Dealing with Disappointment

Yesterday, we spent some time with Kismet again. She was pretty obsessed with Brad's iPhone, to the point of not interacting much with us, at least during dinner. We then tried to find something interesting to do in the short period of time we were able to keep her but a good number of stores in the valley close at 6 p.m. on Sundays and since she didn't get out of church until 4:30 and we had dinner first, we were pretty limited in our options.

We did, however, get to take her into Best Buy. Oddly enough, she really wanted to go in there and she bounced around from item to item, going about 500 miles an hour. It's funny, Moon Unit also had ADHD as a young child but she is now 19 and has outgrown most of it. I'd forgotten how exhausting these kids can be. Even just watching them is tiring.

We took her back home and the other girls who are in care in the group home were there. Kismet gave a quick round of hugs and then just turned her back on us. So we left and it took a little while pondering on the situation to realize she was probably playing it cool and non-chalant in front of the other girls.

Later in the evening, Brad tried to give her a call to say goodnight but discovered that, just like the last time we took her out, she had another melt-down after dropping her off. After talking with her foster father for a bit, we discovered that the reason Kismet keeps having these melt-downs is because over the years, so many people have failed her. Her mother used to tell her she'd get clean and take her home but she never did. Or she was supposed to come visit but then wouldn't. And her group home parents would come and go, so it was hard to attach to anyone because it seemed, to her, like they always left her. So in her mind, when we took her back home after visiting with her, we would not be back. That makes her melt-downs perfectly understandable.

How sad is it that at such a tender young age, a child can already come to understand that adults are not always true to their word? How sad is it that this poor child has had so much disappointment with the people in her life that she wanted to be close to and wanted to love her that she has a hard time trusting us and believing we will be back?

I don't know if there's any way for us to be able to reassure her now that we will be back but Brad did tell her last night when she was allowed to call us back that we would always be there for her. I don't know if she believes it. We will see her again hopefully on Wednesday and then I'm out of town for 5 days. I worry that she will think I won't be back but Brad will be out to see her while I'm gone.

I guess this will work itself out in time, that eventually she will come to realize that we are always going to be there for her. Hopefully, she will start to understand that we will not abandon her, and some day, she will get over the disappointment she has experienced with those who she felt failed her in her life. Hopefully, she will learn to trust again.