Where have you been, Trauma Mama T?

Almost a year. That's how long it's been since I last wrote anything here. A lot can happen in that amount of time and, well, it has. Frankly, I don't know where to begin. Even following my freshman English comp teacher's advise to “pick one thing and tell us everything” isn't working very well. How do I pick ONE thing?

I am scattered. I've fought depression this year. I am t.i.r.e.d. There's that. People looking in from the outside would think things are going pretty well. Even people who know the things we've been through this last year seem to think that. If they think any differently, they're not saying so. Well, except for a couple of you. A couple of you know better – and you know who you are, you two. I am beyond thankful that you see with spirit eyes and loving hearts and I cannot wait to hug you both again.

When I last wrote, The Princess was preparing for her first year of high school. She had high anxiety and so did I. When my father-in-law died in May 2013, she sneaked off to “make out” with a boy at the elementary school playground where we live. Her older brothers, who were left to hold down the fort while Hubby and I traveled out of state for the funeral, were frantic. She just disappeared and no one knew where she was or why she was gone. It was a first for her. So far, it's been the only time she's done something like that. She said she learned her lesson and doesn't want to do that kind of thing to any of us ever again. (We were scared. The police were involved looking for her.) I want to believe it, but the beginning of high school had me worried. Thankfully, she made it through her freshman year pretty well. Ended up with a high GPA and will be taking an Advanced Placement course in 10^th grade. (Not bad for someone who didn't even speak English 7 years ago and had the equivalent of a preschool education at the age of nine.) She just turned 16 a few weeks ago. I am still anxious. Maybe more so. Secondary PTSD and hyper-vigilance are REAL, folks and I have them.

I want so much for this girl. Right now, I'd be very happy if she matured a bit and acted more like 16 than an attention-hungry four-year-old, but she's usually pleasant to be around. So that's good. I love her so much but she drives me absolutely bonkers. She knows it and thinks it's funny. Thankfully though, I also know she loves me, too. So does she. That's a real gift when you've been through the kinds of attachment stuff we've been through. She has healed a lot. (Maybe that's why I see just how far she has yet to go?)

As for Youngest Son, he will be 19 in just a few weeks. He will also be a senior in high school this year. He is getting by at school, taking the very basic courses he needs to take in order to graduate. He does indeed struggle very much academically and has no real desire to learn anything more than he already knows. Yet, he has plans for his future (admittedly, much “inspired” by his father and I). He needs to buckle down in some areas. For his sake and for ours, he will be out of our home (one way or the other) within a month after his high school graduation. (There is much I'm leaving out here, obviously. Those who know us know why.) Still with all that, he's also doing better than he ever has. He doesn't push the envelope with me as much anymore and is sticking to the family rules on a lot of things. Of course, he has also lost a lot of privileges (things we paid for) over the last year due to his choices to challenge those rules. Whether he agrees with us or not, he knows that at least WE need those rules to make OUR family run smoothly. Frankly though, there's a lot we've just given up on trying to teach him. If he makes a stupid choice in the community, he's of age now and he knows he's on his own. That shows some maturing on his part and for that we are thankful. He is working as an assistant manager at a fast food restaurant. He has a routine. Routine is essential for our guy. It is healing for him. He has come a long way.

As for losses, in addition to losing my father-in-law last May, my own Dad also died as the result of an accident late last October. I am still grieving. I'm doing okay most of the time, but sometimes something will happen or someone will say something and the pain of his loss is searing. With his passing also comes the loss of my childhood home. It's just a house now and it doesn't belong to our family anymore.

Last September, I took a job as a family advocate working with child victims of crime. On April 4^th, I was fired from that job for no reason. Really. No reason was given. I have yet to be given any reason officially and only have “he said/she said” reasons. One is that the soon-to-retire director was close to being fired by the board of directors herself and she threw me under the bus because she didn't want me finding more of her mistakes when she left. (This is a plausible reason as this person suddenly, during her last month or so in the position, began cutting off my responsibilities and starting making me do things that she later told me I should not have done. I was in the process of a project going through literally hundreds of records to find DOZENS of them that had been incorrectly entered into the data base system by the previous family advocate and were never caught.) Another reason is that two local cops decided they didn't like me and complained about me to the sheriff. (This is also plausible as there are two cops on our police department's force that wouldn't crack a smile at me if I handed them XXXX – fill in the blank with whatever sounds really great to you -- on a silver platter. I don't know what their problem is but a couple of cops not liking me is no reason to fire me.)

I live in a very strange, very small Midwest town. There is a culture here like no town in which I've ever lived before, and I've lived a lot of places. There is a distinct divide among people groups. Cliques really. If you're not from here, it's very difficult to find a place to fit in. Plus, after you've been fired, it is pretty much impossible to find a job anywhere else – at least doing anything professionally. Everything and everyone are connected. I can't even get an interview. And I won't lie. How do you answer the question “Why were you fired?” when you were never given any real reason WHY. You just were.

I did hear one interesting thing from one of the therapists on our county's multidisciplinary team about a month after I was let go. This person said, “I never heard any reason why either. No one's talking about it. It's just like you've disappeared.” Funny, that's exactly how I've been made to feel. Disappeared. It too, is a searing loss. Not that I'd EVER go back or have anything else to do with these people in that capacity. I have been deeply hurt by this. If someone just had the balls (yes, I said “balls” - twice now) to tell me what really happened I might be able to deal with it better, but no one ever has. I was never actually disciplined for anything. It is true I made a couple of mistakes in the early months of my tenure, but who doesn't make minor mistakes when they're learning a new job? It was stuff related to procedure and protocol – personal preferences of individuals – and how the heck are you supposed to “just know” that? Those were corrected. I was never written up for anything. There was nothing for which I could have been written up! It was a matter of a lack of training in some areas – not my fault – actually my boss's fault ultimately. But again, those mistakes were about the preferences of individuals – like those two cops - not about anything that hurt anyone. The parents and the kids loved me. One drew a cartoon of me as a super hero a week before I was fired. In fact, two weeks before I was fired, the sheriff pulled me aside and told me what a great job I was doing. Go figure. I hope the two cops and my now retired, almost fired, boss are happy.

Also now, our tri-county area does not have a trauma-trained, certified parenting class facilitator. (This was something I did in addition to my family advocate's position.) Not that I can't be replaced in that area, but for now there's no trauma-focused parenting classes in our area. And there could be. And there's a need. I suppose I could do classes on my own or through my church as a ministry, and maybe I will some day. But for now, the wind is out of my sails. I've been beat up a bit too much. These people will likely never know exactly what they did to me. If they did, I wonder if they'd care.

Now, I don't want this post to be a “pity me” thing. I'll be okay. In fact, I'm more okay than I was a couple of months ago. I have some really GREAT things I'm looking forward to over the next several months. First of all, I'm heading to a Hope Rising retreat for moms of kids from tough places – mom's raising kids with traumatic pasts. (If you're interested, read more about those retreats HERE. There are still a few spots left.) I'm very blessed as I wouldn't be able to afford this retreat on my own because things are a little tight financially since I lost my job. I was gifted the retreat cost by some folks who care about me. I'm very, very blessed by this. I just have to get myself there – and I am definitely getting myself there!

I also have my first grand-baby on his or her way! Our oldest son and his wife of four years will become parents some time around Christmas. We are beyond thrilled! (If you're a praying person, I ask for your prayers for a healthy, safe delivery for mom and a healthy, full-term baby.)

I am looking forward to Youngest Son's high school graduation and #4 bio son's college graduation. Plus, #3 bio son was married earlier this year and his wife is also graduating from college with our #4 bio son. Life is still very good even in the midst of all the loss we've experienced since I wrote here last.

I hope you understand that in dealing with the losses I just haven't been much for writing. I hope you'll forgive me and stick around. I do hope to write again soon – helpful stuff. Stuff that you can use. Stuff that teaches. That's what I want this blog to really be about. Death happens. Life happens.

Thanks for reading,
TMT

Goodbye, Loyal Friend

Things have been pretty hard around here today.  We lost our best friend this afternoon.  The Princess and I found him in the hallway between our bedrooms right after I picked her up from school.  We had him since he was a pup.

Best Friend
2000-2012
Now chasing butterflies in Heaven.

Twenty Things My Adopted Kids Wish Their Biological Family Knew

If you’re an adoptive parent and you haven’t yet read Sherrie Eldridge’s book, “Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew,” you’re missing some good insight.  The book will not reveal all the things adopted kids wish their parents knew.  Some adopted kids (now adults) disagree with some of what Eldridge writes.  However, the book will give you some knowledge of what it feels like to be adopted, and some seeds for thought as you try to understand the heart of your child.  I highly recommend you read it.  (I get no financial gain by saying that.)

There is a flip side to the 20 things adoptive parents should know, at least for my kids.  My kids experienced significant trauma at the hands of their birth family and the people that family allowed to become a part of their lives.  Because those adults didn’t handle things well, they ended up in an orphanage system that was often harmful and hurtful.  The things my kids have told me about their caregivers are about the only thing that makes me want to go back to their birth country.  I would very much like to give certain women there an education they’d never forget.

The thing is, my kids don’t care about those people very much.  They were temporary “mamas.”  They were hired help.  They weren’t family.  It is family that caused the deepest pain and left the biggest scars.  It is to family my kids wish they could communicate the things they want to be ingrained into the soul of people living in Eastern Europe.  Here are 20 things my kids wish their biological family knew:

*You caused me more hurt and pain than any child should ever have to bear.  You are ALL responsible.  Those letters you send me now only cause that pain to deepen.  If you loved me so much, why didn't you take care of us when our parents could not?

*I am ashamed of you and I am scared to death I’m going to end up like you, even though I have a good life and parents who know how to love me now.

*Even though you’ve caused me so much pain, I still love you and I still wish we could be together.  I grieve that loss deeply every single day.

*Sometimes I grieve losing you so much, I take it out on my Mom and Dad.  I wonder if that would make you happy?  When my anger is over, it makes me ashamed that I treated them that way.  It’s you I’m mad at!

*I don’t talk about you that often, but when I do, it’s hard for me and for my parents.  They don’t like seeing me upset, so I hide that I’m thinking about you.  I think about you every day.  My parents know that and even though it hurts us both, they still try to show me it’s okay to remember you and talk about you.

*Even though I think about you, I don’t want to talk about you most of the time.  Sometimes, it feels like my parents and my therapist are prying stuff out of me and that makes me even more mad at you, but then I grieve for you right after I get mad.

*I am really mad that I wasn’t worth enough to you for you to register my birth.  (The Princess)  I am really mad that everyone relied on me to remember when my sister was born.  (Youngest Son)

*Even though my parents tell me you were not allowed to see me anymore when I went to the orphanage, I wonder if you didn’t come to see me because you didn’t love me anymore.

*I worry all the time that my new Dad will die, or that my Mom will be with other men.  I freak out whenever my mom goes away on a trip.  I hate it that my Mom and Dad are planning an anniversary trip this year and I am not going with them.  I’m scared they won’t come back.

*I put up a good front in public.  I’m a good Eastern European and the only emotion I show is when I want to let someone know they’re bothering me.  Most of the time, people outside my family don’t know I’m any different than any other American kid – unless they hear my accent.

*You gave me no sense of control, so now I fight to have a sense of control.  It’s hard for me to let my parents care about me and it’s hard to care about other people.  I do care.  A lot.  But it’s very hard.

*I like it when people say I look like my Mom and Dad.  I like it when people say I sound just like my Mom or that I’m as smart as my Dad.  That’s okay.  I don’t like it when you write my parents’ names in letters to me.  They are my Mom and my Dad.  Call them that.  However, I also like it when people in my family tell me I’m as handsome as my Papa or as smart as my Babushka.

*I love my parents.  They drive me crazy sometimes.  I drive them crazy sometimes.  But so do my brothers.  My mom says all teenagers drive their parents nuts and all parents embarrass their teens.  We’re a normal family that way.  I love my parents and I still love you, though I don’t understand that.

*I don’t like telling people about you.

*My parents make my birthday special, but I always feel bad on my birthday, on other people’s birthdays, on holidays, vacations, or any celebration.  You did that to me.

*I hate it that I don’t know my medical history or the truth about my first family’s medical challenges.

*Even though I know I’m forever home with my real family now, I get really scared that I’ll get sent back to you.  I have nightmares about it.

*When I make poor choices, I wonder if I’ll make the really poor choices you made when I’m an adult.  My parents reassure me that I can choose to have a good life, but I’m still scared I’ll be just like you.

*I need extra help because of the things that happened when I was little.  I blame you, but I forgive you.  I do this over and over again.  Sometimes I do it multiple times per day.

*Even if I decide to search for some of you someday, you are not my real family.  My home is here.  I don’t come from here.  I come from you, and so they cannot replace that.  My beginning is with you.  But remember my real home is with them. 

I imagine some of these 20 things will strike a nerve or two with some of my readers.  I ask you to consider the raw, traumatized, developmentally delayed, teenage emotion and thought behind these 20 things.  They are from the perspective of my two particular teenage children who suffered a very traumatic background, and who are home only 4.5 years.  These are raw emotions, but they are honest emotions.  This is what being real is all about.

Bio-Family Stuff

As I wrote yesterday, The Princess is processing a lot of “stuff” right now.  She’s dealing with a lot of memories – both real and imagined – and she’s trying to figure things out to make sense of them.  We are trying to help her do that with attachment and family therapy, based on a combination of research and techniques used by folks such as Dr. Bruce Perry, Dr. Becky Bailey, and Heather Forbes, LCSW.  Princess wants to bury her feelings about this “stuff” and deal with things on her own terms – terms which are just not healthy, and cause her to act out with much anger and resentment.  Interestingly enough, however, she is still talking to me – still asking questions.  On her own terms.  In her own time.  I’m realizing I’m not always as ready for “it” as I thought I would be.  Last evening was one of those times.

The Princess started asking questions about her bio-family and past traumatic events.  Her memory of these things is skewed because she was so little, and because Youngest Son feeds her his own skewed memory of the events.  My practice has always been to set them both straight – to tell them the truth I know.  I share what information we have in court documents.  I also tell them the things their paternal grandmother told us when we did biological family research (through an in-country facilitator) a few years ago.  At first, I thought it was best to “protect” the kids from the details.  Who wants to tell their children the woman who gave birth to them did the things she did?  Who wants to hear their birth father’s depression was exponentially fueled by the actions of their birth mother, and the alcoholism of them both?  This stuff was just too hard.  I didn’t want to talk with them about it.  The Princess, however, while she is very immature emotionally, is also very, very smart.  On one hand, she doesn’t want to know, but on the other, she does.  She has questions about her story.  Afterall, it’s HER story.

Processing her story is something I want her to do with me in therapy.  Unfortunately, she tends to process a lot of it at school with friends.  Most of these friends are hurt kids themselves.  She’s attracted to them like a fly is to poo.  (Yeah, I made that analogy on purpose.)  I do not like that this is true for my daughter.  I do not like that trauma too often begets trauma – or, at least, feeds off it.

My daughter has copies of some of the pictures we received when we did that bio-family search.  These pictures are of her grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and even her biological father.  She also has some pictures from her orphanage.  The deal was she could look at these and talk to us about them at home.  However, she has taken them to school on numerous occasions without my knowledge and has shown them around, telling these other hurt kids way too much – much more than any of them can handle.  Much more than she can handle on her own.  And they’ve hurt her more with their comments and questions.  (I wish I fully understood why hurt kids tend to set themselves up for more hurt.)  I have never given her the one picture I have of her birth mother.  I wasn’t planning on giving it to her, or even showing it to her, any time soon.  But I showed her last night. 

I don’t think I’ll ever get why some cultures take pictures of dead bodies at funerals.  I don’t think I’ll ever get why the mourners pose with the dead body and have their picture taken, too.  This is the one picture I have of the birth mother.  The family is gathered around the birth father’s open casket.  She is standing at the head of the casket with Youngest Son.  The Princess is not in the picture, and to our knowledge, she did not attend the funeral (though she insists she did even when Youngest Son tells her she did not).  While it is possible to crop the picture, the image of the birth mother’s face is very tiny.  She is looking down.  The sun is shining brightly on the right side of her face, whiting out a portion of her image.  It is not a good picture photographically at all.  Yet, it is the only picture I have, and The Princess wants it.  She wants me to print it out for her. 

I am not doing that.  Not now anyway.

In my head, I understand The Princess’ need to remember her birth mother and know what she looked like.  The Princess insisted she had blond hair prior to seeing the picture, for example.  She did not.  She has dark brown hair, just like The Princess.  My daughter also insisted that birth mother was thin.  She is not thin in this picture.  She is, in fact, a bit chubby.  I also get that my daughter needs to know WHO she comes from as well as where she comes from.  I get that.  That’s my own driving force in being a genealogy geek.  I learned my mother’s Dad was not her biological father when I was 15 years old.  I always wondered about that man and about the family I was a part of, but did not know.  I found them as an adult, but my mother and my grandmother kept all that information from me.  It wasn’t right.  It wasn’t fair.  Even if my biological grandfather treated my grandmother poorly, I still had a right to know about the PEOPLE I come from.  My daughter has that right, too.  Strangely though, I now understand my grandmother and mother’s resentment at my need to know. 

As we were preparing to adopt, I read all I could about the needs of adopted children to know about the people they come from.  I was sure I would be supportive and that I would never say an ill word about my children’s birthparents.  I would be positive.  I would help them learn what they wanted to learn.  I would even support them having a relationship with extended family members.  I was clueless.

I had no idea I could hate the birth mother of my children.  (Yep.  I said that, too.  I have hated her.)  It is SHE who did this to MY kids.  It is SHE who deserves my daughter’s wrath, though it is I who deal with it.  It was HER actions that have caused MY children so much pain.  Yes, I have hated her.  And I’ve secretly wished my children would hate her, too.

Hate is a cancer that eats your soul.  Trauma is drawn to trauma.  Hate is drawn to hate even more so.  I don’t want my children drawn to trauma.  I don’t want my children drawn to hate.  Therefore, I needed to let go of hate.  Sometimes, I will admit, that need resurfaces and the “let go” is moment-to-moment.  It is then I need to remember I cannot hate someone I’ve never known.  It is her decisions and her actions that I hate.  It is the sin (and yes, that’s the word) that I hate.  I do not hate the person.  (Admittedly, I do struggle to love her.)  She is not well.  She was not well when she hurt my kids.  My daughter wants to know who she is.  So, I will tell her the truth – again and again – however many times she needs to hear it.

I have still not printed out the picture for her.  I do not want it floating around a middle school.  There is one “friend” there that is particularly cruel to The Princess.  I do not want this “friend” having any more fuel for her twisted fires.  I also do not want other friends giving their 12 and 13 year-old opinions about it.  She’s already been made fun of this week for having an “old” mother (me).  I can still at least TRY to protect her from some things, can’t I?  (Oh, how homeschooling sounds better and better to me with each passing day.)

I love my daughter more than I can express in words.  She is MINE.  She comes from her. 

My daughter can look at my copy of the picture. 

We’ll print it out and take it to therapy next time.

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Added later:  On second thought, maybe I WON'T print out the picture and take it to therapy next time we go.  I hadn't thought about what to do with it afterward.  As Diana writes below, destroying it is probably not a good idea.  If I file it, I can guarantee both she and Youngest Son will be rooting through ALL my stuff trying to find it.  And leaving it with the therapist is probably something even my therapist wouldn't recommend.  Thanks Diana for sharing some things I hadn't thought about.  Like I said, sometimes I'm just not as prepared to deal with the "stuff" as I thought I would be.  It is on my computer (and backed up) in secure files.  Only I know the password.