Not sure how to feel

So, we had the conversation with the county yesterday indicating that we would be willing to let Mike work toward coming home (which we had never said we wouldn’t be).

And tonight, after a few emails and a phone call with the powers that be, Mike calls and asks to talk to Bart.

Basically, he said nothing about refusing to speak to us for the last 6 weeks -- he simply wanted to know if Bart would buy him some clothes and if he could come home for Christmas.

Like night and day, the same old routing we’ve seen for years. This is the cycle:

1 Mike does something stupid or wrong or illegal or dangerous or manipulative.
2 Consequences come MIke’s way or MIke gets what he asks for.
3 Mike doesn’t like his consequences or decides that it isn’t really what he wanted after all.
4 Mike gets mad.
5 Mike blames his parents.
6 Mike treats his parents really poorly for quite some time.
7 Someone intervenes and helps Mike to see that maybe he doesn’t really want to be so mean to us.
8 Mike starts to think about what he might get if he reconnects with us.
9 Mike writes an apology letter.
10 Mike asks for something immediately, either in the letter or on the phone the very day he writes it.
11 Mike’s parents feel used and manipulated and dumb.
12 Mike’s parents do the right thing and forgive him.
13 Mike is as nice as he can be until...


1 Mike does something stupid or wrong or illegal or dangerous or manipulative.
2 Consequences come MIke’s way or MIke gets what he asks for.
3 Mike doesn’t like his consequences or decides that it isn’t really what he wanted after all.
4 Mike gets mad.
5 Mike blames his parents.
6 Mike treats his parents really poorly for quite some time.
7 Someone intervenes and helps Mike to see that maybe he doesn’t really want to be so mean to us.
8 Mike starts to think about what he might get if he reconnects with us.
9 Mike writes an apology letter.
10 Mike asks for something immediately, either in the letter or on the phone the very day he writes it.
11 Mike’s parents feel used and manipulated and dumb.
12 Mike’s parents do the right thing and forgive him.
13 Mike is as nice as he can be until...


Get the picture?

So tonight we are at stage 11, moving towards 12. Bart got to twelve before I did this time.

It’s one thing to talk about the importance of hanging in there with these kids, and it’s another to hang in there with them to experience the same cycle time and time and time again.

The hardest thing for me to deal with is the drive that Mike has to immediately ask for us to do something special for him after not speaking to us for months. But I have to keep reminding myself that with FAS every day is a new day and he probably doesn’t even remember that he hasn’t spoken to us in almost 6 weeks or that the last time he did he was so cruel and hateful.

We are realizing at this point though, that we’re going to have to meet this kid where he is, in the middle of his warped, not so complete brain. This is a comparison of a brain of a child whose birthmother did not drink in the womb -- and a brain of a child whose birthmother did.



So hard to remember, so hard to accept. These women go unpunished. In fact, most of them don’t even end up raising the children whose brains they damage in this way.

So we’ll meet Mike where he is and try to work with him, but it is so, so very hard.