In Therapy

My son and I had family therapy this morning.  Usually, our therapist sees me for a few minutes, and then sees my son for the remainder of the 50 minute “hour.”  Usually, she asks me how it’s going, I tell her, and then I sit in the waiting room while my son has his session.  I’m lucky to have found a therapist that respects me, and that I can trust.  We’ve been with her for three years now.  I have no plans to stop seeing her with my son.  It works for us, and we’re blessed to have insurance that covers our need very well.  In the beginning, I was in the room for the entire session with my son (or daughter).  Traumatized kids can cause parents a lot of grief if they’re left alone with a professional who does not yet know the family or the kid.  They often tell tales of abuse, but those tales are often lies – or memories of past abuse.  Therapists have to report suspected abuse.  Parents of traumatized kids often experience their own trauma by having to go through “the system.”  This system most often suspects the parent first without taking into account the background of the child.  After all, there have been enough horror stories for caseworkers to be suspicious.  Who wouldn’t be?

Trust takes time to build.  So, I insisted I be part of the entire session while we were getting to know our therapist and she was getting to know us.  I took about a year doing things this way.  Eventually, after the therapist and I had both learned even more about older, internationally adopted kids, more about RAD, and more about trauma (PTSD), we understood it would be good for my son to spend at least SOME time alone with the therapist.  He was holding back, and was saying things he thought I wanted to hear rather than work through the hard stuff so he could start to heal.  Eventually, we were able to get to the point where the therapist knew what was “real,” versus what was our son was saying as part of his working through past trauma.  She knew when he was using us to personify the evil he’d experienced as a young child.  Because she “got it,” I knew I would not be investigated by children’s services due to my son's lies, or because he was processing something his biological family did.  However, it took time. 

None of that happened without the process of building trust.  In addition to spending time in the therapist’s office, we got children’s services involved.  My son has gotten into trouble more than a few times over the years.  He even “disappeared” on us the night before my oldest son’s wedding, leaving the rehearsal dinner with an aunt.  (He told her we said he should ride back to the hotel in her car.  Why she didn’t check with us to see if that was true, or why she thought we’d tell one of our kids to go with her without us asking her first if that was okay, I still don’t understand.)  When we realized we did not know where our son was, we called the police.  We frantically looked “everywhere” for him.  We were sure the stress of the wedding had triggered feelings of abandonment for him.

After what seemed like an eternity, I got a call on my cell phone, and we learned he was back at the hotel with my husband’s sisters.  We were in another state for the wedding, but when we got home, children’s services showed up at my front door.  The police in that community had reported the incident to authorities in our state.  It wasn’t the first time I’d been visited by children’s services, though.  The caseworker already knew me.  She’d visited with me many times before, as there was a period of time when our son was in trouble quite often.  I told her what happened.  She patted me on the back and told me to “hang in there.”  She said I should call if I needed anything.  It was like having a friend stop by.  Again, a relationship was already there.  Trust was already established.

I think one of THE most important things a parent of traumatized kids can do for their family is build relationships in advance of a crisis with people and agencies that may become a part of that family’s life eventually, anyway.  Some people think this is akin to “looking for trouble.”  My experience is different.  Being pro-active has saved me a lot of hassle.  Being honest about everything, including my own struggles with parenting my children, and reaching out to our therapist, to the school psychologists and principals, the student resource officers (police), and to our state children’s services department, has afforded me the support and the help I need to best parent my kids.  I’ve received services and aid I would not receive otherwise.  I’ve avoided messy investigations because people acting in good faith have reported me as not having control over my child.  I’ve gained respect from people working “on the ground” with hurt kids, and they’ve even called me for advice.  I think that’s more about looking OUT for trouble – stopping it before it ever starts – than it is about looking FOR trouble.

Things are going fairly well in therapy with my son.  There are days however, like today, when my son doesn’t want to cooperate.  He shuts down.  He pretends he’s not awake.  He stares and he withdraws.  There are also days when I am still part of the whole 50 minute hour, like today.  Most of the time, my son works well with the therapist.  He is conscious of the tools he’s worked to develop with her in order to help him navigate the world.  He’s matured – a lot – this school year.  I’m still looking OUT for trouble, though.  I’m still working to stop it before it ever starts.  Things are going well BECAUSE we are in therapy, and because we have a support system.  I never dreamed I’d need it before I adopted, or even during the first year or so of our adoption.  It was only when I’d gotten to the point of considering disruption that I knew I NEEDED this support, and so did my kids. 

Not everyone is lucky enough to have a good behavioral mental health facility in their community.  I totally lucked into ours.  I didn’t even know it existed when we moved here.  However, I highly encourage parents to look OUT for trouble and to seek out support BEFORE it’s needed.  Even if things seem to be going okay those first several months home, or that first year home, build relationships with people you may need in a crisis.  Our son did not steal anything until he’d been home nearly three years.  Apart from the expected adjustment period of having an older internationally adopted child enter the family, things went fairly well the first couple of years home.  Any problems were contained to outbursts at home, shutting down, or occasionally getting into a minor scuffle at school – all things seen as “normal” for a kid adjusting to a new family, new language, and new culture.  At three years home, things changed for both kids.  Suddenly, we had to figure a lot of things out we’d never had to deal with before.  Thankfully, I’d been building relationships with our therapist, the schools, and with children’s services before the poo-poo hit the fan.

Even if you do not have a mental health facility in your community, you can do the work to develop relationships with people you will need at some point, for some reason or another.  It’s not always easy.  I’ve had to educate educators.  I even had to teach our young family physician what “RAD” meant, and then guide him to resources where he could learn about it.  (They just don’t teach this stuff in medical school.)  You need to educate yourself before you can educate others, of course.  The good news is there are a lot of resources available that weren’t available even four years ago when I got home with my kids.  There are a lot of great blogs written by very wise (though sometimes very worn) therapeutic parents.  There are relationships you can build with people who have walked in your shoes.  Don’t be afraid to share with someone who’s already walking this road.  Don’t be afraid to try some things, even if those things seem “weird.”  And if you’re in therapy, don’t give up too quickly.  If things are going well, it might just be because of what you’re doing – not because you don’t need to do it anymore.

Waiting. Yep, it stinks!

Friends in Eastern Europe have compiled their dossier to adopt two older boys from an orphanage there.  These are kids no one from their own country wanted.  Their hopeful parents are Americans, living in country, serving orphans and people seen by the majority there as societal outcasts.  My friends are good people.  They were “there” for me when I was stuck in the muck for weeks in that place, waiting for a corrupt government to move so I could bring my children home.  My friends have jumped through hoops.  They’ve done all the important things, as well as all the ridiculous things they’ve been told to do, in order to compile the necessary paperwork needed to make these boys legally their own.  Now, officials at that country’s national adoption authority are telling them that they will not be seen through the rest of the year.  They were told to come back in February.  It’s ridiculous.  It’s about the convenience of the workers.  It’s about politics, and constant changes in adoption procedures.  It’s about changes in authority – something that seems to be in constant flux in that country.  And yes, I’ll say it:  it’s about corruption and extortion, even if it’s veiled extortion.  I can bet you that a nice sum of cash would get them an appointment pronto.  My friends don’t work like that even if corrupt officials do. 

My friends are hoping for an appointment anyway.  They are moving forward in faith believing God called them to become the parents of these two boys.  They are moving forward, knowing childhood does not wait.  (For every year spent in an orphanage, a child will lose 4-6 months or more in physical, emotional and psycho-social development.)  My friends are waiting on people who do not really care about these boys, and who certainly do not care about them.  Yep, it stinks.

I have other beloved friends whose dossier is sitting on the desk of some national adoption official in South America.  The government is different there than in former Soviet states, but there is still red tape, just as there is red tape anywhere.  They can’t get any definitive answers.  There must be some big meeting that takes place.  That meeting hasn’t happened.  The child they’re waiting to adopt is also an older boy with special needs.  He, too, is waiting in an orphanage.  While he is in an orphanage run by people who do care, he is still in an orphanage.  The statistics for kids waiting in an orphanage do not improve from country to country.  My friends would be good parents for this child.  He would have a sibling, already home, from his own orphanage, as well as other brothers and sisters.  But they have not yet been officially matched.  Other people from other countries have looked at his file, but he’s still waiting in bureaucratic limbo, while my friends still hold onto the hope that God called them to become his parents.  However, nothing is certain in any country until you walk out of court with a final adoption decree in your hands.  Waiting.  Yep, it stinks.

The process of adoption is filled with paperwork, red tape, and what seems like endless waiting.  It is hard.  Really hard.  A lot of people give up.  Thankfully, many do not.  Childhood doesn’t wait, even if we must.  Once our kids are home, we wait some more.  It’s a different kind of waiting, but it’s still hard.  If our children were adopted internationally, we wait for them to be able to understand us, as we wait to understand them.  We wait for attachment – sometimes for our entire relationship.  We wait for our children to learn to become part of our families.  We wait for them to learn to trust us and to believe we will not leave.  We wait for them to stop lying and stealing.  We wait to see if they will get into trouble, even as we wait for them to grasp they are valuable.  Sometimes, it’s really hard to wait on these things.  Waiting stinks.

Frankly, I don’t know how anyone gets through the process of adoption, nor the process of knitting a child to one’s heart, without faith.  Your faith in God may look a little different than mine, but I don’t know another adoptive parent that’s doing this well, who is doing it alone.  I NEED God, even when I don’t know exactly who He is, or exactly what He looks like.  Even though I don’t fully understand His character, and I won’t fully KNOW HIM this side of Heaven, I need the hope of His unconditional love for me.  Otherwise, I cannot begin to show that unconditional love to my children.  Without God, I cannot begin to wait for the hope I have for their lives, because I know He has waited on me many, many times.  I know that trusting in Him helps me renew my strength (Isaiah 40:31).

I also need others who are walking this road.  I need the wisdom of those who have gone before me, who have “been there/done that," and I need the friendship of those who are where I was three and four years ago, too.  As one of my good friends puts it, “sometimes only another trauma mama can talk you down off the ceiling.”  My heart breaks for those who isolate themselves, or think that prayer alone will solve everything. 

Sometimes God answers prayer by putting people in our paths who know what they’re talking about!  There is a story my former pastor tells to illustrate this point:  There was a flood.  A guy was stuck on top of his roof, and he prayed for God to save him, as the water rose.  Another guy came by in a row boat and offered him a ride.  The man on the roof refused saying, “I’ve prayed for God to save me.”  Another person came by on a raft and offered him a place on the rickety, but still floating vessel.  Yet, he refused saying, “I’ve prayed for God to save me.”  A third person came by, clinging only to a floating log.  The water was up to the waiting man’s neck by then.  He was told to grab hold of the log, but this quickly sinking man replied, “I’ve prayed for God to save me.”  Eventually, the man on the roof drowned.  When he got to Heaven, he asked why God hadn’t saved him.  God replied, “I tried to save you three times!” 

As I wait for my children to trust me, to stop lying, to stop shutting down or yelling at me, to relax and know they are loved, I pray.  But I also watch for those God would send along my way.  I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my adoptive parenting journey, especially during that first year or so.  I’ve asked my kids “why” they did something, instead of “what” they were feeling.  I’ve tried to “make” my kids tell me the truth, instead of helping them discover what fear was driving them.  I’ve argued that my kids needed to know how to handle “real life” with “regular people,” not knowing they would never get there without first healing from their trauma.  I’ve used all the good parenting techniques that worked to help me raise four healthy, happy, whole, and functional young adult sons, only to learn these things DO NOT WORK with hurt children, and I had to learn to parent my adopted children in ways that seemed counter intuitive to me.  I’ve allowed some row boats to go by, but I’ll be darned if I’ll let a raft or a log go by now, too.  Waiting stinks, but I’m not going to drown. 

Let’s pray for our waiting friends, but let’s also be there for them.  Let’s also accept God’s answer to our own prayers when He sends by a row boat, a raft, or even a log.  Waiting stinks, but we don’t have to drown.  It’s a lot easier to endure waiting when we are in a boat, with company. 

Ah, Monday. Thank God!

“Thank God it’s Friday” may be a popular saying, but around here, I thank God it’s Monday more often.  I especially thank Him for Mondays after a long holiday weekend.  Thanksgiving, as one of my trauma mama friends so aptly put it, is one of the hardest times of the year for our kids.  Everyone is talking about being thankful.  For our hurt, adopted kids, being thankful is hard!  For what are they supposed to be thankful?  Being adopted?  For my kids, that means also being thankful that their biological mother neglected them while she took care of her own vices and their father left them in a way no parent should ever leave a child.  Be thankful?  Yeah, right.

My Evangelical Christian friends will need to hold onto their hats here, but I’m going to write what I know as truth in our family.  Here goes:  The expectation to be thankful AND be part of a Christian household adds even more stress to our kids’ hurt lives.  Everyone is telling them to be thankful for what GOD has given them – that GOD has set them into a family – that GOD is ready to meet their need – that God is good.  For children who have been raised to believe that God is for rich Americans with no real need, and who know reality to be that they must take whatever they can to survive, this is fantasy.  For children who were set into a family the way God’s design intended – for kids to be raised and loved and cared for by the people who bore them – only to be ripped from that family against their will (however dysfunctional and toxic), God seems cruel.  For children who rummaged through dumpsters and begged from neighbors to put food into their bellies and the belly of a baby sister (that a corrupt government took away from them and placed with a family without their knowledge), believing God will meet their need is ludicrous. 

EVEN THOUGH they are loved, well cared for, fed, clothed, and given many of the things middle-class Americans enjoy (even as they take those things for granted), EVEN THOUGH they have been “redeemed” in a sense and brought out of poverty, and EVEN THOUGH they have come to believe in Salvation through Jesus Christ, they cannot believe – not deep down – that God is good.  If God were good, then he would not have taken them from their family, their life, their culture, their language, their heritage and placed them in a family they did not choose, in a country they did not choose, dealing with the most absurd language on the face of the planet.  This is my kids’ truth, even for all the “right teaching” and “sacrificial love.”

 If I can get just ONE of my Christian friends to truly “get” all this (one who is not also an adoptive parent raising a hurt child – especially a child adopted at a much older age), then I will be amazed.  If just one person not walking this walk can fully understand what my kids have been through and how it affects them and their life on this earth – and how the core of that WILL NOT CHANGE, even by “coming to Jesus,” then I will feel as though I’ve met a part of my mission on this earth.  Why?  Because if just ONE of these folks can get it, then maybe others in the Church (universal) can begin to “get it” – REALLY GET IT, too.