RAD Wedding Planning... Or... How I lost my mind.

Husband and I are having our wedding ceremony in less than two weeks.

LESS THAN TWO WEEKS, YOU GUYS!

We were legally married earlier this year, but couldn't have the ceremony at that time. Now the big day is just around the corner!

Anyone who has a blended family knows that this is a challenging experience even under the best of circumstances. Now take the "normal difficulties" and "normal emotional conflicts" kids with divorced parents have when one of those parents remarries... And multiply them by A HUNDRED BILLION BAZILLION... And you may have an accurate idea of how bonkers things are getting around here, especially with Middle.

When you add in a phone call from bio mom to all the wedding excitement, you get a dysregulated Little and a nearly apoplectic Middle. This was the first phone call in a month. Middle asked to call her mom, and it just so happened that it was her mom's birthday (we knew this because bio mom sent about 20 texts the day before demanding access to them via telephone because it was HER birthday and "all she wanted" was to talk to HER kids... Middle probably didn't know this unless her hypervigilant observation skills are WAY more advanced than Husband and I realized).

And of course after Middle learned it was her mom's birthday she made a card... But we can't send said card because bio mom has moved yet again and we don't have the address... And making that card was so sweet, but probably reminded her that she got nothing from bio mom for her birthday last month... Which probably reminded her that she hasn't really gotten much at all since we got custody of her and Little...

And so on.

There's a lot of excitement going on. And when there is a lot of excitement, kids with traumatic backgrounds often interpret that excitement as a threat. Which means Middle is absolutely losing her mind.

Saturday night, she hit Little in the testicles. Sunday morning, she briefly trapped my cat and terrorized him while no one was looking, called attention to the fact that she terrorized the cat because no one noticed she had just engaged in domestic animal terrorist tactics, and then triangulated Husband and I against each other for a very brief moment (he was convinced she hadn't done anything to the cat, I was convinced she had), and then when things calmed down she copped up to being mean to the cat... I couldn't tell if she was just trying to rile everything up again or not, but by the time she admitted to what she'd done, I was calm enough to ensure things stayed placid around here, thankfully.

She's also had some bathroom issues, been staring at me with "THE FACE" on almost nonstop, refusing to sleep, and doing weird things with her clothes again (she hid her uniform this morning, she is putting dirty underwear into her clean underwear drawer and clean clothes into the dirty clothes basket, there's a new hole in one of her pairs of pants and one of her blankets, etc).

This morning, the hidden uniform fiasco resulted in some very impressive orchestrated chaos... But I take the blame on that one.  I completely overreacted when she said she couldn't find her uniform. But it wasn't even 6 a.m. yet, damn it, and I'm tired.

And don't think for one minute that Oldest is just sailing along smoothly throughout this crazy time. Oh nononono. Her behavior regressed quite a bit this weekend as well, and we had to separate her and Little on many occasions because she was being WAY too handsy with him. She also progressed in age, apparently, because she was TOTALLY acting like a teenager when I asked her to do things or tried to talk to her. That, or she lost her hearing suddenly because she pretty much ignored everything I said to her unless I was talking about food.

SO! I may not be around too much until the wedding confetti settles. I missed "Silly Sunday" yesterday, and don't really have too much time to write. I am working on a lil' piece called "Airing Dirty Laundry" that goes over the importance of sharing our experiences with others, but by "working on," I really mean "I've come up with an idea and I haven't written a frigging thing, but I have every intention on doing so."

I'm also working on a blog that I hope explains why normal consequences and rewards don't work so well with kids who've experienced trauma... There are actually words written down for that one, so that will probably come before the "laundry" post.

Anywho... since publishing with The Mighty my readership has increased exponentially, and people I don't know pop in here now and again, I figured I should offer a brief heads up that I probably won't get much accomplished with writing until after this whole wedding shindig wraps up. I'll try to get some stuff written and posted, but no promises on seeing anything from me until the middle of October.

See you then!

The Trauma-Parent Initiation Process

This post is also available at my new website Trauma Mama Drama.  If you enjoy reading my blog, remember to update your feeds, emails and bookmarks with the new link, because eventually I will only post updates on the new site's blog.

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1) You notice your kids acting strange, but you can’t describe what you’re seeing.

I remember explaining the behavior of Middle and Little as "slightly off... somehow."

Photo: Reaction Gifs

When I tried to describe the "adult-like" behavior from Middle, the manipulative clingy-ness of little, and the complete and utter lack of remorse and empathy displayed by both of them, I kept thinking of Macaulay Culkin's performance in The Good Son. 

Who thinks about children like this?! I asked myself. I'm worse than Cinderella's step-mother!

2) Your go-to-parenting methods seem ludicrously ineffective...

Photo: Meme Generator for Android

Sticker charts, consequences, time-outs, taking away toys or privileges and even spanking don't work with traumatized kids. Emotions run too high, manipulation skills are too adept, and triggers are too near the surface for punishments to be effective. 

… So you create an incredibly long list of extremely detailed (and ridiculous) rules.

We enforce normal household rules like no running inside and no hitting... But we also have a long list of rules that sound super-controlling, like, "You must ask before sitting on the couch. No pretending you're animals. No saying, 'I just,' 'actually,' 'how about,' or 'really.'" 

Like I said... Ridiculous.

3) You turn to friends and family for help, but they don’t understand. They think you're too strict…

"Your kids have to ask to sit on the couch? They can't play animals? They can't say normal words?!"

Photo: BuzzFeed

… Or not strict enough.

Photo: Corpun.com

Husband was raised in the South with a chronically sore behind, so we get this one a lot. We have tried some "authoritarian punishments"... but they accomplished nothing and usually made things worse. This makes sense, if you think about it. Spanking, isolating, or otherwise harshly punishing a traumatized child doesn't work for the same reason pointing guns at combat veterans with PTSD doesn't work.

4) You isolate yourself from friends and family and over-impose on your kids’ teachers and therapists.

I rarely call my best friend or my mother, but in the last 365 days I've written 212 emails to our primary family therapist, 147 to Middle's kindergarten teacher, and at least 50 to the caseworkers at Little's day treatment facility. 

5) Everything falls apart.

Photo: Gifstumbler

I left graduate school shortly after we got custody of Middle and Little. My kids were engaging in creepy behavior and I couldn't care about William Godwin's relationship with Mary Wollstonecraft. The army honorably discharged Husband because the kids' needs conflicted with his military commitment. Then we enrolled my stepson in a day-therapy program that requires parental attendance, and neither of us could do anything to bring in income. Things have been really hard financially, and much more difficult socially, than we ever anticipated.

6) Then, one day, you get the right diagnosis and everything finally makes sense.

Panic Disorder. Complex-PTSD. Dissociative Identity Disorder. Reactive Attachment Disorder. When you finally get the right diagnosis, it's awesome and terrifying and you cry a little (or a lot).

7) You find others who “get it,” and you start putting the pieces of your life back in place.

Billy Kaplan (therapist) and Christine Moers (Parent) (see above) are my personal favorites. Husband is the biggest support for me, but I could not do this without their services and support.

8) You find a parenting method that works for your family, and things start to get better.

We like the SPACE method put forth by Billy Kaplan, which builds upon the Daniel Hughes's PACE method. It stands for "Safety, Stability and Support + Playful, Accepting, Curious and Empathic." There are a TON of methods for working with kids with trauma issues and eventually, you find a method that fits your groove.

9) You start to see the bright side of your kids’ trauma-behaviors… Maybe Little will be an actor with his uncanny ability to mask his emotions. Maybe Middle will be an attorney with her amazing debate skills. Or maybe they will be CEOs with their super-duper "strong wills."

… And cling to signs of progress with a death grip. On days I feel hopeless, I look back at journal entries, FB posts, and pictures from two years ago. We have made a ton of progress in all areas. Their behaviors are more "normal," and their physical appearance shows how we've helped them heal from the sad effects of neglect.

10) At times it will be hard to love your kids, but you keep trying... 

Rejecting a caring, attentive parent's love is the cornerstone symptom of attachment issues or disorders that can develop after early-childhood trauma, so we are more likely to experience "negative behavior" when the kids feel safe and happy.  This is extremely hard to deal with, and even harder to understand.

And sometimes, on really good days, if you're really lucky... 

... They let you love them.