In the previous post I talked about how some families are so overwhelmed they simply can’t do anything but endure. Complicating their state of being completely overwhelmed is their unwillingness to address the “elephant in the living room” because then they would have to do something about it.


I have discussed this phenomenon with many people and there is always one example I provide that most illustrates this point.


I was scheduled to present at a particular conference one year, and several months in advance I needed to provide speaker information and other paperwork. I missed the desired deadline because of family activities like graduations and vacations and a zillion other things. So as soon as I came up for air, I called the gal in charge of collecting all my stuff. Remember, I called her …


We visited for awhile about what I needed to do for the conference. And then, sort of as an afterthought, she mused, “I have been wondering if I should take my children to a therapist …” She was so ambivalent about it, I figured the kids’ behaviors couldn’t be that critical. She had twins, a boy and a girl, adopted from Eastern Europe a couple of years previously and who were now about 5.


“What are their most difficult behaviors?” I inquired. I expected to hear lying, maybe stealing, some manipulation thrown in …


“Fire setting and hiding knives” was her response. Huh??? And she wasn’t sure if they needed therapy?


In short order I had this mom and these two kids at my home. They were two of the most disturbed kids I had ever seen. I kept the girl overnight, partially to see what she was about and partially to give mom a brief break. The child screamed non stop the entire night. She sat in my office the next day and pulled her teeth—and I don’t mean the ones ready to come out. She had a mouth full of holes already. She decided her mom wasn’t coming back for her—at least not fast enough to suit her—so she headed out the door barefoot to walk home. Trouble was, she lived a 45 minute drive away. The cops picked her up at Wal-Mart nearly a mile away… and remember, she was five years old. She was such a wild child for the cops they could only prevent her from heading out again by assuring her that her mom was on her way.


I saw this mom again at the conference, nearly six months later. In the meantime, the boy had been hospitalized. I don’t think they had accessed that many services. Mom still wore that completely overwhelmed, shell-shocked appearance… and yet she was a worker at this conference. She had more access to resources than most folks.


Did I mention that there were two other EE adoptees in that home as well? They were pre-teens at the time I interacted with this family. And a bio daughter who was, not surprisingly, getting out of Dodge as fast as she could.


I often think of this family and just ache for them… but the mom seemed incapable of doing much about her situation. I was available to her, but she never called me asking for help. I think she was just overwhelmed beyond comprehension.


Here is an article about Positive Steps for Families in Crisis.

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