Have you ever wondered how a cult gets started? How people can believe crazy shit that sounds like it was made up by a screwed up and slightly-psychotic teenager? Let me present to you our son. Yes, the one we are working on adopting. Now, for those unfamiliar with kids in the system, mental illnesses brought on through trauma is a fairly normal thing. This doesn't necessarily mean something like schizophrenia, but instead something like maladaptive daydreaming or teenage dissasociative disorder. These kids, often emotionally well behind their physical age, will make up stories in order to help cope with the life they have lived. Sometimes this just means lying to themselves or convincing themselves that they are the cause for being in care, even if the reason was due to abuse or neglect. Some create fantasy stories in which their mom was secretly a CIA agent and that is why they had to be taken away, for their protection. These kids will tell everyone about it, trying to convince other kids that this is the truth and doubling down if someone calls them out on it. If you are our kid, you make up your own fantasy religion. Here's the basic gist of it: S is secretly a warrior angel sent from heaven to meat out justice to people who hurt him. This god, although having no attributes of any of the written gods, is in fact the Messianic Jewish god. (conveniently the religion his mother converted to when he was eight) Although there are people who have hurt him, he remains friends with those people because they too are secretly angels, therefore letting his friends get away with things that his "enemies" never would. He has no proof or evidence beyond his word, but insists that there is one other person out there who can corroborate his story. (not that this would be evidence in the slightest) When I questioned some of this, the story changed slightly to him actually being the reincarnated Ares, the god of war who is actually an angel. All the ancient gods are actually just angels who people chose to worship as gods. It doesn't matter if they claim to be a god...or even the one and only god. They are just angels who wanted fame and power. Even the good ones who rebuffed fame and power, but it wasn't their fault human beings wanted to worship them. He tried to....get this...use Naruto (as in the Manga) as proof that what he said was true. As if Naruto is a religious holy book. As if the authors of that book haven't explained in detail their thought processes and how they created the series. I know what you are thinking, holy shit....you are adopting a kid who is clearly schizophrenic. Except I don't think he is. We will be speaking with his therapist tomorrow, but I really think that this is his way of trying to explain all the crappy things that have happened to him. And he so badly wants to be seen as tough and strong. He wants people to be afraid of him and the truth is he is a scrawny, lazy, seventeen-year-old with pimples, greasy hair, and no muscle mass. He is anything but tough. I think someone, probably his step-dad, taught him that he needed to be tough in order to be a man. This has been reiterated at the group home. And in his adolescent and immature brain, the toughest things that he can think of is Ares the god of war and immortal angels. Obviously, if he really believes this, that is deeply concerning, but I really don't think he does. Let's also add something to this complex situation: Adoption Sabotage. I firmly believe that something we did over this weekend caused this kid to freak out about the upcoming move and adoption. All weekend he was lying, manipulating, and cheating. He and my husband were having a constant battle of wills. The conversation that led up to these revelations were tough foster care stuff. He has also done this before to two other previous pre-placement adoptive families. He chose to back out of those adoptions. It would really suck, especially after 9 months of this back and forth shit for him to decide to back out of this, but that's his choice. We have said from the beginning that this is as much his choice as ours. If he is so fucked up that he sabotages this, then there is nothing we can do about it. Truth is, this kid should have been living with us months ago and we should be dealing with this in our home, not over the phone at the group home. Last thing: S said that if I ever told anyone about these revelations (even though he has clearly told several people this himself) that he would be killed by God. This is absolutely manipulation and I refuse to remain silent. First, because he needs to get help so his therapist must know. Second, because I don't keep secrets from my husband. Third, because he doesn't get to make up a religion, share that with me, and then try to blackmail me into not talking about it. I can keep a secret, but this isn't one that should be kept nor does it need to be. We are talking about a serious mental health issue here, not some rumor about your cousin's boyfriend. Finally, I am the last person that this kid should have told. Not only am I your mother, but he also knows that I am a skeptic and an atheist. He knew I wouldn't believe him before he even began. But he chose to do so anyways, which tells me that this really was an adoption sabotage technique. Because my husband, Hades love him, would have at least given some credence to this made-up religion in a way that I never would. So fun times. Can't wait to see how the next few weeks play out. I am so glad I took Tuesday off. I needed a day to recover from S's shenanigans.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorThis is a personal, but secret, blog archiving my deconversion from a Christian to a non-believer. Archives
December 2020
Categories |