In Our Thoughts Prayers and Dreams

This parenting gig doesn't end.  Even when kids you love choose estrangement.
Father's Day I honored Hubbie, my baby-daddy -such a wonderful daddy that he accepted others' children to raise as his own... with the same undying love he has for our biological child.  (Not that adopted/bio EVER made any difference... Until Reactive Attachment Disorder RADtypically attacked at the time when age-typical-embarkation to adult life  reawakened our adoptees' abandonment issues.)

Nightly my love mentions our children, their children and even their RADtypically triangulated against us "rescuers"... Whomever is currently pretending to be "the awesome parents our adoptees never had" ...unknowingly perpetuating our kids' estrangement as they "rescue" our kids from dangers that never existed (in OUR home).

Aside from us praying nightly for our kids by name... Adoption issues have been a small part of my daily life although thoughts of the kids, prayers for them, flow regularly throughout.

This has been a bigger than normal "adoption issues" week for me.  Bumping into adoptive friends I've not seen in almost a year... Calls from friends who call me 'cause ppl who haven't adopted would NEVER understand.

I dreamt of the murdered child's father a few days ago.  Googled and found an online presence.  Found a "throwback" photo of our adoptees' biomom.  I thought... Wow... Same face... She'll probably look just like that when she's middle aged!   Then I noticed caption.  Wow.  Our adoptee is already older than biomom when that photo was taken.  Addiction is such a hard life.

My work sends me all over.  From time to time I work almost walking distance to the address that consistently shows court history for biomom.  I don't think that address is the brothel/crack-den where various sources have said our son was born... But I suppose it's nearby.  I honestly don't know. There's this little (big?  I have no idea) microcosm of life so foreign to everything I know.  A place where their reality is so very different than my own.

I wonder sometimes what keeps adopted daughter away.  She's said she's made contact with bio family... I wonder if that's part of it.   She's shared her shock at biomom's manipulations which sound like the same manipulations the murdered child would tell me about.  There is a reason the children couldn't stay safely in that microcosm.  It was never their fault.  We always encouraged our adoptees to have loving thoughts about their birthparents.  Tried to explain how consuming and distorting addiction can be.  We always encouraged if our adoptees choose to explore their biological roots that they be careful... Cause it was during a visit with the family of origin that the oldest was murdered at 18.

Anyway... I wonder from time to time if connecting with birthmom plays some part in our daughter's estrangement.  I don't think it should.  I've struggled for almost 7 years of estrangement to understand our adoptees thought processes.

As I drove near that neighborhood for work recently, I wondered if our grandchildren have been to their biogranny's  house.  

I dreamt of our adoptees this week.  In the dream (like in real life) our adopted daughter was running around the church people we raised them near, causing strife against us.  I dreamt church families were struggling marriages, children, health issues.

  In the dream I told our daughter... It's okay... We love you... We've only ever had you and your siblings as our children.  Our love is irrevocable.  You've had about 19 families before us.  Everything you're doing is SO NORMAL for kids who've had beginnings similar to yours!   We love you, and allow you to love the ones before us.  You might find comfort in the knowledge you are not alone in your experiences.  We love you.

In my dream she began sobbing.  The church ppl surrounding her became suddenly distracted by their  own family, health, relationship issues.   I woke up praying health, healing, happiness and Love... for them all.

Ninteen Sets of Parents... And Counting...

Her social worker estimated our newest daughter moved about every three months... from age twenty-one months... until she was placed in our home at about a week or two from age six.

Reactive Attachment Disorder is what her Psychologist diagnosed...
...Before anything was published for parents,
...Before DSMV offered to more-specifically define "RAD."

It made sense.  ANY child, even one who hadn't been pickled in the womb... hadn't been raised in "that environment" for almost the first two years... BUT  might "ONLY"  have been moved from one ONLY-LOVING home to another... every three months.... from 21 months... would certainly have "issues." 

It's not her fault.  

It's not ours either.  

We're the 19th set of parents... and counting.

I'd love to say we're the last.

We're learning her ongoing behavior is quite typical for adults who had multiple caregivers in early childhood. 

She's an adult now.  She's serving society in a respectable career on "the other side of" her family of origin's income generating efforts.

We're confident we impacted her life positively.

She still, understandably, has "issues."

Prickly as a cactus... we continue to love her as much as she will allow.

It seems loving this child and her half-biological sibling group that were placed together with us for adoption requires (of course) that we honor their journey.

Their experiences are nothing like our experiences of origin.

Our family has always been "ours."

We naively believed The Forever Family Social Experiment's promise... they'd belong to "ours" forever.

That promise never acknowledged our newest children's reality.

Yes... Legally we're their parents.  Yes.  We LEGALLY gave them our name.  Yes, We went into this all-in.  Our hearts have been and continue to be committed.   Yes, we had "family expectations" based on our own knowledge of what family is. 

But their reality is...

Who the social experiment defined as their latest "Real Family" kept changing.... 18 times before us... and Who they choose to define as their "Real Family" will continue to change God knows how many times after us.

At 21 She played Babe-ette to her initial drama triangulating "savior" Momma-ette and Dadda-ette...  until that particular paradise failed... as the overzealous-savior-mom-internet-psychology-student moved into an ethics-less internship under the woman who used to foster our adoptee's half-bio sister for eight years...  together the two mental health "professional" wannabees betrayed our daughter regularly until she got disgusted and moved on to the next set people she'd define as her "real-family."


Six years since what I call our adoptee's "RAD-typical" Conjoined meltdown.... Six years of mostly estrangement... with mini-bursts of masked connection from the "officially diagnosed" one... In perfect line with the diagnosis given to her at age 7...

Radtypically, Our adoptees continue to follow their own hearts and minds to find the family that is presently "most-real" to them.

Our "officially diagnosed"Daughter is radtypically currently playing daughter/sister to a mother/daughter duo who due to drug addiction were separated for many years.  Familiar.  Manipulative on all sides. Perfect for now.  I imagine their dynamic must draw her because they "understand" her reality. 

Sonny-delight continues to pretend our former friends are his "real family"... (He was removed at birth and was estimated to have about 9 or 10 sets of parents before the special needs sibling group was placed with us when he was about 2.5 years old.)

Well meaning Christian people believe they are serving JESUS to play rescuer/savior to our adoptees... yet in all their efforts to SAVE our children they reject any possibility their own meddling and pretending to be "THE FAMILY OUR CHILDREN NEVER HAD" is actually harming these adult-children who bear our name... these grown children we carry in our hearts. 

When we address these of the most stout servitude, explaining how their "help" serves to divide our family... explaining...

Instead of Playing Savior... 

...they should be Praying to The Savior! 

 When we bare our hearts to these assorted, well intentioned family members and "Christian" friends.... explaining how hurtful their "rescuing" behaviors are to our family as a whole... What they seem to hear is "Never talk to our children!"  They are so deceived.  

 

Blowing Up the Bridge

"Blowing Up the Bridge:
This can be a helpful image for parents to remember to protect themselves from being set up for repeated  disappointment and frustration.

It works like this. Think of yourselves and your AD child  on opposite banks of a river with the goal being to bridge the river.

While the idea of “meeting halfway” seems the obvious plan, this can be a trap/mistake with many AD children. 

Why?
Your child has some success maybe a few good days at school or some unusually good behavior at home.

As parents, your hopes begin to rise, and you start walking out on the bridge to meet and congratulate your child. After you have gotten out on the bridge, your child “blows it up” with some new misbehavior that wipes out the previous spark of success.

Everyone winds up “in the river”.

You are feeling disappointed / frustrated / angry / betrayed.

Your AD child is feeling empowered: “Ha! I got them again.”

In order to avoid handing your child the power to disappoint you, you should stay on your side of the river and communicate your expectation that your child build the bridge all the way across with some reliable, real change.

You offer heartfelt congratulations only when your child steps off the bridge onto your side of the river.

It’s a matter of disciplined patience and timing on the parents’ part.

Your therapist can guide you in deciding when the child has accomplished sufficient change to be acknowledged"

The above passage is from an article

found in entirety at 

http://q87.com/rad/rad.synopsis.pdf

Author is not identified.  

I would LOVE to give credit where credit is due!!!  

(formatting, font size, boldness etc is mine)

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We have LIVED this over and over again.  We have learned through EXPERIENCE that we need to have compliance or we ALL will be devastated when "mid-bridge" our RADs bring out the "explosives."

We are not safe on the bridge with our RADkids.

"The Bridge" is a journey our kids need to make on their own... 

for the sake of their own mental health.  

Our "failure" as loving parents to "meet our kids halfway"
when correcting their RAD behaviors

has been perceived by some 

(ignorant of the complexities of RAD) 

to be "evidence" of

poor parenting at best 

and

"abuse" at absolute worst.