Trust Issues

Sometimes the smallest things can speak volumes. In my house, the disappearance of a carrot peeler doesn’t mean that I’ve misplaced it in the wrong drawer.  It is a red flag that one of my daughters is angry.  Angry at me. Parenting a child with reactive attachment disorder (RAD.) is not easy.  Parenting is not easy, but when your child has attachment issues that result in a lack of trust, simply loving your child is often not enough. RAD is a disorder of relationships, and the root cause of the disorder is the broken mother/child relationship.  Until this basic, fundamental relationship is restored with the adoptive mother, the child will be incapable of forging normal, healthy relationships. I have spent years trying to repair my relationship… [more]

As an adoptive mother, I have always walked a fine line when discussing my daughter's birthmothers.  Both girls were given up for adoption at birth, by teenage mothers.  Elle was a first child, and Bunny has a sister that is two years older. Coming from Russia and Guatemala, it is a fair assumption that poverty was the main reason both girls were given up for adoption. As the girl's forever mom, I have tried to be ready to answer any questions the girls might have regarding their births and adoptions.  I hold nothing but gratitude to both women, because it was their ultimate sacrifice that provided me with children.  I never fail to recognize them on the… [more]

I took Bunny to therapy on Friday.  She has been in attachment therapy for a few months.  When she first started to show RAD behaviors, we thought it was because she grew up with a RAD sister.  But as her anger and negative behaviors have escalated, we are beginning to believe she is just as RAD as her sister, just a different type of RAD.  Elle started showing RAD behaviors when she was five, so it wasn’t totally unexpected, just disheartening. In last week’s session, Bunny admitted to not trusting we loved her.  Unlike Elle, Bunny can identify a wide list of emotions, and can give examples for them.  So, I wasn’t prepared when our therapist drew a heart and asked what three… [more]

Continuing with my interview with Mike O’Connor, author of Crisis, Pursued by Disaster, Followed Closely by Catastrophe: A Memoir of Life on the Run., my next question was: How do you relate trust and love? How does lack of trust affect a loving relationship? For me personally, it would kill it. Some relationships are built on lack of trust. For a proper relationship, you have to be able to trust the person completely. I think my parents loved me and I loved them, but I couldn’t trust them. It drove me away from them. When I was a smaller child and dependent on them, I was frustrated by the inconsistencies, but when I was 16, I… [more]

I mentioned in this post how I managed to find a few hours one weekend to read a book. The book I read was Crisis, Pursued by Disaster, Followed Closely by Catastrophe: A Memoir of Life on the Run. I blogged about it shortly after I finished reading it. Imagine my surprise to receive an email from the author, Mike O’Connor, a couple of days later! He had stumbled upon my blog and read my review. He stated that he was “impressed by the wisdom and depth of (my) reflections on the book.” It is certainly true that living day in and day out with trust issues can provide more depth than any of us would prefer! I thought it… [more]

As I mentioned at the end of my last post, Dora is struggling with lowering her walls and letting me in. There is an analogy I have heard for many years … apple or onion? If a child is an apple, there’s a core inside, but a peel that has to be breached before the core can be reached. If a child is an onion, it is just layer after layer of the same thing … but nothing at the core. Some folks may be offended at the analogy, but I think it is very accurate. As much as it distresses me to state it, I believe Amy is an onion. I’m not sure what is underneath the shallow façade … but at this juncture, I… [more]

Beth asked me last night while we were rocking and cuddling before bed why she had trouble maintaining eye contact sometimes. I started by telling her what my therapist friend told me when we were at the ATTACh conference last week. He and his therapy partner worked several hours with Dora, and we discussed the fact that Beth could use a “tune up.” His assessment was that Beth knew I loved her, but wasn’t sure why she was lovable. I started our conversation by addressing Beth’s losses and how those losses affect her willingness to risk vulnerability. She readily acknowledged an undercurrent of trust issues, although she is surprised to realize it somewhat extends to me. I also told her I believed a big part of… [more]

I am writing this late at night in preparation for dripping it out into cyberspace this morning. We are leaving very early in order to get to Purdue in time for me to clean up a little and then meet and greet my vet school classmates. Of course, I had to pack for me and two girls, so I tossed the packing for the Border collies to my husband! I loaded songs on the new MP3 player I bought Dora (she doesn’t know yet) so she has something to listen to when she and Beth are not watching DVDs or catching up on homework. Not to mention the fact that I am pretty wiped out from dealing with two emotional girls last night … As I mentioned… [more]

One of my readers (although she says she’s now an ex-reader) recently posted a comment that I have been mulling over this morning. She said, “If you read of Amy's history, including her life before Nancy and her genetics, to say that she chooses anything is ridiculous. She says I know what to do I just don't want to do it. Do you hear the FEAR in that statement? Probably not. I do.” If I am reading this correctly, this statement takes the fatalistic view that we have no free will, but rather are simply products of our genetics and our fears. No one should ever go to therapy, because therapy is about addressing fears and issues and roadblocks in our lives, and… [more]

There are several conferences that occur every year that I would love to present at, but finances preclude me from doing so. It costs between $500 and $1000 each time I travel somewhere to present, and the ATN budget doesn’t come close to allowing that. One of those conferences is the American Adoption Congress annual conference. I spoke there a few years ago. It is a conference that is supposedly aimed at all three members of the triad, but there are far more birthmoms and adult adoptees in attendance than there are adoptive parents. I didn’t know that, and when my workshop geared towards adoptive parents was accepted, I went to the conference expecting my usual audience. There weren’t too many adoptive… [more]