My.Kidjacked.com

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This evening I watched Saving Isaiah again, about a little boy who was adopted out after his crack addicted mother threw him out like garbage. When the adults stopped fighting over him, we were left to believe all was well. We all hope and pray that Isaiah has a happy ending.

When I decided to share Saving Isaiah with my Facebook friends, I found another Saving Isaiah that both shocked and horrified me. Though to be honest, Isaiah’s story doesn’t surprise me.

COMMITTED TO MENTAL WARD AT 6

Psychiatrists diagnosed Isaiah with post-traumatic stress disorder, a mental problem first studied in Vietnam veterans. He had night terrors and trouble sleeping. He flinched when a cashier at a water park asked him to wear a plastic bracelet to show he had paid. It triggered his memory of a hospital ID band.

Cheryll believes her son also has reactive attachment disorder, a problem in which early traumas prevent children from bonding normally with their parents. She wanted to take her son to one of the national centers that train parents to help severely disturbed children.

Nearly every day, Cheryll hounded DCF officials for the money. When she felt administrators were patronizing her, her temper came quick, like a sudden slap.

The state wouldn’t pay for the special treatment, but it did provide a psychiatrist, an after-school program and a therapist who came to the home to work with Isaiah nearly every day. In the summer after his kindergarten year, the state paid his tuition to a summer camp for emotionally disturbed children.

Isaiah believed that the entire world was out to hurt him. In his mind, even is mother could not be trusted and the state, predictably, does exactly the wrong thing to help this innocent child. They locked Isaiah up in the most terrifying place on earth and began to torture Isaiah with needles.

I can relate to his terror and I have to wonder how any parent can be so stupid. I am convinced that the mother is not without blame, but the story doesn’t give us those details.

When I was 8 years old my appendix burst and I was hospitalized for three weeks. It was touch-and-go for the first few days, they had inserted a drain tube to help drain off the poison that threatened to claim my life. Obviously, I made it through the ordeal…but at what cost?

I was given 3-injections daily for those 3-weeks, to help fight the poison, my drain tube was checked through-out the day as well and my dressings changed. I was in good hands, the staff, for the most, part treated me well.

I was really out of it for the first 3-days, then for the next 7-days I was terrified. I lived in total and constant fear. I was afraid to move the wrong way, for fear my guts would fall out. I knew they had cut me open, I knew that they had to clean my wound often but not a single person bothered to tell me that I had staples in my stomach. I didn’t find out until the doctor was half-way through removing them and I had the courage to ask him what he was doing.

Everyone was so busy “doing their job”, that no one considered actually letting the patient in on the process. You would be surprised at what very young children can understand. I was quite shocked one day, when someone I know well was babysitting a friends child. The child was acting out and instead of talking to the 18-months-old child and explaining things this person yanked the items out of the child’s hand, claiming that the child was too young to understand. Poppycock.

Children in the womb can understand love and affection. My grandchild used to really get moving around when I would read or sing to my daughter-in-laws swollen tummy. Children of all ages are very perceptive and can understand much more than we give them credit for. This case is especially difficult because the mother is a single mom. Raising a child is hard enough when you have two loving parents working together, but nearly impossible to do all alone.

This family needs your support.

Please contact Kathleen Chapman for details on where to make a donation to help Isaiah and his mother. This child needs specialized help and nothing less will do.

Contact Kathleen Chapman
kathleen_chapman@pbpost.com