Zoé was in class when she came across my report. As a special education student, she had to write a research paper on attachment disorder. She had selected a bunch of press articles.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
In the package, there was therefore this report, which I wrote in June 2014. Reading it, Zoé was breathless. She grabbed her classmate’s arm. “I have to go out. I think that’s me, in the article…”
The report was titled “Time bombs”. It was about a Quebec couple “embarked on an infernal galley” after adopting twins in Russia.
The time bombs were them. Twins. Two children broken by multiple abandonments, incapable of attaching themselves to anyone. “Uncontrollable, hyper-violent, lying and manipulative children,” the article said. Children who should never have been offered for adoption. »
Zoe recognized herself. Even if it was about twins, and not twins, in the report. ” I knew. »
In shock, she took refuge in the toilet. And cried all the tears in her body.
After 25 years at The Press, there are reports that I barely remember. Others that I don’t remember at all. Eh ? Was it me who wrote that?
This one, about twins adopted from Russia, is still fresh in my mind. I remember turning girls into boys to cover their tracks – we do that sometimes in journalism: change a detail that doesn’t change the story, to better preserve people’s anonymity.
I remember the immense distress of their adoptive mother.
I remember this shocking detail: on board the plane bringing them back from Russia, the twins had started sweating and shaking all over.
They were in withdrawal. At 3 years old.
At the orphanage, a few hours earlier, the little ones had appeared amorphous. They were sitting on a chair, without moving, without speaking. Their adoptive parents later learned that the orphanage used to manage their seizures with high doses of medication.
But there, in the plane, it was the surprise. Shock. Kicks, punches, screams: the twins were unleashed.
The plane had not yet landed and the parents were already doubting: perhaps they had made a mistake.
A tragic, irreparable mistake.
A few weeks ago, the twins contacted me; they wanted to talk to me about the report they had just discovered, eight years after it was published. We made an appointment at a café in Longueuil.
The two women, now 24, cut ties with their adoptive parents for years.
They were ready for me to publish their names and have their pictures taken. But one of them lived in a youth centre, and the Youth Protection Act prohibits the media from revealing the identity of children who have been placed in care, even after they have passed into adulthood.
And then, in 2014, I granted anonymity to the mother of the twins. We do not break this journalistic pact, even after eight years.
So I asked the two women to tell the rest of this horror story, from their point of view, by giving them assumed names: Zoé and Anna.
This is a sequel, not a corrigendum. The reporting, I admit, was horribly harsh. The twins do not dispute the facts, but they obviously do not interpret them in the same way as their adoptive mother.
And then, what was true in 2014 is not necessarily true today. The bombs have been defused.
It’s a sequel, then, but a nice one. A story of resilience. The proof that we can get out of it, even after a very bad start. Even when everything, absolutely everything, seems to be against you.
At age 10, Anna was placed in a youth center in Longueuil by her exhausted adoptive parents. She stayed there until she was 18.
“I didn’t have a profile that we could leave out,” she admits. I was so angry that I became aggressive. I went to Saint-Hyacinthe three times, in a closed setting. I walked from youth center to youth center. I refused to take my medication…”
For eight years, she celebrated Christmas alone in her bedroom, staring at the lights of Montreal. She never received a visit from her sister. Not once, in eight years. His mother maintained regular contact. His father was more subdued, more distant.
At 18, finally, Anna was able to go out. Freedom made him dizzy. “I said to myself: what am I going to do if I don’t have support from my mother, if I don’t have support from my father, if I don’t have support from anyone? »
Anna discovered that there was a whole world out there to lean on. A social worker to find him a supervised apartment. A restaurateur to offer her her first job. Community workers to support her. A net of remarkable human beings fell into place to save him from crashing.
Anna wanted to see her twin sister again. An irrepressible desire, almost a vital need.
But Zoe hesitated. A lot. During her adolescence, her mother kept telling her that Anna was violent and would probably end up in prison. “Me, at 18, I was still afraid to see her again, says Zoé. I found her a bit insistent, because she absolutely wanted to see me again. »
They ended up arranging a meeting, in the presence of friends. “At first, says Zoé, I was super stupid.
— Yes, very stupid, confirms Anna.
– I remember, in the car, it was silent. I was looking at my cell…”
The twins continued to date. Little by little, they realized how different they were. Zoé runs the film sets; Anna swears by hockey. Zoé wants to unravel the mystery of her Russian origins; Anna doesn’t care. Zoé keeps everything inside; Anna explodes in anger.
Their common points: a chaotic adolescence, punctuated by school failures and appointments at Sainte-Justine. A long list of diagnoses: autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit disorder, severe attachment disorder…
When they were 20, they moved in together. “Our relationship today isn’t quite…” Zoe hesitates, searching for words. Anna takes over: “We still have a lot of injuries. It’s a lifetime’s work, in fact. We’ve lived together for four years. Is it always easy? No. But we are there for each other. »
Anna was determined not to end up in prostitution or in a street gang, as too many girls end up in youth centres. “I’ve always said: I’m going to outwit your statistics! »
She dreamed of being a police officer, but school was not for her. So she found a job that comes a little closer. Intervention agent in a youth center.
“We answer calls when there is a fight, a bit like correctional officers in prison. The first cases where I had to intervene on young people, it was extremely difficult because I had to do the same restraints that I had had done…”
For three years, she has had the task of escorting children from Nunavik placed in youth centers in Montreal. On the plane, she confides to them: “I’ve been there. I know it’s going to be difficult, the next six months, but tell yourself that there are people to help you. Not everyone is mean. »
Zoé wants to work with children in difficulty, too. “The past cannot be changed. But I say to myself: at least, if I can help others…”
The slope to climb was steep. She hadn’t finished high school. “My mother used to tell me: ‘If you are a cashier in a convenience store, it will be beautiful.’ She fell. She passed a general development test, which allows access to vocational training programmes.
Finally, she enrolled in special education technology. “At school, I was really scared at first, because I was always in special classes. I had never attended a normal school. »
It went well. Well, until she came across an article that described her as an “unadoptable” child.
My report explored attachment disorder, a common phenomenon in children who have experienced multiple abandonments. By survival mechanism, these children do everything to screw up the relationship with their new parents.
Anna admits to having suffered from “extreme” attachment disorder. She remembers having made a drama when her educator, at the youth center, went on maternity leave. She also admits that she acted “like a robot” devoid of any emotion in the presence of her mother, whom she calls “Madame”.
But still today, Anna is terribly angry with this woman whose greatest regret seems to be having adopted her and her sister. “If she had the opportunity to ship us back to Russia in a box, I think she would have. »
Zoé called her social worker after reading my report. “Help me because it’s not okay. I am at the end of my life. I can not stand it anymore. »
She ended up in the crisis center. “What hurt me the most was that it felt like it was all our fault. She was ashamed, again. This feeling of guilt has eaten away at her for years. “I have a psychologist and a social worker. We are working a lot on that. My TS has agreed to see me tonight at 5 p.m., even though her work day will be over…”
As always, the net is there, taut, to catch the binoculars when they risk collapsing. “We are lucky to have people around us, recognizes Anna. But for me, there is always going to be a void. »