Sunday, July 12, 2009

The Turning Point of my struggle against R.A.D.

"I appreciate your efforts to galvanize this large and mostly silent group to take action and educate others about living with RAD. Best of luck to you.One question, how did you finally break through from being a sufferer to an outspoken warrior? What helped you heal? Please share this important information. Thank you." (Thatwouldbeme)

Dear All,

Thank you, "Thatwouldbeme" for your very kind comments. Whenever someone writes to me, I try to write back as quickly as I can. The way I see it, you have taken time out of your day to write to silly little me, so I should take the time to write back to you!

The turning point? Honestly, I cannot honestly cannot say there was one contributing factor that was a turning point in my war against R.A.D. It was a multitude of different things. Any adult or child that is suffering from Reactive Attachment Disorder has a very hard battle to fight. The very connections that we want and that we need in our lives are our very downfall.

When I was younger, my shock tactics, my abuses, drug addiction, stealing, lying and fire starting literally pushed everyone away. Who would want to love a child with blood on his hands? While I craved attention, affection and companionship I also detested it's very concept. So it was a double sided blade.

If you remember from previous posts, I sank so low as a child, I literally thought I was the devil himself. I could get away with anything (in my young mind) because not only was I already dead, everything I did was anti-social in nature. It was easy to get slammed on huffing paint thinner, killing animals or hurting others. It was scarily too easy.

As I grew older, all of those vices and behaviors carried over in my adulthood. I was a 12 year old kid in a 27 year old's body. Relationships with women were completely sexual in nature only. Any woman that tried to get close to me I would turn away for one reason or another. In many cases stemming from my own sexual abuse issues themselves, I loved sex with women and I hated it. Another double sided blade.

Of course drinking and drug use in my life was overpoweringly prevalent. When I wasn't drunk or high trying my best to erase the devilish part of me, I was lying in a complete state of depression and self loathing. I never left my house, my shades were drawn and I tried suicide one too many times. I wasn't a person anymore, just a blob doing nothing with my life. The worst part of that? I didn't care and it bothered me that I didn't care. "Why couldn't I be like everyone else?" I would ask myself as I drew a knife across my arm.

I used everyone I could for anything I could. Whether it was paying for rent, food, booze you name it, I would. I was a master at lying and manipulating. I worked odd jobs here and there but found no solace in working for other people (In fact, to this day I have vowed NEVER to work for someone else again) and each job I had I would either quit or sabotage.

My adoptive parents supported me through this whole time but even their patience for there mentally screwed up adoptive son was beginning to wane.

I wrote all of that in response to you to set the scene up below.

It took me meeting my birth parents and completing my family research to finally ground myself in some kind of connection to the world. I had to feel connected to the world in one way or another. Now that I had a connection to my families history, I felt that I now belonged on the planet earth.

Another turning point was my "Walk For Adoption" that was a 3 day event. I literally WALKED from Cincinnati to Dayton, Ohio to raise awareness for R.A.D. and adoption. It was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. I felt that because I was adopted in Dayton which started the train wreck of my entire life, I had to walk "home" and close that part of my life. I trained for six months of my life every day in prep for the walk. When I started the walk, my brain told me "Your going to quit, you cannot make it'. That voice stayed with me for about 15 miles, but I shut it out.

I believe to this day, that walk provided me with the necessary self confidence of doing something that alot of people couldn't or wouldn't do.

Another turning point (And probably the biggest one) is that I simply had to accept my life for what it was. It was no one's fault that I turned out to be the piece of shit I was. I was a bad person not because of my actions but because I was not contributing to society at all. I was simply here. I had to accept and swallow the fact that I was really messed up. Instead of trying to mourn over my ENTIRE LIFE, I realized I had gone through what I did for one reason:

To help others.

Now, I have dedicated my life to sharing event the most vulgar, pathetic, scary, violent and saddest of times with the world through my advocacy program, my blog and my newly created online community (http://www.rad-online.com) I know, shameless plug, sorry!

If there is anything that I have learned from struggling with RAD for 25 years is that mourning my past and acting out because of it isn't helping anyone, myself included.

My struggles, I conclude are best utilized with the education of others, sharing other people's trials, and being a shoulder to listen to those trials. If I never make another penny in my life, that's fine. Knowing however that I may potentially educate and alleviate another adult, child or family from the perils of R.A.D. I have paid back the community I did my best to destroy.

Sincerely,

Michael

2 comments:

Adelaide Dupont said...

Um, not contributing to society didn't make you a bad person.

RADOnline said...

In my eyes it did! ;-) But let's agree to disagree! :) :)

Thank you for reading my blog!! :-)