoning negative entities (and producing some quite dramatic psychokinetic effects such as lights blowing, raps, knocks, mould growing on walls, orbs flying across the room etc.). This had been a ‘game’ since boarding school days that he had become hooked on much like the cannabis. One of the unwanted visitors was ‘Zozo’, well known to the young generally I discovered. Billy’s drawings of Zozo were a cross between a devil and himself – perhaps another sub-personality? Anyway, Billy insisted that he could handle Zozo and other negative entities, and the soul-centred mediumistic healing seems to have both removed any hangers-on and improved Billy’s mental state considerably. It hardly needs saying that such treatments are regarded as highly questionable by many people and we wouldn’t mention them to mainstream psychologists or other medical practitioners. My only interest is in helping Billy, and if it works, it works.

Taking responsibility for his actions and as far as possible leading a more regulated and fruitful life are also essential parts of the healing process. To this end we are continuing to support Billy to stay at college for as long as possible, although he frequently talks of giving up. He clearly has talent for music technology and has started a Soundcloud channel with some of his rap recordings. They are quite raw and honest, in true rap style, and are the best way to find out what’s going on in his life. While we many not like the language, it is at least creative and cathartic. His birth mother is also a fan and posts his latest songs on her Facebook page. One of the most moving was about his need of and love for her.

So why take so long to write any of this? Apart from the privacy issue there is a sense that the adoption community really don’t want to hear too much negativity, which is understandable. We know from friends, however, that we are not unusual in having an adopted teenager in contact with the criminal justice system, struggling with education despite being bright, self-harming through substance misuse and sex, and becoming increasingly violent or anti-social. The support just isn’t there. Tony and I benefitted from therapy but the targeted, specialist help Billy needed and needs has yet to materialise. Maybe it will remain mum at the end of her tether waiting for his brain to develop and gain more self-control. That could be the sum of it.