Totally not on topic: I definitely had the dress that the girl on the bottom left hand side is wearing. Oh, oh, the 80s.

My adult daughter was nominated clubber of the year after 6th grade AWANA by the staff. I stood there with my mouth agape in stunned silence. She had killed animals, painted with feces, hurt our other children, destroyed property, etc..

I've been very fortunate in having a totally supportive extended family (on my side at least). While there are some members who think, "Why doesn't X just behave?" even they know there is often more to it than that. I don't know how I would cope without that support. Even our karate instructors 'get it.' (They are so awesome with special needs kids!)

"...they would fix anything that was broken and live happily ever after"

Walking in our shoes? I don't think so. Most people would last about an hour or so.

The first thing I saw in the picture was the baby in the infant seat. She's obviously adopted and WHY isn't MOM holding her!?! Okay, moving on...

Living in a loving home with a family IS the least restrictive environment. And if that family is providing the tight structure and safety the child needs, then that is meeting "best interest"--I know, preaching to the choir. If we could just discover the magic words needed to convey this to those on the "outside"....

Thank you Nancy for addressing this. The response of many family members was only added pain and stress in an already impossible situation.We actually had all three of my brothers demanding that they have a chance to parent my (RAD,FAS)daughter. Completely disregarding the extensive research and self education we had done, the therapies we had sought out, the theraputic parenting we had to do, and the damage this child was inflicitng on our family, especially the other children. They only saw that we "treated her differently", and "just didn't love her enough". They assured us that our other kids, (who were stressed to their limits) were just fine.
The most unbelievable part was that they declined to read the well researched material that I sent to them,the extensive evaluations of this child by leading specialists, or respond to anything I had to say about the overwhelming challenges involved in parenting this child that would quickly overwhelm their (nonexistent)resources. Their mantra was, "we love her, we know she will do well with US" (meaning I clearly wasn't capable of parenting this child). Interestingly, my sisters totally "got it", and were completely supportive.

I am so blessed to have siblings who know that one really great part of my personality is that I am honest. I can also be too confrontational at times and not very patient, but I am honest. When I told them how bad things had gotten with our wounded child, they completely believed the truth of the situation, despite it being so hard to hear or to tell. And, surprise of all surprises, my MIL who has been a lot of trouble for DH and me and no small source of several very heated discussions through the years, actually supports us in whatever we decide to do about our current unliveable situation with wounded child. We knew she had some mental health issues, but to hear her very valid assessment of the situation gave me an ally when I was expecting a good, hard kick. God truly does work in very mysterious ways.

Julie, your post is creepily familiar. While my wounded child was acting bizarre and volatile, and after he had left our home via an intervention team, he memorized Scripture (Psalm 1) to get a toolbox and later stood up in front of the church and gave a "testimony" of how great teen camp was and how he had made a personal decision to accept Jesus. I so wish he was real in this, but I saw through his acting. He was giving everyone at church the show he was sure they wanted. Fast forward to less than a week later, and he was making demeaning, hurtful, personal comments to me in the therapist's office, including a threat to shove a cup down my throat, an attack on my personal appearance, and a comment that he hoped I'd be happy when I died. He was also belligerent to my husband over a very simple request.

Maybe only RAD moms can get why I felt sick to my stomach as he stood at the front of the church and declared his decision. People came up to me afterwards and mentioned how glad I must feel. I did not take the high road then. I said, "Well, maybe if he apologizes, says he will show common respect in our home, follow the simple known rules, and clean the horrible message he wrote on his bedroom floor, maybe I'll believe in his genuine conversion." I still can't believe I said that, but I was so upset at his strange Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde stuff. Even writing this makes me feel mean, less than forgiving, and coldhearted. I really am none of those things, but I am having such a hard time processing that our son really has chosen not to be a part of our family and to do whatever it takes to make that so. It is obvious that we cannot live this way, that he can barely stand being in the same room with me. He can't stay where he is right now forever. Something has to give. And I still cannot process that if we had been less involved, less concerned, less nurturing, he would have done better with us. Man!

Otherteresa, I will pray for you in your hurt. I am so sorry that others in your family are not getting it. I had a colleague at my school tell me to "be open" to my wounded child's list of complaints against us. It hurts when others point the finger or assume that we have not been good parents. And I was so supportive of this other teacher, even when I knew she dropped the ball here and there with my child. I just picked up the pieces and said nothing, trying to be the best parent I could and to not be overly critical. It hurts a lot when we have been GREAT parents. I'm not saying perfect, I'm saying very involved, trying to find solutions, searching for therapists that will give us a clue as to what to do, etc. It hurts so much when nothing has helped and people think we haven't given it a good shot. But hearing your pain and concerns makes me feel, too, that we are NOT alone. Please remember that. You are NOT alone. There are some on this blog who DO know the crazy world you are in. It's not you. Don't you dare take the blame for this -- turn that energy into time with your other children. That's what has been working for me. Our other little guy is doing GREAT. He loves me! He loves Dad! And he loves himself!

Sorry to go on and on, but this blog really helps me to deal with the very big bushel of grief I have surrounding me today. I took the entire week off. Little dude was at camp this week, and I slept in, vegged in front of the computer and t.v., and just plain took time to try to sort through things.

Thanks, Mabel03. Only the conviction that I HAD to do what was right for ALL my children has helped me get through this. It might have been easier in the short term to cave in to uninformed family members demands, but that wouldn't have been the right thing for my affected child, or for their children. I never knew until this that my dedication, honesty, education, high level of committment, etc. meant nothing, that I ranked so low in their estimation.

"Both of my sister-in-laws and my sister were convinced if they had Amy for just a few weeks or for the summer, they would fix anything that was broken and live happily ever after. My sister backed off pretty quickly when I suggested the summer was not long enough to know the real experience of parenting my daughter … but if she wanted to hold Amy’s hand throughout an entire school year, telling her to bath and following her around to complete herschoolwork … well, then we’d talk. She backpeddled pretty quickly."

The back peddling in our family occured when my sister began caring for her DH's niece, also dx with RAD. I actually rec'd an apology from her, and it was such a weight lifted. They always thought we were so hard on DS and our foster son (whose placement with us was disrupted).

Family support, true understanding is invaluable--but rare unless they've had the experience firsthand.

We are experiencing a great deal of sadness right now with one of our grown children who has accused us of "hating" our RAD and "shopping around" for a diagnosis. In the years since the adoption, we have shared with our adult child our frustrations and difficulties we've experience trying to parent our RAD. Little did I know that it would end up being thrown back in my face in the way of criticism, etc. I wish that I had kept my frustration to myself. The sadness I'm feeling now is overwhelming.

Lindy, I think I know your sadness or at least a little of it. We have come to the sad realization that in order to keep me safe and alive, to sustain a strong marriage, and to provide a good influence and nurturing atmosphere for our other child, we are probably going to have to dissolve this adoption. We cannot force wounded child to be in our home if he is determined not to. We cannot make him love us. I wish we could.

I know that some might flame me again for even thinking of dissolving the relationship. The bottom line for me is that I know in my heart that he will do ANYTHING to not have to deal with the fact that we love him. Anything. I am willing to give time, effort, love, money -- but not my life. If that makes me a bad person in anyone's eyes, that is just a sad commentary on the fact that they do not truly know the life we have been living for months now. So Lindy, I went off on a rabbit trail, but I just want you to know that I understand your level of pain. We've already gotten our fair share of sideways glances when wounded child is so charming and normal-acting at church.

Otherteresa, you are so, so right in stating you thought all that you had to offer would be enough. I also had a very deep committment to building a family through adoption. I love being a mom. But all that we poured into this relationship has not been enough. We, too, thought it would be, but RAD is a whole different world than what most bio parents can understand.

Sorry if I'm rambling. I had to take a sleeping pill to assure sleep tonight, again. I will also lock the bedroom door, even though wounded child is not here. Oh, and I never did put the breakables into the curio cabinet and the knives are still all hidden away. I guess you could say the effect our wounded child has had on me run even deeper than I realize. Next month I am planning to start taking a self-defense course. Yep. I am that afraid.

Oh, I feel so sad seeing the comments, but I totally understand. I can't seem to hit home how difficult this really is, how it is not our daughter's fault she has RAD, and we are working our hardest to help heal her. I think others would be more understanding and compassionate if she had cancer, at least that they would not blame that on us as poor parenting, and they might feel some compassion for both us and our daughter. If only they knew how their compassion (not critisism) would help!

This is not along the same lines as the thread, but it is something I really need to know. Our child was not very demonstrative at all with his affection or emotions, and there were a few signs of issues, but nothing that seemed over the top. Then, over the course of just a week he went from a child who was doing schoolwork at the diningroom table with me to this screaming, volatile, threatening, nasty, demeaning monster. Nothing happened in this week that was extraordinary. Could it be hormones, since he is a 'tween? Could that have escalated everything overnight? Are we the only ones to have such a quick downward spiral or have others had this experience?

I have a son who is adopted and has ADHD, BD, ODD, RAD, and we just found out is bipolar. It has been an extremely hard struggle and it's gotten to the point where our love for him isn't enough and due to charges brought on by the state, our son is currently living in a mental health facility trying to get the help he so desperately needs. My family actually doesn't have anything to do with us because they don't see the 'whole picture' and feel that we just don't want our son living in our home with us, which is as far away from the truth as it can get. It hurts so much that our son isn't living with us, but there isn't anything we can do about it. We go visit and call as much as we can, but it's like he doesn't care if we are there, but mad if we aren't there or when we leave. I totally understand what everyone feels and is going through who has a child with RAD and it is something that unless you have been through it, you can't understand what it is like. My friends support me as much as they can, but they just don't get it because they haven't experienced it. My parents also think that if our son goes to live with them for a couple of weeks, that they can 'solve the problem' and they also don't believe in being 'thumbs done' with strict rules and choices due to his behaviors and that's he's just being a boy. I have never been on such an emotional roller coaster in my life, but regardless of whether my son is able to come back home with us or has to stay where he is at, he's always going to be my son and giving up is not in our vocabulary.

Mabel, I'm so glad to know that I'm not the only one who recognizes when the child is putting on 'the act that everyone else wants to see'. Our son has done that constantly with the grandparents and they have never seen him in his explosive behaviors and think that we are just over-reacting. It took over a month of our son being in the mental health facility before they even saw the behaviors that we were talking about because he could only put on 'his act' for so long before exploding. Up until that point, everyone was looking at us (police included) like we were blowing everything out of porportion and just didn't know how to parent. Our son (11) was/is your classic case of Jekyll and Hyde... all happy go lucky one minute and then we had to call the cops because he got so out of control over having to wait his turn to brush his teeth and put a huge hole in the wall of his bedroom, tore down the curtains, overturned his bed,threatening to kill us, etc. Knowing that you feel the way you do has helped me because I have the same emotions that you have expressed. I feel horrible describing my son to people because it does sound like you are describing a monster, but I know how sweet and loving he can really be. It hurts severely that my son is hurting and my love for him isn't enough to 'fix the problem'. The hardest thing I've had to do as a parent was stand before the judge and tell the judge our son could not come home until he got the help that he needed. We had to call the cops four times within five weeks to have our son removed due to his violent behaviors towards us and having to have the police take bruises that were left on me and see the hair that my son pulled out of my head. It is hard to realize that it is not our (parents) fault and I still have to be reminded of that at times, especially when I have my parents blaming me and accusing me and belittling me because of what has taken place and that is one of the reasons we are not having any contact with my parents at this time. I have everyone else telling me that we have done everything we could and we are still supporting our son, but my parents don't get it. The fact that our daughter is still home with us and doesn't have the same issues should say something and I have to remind myself of that almost on a daily basis. Our son was 7 when we got him and he didn't even know what the word no was. As hard as it is for him to not to be home with us, we know that we are doing what we have to do. We stress to our son that we love him, we are not going to give up on him, and regardless of whether he chooses to stay where he is or come home where he belongs is up to him, but he's always going to be our son. We can't fix this for him and we'll do anything to help him, but he has to be willing to meet us half way and he doesn't want to do that. So, we've told him that this is the life he's choosing for himself and we still love him, but our life will go on and we aren't going to do without or not do something because he isn't with us. The emotional roller coaster can be completely overwhelming at times knowing that our child is hurting and not living with us, but we have to remind ourselves that it is not anything we did or didn't do and lean on people who have and are walking in our shoes. I would be happy to let anyone have my email address and let you lean on me as much as you need to. That's the only way we will get through is is by leaning on each other. Mabel, if you decide to dissolve the adoption, it does NOT make you a bad person and you can't let anyone, including yourself, make you think that. You have to do what is best for you and the rest of your family. Just be sure to really pray about it before making a decision. Having been through this and still going through it with our son, I could see where you would want to dissolve. Please let me know what you decide. I understand your fear and wanting to take a self defense class. I never slept well at all when our son was home for fear of him getting up. He was mad at one point and got a kitchen knife and went outside and slashed all four tires on the lawn mower, and then filled the gas tank and oil crank up with rocks, dirt, and water, so who's to say he wouldn't have come at one of us one night with a knife? Our son was extremely loving and then when the state pressed charges for stealing, he has totally cut off any and all affection we try to give him, but yet, will wake himself up during the night to get hugs and love from the lady that works the night shift.