I know that you all learn things from me, at least that's what you tell me. Didn't know that I also learn things from you as well. One of my readers left a comment the other day in regards to removing Gavin from the house.
What they said actually made me take pause and realize how right they were.
I won't quote the actual comment but I will share what really struck me.
The comment was made that we could no longer be objective when it comes to anything Gavin does. Wow... There's a whole lot of truth in that statement and here's why.
Gavin's behaviors are such that we never know for sure, where he's coming from. He compulsively lies about everything, including things that don't even matter and so we never believe him. There are times that I'm sure he's telling the truth but because of his history, we have to assume he's lying unless we can prove otherwise.
How else can I say this?
Gavin has put all of us through so much and he continues to do so, that it's almost impossible to see any redeeming qualities anymore.
We're dealing a RAD child who's already considered a full blown sociopath, even before his 18th birthday. Everything he does has an *end game* and when he does something *nice* there's always an angle, at least most of the time.
Is it our fault that we do this? No.. We are only responding to his behavior and have been conditioned to react this way based on his consistently hurtful, abusive, dishonest, manipulative and otherwise inappropriate actions.
We are reacting the only way we can, while ensuring everyone's safety and trying to hold Gavin accountable so he hopefully learns from his mistakes.
Our reactions are based on experience and the ongoing advice from our plethora of mental health specialists, that have a great deal of experience with Gavin as well. In other words, our reactions are reasonable based on what we are reacting to. Does that make sense?
That being said, where does this leave Gavin?
My reader is absolutely right by saying that we *can no longer be objective when it comes to Gavin. *
Let me try to give you an example. Does Gavin truly lie to us about absolutely everything? Probably not. There is some truth sprinkled in amongst the lies. The problem is that we never know what's true unless we can verify it with a third party or we witness it ourselves.
Gavin's word has lost all meaning to us and he no longer has any credibility.
If we could still remain objective, we would be able to take each situation as a unique event and never have to make assumptions based on previous behavioral patterns.
If we could remain objective, we would be able to allow for the possibility that Gavin could be telling the truth, instead of having to assume he wasn't.
In other words, because we can no longer be objective, Gavin can never gain out trust back. His word means nothing and his credibility is zero.
Is this because we don't love Gavin?? Absolutely not!! If we didn't love Gavin, we would have given up on him long ago and none of us would be currently living through what we are living through with him.
The reason we can no longer be objective is because he has burned us too many times over the last decade. He's lied to us too many times and faked health problems too many times. At some point, we have to protect ourselves and enter into *self-preservation mode. *
At some point, we lost objectivity because we had to put the welfare and safety of everyone else, over Gavin. It became the needs of the many over the needs of the few.
We had no choice.
Again, where does that leave Gavin? Sadly, there is no longer any chance of us having any type of healthy relationship with him, especially if he's living under the same roof.
Allowing him to continue living here, isn't fair to anyone, including Gavin. He's set up to fail because kids with RAD don't do well within the family dynamic. We're essentially asking more of him than will ever be possible.
At the same time, we're hanging on because he's family and family means *no one is ever left behind....ever.. *
The reality is that allowing him to live here isn't fair to anyone us and certainly isn't conducive to our physical and emotional health. Right now we are literally falling apart at the seems and on the brink of catastrophe.
With that being said, I've gain a new perspective on this whole thing and it's helped to remove a great deal of guilt from the equation.
We have to move Gavin out. Whether it's residential treatment, emergency foster care or a group setting, not only is it best for the rest of us, it's best for Gavin.
I don't think the guilt will ever completely go away. However, once I accept the fact that this is really the only thing we can do to preserve what's left of our family, there simply isn't any other option.
One thing I can say with the utmost sincerity is this, my heart is absolutely broken by all of this.
*This site is managed almost exclusively from my Samsung Galaxy Note 3. **Please forgive any typos as auto-correct HATES me. ;-)*
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