One day, Cathy got a call from the principal’s office, saying the boy wasn’t taking his meds. John Jr. was coming to school hungry and unkempt, and they’d already called Child Protective Services (CPS) to report his father for neglecting him. They said they were going to turn the boy over to CPS, but they would let Cathy take him, instead, if she came over right away. Cathy left work immediately.
Within several days of staying with his mother, John Jr. was already crying to go back with his father. “It isn’t Daddy’s fault,” he kept saying, referring to the school’s need to call CPS.
John Sr. had told his son that it was his own fault they couldn’t stay together, because the boy hadn’t been following orders. When Cathy heard this, she couldn’t believe it. “He made it real ugly,” she said. “I blocked it out.”
Although the CPS investigation found the home situation satisfactory, John Jr. blamed his mother for reporting the abuse, even though she’d never called CPS. By Thanksgiving, John Sr. asked Cathy to keep the boy at her house. After four years of living on workers’ compensation and disability, John Sr.’s benefits had run out. He’d become even more depressed, and he was having a hard time buying food.
Father and son saw each other around Christmas, and John Sr. would always remember the moving gesture that his son had made. They couldn’t afford a tree because Cathy had always been the one to pay for it, so John Jr. trooped into a field and came back with a tree branch. Never one to get sentimental with his kids, John Sr. later told Deanna how much that moment had meant to him.
“That really surprised me and touched my heart,” he said. “It’s something I’ll never forget.”
Cathy put John Jr. into Ramona Avenue School, near her house in Hawthorne, where they were in the process of enrolling him in special education. But by now, the boy felt that both of his parents had rejected him, which set off an average of five fits of rage each day. During these, he threw objects—and himself—against the wall. According to his medical records, he told his doctors that he had acted bad to see if Cathy would give him away. When Cathy tried to be affectionate with him, he pushed her away, saying that “his mommy and daddy had once said they loved each other, and now look at how things were.”
And it only got worse from there.
Chapter 8
John Jr. was really taking the separation hard. He not only had difficulty falling asleep, but he cried while dreaming, wasn’t eating much, and began to act in ways that really alarmed his mother, such as picking fights with groups of neighborhood boys who were bigger, tougher and outnumbered him.
Within a week of coming to live with Cathy, he was sent to the principal’s office for acting out. After also pushing the principal’s papers onto the floor, he got himself suspended. The school had been creating an Individual Education Plan for him, which would allow him to enter a program for the severely emotionally disturbed. They just couldn’t handle him in the regular classroom.
Cathy was at her wit’s end too. “I was a wreck,” she recalled. “Here I was, I’ve lost my home. I’ve separated from my husband. My child is now suicidal, getting kicked out of school, and I was having to file bankruptcy.” She knew, however, that he couldn’t stay in regular school, because he was too disruptive.
Days after he was suspended, John Jr. was so angry at Cathy that he threatened to run into the street, jump out of their second-story apartment window, run into traffic or stab himself. He also began to play dangerous games with electrical wiring and setting more fires. He lit several candles all over the house, dripping hot wax on furniture and the rug. He also lit a roll of toilet paper on fire and tossed it into the bathtub.
“I hate my life,” he said. “I hate everything. I might as well be dead.”
His father had given him a guitar, and John Jr. was so angry at John Sr. for abandoning him that he buried the instrument in the flower planter outside.
When she noticed it was missing, Cathy asked him where his guitar was.
“Dad hates me,” he replied. “I don’t need it anymore.”
Around this time, Cathy started seeing a new man, an electrician named Dan. Still angry at Cathy, John Jr. tried to warn away her new boyfriend: “Don’t become disabled, or she’ll leave you too.”
This comment hit a little too close to home for Cathy, but she tried once again to take it in stride. He was obviously a very sick little boy. Recognizing this, she tried to get him hospitalized, but her health provider refused to take action, suggesting instead that she bring him to urgent care. Because of the problems with her son, Cathy had transferred jobs from the kids’ unit to the adult unit at UCLA, where she called the medical director for advice.
“I need help,” she told him, near the breaking point herself. “My kid is a mess. I don’t know what to do.”
“Bring him in,” he told her. “We’ll get him admitted.”
On February 1, 1989, John Jr. was admitted to the child inpatient wing, known as 6-West, where he stayed for five weeks.
The doctors at UCLA considered statements by Cathy, John Sr. and their son in assessing the situation. John Jr.’s hospital records show that he was not very self-aware, denying many of his symptoms, his depression, psychotic symptomatology and “current suicidality.” However, he admitted to wanting to kill himself in the past and acknowledged having problems in school, “making enemies and having trouble with kids being mean” to him. He denied his insomnia, saying, “I stay up late, and he denied his hyperactivity, saying, “I like to be doing things all the time.” He reported that he liked his classes, especially math, and enjoyed swimming, soccer and basketball.
Blaming his mother for his parents’ separation, he claimed she was trying to give him away. The records noted that both parents expressed guilt that John Jr. had to be hospitalized. The records also noted that he wasn’t doing as well after Cathy and Dan moved in together. While John was in the hospital, someone had broken into Cathy’s apartment and stolen her son’s medications. She moved into Dan’s apartment because she felt safer there.
Patient has increased difficulty and anger regarding the separation, the records state, noting that he was very protective of his father and very angry at his mother, but he also showed separation anxiety when Cathy left the unit after visiting.
During the exam to determine his mental status, John Jr. kept looking out the window, distracted by children playing outside, and kept messing with the blood pressure cuff and reflex hammer. He moved around quite a bit, chanting “yes-no, yes-no,” or “no-no-no-no-no,” making faces in disgust and appearing annoyed at the questions.
“Everybody asks that,” the boy kept saying.
The doctor’s analysis: Patient’s peer relationships have always been poor, although he did make one female friend this last summer at mother’s house. He tends to antagonize other children, is very short-tempered, and has poor sharing skills... . His thought process was unremarkable with no evidence of psychosis. Cognitively, he had good comprehension, intact memory and appeared to be of at least average intelligence. His insight was poor and his judgment was fair to poor... . He often speaks with much bravado about this place, bragging that he knows it well (his mother is an NPI nurse), and bragging about his physical strength or other skills to defend against feelings of abandonment, confusion, low self-esteem, and lack of control in recent circumstances.
During his stay there, John was initially not very well liked by the other children, and he stayed on the periphery of their activities. Occasionally, the reports stated, he was quite violent towards his peers, sometimes hitting them or striking them quite impulsively. But slowly he was able to get along better with his peers and form friendships. His anger toward Cathy lessened, and he gradually accepted that he was going to live with her. Cathy came for family