All I Never Knowed

By Stephanie Giese

When Nicholas was three years old, he started blaming an imaginary friend he called The Other Nicholas for things he did yet couldn't remember or explain. By seven, professionals were starting to use words like "psychotic break" and "crisis unit." By the age of twelve, he had been admitted to pediatric psychiatric hospitals on four occasions.

All I Never Knowed is the true story of the Giese family and the fight for their oldest son as he wrestles with severe mental illness. Written at Nicholas' request and told from the perspective of his mother, Stephanie, the reader travels with the family through over a decade of navigating the children's mental health crisis in America from the inside. The Gieses share how they sought treatment, found resources, and discovered coping strategies along the way.

An intimate, emotional story that will make you laugh, cry, want to throw things, and hug your family, All I Never Knowed is the sort of sincere and candid dialogue that stays with you and just might lead to real and lasting change.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stephanie Giese
• Release date: Oct 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9781737206828

Stephanie Giese

Stephanie Giese is a mother of five and a children’s advocate currently living in Tampa, Florida. She holds a master’s degree in the field of education and has served as a public school teacher in the states of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Florida. Her work can be seen in various outlets online and in print, as well as on her personal website Binkies and Briefcases. Stephanie’s essays are featured in the parenting anthologies Will Work for Apples, You Have Lipstick on Your Teeth, and the New York Times best-selling I Just Want to Pee Alone. She has written for Central Penn Parent and SMART Magazine in York, Pennsylvania. Her work can also be seen online on websites such as HuffPost, The Blaze, and Good Housekeeping. She has previously been named a BlogHer Voice of the Year, and in 2014 was called one of HuffPost’s “most viral bloggers of the decade.” When she isn’t writing, Stephanie enjoys binging ‘90’s television shows, eating takeout, and reading just about anything, but she is especially fond of the works of Judy Blume, Bo Burnham, and John Mulaney.

Book preview

My laptop sits open on the oblong oak dining table, next to scattered Play-Doh crumbs and unfinished coloring pages. I’m trying to meet the Friday deadline for the education article I have been assigned by our local parenting magazine. I need to submit a thousand words on college savings options to my editor, but finding financial experts willing to be interviewed on short notice is proving trickier than anticipated. The girls, having abandoned their crayons, are now standing on the stone fireplace hearth, using it as a stage to take turns belting Disney ballads. I think I saw Donny take a miniature screwdriver into his bedroom after lunch. He’s probably tinkering with last year’s Pinewood Derby cars again. Nicholas sits across from me, piecing together tiny bricks. He’s been working there for three hours.

Mommy, Penny runs up to me, still in her mismatched pajamas at 3pm. Ana keeps singing the wrong words on purpose even though me and Abby told her to stop.

I said not to tell Ms. Stephanie, Ana yells from the living room.

Abby and I, I correct my six-year-old. And don’t tattle. You can work it out. Mommy needs to write. I wave her back to the living room, where she sits arms-crossed on the overstuffed leather loveseat, deflated with the disappointment of being unsuccessful in her attempt to get her foster sister into trouble.

Mom, one day will you write a book about me? Nicholas doesn’t bother looking up from the LEGO helicopter he’s putting together on the other end of the table. We don’t have a helicopter set, he’s working from his memory of a Google image he asked me to look up yesterday. I have to admit, what he’s put together so far is impressive, not just impressive for a fifth grader, actually impressive. Much better than anything I could do. It’s realistic and to-scale, and it looks like something LEGO could actually market and sell.

Would you like that? Do you like when I write about you? I pause and fold the top of my computer down in order to look at his face while I speak to him. His glasses are smudged and his fingernails are filthy. I think he wore that same Star Wars shirt yesterday.

Yeah, people like to listen to my stories. He furrows his dark, bushy eyebrows behind the glasses. His freckles have faded from months of being indoors and his skin is so translucent it almost seems blue. The harsh Pennsylvania winter hasn’t helped, but of course there are other reasons.

Your story is a very important one. I try to convey with my tone and my facial expression just how solemnly true this is, but it doesn’t matter because he isn’t watching. When he finally looks at me, he’s holding a long, flat brick between two fingers.

What would the book be about? I ask.

You know, how brains can get sick and stuff.

I would like to do that one day. I wish there were more people talking about that. This is not the first time we’ve had this conversation. Last week he told me the same thing. I wish more books like that did exist, as I haven’t been able to find them when I need them. It might help to know how other people cope.

Uh-huh. Have you seen the other grey piece that matches this one?

No, I haven’t seen that. Do they have to match? Can you use that yellow piece right there?

I want the grey one. I need the grey one. Yellow isn’t grey, he stands and shouts. His chair crashes behind him while he turns to throw the helicopter at the wall. It shatters into hundreds of separate pieces.

Ana scrambles off the fireplace and joins Penny on the sofa, where she curls into a ball and rocks while she screams in that high-pitched wail that pierces through my patience. Penny gently pats a small hand on Ana’s head and whispers that it is going to be okay in a few minutes.

Ana, stop, it’s just Nick being Nick. Ignore him. Come sing with me, Abigail tries to coax her, which only makes her scream louder. Donny appears in the doorway, holding the tiny screwdriver like a weapon and glaring at Nick.

Pick it all up, I tell Nicholas, mostly for the pretense of attempting to seem in charge, even though I know perfectly well the only person cleaning any of this mess is going to be me.

***

There are three things I know for sure. The first is that real love is unconditional, and the second is true beauty is found in brokenness. The third is that our stories are our most powerful assets. They are the basis for how we understand the world, form human connections, and find meaning and worth.

My son asked me to tell this story. It is his story. He will happily tell it himself, should you ever meet him in person, but he wanted me to be the one to write it down. I still don’t know if that is the right thing to do, but I will do my best to honor his request to the best of my ability. I know that in order to do his story any kind of justice it needs to be told with the kind of raw, uncomfortable honesty that only a mother owns. I also know that if I’m going to be authentic, then I have to use the lens of my own experiences. So, this is my story as much as it is his. It is the story of the unbreakable, beautiful love between a mother and her son, as well as a husband and his wife. It is a story of family, trauma, treatment, and education, and my hope is that it may also be a commentary on the many ways we can all be better to each other. May it serve as a love letter to each family struggling through mental illness, each child battling the scars of trauma, and each mother questioning her worth.

Every part of this story is rooted in truth, although subject to the error of human memory. A few names of people and places have been changed to protect individual privacy. The dialogue has been recreated from memory, reviews of social media posts, journals, emails, and text messages to friends and family, with some artistic license taken. I also recorded several interviews with my children and my husband, a few of which are transcribed at the end of the book. Some specific dates have been confirmed through medical records, academic testing, and court documents. Where they could not be confirmed, others are estimations. In some cases, scenes have been condensed in order to convey events that occurred over the course of several months. One written encounter with police, social workers, or educators may contain events that actually occurred over several separate occasions, for example.

There are people represented within these pages who have been invaluable in carrying us through more tumultuous times, and still so many others I wish I could have included, but unfortunately one book only has enough space to hold so many stories and characters. To everyone who sees themselves represented in these words, and also to those who don’t but are no less important in our story: we have seen and felt your love through your actions, and we are grateful. Occasionally within these pages, one person represents a compilation of many. Pastor Bob is a real person, and I did attend several counselling sessions with him. In the context of this book, for the purposes of continuity and simplicity, he stands in to represent sessions with several different professionals. Certain other characters were built in a similar way.

I feel it is important to say that Nicholas was consulted throughout the entire process of writing of this book, and his input regarding sensitive subjects like toileting, puberty, adoption, and therapy was always respected. At the time of this writing he is a teenager, and while I want to highlight the reality facing families like ours who parent children with mental illness and special health or neurological needs, I will not publish content that compromises my relationship with my son. He is aware of the graphic nature of some of the later scenes in this book, and he has always been willing to share those details publicly. Nicholas hopes that there will be other children who understand the way he feels and that sharing our story might help their parents find the resources they need.

The reader should be aware that this book contains strong language and graphic descriptions of domestic violence, childhood trauma, sexual assault, mental illness, attempted suicide, and self-harm. It is not a substitute for professional advice and counseling. Please consult a healthcare professional, therapist, guidance counselor, or trusted adult if you are in a similar situation. In a life-threatening emergency, dial 911. Information about further resources is also provided at the back of this book.

My intention is to allow our family to be seen as we are: imperfect people who love deeply and desperately seek change. I want to wish you enjoyment as you read these pages, but I can’t because that would be disingenuous when the truth is that I hope certain aspects of our story make you very uncomfortable and that discomfort opens eyes and hearts. However, before we begin I do want to remind us all that it should never be my son or his disabilities and illness that make us angry or uncomfortable. Nicholas is only one boy, doing the best he can in impossible circumstances. Those feelings should be directed where they belong: toward a system failing to deliver on its promise to serve families, leaving children like Nicholas and so many others to suffer.

I hope you fall in love with my son just as hard as I have and that love just might inspire some of the changes our country and its children so desperately need.

Thank you for giving us a space to share our story and your willingness to receive it. I hope you will allow it to change you, if only a fraction of the way in which it has changed me.

I never knowed I could make a family.

-Nicholas, age 6

Chapter 1

York, Pennsylvania 2013

We have to drive across town to take Nicholas to school, but at least this time they agreed to let him back into class. There are three children in the backseat of my Nissan minivan, but his silence is the most suspicious. Rarely, if ever, is our son this quiet.

Mom? One day will I get married like the song man? he finally asks.

Huh? I voice my confusion, and he starts to hum. I have to turn the radio dial up further. I hadn’t noticed anything was playing, but once I hear the melody I recognize Kip Moore’s Hey Pretty Girl. We’ve heard this song at least a dozen times before.

Sure, Bubba, if you want to. I shrug. He takes a deeper, shaky breath.

My eyes connect with his in the rearview mirror, which is when I notice that there are tears falling down his cheeks. The familiar tightening starts to creep into my chest as I ask him what is the matter, but he insists nothing is wrong.

I’m not sad, Mom. It’s just this song, he nods toward the radio. It is making my heart feel something.

His head sways back and forth with eyes closed for a minute, brown hair simultaneously flopping down into his face and also poking out in all directions because I didn’t bother to put any gel into his miniature Mohawk this morning. The guitar hums as Mr. Moore tells us how he and his wife build their home and family together. When the song is over, Nicholas looks out the window and speaks in the high-pitched tone of a kindergartener. He has the slightest lisp, due to the absent front teeth.

Sometimes people cry even when they’re not sad, he tells me with solemn six-year-old wisdom. I have to acknowledge that it’s true, though I’ve never been a happy occasion crier myself. I pride myself on my ability to get through an entire Hallmark movie or sappy commercial unscathed. Sadness, though, is another story.

I blink into the mirror. What is your heart feeling now? I ask him. He is quiet for a long stretch of time, remembering the lyrics and looking for an answer that seems just beyond his reach. On the surface the song is simply about a man falling in love and spending his life with a woman.

I can get married. And then I would really have my own family? A real family?

Oof. There it is.

I hate that word, real. That one stings the worst. It feels like he’s trying to tell me, as best he can, that he will always feel a little bit out of place in my arms, and neither one of us knows if there is anything we can do about that. My son is entitled to feel however he feels about being adopted, but it’s such a heavy weight on the shoulders of a child and I won’t ever be able to make it go away. But I can continue to offer support carefully packaged inside of platitudes.

Nicholas, we will always be your real family. It’s my job to be your mom. Forever. But, yes, if it’s what you want, then one day you can get married and have biological babies like the man in this song.

More tears start to fall from his face and he wipes them away with his entire open palm, leaving small streaks of dirt between his freckles.

I never knowed I could make a family, he muses. I suppose growing up and getting married is not the sort of thing little boys tend to spend very much time thinking about.

Sure, Bubba. When we grow up, we all get to make our own families. When Dad and I grew up, we made sure you were part of ours. We picked each other and we chose you, and one day you can pick someone too.

I just never knowed that before. He smiles and swings his feet from the booster seat as we pull into the school drop-off lane. When our turn comes to park along the curb I cringe with embarrassment as I press the button to slide open his door and reveal the pile of trash, crushed Goldfish crackers, and week-old sippy cups covering the floor of my car.

Bye, Mom. He doesn’t look back as he mounts the blue L.L. Bean backpack onto his body. It hangs almost down to his knees and bounces when he runs inside the glass doors and up the stairs toward his classroom.

The principal, standing a few feet away on the sidewalk as he’s observing the morning routine, holds up a finger to signal me to wait. He waves the car behind me around and knocks lightly on my window with bent knuckles. I roll it down and say good morning.

Hello, Mrs. Giese. I just wanted to let you know I’ll be calling you later today. We’d like to schedule some more testing and another meeting for Nicholas.

Sure, Dr. Walker. I’ll be available in the afternoon.

He pats the roof of my van to signal our brief conversation is over, and I pull away to take the girls to their own school.

Once the kids are accounted for, I have an appointment of my own this morning. Today is my first meeting with Pastor Bob, the leader of our church. It seemed like it would be a good idea to finally talk to someone about everything, but I’ve been holding it in for so long that I don’t have any idea where to begin. I’ve been taking children to therapy for years, but I’ve never gone myself. Does pastoral counseling even count as therapy?

When I arrive at the church, I walk into the detached office building and sit down in the foyer.

Stephanie, Kathy, the receptionist smiles and greets me. I had no idea she knew my name. Nice to see you. Did you have an appointment?

Um, yeah. I have a meeting with Pastor Bob. For counseling? The last part squeaks out in a cracked whisper, and I have no idea why it feels as embarrassing as it does. I believe in therapy. My own mother is a therapist. There is nothing wrong with this. This is a good thing. It’s good. At least that’s the mantra I will repeat to myself while I close my eyes and wait on the upholstered maroon chair, which must be older than I am.

Great. He should be with you any minute. If he doesn’t come out by 9:30, just knock on his door. It’s that one right there, she points before she turns back to her paperwork.

Barely five minutes go by before his office door opens and Pastor Bob emerges. He is small and unintimidating in stature, but he stands straight and confident. Well, hello, young lady. I’m glad to see you today. Come on in.

I stand to follow him and he closes the door gently behind me.

He doesn’t have a couch in his office, as I’d imagined. Instead we sit in new leather chairs, just he and I, a large round table filling the space between us. Rows of paperbacks are stacked from floor to ceiling in the built-in shelves. The table is brown like our chairs and the bookshelves and everything else. The clock is behind me, and it would be rude to take out my phone. I don’t know how long I’ve been here, but I know I need to leave by 10:45 if I’m going to pick Abby up on time. I have to concentrate to maintain eye contact. I can see my own reflection in his glasses, and I have to look past myself to see him.

I’m glad you decided to come in today. His tone is warm and patient, fatherly. Pastor Bob leans back in his chair and folds his hands, resting them on top of the beige sweater vest that is covering his stomach. Why don’t you tell me a little bit about why you wanted to talk?

I guess we’re getting right to it. Well, the last few years have been, there really aren’t any words to describe how they have been, so I let the sentence hang. He waits. Stressful.

How so? he asks and I freeze. How can two words be both so simple and so loaded that the memories rush back to me, buzzing and stinging inside my head like a swarm of hornets? When they threaten to escape through my tear ducts, I have to pinch the bridge of my nose to push them back.

I don’t know how familiar you are with our story? I raise the last word like the question it is and wait for his response.

A bit. Your family has been coming here for a few years now. But I’d like to hear your version, in your own words. I would like to know more about your story, specifically the parts about you. You are a storyteller, correct? That’s all we are trying to do here.

That is actually something I’ve been struggling with. I don’t know how to separate my story from his. I’m really not sure which parts are mine to tell, and what only belongs to him.

Shouldn’t it be my job to respect that? Protect Nicholas? I don’t know how much I’m allowed to share of someone else’s story.

Hmm. You know, sometimes our stories do overlap and intertwine with each other. They should, if we are doing this right.

This?

Life.

The silence that follows is not unpleasant. He is giving me the space I need to think. When I open my mouth to speak again there is only one thing that I know to be true.

I don’t even know where to start.

He nods and leans forward. We have time. Why don’t you start from the beginning?

If you say so.

I raise my eyes again to look across the table at the pastor patiently waiting for me to speak, and I start to tell him our story. The version that starts with Nicholas.

Chapter 2

Tampa, 2008

Are you ready? Eddie pulls into the McDonald’s parking lot and we sit, fidgeting, wondering if they are here.

Not at all. You?

My husband shakes his head in repose to my question. I pass the camera between my hands, bouncing it on my knee. Eventually we are going to have to work up the courage to go inside. I should have worn something different, brighter. I’m regretting the black shirt and skirt combination I picked out for work this morning. It makes me look like I am dressed for a funeral, but this is a happy occasion. Probably. Although I didn’t bring a present. Is that bad? Should we have flowers? What am I supposed to say to him? To her? To them? We only got the phone call yesterday.

I hadn’t been expecting it. This was not supposed to be a special day. Then again, the ones we tend to remember rarely are. Twenty-four hours ago, I was in the car driving to a meeting after school. All of the Hillsborough County elementary science department chairs had another professional development training at Busch Gardens. I thought seeing the owls would be the best part of this Thursday. I was wrong.

Somewhere along Linebaugh Avenue my cell phone rang and I saw Christy’s number. I thought she was going to ask me a question about our paperwork or maybe tell us about another match event coming up next month. I had no idea answering that call was going to change everything. The conversation will forever be etched into my memory the same way I sit and recall every detail now.

Hi, Christy.

Hey, Stephanie. Christy’s voice always sounds like it is smiling. Her thick southern accent makes it seem like my name ends with three extra e’s.

Would you mind if I called you back in a little while? I’m driving.

Actually, this is pretty important. I’m going to need you to answer fast.

Okay? There is only one place she could be going with this.

There is a little boy who has come up. His name is Nicholas. He’s Caucasian and he is thirteen months old. He has been in state custody for eleven months. He is legally free for adoption. She’s reciting his profile, trying hard to sound professional and appropriately robotic, keep the emotion out of it. This is the part where we are only allowed to deal with facts. It’s hard for both of us because neither one of us was made that way.

When is the match meeting? I put on my teacher voice to match her social worker one.

Eddie and I have already had our home study presented to the committee and have been rejected twice. We’re young, too young, and we have no experience parenting any children at all, much less children dealing with trauma. The youngest foster children almost always go to families who are more seasoned. It’s been less than two years since we graduated from college, we don’t feel comfortable parenting teens. It’s been difficult to place us with any of the available kids.

I’m still wondering who was good enough to be matched with the little girl who could have been our daughter if the team had chosen us last month. Her name is Dana. She’s four-years-old and has Hispanic heritage. That’s all I will ever know about her because it is the only information they told us on the phone. Now I wonder how it is that this new baby, maybe our baby, came to be in custody. I do the math in my head and realize that according to what Christy just told me, Nicholas was only eight weeks old when he entered the system.

That’s the thing, she pauses. This is a very strange situation. Our agency has been working with kids in foster care for quite a while, and this really doesn’t happen. Christy is buying time, trying to figure out how she wants to word what she is about to say. This one is going to have to be a private adoption. He doesn’t meet our criteria.

I don’t understand. I know there are certain criteria children need to meet in order to qualify as having special needs in foster care. They are different than the special needs I see as an educator. It’s a broader category meant to encompass any child in care. These needs include things like their race, age, and if they have any siblings, in addition to any medical issues there may be. I have never heard of a foster child not meeting the definition.

Christy goes on, If you decide to move forward, the whole process might be a little different than we expected. There is no match meeting. You’ve already been selected. They picked us? But Nicholas is very young, he is not a minority, he is healthy, and he doesn’t have siblings. He just doesn’t meet the special needs criteria for a state-sponsored adoption. I can still help you, but if you choose to proceed you will need to do your adoption through a private attorney.

She takes a breath, then continues, He will not receive any of the benefits typically granted to former foster children. It is important that you understand that. And it might get expensive. There it is. He can be ours, but only if we can afford him. He will remain a ward of the state until she finds a family who can buy his freedom. We’re the first name on her list.

How expensive? I stop at a red light.

I really don’t know. Again, this just does not happen. I have never seen it before. But I asked a colleague with a bit more experience and she’s been through it once. She said to estimate between five and ten thousand dollars. I’m a little bit relieved. It’s significantly less than I expected her to say. Only a fraction of what I know most private adoptions cost. I’ve seen families try to raise three times that much to cover international adoption fees. Still, it’s odd that we are even having this conversation. He’s been in foster care for a year.

Christy is still talking. So, I’m sorry, but before I continue here, I have to ask you, do you have access to that much money? Adoption out of foster care is supposed to be free. She’s uncomfortable asking if we have the means to purchase a child from the state of Florida, as if we are real estate developers buying a piece of land. There is no time to be uncomfortable, so I just answer.

We do. After a few years of saving, there is about $11,000 in our account. I guess I could write her a check if she needs one. For all I know, that’s what she is asking. Christy breathes an audible sigh of relief.

Great. Then I get to ask one of my favorite questions. Would you like to meet him? His foster mother is willing to meet with the prospective parents tomorrow. Apparently, that’s us.

What? I think I might have gone into shock. The light changes to green and I forget what that means until the car behind me beeps. I start driving again, too slowly, while Christy moves on with the conversation.

He has been living with Debbie, do you remember her? She was the foster mother who spoke at your training. Her home has been his only placement while in custody. That’s fortunate, she notes before continuing, Debbie’s one of our best. She is willing to meet with you tomorrow and introduce him, if you’d like. Why don’t you call Eddie and y’all call me back as soon as you can. I’ll be in the office for another hour. In the meantime, I will email you a few pictures. Talk to you soon.

With only one hour and three pictures I can’t access from a flip phone, she’s asking us to make the biggest decision of our lives. We’re not prepared for a baby. We don’t even have a crib. A month ago, they told us that there was no chance we would ever be matched with a child under the age of six. Now she’s telling me that by this time tomorrow I might be changing diapers. It occurs to me that I don’t have any diapers.

There are too many thoughts in my head to process. I need to talk to my husband right away, but he is not answering his phone, and now I’m here at Busch Gardens and I need to get into the stupid science meeting because I’m the only representative for our school. For a moment I consider signing in with my employee number and then just leaving, or saying I got sick. But I’m supposed to go back and report on whatever happens here to the entire faculty, and if I am going to be a mother at twenty-three, I guess I also need to practice how to be responsible. I call Eddie five or six times and leave several messages before he finally calls me back, just before we all start filing in to the large conference room.

Wait. What? Tomorrow? Like the day that starts eight hours from now? And they already chose us before even telling us about him? How do you do a private adoption out of state care? Isn’t that an oxymoron?

He’s confused. It’s not supposed to happen this way and the engineer in him has a hard time deviating from a set plan.

I don’t know. That’s what Christy says. My stomach is a ball of knots, I’m talking too fast and I’m not explaining it well enough, but I try my best to tell him that all I know is I’m standing in a lobby at Busch Gardens, and I only have a minute, and I need to know if he wants to meet this little boy tomorrow.

I mean, yeah. Of course. He doesn’t hesitate. It sounds great, it just doesn’t make a lot of sense, though.

For the first time since the phone rang in the car, I can breathe. I tell him to call Christy because she can explain it all better anyway and I need to go to my meeting. It’s the longest hour and a half of my life and I don’t remember a single thing that happened. By now I should know better than to get my hopes up. We’ve been doing this for a year and a half, and this part of the adoption process has knocked us down before. But it’s hard not to let myself get too excited when there are pictures waiting for me at home on the computer, and those pictures are of a little boy who just might be our son.

Chapter 3

Only one day has passed, and now an eight-by-eleven-inch piece of paper sits between us on the center console. The photos from Christy’s email stare up at me in black and white. One shows a bath towel wrapped around a small head with a wide toothless grin, the other the same face poking out of a polo shirt probably handed down from an older foster sibling, because it’s at least two sizes too big.

Eddie looks in the rearview mirror and combs his fingers through his own black hair, although the pomade has already left it stiff. A few more deep breaths and it’s time to open the doors to the Nissan minivan we bought a year ago because we knew eventually this day would come. Although, we didn’t ever dream our family would start here, in a McDonald’s parking lot, with empty gum wrappers on the ground and the smell of hot oil in the air. I stand and tug on my skirt to straighten it then move my hands up to my shoulders, brushing off stray pieces of dog hair that might just be in my imagination. Eddie walks around the van to meet me and puts his hand on the small of