A friend of Mike’s mother found a newspaper clipping about something called Reactive Attachment Disorder. It's caused by birthmother neglect and her failure to bond with her child when it's young. Luanne sent it to us. Every symptom matched Ashley, but she refused to accept the RAD diagnosis. In fact, we had problems getting the San Ramon staff to believe it either.
Mike and I would go to the hospital to visit or talk to Ashley and her therapist, Jeannine, and hostility seemed to radiate from her and flood the room. I'd always had a fairly good relationship with her, so her anger came as a shock to me. But our relationship was in tatters now, and I was almost as angry as she was. So there the three of us would sit- three blocks of mad misery. Jeannine acted confused and hesitant, sometimes blaming us, sometimes exasperated with our daughter.
Visitation became a disaster. Ashley made it very clear she didn't want us coming to see her. When we did, she put on this huge pity-me act for the benefit of her fellow patients, and they just lapped it up. She just sit stiffly and refused to look at us, wouldn't return hugs. We were advised not to bring the little kids with us because the staff wasn't sure if she'd lash out at them physically. Talk about wasted time, and all I could think about were the things I needed to do at home for the children who did appreciate me, and what a waste of time the visits were.
Make-up had always been a big issue for Mike- he didn't want his daughter going out in the world all dolled up and looking like a "hooker". Well, at San Ramon, there was no way to control how much make-up she used because she'd just borrow from friends. And it was only accidentally that we discovered how cagey she had become, trying to hide her behavior, when Mike showed up for an unplanned visit one night, and Ashley was painted up to the yin-yang. But in her eyes she didn't have any problems. No, her father was the problem.
Therapy was another non-productive bit of drama. Jeannine was actually a social worker- young and blond and easily conned. I'm not saying all social workers are gullible, but Jeannine was. Like I said, our daughter was extremely hostile towards us, and to be truthful, her rage made me feel much the same way towards her. She blamed us for everything that had gone wrong in her life- not giving her privileges, refusing to allow her to associate with friends and her poor performance in school.
What she neglected to tell Jeannine was the other side of the story. She didn't mention how she'd sabotaged herself by refusing to follow rules and attempting to repeatedly fool us and get away with mischief. Mike brought up the stolen make-up and ripped clothes, the sexual notes and suspicions of drug use and told the worker that this was not the daughter we'd raised. And to prove our point, we brought in letters I'd written to Ashley from 8th grade forward showing her defiant behavior had roots going way back and it was Ashley who was unwilling to work. Once Jeannine read them, there was no denying that we had tried repeatedly without success. And Ashley was left to explain why she wanted to be so oppositional.
Nothing prepared us for the bombshell Ashley dropped on us the following week when she brought up allegations of "abuse". Unfortunately, she dragged our oldest son, Jason, into it too by trying to say he was dangerous and we did nothing about it. She brought up the pellet gun incident and Ryan's broken arm, and with the way she skewed facts, we had a brief but terrible time trying to make the staff at the hospital realize that Jason was not out to purposely hurt his siblings.
Ashley had a way of making old things sound new and herself a victim, and she had a very gullible audience in the hospital people who were trying to help her. But after six weeks of nonsense and wasted time, her psychiatrist and social worker began to get a glimpse of the true Ashley- a girl who would sit glaring at us from her chair and make off-the-wall comments instead of participating, and they began to wonder if she was telling the truth. It became obvious that she didn’t really want help but just wanted to blame, and the tide turned.
It was sort of a funny thing. Jeannine was very upset with Ashley and her sullen behavior. But as we began talking about long-term treatment (which we wouldn’t be able to access until 6 months later) and Ashley understood what was planned for her, she suddenly decided to cooperate. Unfortunately, she’d waited too long, and Jeannine cautioned us that Ashley was just trying avoid treatment. But she couldn't stay in the hospital forever. So, having nowhere else to send her, she got dumped into a place for troubled teens called New Hope Foundation. It was a program for those awaiting placement in a longer term facility. And Ashley soon found out she had no room to maneuver.