Although Maria was still sometimes very angry as a teenager, and generally found it difficult to express her emotions, thankfully she did occasionally talk to us about how she felt. A lot of children who’ve had experiences similar to hers won’t talk about them to anyone, and there’s little point trying to encourage them to do so until they’re ready and able to start compartmentalising the different parts of their life and all the things that have happened to them.
Some children might benefit from professional counselling and therapy, which, unfortunately, are rarely offered to them, primarily due to lack of funding. The other problem is that when professional help is given, it isn’t always as useful as people hope it will be. For example, one boy who was with us for a few months as a teenager told me after he’d had a session with a therapist, ‘I’d been talking about something my dad did and she suddenly said, “I know exactly how you feel.” It made me really angry when she said that, because she can’t possibly know how I feel. Has she been through the things I’ve been through? I doubt it.’
Of course, it’s possible that his therapist had had similar experiences as a child, although even if she had, she couldn’t have known ‘exactly’ how that particular boy felt. What was more likely, however, was that she didn’t mean it quite the way it sounded. But the boy was right to protest, because everyone’s experiences are unique. Although you might be able to imagine how a child feels, you can’t ever feel what they’re feeling, which is one of the reasons why you always have to be so careful about what you say.
Another child we looked after, a little girl who stayed with us for a few months while Social Services were looking for a long-term foster home for her, was given several appointments with the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, or CAMHS as we called it. That in itself was proof of how serious her problems were, as the service is always so overstretched that therapy sessions are usually reserved for only the most acutely ill children. The sessions appeared to help the child a great deal, as she always returned in a calmer, more positive frame of mind, even if she had been extremely angry and aggressive in the car on the way to her appointment.
As I’ve said before, you never know what will trigger a memory for a child who has had bad experiences; I never expect or assume they know themselves. And although Maria did sometimes talk to us about the things that had happened to her, I’m sure there were many more horrific incidents we aren’t even aware of.
One day, when she was sitting beside me on the sofa watching television, she suddenly blurted out, ‘Whenever I think about my stepfather, my face gets really hot and I feel sort of . . . tight. As though, if he was standing in front of me, I’d punch him in the face.’
Maria was nearly fifteen by now. Her love of reading had persisted throughout her time with us, and as well as reading a lot of fiction she had also started to read some self-help type books, the ones about improving your life and happiness and that sort of thing. This started after she had a lesson on psychology at school, which really interested her. I imagined her reading encouraged her not just to think about the past, but also to start to articulate her feelings about it.
I didn’t really know how much impact the self-help books were having on Maria, and I wasn’t exactly sure what to do or say about them. As is often the case with the children I foster, I was walking on eggshells to a certain extent. I didn’t want to question Maria directly about how she felt and I was wary of saying the wrong thing. Eventually, after the remark about punching Gerry, I picked my moment and asked her, ‘Would you like to talk to someone professional about how you feel? Someone who could help you to deal with your anger so that it doesn’t build up inside you and make you miserable?’
‘Yes, I think that would be a good idea,’ she said, looking relieved. ‘I know I can’t really hit my stepdad or punch him in the face, so sometimes, when I get really angry, I’m afraid I might end up hurting someone else.’
Maria had been going through a bad patch for a while before we had that conversation. There had been a few spats at school with teachers and other pupils, but she refused to discuss what they were about. Then Christine phoned one evening out of the blue. Even though Maria was older and I no longer listened to the calls, Christine was meant to call at specific times, and this was not one of them.
On this occasion, Maria had a blazing row with her mum. I had no way of finding out what Christine had said unless Maria told me, but I heard Maria scream, ‘Why did you let that happen?’ This was followed by several outbursts like, ‘What sort of answer is that? I want to know the reason. What was going through your head? You’re mad, d’you know that? Psycho!’
When Maria came off the phone she barged past me, her face like thunder, and ran up to her room, where she stayed for several hours.
I spoke to her social worker about my concerns and Maria was put on a waiting list to see someone at CAMHS. ‘The services are massively overstretched,’ the social worker told me, unnecessarily, ‘so I’m afraid it’s going to be a long wait before Maria is able to see someone.’
‘I understand. I’m just glad she’s on the waiting list. I think it’s essential she gets the right help. I am afraid that not only is she struggling with her anger issues, but I’m concerned she also has depressive tendencies.’
I went on to talk about Maria’s weight problem – something I had kept Social Services very well informed of – and made the point that she did not seem to care about how she looked, which to my mind was a very worrying indicator of her state of mental health. I had also mentioned her weight to her GP at the last visit, when Maria went for her annual medical check.
I heard nothing for weeks, during which time my concerns for Maria’s mental health became more acute.
Maria had a habit, when she was sitting at the table in the kitchen, of tipping her chair onto its back legs and reaching behind her to get whatever it was she wanted out of a drawer or the fridge.
‘You’re going to tip that chair right over and end up inside the fridge yourself one of these days,’ I’d said to her many times.
‘You’re just jealous because you can’t do it,’ she would retort, and then carry on tipping her chair.
‘I mean it, Maria! I don’t want you falling!’
She did it one night when we were having a nice meal, with a lot good-humoured banter being exchanged. I didn’t want to spoil the atmosphere so I gently chided, ‘Maria, if there was an Olympic medal in balancing on two legs of a chair, I think you’d win gold.’
‘Very funny,’ she said, rolling her eyes.
‘Well, I don’t want you to get hurt, sweetheart,’ I said.
‘I know, I know,’ Maria tut-tutted.
As she spoke I noticed that the sleeves of her top had risen up her forearms, as she’d twisted round in her chair and reached awkwardly to get a bottle of water out of the fridge. To my dismay I saw that there were lots of red marks on the insides of her wrists. Suddenly my words ‘I don’t want you to get hurt’ took on a whole new meaning.
If this was what I feared it might be, it certainly wasn’t the first time I’d dealt with a child who self-harmed. Unfortunately, self-harm is a very common problem. It’s thought around thirteen per cent of young people may try to hurt themselves on purpose at some point between the ages of eleven and sixteen, but the actual figure could be much higher as very few teenagers tell anyone what’s going on. In 2014 figures suggested a seventy per cent increase in ten- to fourteen-years-olds attending A & E for self-harm-related reasons over the preceding two years. Inevitably, the children I cared for were even more likely to be at risk from self-harm than those without specialist needs, so Jonathan and I had dealt with many incidents over the years.
I said nothing to Maria at that moment and tried to join in the chatter around the dining table, but my mind was whirring. I wondered how long this had gone on for, and to my horror I realised I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen Maria with bare arms. After she gave up PE and gained all the weight I’d never seen her in a short-sleeved top, and in fact she usually wore baggy sweatshirts or a long-sleeved top with a big hoodie layered over it. You could barely see what shape she was, let alone the skin on the underside of her wrists.
I waited until later in the evening, when Jonathan and I were alone in the living room and Maria came in to say goodnight, before asking her, ‘What are the marks on your arms, sweetheart?’
‘What marks?’ she replied, instinctively pulling down the sleeves of her sweater beyond her wrists.
‘I saw them when you were reaching to get a bottle of water out of the fridge at dinner tonight. All those red lines on the inner surface of both of your arms.’ I tried to maintain eye contact with her as I spoke, but she looked away.
‘Oh, those marks,’ she said, hunching her shoulders and pushing her hands into the pockets of her trousers. ‘They’re nothing. We were playing this stupid game at school today, where you flick each other with elastic bands to see who can hold out longest.’
‘That doesn’t sound like much fun,’ said Jonathan, who was fully aware of my concerns.
‘I know,’ Maria laughed. ‘You’re right. It wasn’t. Well, anyway, goodnight.’
I wanted to believe this was the truth, and the way Maria said it did make it sound just about plausible, but of course I couldn’t be sure and I was very worried. I made a note of it in my diary to show the social worker and debated whether to put in an emergency call to them first thing in the morning. After sleeping on it, I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to cause undue alarm just yet, so instead I decided I would be extra vigilant and would keep a close eye on Maria to see if I could spot any more marks or other signs that something was badly wrong.
She seemed chirpy enough over breakfast the next morning. When I asked her if the red marks had gone down she said very convincingly, ‘What marks?’
‘The ones on your wrists.’
‘Oh, those,’ she laughed. ‘Forgot all about them! Yes, no problem.’
Even though I decided to hold off on calling Social Services, I couldn’t get the marks out of my mind, and I thought about ways to talk to Maria. By the afternoon, after talking things through with Jonathan during quiet moments in the shop, I decided I was going to casually ask Maria to show me her wrists, just so I could make sure she didn’t need any cream on them or anything to soothe them after the ‘elastic band game’.
Unfortunately, when she came in from school my plan changed, as Maria had little specks of blood on the back of her hands.
‘What has happened there?’ I asked, taking her hands in mine.
She wriggled free and pulled her sweatshirt down so that only her fingertips were visible.
‘Oh, I’ve been in the wars again!’ she said. ‘Forgot all about that. It was just another game at school, mucking around.’
‘Oh dear. What kind of game makes you bleed like that?’
The ‘explanation’ Maria gave this time was that she and her friends at school had all been writing their names on their hands with pins. This seemed much less plausible than her elastic band story, and I told her I was a bit worried about this ‘game’.
‘Why?’ she said, immediately retreating out of the kitchen, even though she usually helped herself to a drink and a snack as soon as she got in from school.
‘I’m going to do my homework, got loads. What time’s tea ready?’
‘But I’m worried . . .’
Before I could finish my reply, Maria was already heading up the stairs, saying as she did so, ‘Oh, Angela, didn’t you ever do any silly things at school? I bet you did! You’re just so old you can’t remember.’
She said this playfully rather than rudely, and she was out of earshot before I had time to give any answer at all.
Standing alone in the kitchen, I knew I had to take action. Something is very wrong, I thought. I don’t like this one bit.