“Tick … tick… tick…”
Lisa was a ticking time bomb. She had been diagnosed with “intermittent explosive disorder.” She could be perfectly calm and content one moment and the next moment literally explode into violence.
Lisa was an adorable child. When she arrived at The Baby Fold, she won us over with her dimpled smile and beautiful red hair. Lisa is smart and has a sense of humor—two qualities that served her well.
Cyndy, the staff person who welcomed Lisa to The Baby Fold, remembers how difficult it was to get Lisa to trust her, to let her in. It’s really no wonder, for Lisa’s mom had testified in court—in front of Lisa—that she didn’t want her. This wounded child would let the anger out by destroying property and being aggressive.
Mostly, Lisa destroyed her own things, showing us that she felt she doesn’t deserve anything. One time she saved her chore money for months in order to buy a CD player. She finally got one, but it wasn’t long before she was having an explosive episode in her room. Cyndy saw that she was looking at the precious boom box. Cyndy made a valiant dive to protect it, but it was too late. Lisa picked it up and smashed it to bits. As they processed this sad event later, Lisa told Cyndy, “Yea, I saw that you were trying to protect my boom box, but I’m just too fast for you! Thanks for trying.”
Over time, Lisa began to be able to deal with her anger. She did well in school and was finally ready to leave The Baby Fold’s Residential Treatment Center. She went to a few foster homes and another residential setting before returning home to Dad. At the age of 16, Lisa was not going to school. Her dad doesn’t make her go. He doesn’t do any parenting. He doesn’t do much of anything, except drink.
“One day,” Lisa said, “I looked at him and said to myself, ‘I’m not going to end up like that.’” Her dad gave up, but she wasn’t going to give up on herself. She began applying herself at school and even earned straight A’s her senior year. Today she is a college student, studying Mass Communications.
Lisa has kept in contact with Cyndy, and recently came to a reunion we had for RTC kids. She talked about how she learned at The Baby Fold that she could change her life. She described other places where she lived as “nice” and that there was somebody there who cared about her. She said, “But at The Baby Fold, the difference was that everyone cared about me. Everyone.”
Don’t be surprised if someday—because we didn’t give up and she didn’t give up—Lisa becomes a news anchor who wins over her audience with that red hair and dimpled smile.
