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About a year ago, Middle made me a bracelet that says, "I love you," in plastic beads.
I've written about this bracelet in the past, and how special it is to me... so special that I don't take it off. I wear it to bed, I wear it in the shower, I wear it when I dress up for fancy pants fancy events.
It's one of my most prized possessions, but I guess I haven't really explained what, exactly, makes this bracelet so special.
A couple of years ago, my mom gave Middle a big kit of letter beads for Christmas (yay, Mom, for tapping into Middle's love of crafting and arts!). One day, Middle decided to make me a bracelet. "Awesome!" I said. "I can't wait to see it!"
She set to work and a few minutes later she told me to close my eyes and hold out my hand. She pressed her handiwork into my outstretched palm. Smiling, I opened my eyes, excited to see the treasure she'd made. I can't remember exactly how she'd misspelled her message, but the beads spelled out something like, "IE LOFF YIU."
I stared at it in silence. Middle was "playing the game" (this is Middle's term for this behavior, not mine), a super obnoxious feigned ignorance of anything related to spelling or reading.
I refuse to play this game with Middle. I know she can read and, more importantly, she knows that I know she can read. But she wanted to play, so she got sneaky and used the pretense of a loving gift as an attempt to force me into playing the game with her. This is a real trigger of mine, probably because it's been such a struggle for Oldest to learn to read whereas Middle and Little picked up the intricacies of reading almost immediately. They have such a gift... yet both of them play this game in which they willfully squander their gifts.
Middle has mastered this
stupid god-awful game. In fact, she's so good at it that she screwed herself into having to repeat kindergarten because she convinced her teachers that she couldn't even recognize written letters, forcing Husband and me to look like crazy people when we met with her teachers. "She can read!" we'd insist. "At home, she reads words like 'beautiful' and 'father' and 'sister.' She even knows the inflection she should be using according to punctuation marks in her sentences. She's tricking you! She has you all fooled."
- I'm pretty sure this is what the teachers saw every time I met with them.
Of course her teachers didn't believe us and thought we were being too hard on her until the very end of the school year when we told Middle she'd have to repeat kindergarten... Suddenly, Middle could not only read and spell, she could perform those tasks at the first grade level! Unfortunately, by then it was too late for her to retake the advancement tests and she didn't move on to first grade.
This game has real consequences, and she's lived through those consequences... But she still plays this effing game! And it drives. me. Batty. BATTY! So batty, in fact, that I refused to take the bracelet from her. Through clenched teeth, I said as calmly as I could, "You know I don't like this game... No, you know what? I hate this game!"
Now, normally, we don't say "hate" in our house, so Middle gasped. I wasn't supposed to say that! I was breaking a rule!
But I didn't care. "I hate this game so, so much. I hate it. There's no other way to say it. I hate it, and I don't want this bracelet because you are playing the game. I couldn't be happy if I wore that, because I'd be wearing something I hate. So here," I said, handing the bracelet back to her. "Go find something else to do, please."
"You don't want my gift?" she asked.
"I don't want that gift, no."
"But it says that I love you!" she yelled.
I looked at her, steady. "No. It doesn't." She smiled. I seethed. "I need you to go do something else. Away from me. Please."
I know, I know... Big therapeutic parenting no-no. Heck, probably even just a "normal" parenting no-no... I mean, who refuses a handmade gift from a child, right?
Well... Me. I did. I do.
You see, that misspelled bracelet wasn't a gift... It was a physical manifestation of her strikingly developed ability to manipulate her environment. It was an I'm-going-to-try-to-upset-you-so-I-am-in-control-of-you nongift. She and I both knew it wasn't a token of affection, and she knew that I knew that. The jig was up.
Middle stomped off and I continued folding the laundry or whatever I was doing at the time. She was mad because I didn't take the bracelet and because she got caught playing the game that I hate.
I expected her to meltdown over my rejection of her gift, but instead, Middle came back to me a few minutes later. She stood near me, nervous, silent, and I tried to ignore her. When she started picking at her fingers and chewing on her lips, I sighed. "WHAT?" I demanded.
"Close your eyes?"
"If you put that bracelet back into my hand and it's still a big spelling mess, I'm going to get upset."
"Please?" she asked.
I took a deep breath and did as she asked, fully expecting to find a fresh set of mangled, mishmashed letters. But when I opened my eyes, I saw that she'd redone the bracelet with correct spelling.
"I LOVE YOU," said the bracelet.
It took me a few seconds before I could respond to her gift - a real gift. A gift she made me of her own volition. A gift she made me because she loves me.
My face went hot again, but I was fighthing back tears of joy - not frustration or anger. I flushed as I pulled her in for a quick hug and a kiss on the crown of her head. "Thank you. I love it," I said. "And I love you. And I'm never taking this bracelet off."
"Really?" she asked.
"Really."
"Never?"
"Never ever."
"Promise?"
"I promise."
"What about at the wedding?"
"I'm even going to wear it at the wedding!"
- I said what I meant and I meant what I said.
Middle beamed. "I love you, Mommy."
Be still, my heart.
This little piece of jewelry means the world to me, and I meant to keep my promise.
But... I broke my promise at the BeTA retreat.
As I've mentioned, I had boudoir photos taken during the retreat. When I got "into position" for the pictures, my friend asked if I wanted to take off my bright-colored jewelry.
"No - I never take this bracelet off. I know it doesn't really go with the lingerie, but I promised I'd never take it off."
"Okay, it still looks good! Just wanted to check," she said. "Ready?"
"Wait. I should take these off," I said as I removed my ATN NATA Day bracelet and the gift from Middle. symbols of our traumatized children and the attachment trauma that rules our roost removed them from my wrist. "Don't want anything detracting from the intention of these pictures after all!" I tossed my bracelets into a corner, and proceeded to have an awesome time acting like a pinup model and feeling great about my body and myself. "No one will know I took it off right?" I smiled my sexiest smile and looked into the eye of the camera. "I'm ready!"
The photo shoot lasted about fifteen minutes, then I got dressed and moved on to my next scheduled activity for the day.
Several hours (and glasses of wine later), my photographer friend sent me a picture of my bracelets. "Are these yours?"
"OH MY GOD WHERE ARE YOU???" I yelled at no one. I tore out of the house and ran to the location of the photo shoot. I ran faster and longer than I have in years, in tears, imagining the devastation on Middles face if I'd returned home without her gift on my wrist, berating myself for forgetting about the bracelet - for forgetting about Middle!
I found my friend and hugged her with all my might. "I can't believe I left that here," I said, panting, sliding my jewelry back onto my wrist. "Thank you so much. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I'd lost this!"
I walked back to my BeTA house, shaking, and my friends helped me calm down. "You're a good mom," someone said. "You really love your daughter."
I took a shaky breath and smiled. "I do, huh?"
And there you have it. The most important lesson I learned on the BeTA retreat.
*****************************************************************
I know my hysteria over almost losing the bracelet is a little bonkers - I mean, I didn't really lose it, right? Getting so crazy over what turned out to be nothing is a little overblown. However, this bracelet is not just a cute thing one of my kids made that I wear out of obligation - it is one of my most prized possessions because, in my mind, it exists as tangible proof that Middle loves me, and I need that hard-evidence to remind myself that she does love me... Because that's a hard thing to remember sometimes, when she so often acts in unkind and unloving ways and her expressions of love look so different than what I'm used to.
This bracelet is more than a piece of bright-colored plastic jewelry. It's a symbol of her love for me, and it sustains me through the RAD-torture-tactics she engages in every. single. day.
And now, after almost coming unglued when I realized I'd completely forgotten to put it back on, the bracelet reminds me that I love her, too.
This is an important lesson, because when you have kids with attachment problems who are still struggling to heal from early-childhood trauma, it's so easy to question your feelings toward them because it is so often hard to love kids who don't bond to you in the way you'd expect. Like this bracelet incident, when kids with RAD engage in acts of love, those acts are often tempered with manipulation or deceit, or they engage in negative behaviors immediately after doing something loving, or they just flat-out say they don't love us in a way that differs from the typical experimentation kids test out at their age. It's heartbreaking, exhausting, and has me constantly questioning whether acts of kindness from Middle and Little are real or if they are just trying to score a point or two to their advantage.
And I know that sounds awful. And I know that if you aren't intimately involved with children "from hard places" you probably can't understand the suspicion that wells up inside me when my kids engage in sweet-on-the-surface behavior.
I love my kids. All of my kids. And that lesson really came home for me during the BeTA retreat.
I started writing this blog post over a month ago - while I was still at the retreat. I intended it to be the very first post in this little series about the BeTA retreat.
Yet this is the last post in the series... And the positioning of this post doesn't have anything to do with "saving the best for last."
This is the last post because it has been the hardest topic to write about. And it's been hard to write about because the negative RAD behaviors started up again a mere two days after I returned from Orlando, and sometimes it is so hard to love my kids who try their best (and sometimes succeed) to hide behind their damn-near-intolerable behaviors.
There have been times when I've allowed myself to ruminate and wallow in the negative feelings that crop up from time to time, when I've questioned my ability to mother my kids with trauma issues, when I've asked myself, "Do I love these kids? Can I love these kids? Will I love them if they hurt Oldest or if they hurt me?"
When your little ones repeatedly break the same rules 1,375,226 times every day, lie to your face without flinching, manipulate your other children into engaging in questionable behavior, repeatedly try to hurt your pet, or falsely accuse you of abusing them, you question your feelings toward your children.
When your kid throws up at will to get out of things he doesn't want to do (Little has done this twice... and he's only six!), and you're stuck cleaning up on-purpose vomit over and over again, you question your feelings toward your child.
When your child attempts to engage in inappropriate sexual behavior with you and you lash out, you question your feelings toward your child.
When you have to disrupt an adoption or even have to think about disruption, you question your feelings toward your child.
When your child hurts others and is punished by the law, you question your feelings toward your child.
When your child wants to kill you and your other children, when your child tries to kill you and your other children, you question your feelings toward your child.
When you read a book like this, you question your feelings toward your child.
Husband and I are lucky in that Middle and Little's trauma issues aren't as severe as Beth Thomas's - even though they can get violent, we usually don't deal with pre-meditated violence. But her demeanor and facial expressions? Dead ringer for Middle.
We're also are hopeful because that little girl up there? The little one who frightened people all across the nation when this documentary aired?
She managed to heal and lives a productive life as an adult. She has a website, but I can't link it here as I do not agree with the some of the of attachment therapy methods she promotes (coerced holding, for one).
Even though the methods used with Ms. Thomas are controversial and not recommended anymore, that doesn't change the fact that she healed through intensive treatment and love.
Love.
In the past, I've called myself Lady Tremaine and beat myself up over being a "bad stepmother." I used to think that if I could adopt them as my own (I can't btw... BioMom still has some access to them; her rights have not been terminated), that I'd be a better mom to them, that I'd "think of them just like my own kids" like I hear so many adoptive parents espouse. I used to think - and still think from time to time - that I'm just not cut out for this, that I am not built to endure this kind of love.
But at the BeTA retreat, I learned that all trauma parents question themselves, their motives, their intentions. I also learned that most parents - but especially trauma parents - aren't imagining me as a wicked stepmother... Because I don't see any of my fellow trauma parents as wicked anything. No. I see so many loving, caring people trying their very best to save children who were hurt early on in their lives.
We love our kids. We love them through the yuck and the ick and the fear and the anger and the sadness. And our love, our love... sometimes, our love is enough to bring them out of their chaotic, sabotaging behaviors so we can love them through the happy, too.
You don't know what "unconditional love" really means until you meet a trauma parent or a parent whose child has engaged in unthinkable behavior.
I love my kids.
And I'm so glad I do.
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