Late yesterday morning my husband, Beth and I hauled ourselves out of bed after only climbing in bed at 7 AM… after driving all night home from a wedding 600 miles away. We had a graduation to celebrate! We arrived at the large sports stadium downtown to watch Julie, our foreign exchange student, walk with 356 classmates to the unmistakable sounds of Pomp and Circumstance.

We had barely entered the building when suddenly Amy is standing right in front of us. She had opted to not even attend class for the past month of... more

I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all your comments and support about this dilemma. I really do. I have been pondering all day the comment about how I really was just looking for a magic bullet—some solution that would feel good rather than the lesser of two evils. How many times I have dealt with parents who are contemplating disruption and I tell them, “Either way you go, you won’t like your decision!” There just aren't any magic bullets, are there?

At... more

My blood pressure is about double right now and I need some feedback. Let me explain…

Tonight was our foreign exchange student’s choir show. Julie did a great job and I was there to videotape and watch the senior class’s special tribute. After the show, everyone headed to the foyer to connect up with their students. Who should spy me first but Amy? Amy was there for a friend of hers… a girl she met last spring semester when Amy attended school. In fact, Amy spent a month with this girl’s family when her time with... more

This series could go on forever as I respond to reader’s comments, and perhaps even more significantly, because I suspect it will take me forever to personally process this whole “relationship” with Amy.

One reader wanted to know why I thought so many people want to deny that adoptees have some tough issues to face. I think there are several reasons for that…

First and foremost, I think a significant number of people in general go to great lengths to avoid facing tough issues. I have no idea what... more

A reader commented about how more people are speaking out about mental illness in adoptees…how I wasn’t a lone voice any more. It doesn’t give me a warm, fuzzy feeling to be “recognized” as the voice in the wilderness… I’d much rather be known for something more positive. But I guess God had a plan for bringing me the kids He did.

I want it to be clearly understood that I don’t believe mental health issues are unique to adoptees or adoptive families! I believe any family living with a person who has an emotional disturbance... more

This morning as Beth was waiting for the neighbor to pick her up for school, she was hanging out in my office. My blog, and the last picture I posted of Amy, was displayed on my computer. She said, “Who’s that?” When I told her it was Amy she was shocked, and she commented on what a pouty face Amy wore. I scrolled down and displayed the rest of the recent pictures, and Beth asked, “Did Amy ever smile?” I said, “Sometimes, but it was…”

“Fake?” Beth filled in the blank even as I was speaking.

Beth was amazed that Amy would realize I was... more

Another reader questions whether if Amy had been a bio child, would her actions/attitude been diagnosed as a mental illness? The fact is, RAD is a mental illness. It is an emotional and/or brain wiring response to trauma. And there is a huge genetic component to Amy’s response as well. She is, by all accounts, not dissimilar from her birth mother.

And it is also a fact that we treated her mental illness. We tried multiple therapists, multiple medications, multiple other therapeutic interventions. Operating on... more

Starting part four of this series, a reader asks if Amy ever smiled. The answer would be yes, on rare occasions, but they often seemed fake and shallow to the rest of us. And her laugh was often forced or offered up at inappropriate times. I understand she didn’t feel what we feel, didn’t know when to laugh, hadn’t a clue about how to engage emotionally with anyone. I “get it” that she can’t do something she isn’t equipped to do. Talking to Nancy Ashe about how she felt (or more appropriately how she didn’t feel), how she “performed” her... more

Amy could make a control battle out of anything… and she did. She wouldn’t collect all the towels, or make her bed, or put away clothes, or wash herself, or do much of anything anyone asked. You could ignore her, get in her face, or do something in between… no change. She once spent two weeks in her room, during the summer, missing all kinds of activities, for want of doing 15 minutes of family chores. All she had to do was say, “I’d like to be a part of this family and I want to show you by ____________” and then name... more

The things I most remember about Amy early on were how controlling she was, how passive aggressive she was, and how shut down she was. Her eyes would just glaze over and you couldn’t touch her emotionally. She couldn’t selectively filter out what she didn’t want to feel so she shut down her emotions across the board.

No matter what we did, she found a reason to not like it or to complain. The week Tommy joined us, when Amy was 4, we went to Leaps & Bounds, a play area, and she didn’t like that (“too... more