When The World Gets Smaller

Last week, when The Princess stayed home from school with me, she felt protected and safe.  She poured her little heart out to me and the little girl still stuck inside felt protected.  There wasn’t a lot of “stuff” going on around in her big world, and she was able to process the things that were happening while in the smaller world of home.  She needed a break.  As soon as she got back to school, things ramped up again.  School is not a safe place for The Princess right now.  Her needs are not being well met there, and I’m tired of “reminding” everyone all the time that she does indeed have special needs.  Since they don’t get to see the fall out (or they ignore it like one teacher did last week), they don’t think there’s anything wrong.

I’ve considered homeschooling The Princess for a long time now.  In fact, I almost pulled her out of public school in January.  I wrote about that struggle a couple of days ago.  It’s a tough decision, but the decision is made.  She’s definitely staying home for 8^th grade.  I’m enrolling her in either Alpha Omega’s or ACE’s online academy.  (Leaning toward AO, but not sure yet.)  I’m getting her involved in the local homeschool group, and I’m keeping her away from kids that bring out the worst in her, for at least a little while longer, so she has time to catch up emotionally and hopefully mature to her chronological age.  Her brother came a long way this last year.  In fact, he's been pretty amazing and he's working hard at therapy and in using the tools he's been taught to navigate the world.  I’m hoping for the same in our girl.

Last night, she was going on and on -- just constant chatter -- about boys, and clothes, and mean girl stuff.  She was telling me what she was going to do, and what I was going to buy her, and how things were going to be at school next year.  (Obviously, she forgot WHO she was talking to.)  

I was not going to do it this way.  The talk about homeschool was going to be easy.  I was going to use the calm, sit-down, “we’re doing this to help you” speech at a time when she was quiet and all was well with the world.  Instead, big mouth me blurted out, “But you’re not GOING to XYZ School next year!”  [Cue loud braking sound.]

At first, the claws started to come out.  I could see the rage coming up from her.  I pulled myself back in and calmly said, “And just so you know, I’m not playing the rage game today.”  [Again, cue loud braking sound.]  She quickly realized that wasn’t going to work.  (‘Must be doing SOMETHING right.)

I explained she was going to be homeschooled and that we were going to do a lot of it online with an accredited Christian academy with certified teachers helping us.  I told her about activities and friends with the local home school group.  I told her there would be no need for the list of things she said she "needed" for 8th grade at the middle school.

Next came the pleading and the bargaining.  “But I’ll only have to go to 8^th grade at home if I get my grades back up and act better, right?  I’ll still get to go to high school, right?  I want to go to high school!”  I reminded her I don’t make promises other than that I will be here, love her, and take care of her in the way she needs me to, always -- as long as I'm alive.  I am not promising what school will be like in 9^th grade.  I am working on 8^th grade.  HOWEVER, once we started homeschool, it would not be my preference to go back to public school.  She tried to bargain again.  I said, "I’m finished with this discussion."

I reminded The Princess that I was making decisions to help her do well in life, not to punish her, or to make her life miserable.  She zinged me with, “Yeah, but Dad thinks you’re going to make your own life miserable.”  

I asked her if she WANTED me to be miserable.  She said, “No.”  I said, “Good, because HOW I feel is up to me and I choose to look forward to my time learning, going places, and having FUN with you next year!”  Smile.  Smile.  Tilted head, with shoulders up, goofy smile.

She decided to spend the evening in her room, sulking, writing notes and tearing them up, and reading.  That’s okay.  This morning, she was telling me all about the book she was reading and she was being my sweet girl again.  

I haven’t homeschooled since my youngest bio-boy was in 8^th grade.  That was five years ago.  I’m going to have to shake some mental dust off and get organized, but I’m jazzed about it.  Six months to prepare.  I can do this!

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.

I Weigh Less Than My Driver’s License Says I Do

When things are really hard for our kids, it’s often difficult for trauma mamas to remember to take care of themselves.  My kids’ therapist reminds me often that even when you travel in an airplane, they tell you to put your oxygen mask on first before attempting to help anyone else.  The thing is, when we forget to do just that, the hard times get a lot harder.  Lack of sleep, eating a brownie and drinking a Coke for breakfast, sitting at the computer all day, not taking any time to have any fun because you’re so busy working on your kids’ needs, and making sure everyone is else is happy (or at least not murdering someone) takes its toll.  I look at pictures of myself from 4.5 years ago and look at myself in the mirror now, and the difference is dramatic.  I look at least 10 years older than I did in 2007.  I do not intend to look another 10 years older in 2016.  I just won’t have it.

 

I am far from where I want to be, but I am well on my way to a journey back to myself.  I doubt seriously I’ll ever wear a size 6 (I’d be ecstatic if I ever got down to a 12), but, as of my doctor’s appointment this morning, I really do weigh less than my driver’s license says I do.  (Yes, I lied when I renewed it.  If you’re a woman who hasn’t lied about her weight on an official document, well then I guess you’re just . . . what-ever.)  I am also making some other changes.  I’ve picked up my guitar again.  Maybe I’ll do it enough times that I’ll get calluses on my finger tips and it won’t hurt to play.  I’ve done some crafts and tried my hand at some art.  I have newly awakened ambitions to reorganize my house.  Ambition is a start!  I had no ambition to even stay organized, or get reorganized, since our adoption in 2007.  Heck, it took me 4.5 years to register my kids for a state-issued birth certificate.  I’ve also cut way back on the sugar I allow into my body.  I didn’t really want to, but I knew I had to.  I don’t want to keep aging so quickly.  So, I’m coming back to me.  I think it’s going to be an improved me.  I certainly hope I’m a wiser me.

If you’re stuck in the muck, MAKE YOURSELF take time to remember WHO YOU ARE.  DO SOMETHING that helps you get back to you.  Do it in baby steps.  Just choose one thing to start.  Don’t put a lot of pressure on yourself.  (When I do that to myself, I just feel like a big, fat failure.)  You will be amazed at how much better you feel when you grab hold of what makes you - YOU.