I'm assuming that most people who land here are already familiar with Reactive Attachment Disorder. For those of you who are intimately familiar with the disorder and live with someone who has been diagnosed, let me give you a giant internet HUG. Take some deep breaths, and let's find the humor in something that is utterly humorless, shall we? I hope that you will find some stress relief in what I post, and I encourage you to comment profusely. Maybe you will even want to submit some of your own content or write a guest blog. Go for it! We supporters of those suffering from RAD need as much interaction with others who know what we are going through as possible, so my hope is that this blog will become very "community-like."
Others of you found your way here when you curiously Googled "Reactive Attachment Disorder." I hope that you find some insight here that is fresh and new.
And, lastly, I hope that you leave here realizing that even though our family members diagnosed with RAD face so many challenges, and even though there truly ARE some incredibly sad, heartbreaking stories revolving around this mental disorder, there are rays of hope and, dare I say, humor, amongst the doom and gloom and gut-wrenchingly awful stuff.
A word of caution
I know a lot of parents in the RAD community (and, let's face it, the majority of Americans) lean on the religious side. I do tend to curse here and there (but have been trying to monitor myself!). My humor is often cynical. I'm agnostic. But, I hope that doesn't deter you from reading my blog. My intent is not to offend. I want to support, and be supported.
About my Family
My biological daughter was born in 2005 with a genetic disorder (still unspecified at this point!). Her biological father and I split up in 2007 after it became clear he had a bit of a problem with being abusive. Not wanting to put my child through the pain that was sure to come, kiddo and I moved to Hawaii to get far, far away from the fallout of my decision to leave (my mom lived there and provided a safe haven for us... Thanks mom!). I will refer to her as Oldest here on my blog. She is pretty much the happiest child who ever existed (she was actually tested for Angelman Syndrome, a disorder with a primary symptom of "excessive happiness."). This is key to my sanity.
In 2012, I met Husband. Husband lived in Hawaii because the army put him there. Husband was still legally married (scandal!) but they were separated because she had assaulted him when he got back from Afghanistan and was arrested for Domestic Battery in the Third Degree. He did not have his kids with him in Hawaii, but desperately wanted them there with him because it was becoming more and more clear that his children were suffering under their mother's care. Seriously suffering. I'll skip the details for now, but I'm sure they'll pop up intermittently here and there in my posts. He was working out a way to get custody of them, and the army helped by moving him to North Carolina in 2013. I decided to tag along, as well.
After a terribly frustrating and exhausting series of events both fortunate and unfortunate, he got full legal custody of them in September 2013 with temporary orders, which were finalized in 2014. Unfortunately, his kiddos were displaying some behavior that, frankly, terrified me. For example, I once had to take the tablet away from them after they were fighting, and within one minute I found his little girl (hereby referred to as Middle) choking her brother with all her might, staring deep in his eyes as his face changed colors, and very steadily saying, "I hate you. You are not my brother and I don't love you. This is all your fault." And his little boy (whom I have dubbed Little) was not sleeping. He was waking up like a newborn baby, and staying up. I was exhausted.
After a terribly frustrating and exhausting series of events both fortunate and unfortunate, he got full legal custody of them in September 2013 with temporary orders, which were finalized in 2014. Unfortunately, his kiddos were displaying some behavior that, frankly, terrified me. For example, I once had to take the tablet away from them after they were fighting, and within one minute I found his little girl (hereby referred to as Middle) choking her brother with all her might, staring deep in his eyes as his face changed colors, and very steadily saying, "I hate you. You are not my brother and I don't love you. This is all your fault." And his little boy (whom I have dubbed Little) was not sleeping. He was waking up like a newborn baby, and staying up. I was exhausted.
I dropped out of grad school and Husband was let go from the army so we could deal with their behavior issues. I contemplated leaving almost daily because I didn't know if I could handle the behavior I was seeing, and worried my daughter might get hurt as well. But I stayed.
One day I was ranting on Reddit about my future-step-kids. About how I cared about them but they scared me. About how I thought they were sociopaths. And someone kindly mentioned that with their history of traumatic experiences, they probably had RAD. We checked with the psychiatrist who was seeing Middle and he said he'd already diagnosed her with it... Guess he forgot to mention that to Husband because we'd never heard of the term before!
Armed with a diagnosis, I was able to do more research into the disorder and how to parent them, and adopted the techniques I learned to parent all the kids in the house. We utilize "therapeutic parenting methods." Or, we try to. Because it's really, really, really effing hard to do sometimes. More on that later.
Husband and I will have our wedding ceremony in October of this year. The kids are now 5, 6 and 9, and the progress they've made since we've shifted our parenting strategy is remarkable.
Anywho. There's my introduction. Questions? Comments? I'd love to hear them!
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