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.
