questions/answers 2

I am really interested in answering these questions from my new friend, anonymous. They are well thought out and have me really thinking. I have had a recent leg injury so I have been laid up. Please pardon the short breaks between posts.

For this post, I would like to focus on my own mental illness. The following excerpts came from 2 different comments:

Okay, so I started reading back a bit, and it looks like your daughter did inherit your mental illness, and your mom also seems to have a mental illness. I noticed that you feel that your daughter will be better off than you were because of the availibity and information etc (plus your own experiences). How do you feel knowing that she will battle this life long illness? Do you encourage her to have children of her own- knowing that in all likelyhood they will face the same challanges?

What I am stuggling with is that your mental illness would be (in my opinion) a bad environment to raise a very well adapted child in, let alone a child with any difficulties! So what was the motivation behind the adoption? Was it so you could feel loved, and have a family? Children are really sensitive and perceptive - they would be very aware of your mental state... And your mental illness makes it so much harder to parent in general... So why adopt?

I have had suicidal ideations for years. I have only shared that with a handful of people. My mother does not even know how very far they go. When I do think about it it is usually when I am really struggling with stress or with feelings of failure. My Obsessive Compulsive Disorder causes me to want things to be perfectly solved in a timely manner. If things go wrong, I stress and fret and worry. They worry causes me to feel badly about myself and focus on my failure to make things go the right way. This is when I get frustrated and angry with myself. If it goes far enough or I am in a deep enough hole of depression, this is when I wish that truck driving down the road would hit me. Or I would like fora freak accident to happen that would simply take the pain away. I have never considered doing something that would actively cause my death. I am not sure if that makes sense, but to me, it does. I am not trying to make it sound better than it is, I am just trying to explain.

As I think about it, my suicidal tendancies tend to be more of the self loathing variety and less of the "world sucks" variety. I tend to want to die to be done with feeling like a failure. I hate myself sometimes and I would prefer it would just be over. I don't look at it as though it is hindering my life, just something that I have to keep on top of so that it does not take over.

My OCD is certainly something I can live with. I have been treated for my OCD for 10 years now. Most people would have no idea that I struggle with OCD. Once again, it is something that I have to deal with an understand, but not something that is so terrible.

While I have tried to be quite outspoken about my feelings here to make other's aware that there should be no shame in mental illness, I live a pretty darned normal life. Most people in my life have no idea I struggle with suicidal thought. My husband was the first person that I really spoke the feelings to. We sought counseling and that is when we found out I was OCD. So many things fell into place at that time! Since that time I shared these feelings with 3 people whom I am close to in real life and a couple of people from the blogging world. That is all. The last person I shared them with was quite shocked and said she would've never guessed. I have known her for 10+ years and consider her a close friend. Most people know I am OCD because I share it openly. My OCD tendencies that linger tend to be beneficial. I am the one people go-to for organizational help etc. I am not the crazy cat hoarder who lives down the street! :)

I do feel pretty terrible being responsible for my daughter having OCD. Her OCD does take on a different form than mine does. She does tend to have more of the compulsions than I do. She has tics that lately are under control, but she has struggled with in the recent past. I think her OCD may be a bit more intense than mine is. While I have found that I feel quite responsible for bringing her into this world and giving her a portion of my mental illness, I don't regret having children. I knew that possibility could exist. I also know that I am better equipped to deal with my own OCD than I was even 5 years ago. Knowing that she has OCD, knowing our treatment options and addressing them head-on seems to have given us the upper hand. Even though she is still quite young, I have tried to teach her to be empowered by her illness (or more likely power over her illness) and not to be afraid of telling others her brain works differently than theirs does. We talk about not being made from the same cookie cutter. We equate it to the oldest's difficulties and talk about knowing a little more about what he feels like. While it may not be a blessing to have OCD, we can look at it in a more positive light if we try.

I have told my husband an several occasions that having the oldest definitely changed my position on having children on psychotropic meds. We have laughed that perhaps that was his purpose for him coming into our lives. Had he not been here, I would have had a hard time embracing meds for both of the bio kids. I totally believe that their medications have allowed them to live their lives to the fullest and I am not sure I would've felt that way before adopting the oldest.

(I am recovering from an accident and am laid up for 6 weeks! I hope this makes sense as I am on a bit of medication. . . I reserve the right to edit later if I don't feel I was clear on different ideas)

questions,answers

The last post brought a series of questions from an anonymous poster. They were some great questions. I did not take offense at anything that was asked as it was asked in a respectful manner. I think is poster just simply wanted to understand. I will attempt to answer them here as opposed to in the comments section since I think they will offer some clarity to my issues and our adoption.

Our adoption journey did not start out as one. My husband and I simply wanted to provide a child with a home who needed one at the moment. We became foster parents to provide a home to children who still had parents. We were well aware that they could go home to their parents and welcome reunification if that home was their best option. We did not let our foster kids call us mom and dad because I thought that was disrespectful to their parents. My oldest came to us while we were fostering. We had no intention of adopting this child. He had a mom who was working her plan. She was however quite mentally ill and moderately handicapped herself. The state did terminate her rights and he became available for adoption. We did not plan on adopting him and he was not even made readily available to us. He was labeled "non adoptable". We were told he was likely to be institutionalized. We committed to being his home until they knew what his "final placement" was.

At this point we had just had our own biological child. With the addition to our family came a newfound understanding of a parent's love. I mourned the lost of the oldest childhood and all the hurt and trauma he had gone through in a new way. I could not fathom how a other could do that/allow that to happen to her own flesh and blood. As a new mother myself, I wondered how that was even possible to live with one's self in that situation. My oldest was definitely loved in my home prior to this, but I loved him in a much deeper way after becoming a mother myself. My husband voiced the very same feelings one evening without ever having heard my feelings on the subject.

It was the next day that we put in an intent to adopt. I never looked at my oldest as a way to further our family, as though we were giving him the gift of a family, or as he was fullfilling a need in my life. I simply loved him with everything in my being and wanted him to be a part of a famil, our family, forever. The alternative turned my stomach.

I still feel that way today. We will keep on loving and supporting him forever. Just becasue I get angry and have some resentment at certain behaviors does not mean that I plan on doing anything different than what we do everyday. We keep on keeping on. We love. We support. And we do what families do.

The remainder of the questions dealt with my own mental illness and why I would choose to bring a child into that be it through adoption or biologically. . . . I will deal with that in another post.

anger and resentment

There is a bit of a scuttlebutt in the trauma mama blog-o-sphere lately. Last mom wrote a post about HOPE and letting go of the anger and resentment directed toward our kiddos. I get what she is trying to say, I do. But it irritated me. And I will tell you why.

For YEARS I have had suicidal ideations. I understand that these were there long before we adopted a "broken" and hurt child. But the struggles I have dealt with over the last few years I believe were directly related to the sense of failure of my ability to parent him and more importantly the self loathing that I felt for myself at the feelings I had for him.

Yes, I hate his mother for what she did to him. I hate that she was unable to care for him in utero. I hate the selfishness that allowed her to drink and whatever else while pregnant. I hate the PTSD she has caused him with allowing abusers into her home. I hate the mental illness that runs in their family. All this allowed me to focus my anger on something other than my child. But, when I became honest with myself and allowed myself to be angry at my child for his choices (whether or not they were conscious) I began to hate myself.

Recently a secure place for me to vent and be honest with myself and others opened up. The darling Courtney opened a private group on facebook where we can share and support one another. I have always said that blogging saved my life, I think this group has saved my sanity. Blogging made me understand I am not alone in dealing with the crazies of kiddos like ours, this group made me understand that I am not alone in feeling the feelings of dealing with kiddos like ours.

Sometimes things I read there are depressing and sad. Sometimes they make me laugh. I have said, "OMG I understand!" more than I ever thought I would. Some people would not like the things they read there, heck, I don't like everything I read there. I sometimes cringe at things that are said. But I quickly realize that this is the ONLY outlet some of us have. So many moms have come in thinking they are the only one feeling this way, and low and behold they find out they are not the only one! It is freeing. I have to pace myself, some days I cannot read everything there or I will go crazy. Sometimes I need a break from the crazy or I will focus on nothing else. Sometimes I am struggling so much I need to dwell there a bit. It has been a definite god-send.

As I was reading the post from Last Mom today I realized that I have been doing really well with my anxiety. I have been pretty chilled out with the son's behavior. I am pretty sure that is directly related with the opening of the group. I have had a place to vent AND hear others vent. It has taken the taboo out of saying "I don't want to look at my child" or "Hugging them makes me want to vomit". Do we still hug? Sure. But there, it is okay to admit to yourself and others that you had that feeling. It may sound really ugly and really bad, but you realize that those feelings are not solely in your own head. For me it has allowed me to love myself again.

By admitting my anger and resentment of my child it has allowed me to love myself in spite of the feelings, by knowing I am not in this alone.

By admitting my anger and resentment it has allowed me to release it and love my child despite the feelings, by knowing I am not in this alone.

The past few months has been pretty amazing. I was hooked up with an Orlado Trauma Mama who is more like me than I ever thought possible. Through her messages and her blog she has touched me more than she knows. The women of the facebook group may not know how much I have appreciated their candor and their raw honesty. They may not know they saved me from the self loathing I felt every time I looked in the mirror. For that I am eternally grateful.

give an inch

Today the oldest slept until 5:00pm. He was up late with his dad watching movies and I took advantage of it an let him sleep. When he got up he was pretty compliant and we had an okay afternoon. I had to do some yardwork and I usually keep him close to me or he plays fighting games and whacks the littles when they get near him.

Today he was playing appropriately and I gave him a little more freedom. I was constantly keeping an eye on him, but I let him play with his sister. They are usually like oil and water, but they were doing well today. She was bossing him around and he was doing what she wanted him to. They played well for almost and hour and a half. I should learn that when I give him an inch of independence, he takes a mile.

When we went inside all hell broke loose. He did not want to do his normal chores. Chores he usually loves. The child loves to help and I was asking for help. He was grunting and hollering at me. He bolted. He ran straight out the door and he was gone by the time I got outside. This time he was at least clothed.

The husband just came home from getting him. It only took 25 minutes or so. Lately he runs to the same spot. This time he got in the car fairly easily. The bad part was he refused to get out of the car when they got home. It's hot. The air conditioner is on. All the windows are shut. The husband was hollering for help and I didn't hear him. Now he's pissed at me because I didn't come. He stood outside hollering like a maniac. When he finally got inside he began screaming at me and cursing at me with the front door open. He accused me of ignoring him. Yeah. Like I just sat and ignored him. Why is it that men cannot fathom that you just didn't hear them, they always assume you are ignoring them. Ugh.

We live in a very lively rental area. Lots of people are outside enjoying the night.

Nice. Now we are the family with underwear boy AND the family who screams at one another and throws hissy fits in the front yard.

Awesome.

stroke of brilliance

Tonight I had to take one of my littles to gymnastics. When we got home and rounded the corner I saw the Big Kid in the front yard in his underwear. This is typical. When he runs out of the house, 80% of the time he is in his underwear. As soon as he saw me, he ran inside and straight out into the back yard. When I got out back, he was wielding a stick of bamboo trying to hit at me. I took it away easily. He began hollering that he didn't to live here and he wanted to "get away from you people!"

I said, "Ok, let's go." I held his arm and walked him through the house back out the front door. He was yelling the whole time "Dad, save me. She's kicking me out!" and "I hate you!". I marched him out the door and straight to the car.

He asked where we were going. I said, "You said you wanted to leave so I am giving you a ride." I drove to a fairly nearby, desolate looking industrial area. I stopped the car and turned it off. He asked what I was doing. I said, "Looking for a place for you to stay. This looks pretty good. No fridge, no tv, but there are some cages over there you can sleep in if mean dogs or wild animals find you in the night." He bowed his head and stayed buckled. (I kindof worried he would call my bluff, but I held firm)


He asked if I was kicking him out. I said "No, I love you. You are the one that wants to leave. I thought I would help." We sat in silence for a good 5 minutes. I asked him if he wanted to get out or come home. He simply said, "I can't decide." He kept saying, "Would you miss me?" I answered "Of course, but we are down with you threatening to run away and saying you don't want to live with your family!" We sat for another 2 or 3 minutes. He said he "couldn't figure out what he wanted to do" so I told him we could keep looking. I found another place down the road.

I told him that this drainage tube looked fairly inviting. I said, "I don't think there will be too many raccoons in there. And hey look, there is a tarp over by that building you can use for a blanket." He refused to move. I went around to his side of the car and asked him to get out and look at his new place to live. He refused. I crouched down beside the car and told him that I would prefer he stayed in the house where he was safe, but if this was what he wanted I understood. I told him it was time to make a decision. He said, "I want to go home."

I asked, "Why?" He answered, his bed, his blanket, tv, food and a place to keep him safe. It took me several prompts to get him to say "the people". Sad. All of those things were way more important than his family. That speaks volumes to me.

On the way home we saw some cute girls sitting in the grass. I asked him if he wanted to get out and show the girls his underwear. I am that bad!

Now he is home and I have to endure him telling me he loves me 5920 times tonight. Lord have mercy.

(I told him that we were taking pictures of his two choices so that he could remember what his options were)

rad

When my son came to live with us he had many, many diagnosis. Reactive Attachment Disorder was one that floated in and out depending on the mood of the therapist (who was a joke!). I always knew there were some attachment issues. I have no idea if he would technically be considered RAD right now, but I have no doubt that what I am dealing with is attachment related. Here are his best tricks:

He has no issue hurting others. Sometimes, for the most part, it is simply a case of impulse control and poor understanding of cause and effect. I like to tell myself this. I can see the delight he gets from hurting things on his face sometimes. I am not sure if this is increasing in frequency or I am just better at seeing it. He typically saves the really mean, dangerous stuff for the animals, but I can see slight things aimed at the littles now. He has really no remorse. If he shows concern it is because he got caught, not because he is sad her hurt someone else. He has killed baby chickens and pet fish. We think he caused the death of two cockatiels and he recently tried to kill our dogs and attempts to hurt them (and the cat) DAILY. It is a miracle he has not been bitten.

Love and Hate. I think he does love us. But I think that to him love is fluid. I think he loves and not loves us numerous times a day. It is not an all consuming, unconditional love. He loves us when he wants something, and hates us when he doesn't get his way. He is constantly saying, "You hate me. I should've said no when they asked if I wanted you to adopt me." or he asks to go live in jail or the hospital because we are not nice. He has no issue separating from us and thinks everyone he meets is his new best friend adult and child alike.

Desire to please. I think this is similar to love for him. He desires to please us when he thinks he will receive something for his efforts. He could care less about pleasing when he is not receiving a reward in his mind. He is unable to make himself do something he knows is right when he is in a particular foul mood. Sometimes he is physically unable to even agree with something as basic as "Can you see me?" when he wants to be defiant.

Inability to make a decision. He is completely unable to make a decision sometimes. He will ask for a certain food and once he is given it he will no longer want it. If you go to take it away he will holler that he is starving and he wants the food. Immediately after it is put in front of him he will say, "I said I didn't want that stupid food." We could do this for hours. It is though he wants to argue and push other's buttons. I understand he feels these conflicts internally, but it is difficult to deal with it. If it frustrates me, he wins.

If he thinks no one is looking he is absolutely unable to do the right thing. He cannot and will not control any behavior he knows is wrong if he thinks someone cannot see him. His difficulties with object permanence do not allow him to understand that others have ears and can hear you calling the dog 2 feet from them even if they are not staring you in the face. This boggles my mind. I can be sitting directly next to him and if I am reading something he thinks I cannot see him hitting the cat ON MY LAP. Swear to goodness. This is also when he is destructive. He likes to pick apart my plaster walls, unravel blankets or tear anything up he can.

I am not certain if you would consider his sexual acting out as being a part of RAD, but I do somewhat and I think bears mentioning. Someone said to me recently, " Once a kid is sexualized you cannot put that genie back in the bottle." So very true. He acts of for a couple different reasons in my opinion. I think he acts out due to his impulse controls issues due to his Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. I also think he acts out because he has a low IQ and if he wans to do something he does it regardless of where he is or what he is doing. I think it also has to do with the attachment issues because he feels no connection to people and he has no qualms about hurting others.

Superficially charming. My child is the sweetest, most kid, helpful boy ou would ever meet. Unless of course you are his parent. He saves all his best tricks for us. He loves to help people and will charm the socks off others. This is definite RAD behavior. Why should he punish them? They are not the people caring for him. They are not the ones who took the place of his mother who neglected and abused him. They are not the people who could be just as hurtful as her if he let them. Get it? Not fun.

Lying. Lord have mercy the child would have a cat in his hands and say "I did not touch the cat!" and he will swear you are going to believe him. He gets angry when you tell him that you are not asking a question because you know the answer. He will deny til the day is over.

Clingy? He is on me the minute I walk in the door from work. He must ask me for a hug 3,846 times a day. I used to feel bad about rationing them but many therapists made me understand that it is not healthy to be that clingy and inappropriate. I do not deny him, I just tell him I am busy and I will get to him in a minute, or I say, "Am I doing something right now?" He usually accepts that well. . . then asks 45 seconds later. It is tiring and I feel badly for not hugging him every time he asks. The problem is I would never get anything done. Most of the time I ignore it like I didn't hear him.

Entitlement. This is a HUGE one for us. He thinks he is entitled to whatever he wants. He should have the same everything as both other kids. If one has a popsicle and one has an ice cream cone he should get BOTH. He is constantly concerned about what everyone else has and what they are doing. If a child at school is in soccer he HAS to be in soccer, no matter that he cannot kick a ball to save his life and has no concept for the game. He will argue and be defiant about it all day long. We always end up being the bad guy because we won't let him do ANYTHING!

I understand how those seeing this type of listing and then seeing a child like ours would think that we are bad parents. I understand how a child like this could present totally different for other. I get that people would think that I am horrible for not hugging my child or saying that the hugs he gives give me the heebie-jeebies. It sounds awful to me. The problem is that you cannot fully comprehend that trauma that RAD causes to the WHOLE family until you live it.

We don't hate our kids, we hate the RAD.
We don't wish our kids gone, we wish the RAD gone.
We don't get sick to our stomach looking at our children, we wanna puke on RAD.

The problem comes when we are unable to separate the RAD from the child. Sometimes to road to healing is long. Sometimes the road to healing takes detours we never thought we could endure. Sometimes the road brings us bumps and gives us bruises that show on the outside.

Had I not had the network of moms and blogs I have had the last few years I would be dead.

I am serious. Dead.

If I didn't have these women, I would've felt like a failure as a parent and felt so desperately alone that I couldn't take it. The sense of failure you feel is one I would not wish on anyone. The RAD does win. It wins nightly as I put my head on the pillow and reminds me I have not made progress. It rears its ugly head in the morning when I don't want to wake my child for fear of what the day brings. It wins whether I let it win or not. It wins when it survives. It is survival.

It is HARD.

It is DRAINING.

It is EMBARRASSING.

It is so very LONELY.

Sometimes the child treats each parent differently causing triangulation issues. A dad may see things the mother never gets. The mother may have victories that sends the dad's relationships tail spinning.

It is a rough road. A road no one else can understand unless you have lived it.

It make us parents feel like failures and creeps.

We are well aware that the things we say aren't normal. We get it.

The problem is, others don't. They see what they wish to see. They see what their experiences allow them to see.

I get it. I get the hurt and the confusion. I wish I was behind that veil too. I wish I didn't know what RAD was. I wish I didn't know what it could do to my family and my child.

I wish I never had to experience this, but above all, I wish my boy never had to experience this.

In a perfect world . . .

the goo

I am not sure why, but my depression and anxiety has always been very visual for me. When I think about how I am feeling or try to assess the depth of what I am feeling, I see it as a picture. Today I feel as though there is a black goo threatening to envelope me. I feel better today and I feel like it is holding, waiting for a break in the armor. It is a blob hanging over my head. Right now, I feel like I am strong enough to hold to away. To keep it hanging, but I am well aware that one break and it can begin to attach itself to my head and ooze slowly down my body enveloping me in it's gooey, black darkness.

Sometimes I try to place something physically between me and the blob. I imagine an umbrella. An umbrella of good things. An umbrella of things I can do right. Sometimes that umbrella can be particularly hard to open, sometimes it springs to life and I can rest easy. Sometimes the umbrella is a golf size umbrella and sometimes it is a kiddie umbrella.

Hears hoping the battle of the goo continues to go well today.