OK, so when you take placement from another foster home you would hope that they would tell you any big issues. I am not worried about small issues but big issues are kind of important. Why would they not tell us?
Our foster son was placed with anger issues, they told me about them. We are used to dealing with that so we accepted the foster placement. After placement we were told it was an adoptive placement. Then we get his sister out of a group home and she tells all. Most concerning is that he heard voices telling him to kill his foster mom. Ohhh, news to me. Oh, and they have schizophrenia in the family. I ask the social worker. She says she put the hearing of voices into the request for a move, didn't they tell me that? Uh, no. Honestly I would have said no, which I am sure is why they kept that bit out. Then I tell her about the mental illness. She didn't know but checked into it. It is true.
The child hasn't been hearing voices but does see people. Most recently he saw someone at the bus stop.
Now, I know schizophrenia doesn't typically show until teens, early adult. Medications help. I also read that a big issue is if they stop taking the medications. There is no way of knowing if he will develop schizophrenia. He may not. He may. I will be a lot older when they happens, like mid-60's if that happens.
I know that with kids there is no guarantee. You may have a healthy kid one day and a sick or injured one the next day. They are still your kid, you still take care of them, for life if needed. However, I will be honest and say that this scares me. If adoptions had called me and given me all of the information I would have said no to the placement. Now I have a kid who does well in our family but there is a part of me who is scared to make that commitment. His anger issues have gone away and he works hard at school. He is typically annoying for a boy his age which is in the normal range. Still, I am concerned.
Anyone with experience with schizophrenia? Anyone have issues with DSS not disclosing everything?
There is schizo-affective disorder in the close family history of my two. When the family member is medicated you cannot tell. When not then things go awry. Not actionable dangerous to others but says and does things that scare the crap out of others. Mine are too young to show signs of if they will have it or not but we are prepared if they do. Years ago I had a close acquaintance with the same dx. He would do and say irrational things when meds were off and financially damaged his family but again, no actual physical harm. I learned it is suspected to be the leading cause of homelessness when related to mental health reasons.
ReplyDeleteYep. DFCS didn't disclose ANYTHING to us until the day we signed. Maybe because she specifically requested to adopt her, they thought we knew? Wouldn't have changed anything for us. Then they minimized so much. Disclosed a whole case study of complex trauma and told us in the same breath she was a "base level" case... o.O So glad God led us to Blue Sky. She's gotten so much healing from them. WE have gotten so much healing from them.
ReplyDelete