What's Love Got to Do with It?

by Jenny Molloy

  Someone comes in. A woman. I can’t keep my eyes open long enough to discover anything else about her. My head hurts.

  ‘Hope? You’re awake. How’re you feeling?’

  Like shit. Like death.

  I am thirty-four, the mother of two beautiful children, and I am in detox.

  I shake, cry, sweat and shiver.

  It is the summer of 2008.

  I hallucinate. My brain is on fire with the contents of my social work files and won’t let me rest. Suddenly, I am fourteen years old, demanding to see my social worker from Chesterfields Children’s Home. They will explain to me what’s going on.

  The woman touches my head. I flinch, shivering, stuttering. I try to say something else but it’s lost in the shakes. I’m scared. I try to tell her, I’m sick, something’s really wrong.

  ‘Hope, do you know where you are?’

  Of course. I’m fourteen years old and I’ve been put in the secure unit. I see the files, the old typewritten pages:

  Calakow House Secure Unit: Hope Daniels (14 years old) was admitted on 25.3.88 on a secure order, following repeated absconding from Chesterfields Children’s Home . . .

  ‘The secure unit—’

  I shouldn’t be here. I should be in Chesterfields, where I made them promise to find me a family.

  Request for long term foster home:

  She is a well-built girl with blue eyes, pale complexion, short, light-brown hair. She looks mature, well beyond her years. She has a most attractive lively appearance. She presents in a polite, pleasant and mature way but really lacks confidence and is emotionally quite fragile. She is vivacious, sharp and humorous in manner. Warm and affectionate.

  Hope desperately wants to be part of a normal family and experience warmth and affection and being special to someone. However, she will pose problems and ideally should be placed with really experienced foster parents.

  The voice comes as if from a far-off world: ‘You’re dehydrated, Hope. Can you try to drink a little water? Just a few sips?’

  A cup is pressed to my lips. My shakes turn to convulsions. I try to open my eyes to see the cup so I can push it away with my hands but my hands won’t do what they’re told. The convulsions make me want to vomit and I sit up, and this time when my eyes open I see Mum in front of me with a drink in her hand, fag in her mouth, looking at me, angry. What have I done?

  Mr and Mrs Daniels . . . seemed quite out of touch with their children’s needs and did not seem to think that, as parents, they might alter their drinking behaviour . . .

  They have been chronically impoverished . . .

  helpless . . .

  long cycle of prison sentences . . .

  Both have experienced very poor parenting and it seems they have never learnt to be good parents themselves . . .

  Mum speaks, she seems to be pushing the cup at me. ‘Why did you leave, Hope? Why did you leave?’ My eyes hurt, my head hurts, my stomach hurts and vaults, and I retch. I try to ask how I got here but it comes out as a moan. What’s wrong with me?

  I open my eyes, figures swim in and out of view. Dad is here, too. What are you doing here, Dad? I told you not to come.

  Neither parent has seen Hope for about six months. Hope is reluctant to have contact with them because of their frequently drunken and abusive behaviour . . .

  Mr and Mrs Daniels express ambivalence towards Hope – they express a desire to see her but are very angry that she has not wished to see them. Mr Daniels, in particular, has absolutely no insight into Hope’s needs and the impact of their behaviour and attitudes on her.

  Dad is holding my hand. He is saying something, trying to speak, but my stomach twists and turns and I fold in two.

  Her father Mr T. Daniels is a 66-year-old man who was himself in care between the ages of three and 16 years. It appears he had an unhappy childhood and was placed in an approved school from the age of 10 . . .

  He has no experience of being parented. He was returned to his father and stepmother at the age of 16 where he discovered he had three younger brothers, close to his own age, which further increased his sense of being abandoned and neglected. . .

  He admits to multiple prison admissions following charges for shoplifting and living off immoral earnings offences . . .

  He says that his level of alcohol intake has increased since his children were taken away and he expresses a sense of boredom with life. He has not sought help with his alcohol problems.

  Mum is saying something like: ‘You’re just like me, you’re just like me,’ over and over again.

  ‘I’m not, I’m not like you, Mum. I’m not, I’m not, I’m not.’

  ‘But you’re in the secure unit, Hope,’ she answers. ‘Same one they put me in.’ I scream with pain.

  Mrs Daniels is 49 years old and the youngest of four children . . .

  She is separated from her nearest sister by 13 years. She was close to this sister who died of a brain tumour when Mrs Daniels was 19.

  Mrs Daniels’s father . . . had a history of alcohol abuse and was absent throughout most of her childhood.

  Mrs Daniels herself ran away from school and from several children’s homes. She was placed in Calakow House Secure Unit for assessment as a teenager . . .

  Her first child was born when she was twenty-one and was subsequently adopted . . .

  She met Mr Daniels, some fifteen years her senior, when she was twenty-five years old . . .

  There have been a variety of problems resulting in removal on some three occasions . . .

  Mrs Daniels gave birth to Phillip alone in a furnished room . . .

  Mrs Daniels, like her husband and father, has a long history of alcohol abuse. She admits to long prison sentences for shoplifting and being drunk and disorderly. I understand that she previously worked as a prostitute. It seems, from Hope’s account, that Hope has been exposed to her mother’s sexual activities . . .

  Hope describes clients being brought back to the family home where space was very limited when her mother ‘thought she was asleep’.

  I want to get up but my legs feel like lead. My joints ache. And the taste of wine is on my tongue. I’m cold, freezing. I try to say, ‘Can I have a hot water bottle, please?’ and eventually manage, ‘Hot water bottle.’

  My dad leans in, touching my forehead. ‘But you’re so hot, Hope. You’ve got a fever.’

  Since when do you care? I think, squinting at the old man. Sweat stings my eyes. I look past him. Something about this room. Shadows dart back and forth across the pulsing walls. I don’t deserve to be here. I close my eyes.

  All three children were admitted into care in 1983 . . .

  Wards of court . . .

  Resident at Chesterfields Children’s Home for the last four years . . .

  Hope had become attached to care staff and settled well . . .

  Changes of staff . . . began using alcohol and cigarettes . . . some re-enactment of her mother’s history . . . absconding at night and putting herself at risk . . . no account of where she spends these nights . . .

  Since admission to Calakow, she has experienced poor peer relations and has retreated . . .

  Bright flashes of light. Red, gold, blue. My eyes are closed but the lights are as bright and more intense than fireworks. My heart thuds like a bass drum, echoing. My skin itches but when I try to scratch, hands pull my arms away.

  Ashamed of her parents . . .

  Sorry for them rather than angry . . .

  Particularly about her mother’s prostitution and her disgust at the idea of ‘selling her body’ . . .

  Does not miss her parents . . .

  Would prefer not to see them . . .

  She denied any interest in alcohol and is not afraid of developing a drink problem . . .

  She evidences no signs of disturbed sexual behaviour (apart from speaking in a crude manner) . . .

  She has consistently expressed the desire to be fostered and has some understanding of the possible difficulties . .
.

  She might continue to abscond . . .

  She is also at grave risk of developing an alcohol dependency disorder . . .

  The tendency to re-enact her mother’s history, which she is at risk of repeating.

  ‘Don’t struggle, Hope, just relax, relax, relax.’

  The flashing lights slow down and everything is silent, I open my eyes but it’s like they’re weighed down with bags of sand. I try to focus. Figures move. There’s a strip light that flashes at me in slow motion. I feel my jaw go slack and my lids slam shut with a thud . . .

  August 1987 – Hope was charged with shoplifting . . .

  September 1987 – A pattern of absconding started, which has since accelerated . . .

  October 1988 – The police were called to the home during the night because Hope and another girl were quite uncontrollable and were also damaging the property . . . Both girls were arrested . . .

  A man’s voice: ‘Hope? Are you OK ?’

  The sheets hurt. My skin is raw.

  Another voice: ‘Hope, Do you know where you are?’

  ‘Secure unit.’

  ‘What year is it?’ the stranger’s voice asks. ‘How old are you?’

  1982. Eight.

  Mrs Daniels, Hope’s mother, was sent to an approved school when she was 14 years old because of truanting. She often absconded and when she was 16 years old she spent a year in a closed ward in a psychiatric hospital, she has no idea why . . .

  An older man got her pregnant . . .

  The child was put up for adoption shortly after birth . . .

  There were family rows about her father’s heavy drinking . . .

  Mrs Daniels earned some money by soliciting and Mr Daniels served two prison sentences for living off immoral earnings . . .

  Evicted from their flat due to soliciting . . .

  Both Mr and Mrs Daniels gradually increased their alcohol intake . . .

  They had a daughter when their oldest son was two years old but, due to their situation, they felt it would be best if she was adopted . . .

  Difficulties with neighbours . . .

  Current accommodation . . . very poor state of repair . . .

  Mrs Daniels has appeared on several drunk charges this year . . .

  Theft of a bottle of whiskey . . .

  Feels helpless when considering whether she can change her habit or behaviour . . .

  Both Mr and Mrs Daniels drink regularly to a state of intoxication. They assure me that this only occurs on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and that they can still care for their children . . .

  Mrs Daniels and the family are clearly in need of help and their future is bleak if the present situation continues . . .

  It seems likely that they are both brain damaged by drink . . .

  Unwilling and unable to recognise that their drinking is the cause of their troubles.

  ‘Her blood pressure is high, but she’s improving.’

  ‘Can I talk to her? Can she hear me?’

  ‘Yes, but I’m not sure shell understand everything.’

  ‘Hope, Hope, can you hear me? You’re going to get better. You’re going to come home soon.’

  All three children very much want to be fostered. They do not want to spend the rest of their childhood in a children’s home.

  When I interviewed Hope she was most anxious that her future placements would not be open-ended and that the Local Authority would make a serious attempt to find foster parents for her.

  What progress has been made?

  The initial referral to fostering and adoption was on 17.10.1985.

  Nothing was achieved . . .

  No prospect in the foreseeable future . . .

  Attempts to foster would have to be dropped . . .

  Indications that Hope, in particular, was not happy with this . . .

  Her parents, particularly Mrs Daniels, would undoubtedly do their best to destabilise any placement and their behaviour alone would put pressure on a foster placement . . .

  This was always sufficient reason for not attempting it . . .

  Harold and Hope are now 13 and 14 respectively so time is getting short . . .

  Adolescent problems are present . . . truanting . . . thieving . . .

  They have fairly unrealistic expectations of fostering, i.e. Kellogg’s Cornflake packet picture of family life and high materialistic expectations . . .

  Decision must be made one way or another – uncertainty is very unsettling for the children.

  I open my eyes. They are dry, my lips are cracked and they sting when someone presses a cup to them.

  Take these.’

  Two pills are pushed into my mouth.

  ‘These are going to stabilise your heart, get your blood pressure down and hopefully reduce your urge to vomit. You have to take them every few hours, there’s some unpleasant side effects, but I’ll reduce the strength over time. I need to take some blood and run a couple of tests, make sure all your insides are OK . You’ll be up and about in no time. Promise.’

  I open my eyes and twist in the bed. I put my hands to my head and then lift them off. I look at my hand. The tattoo is there but it’s faded, it’s just a blue smudge, already.

  Wait . . . ?

  I look across the room and see Dan. He tells me he loves me. That I’ve been here for four days and nights.

  My files. I read my social service files. I thought I was ready. Then three bottles of wine and then after that . . . I don’t know.

  My mum was in the secure unit. I was in the secure unit. My mum and dad were alcoholics.

  I am an alcoholic.

  My mum lost all her children.

  For a while it felt as though my head had left my body and was floating away; it felt dreamy, pleasant. For those who were near me at the time, I was shaking and retching, barely conscious and barely breathing.

  The first night was just about keeping me alive and on the second night, the shaking frenzy set in. It got so bad that I needed to be knocked out and, as I drifted between various states of non-conscious awareness, the experience triggered more memories of being in care.

  Danny and the nurses kept trying to explain where I really was but I could only see Mum and Dad and my room in the secure care home – and my belief only grew stronger as my system screamed for the alcohol that had kept so many of those feelings in check; aided by the medications they fed me to help my body cope.

  And a few days later, after being weaned off the medication and, as I was regaining consciousness, I committed to a six-month alcohol programme at the Kenward Trust, where I’d missed countless appointments.

  At first, I still didn’t believe them when they told me how bad I was. I thought I needed help so that I could be all right with my drinking and not get out of control again.

  They soon set me straight. It was time to quit.

  I was lucky, they said. I could have killed myself through alcohol poisoning. If I continued to drink like I had done, I would die.

  Presented with no choice, i.e. this or death, I agreed to end it forever.

  As I regained my senses, I felt the old, unstoppable fear that social services were going to show up, just as they had done when I was a little girl, except that this time they were going to take the kids away from me and Danny would go with them.

  The fear had to stop. I knew it. But I didn’t know how. I had to deal with my past, with being in care and the loss that went with it – the loss of childhood and my family. Otherwise I would be sober and have to live with all these emotions and fears. There was nothing else to do. I had to let myself go, open up and talk; talk about things I’d never said to anyone before.

  Emotional maturity stops when the trauma starts. My trauma had started early. For the first six months I regressed to the state of an enraged teenager. I threw chairs, argued, swore and refused every suggestion. I had never had the chance to grow into an adult. I didn’t know how. There were more things about life that scared me than I even knew a
bout. From that fear came rage.

  It took months. Months of reacting to insights as a teenager, rather than as a grown-up wife and mother of two children.

  I thought that if my children found out about my life in care and my drinking, that they would detest me. That I was a failure as a human being. I also thought it was my fault that our family had ended up in care. I had gone with my brothers to the police station when our family life broke down.

  I argued against all the good things they pointed out about me. I just couldn’t hear them. And then I’d leave and be scared that the treatment wasn’t working.

  Outside of the treatment centre, I was unable to leave the house. My own splendid isolation.

  ‘Come on, Hope,’ Dan said. ‘Why don’t we go out? Just for a drive. You won’t even have to step out of the car.’

  ‘I can’t. What if I lose it and jump out and start screaming in the street? Suppose I have a drink?’

  ‘Ill make sure that won’t happen.’

  I shook my head and stayed sitting on the sofa, hugging my knees, waiting for the fear to end. What is happening to me? Why can’t I control anything?

  The only time I felt safe outside of home was at the treatment centre. I could lose control there. Say anything. Do anything (just about).

  And then I arrived at my therapy session one day and they’d brought out some puppet figures.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ I said. ‘Dolls? Seriously?’

  I went along with it and, suddenly, I could see myself as a kid, with my brothers, and something caught at the back of my throat. I felt so sorry for us. It was so sad. Then there was this pain in my throat and I gasped. What was going on? I felt tears in my eyes. But I never cried, never. And I collapsed into sobs; it was unstoppable, nearly hysterical. I didn’t know how to stop.