Understanding isn't important. Listening is

(This is a graphic post, please use discretion reading)

A door slams shut. A crying child listens to the terrifying screaming between two adults high on meth. Dirty plates crash around the room and glass shatters on a messy floor. This child closes his eyes, screaming holding his hands to his ears, hoping to drown out the sound of hell around him. A scream from his mother opens his eyes and the door to his room is kicked open by his birthfather.

This child knows what's coming. The last time dad came into his room, the child lost 2 teeth. "What are you gonna do about it, boy?" the father screams. His sullen, drunken voice bounces off the dirty walls like the proverbial gunshot. The father pics up his son the scruff of his neck and throws him into an adjoining corner of the room. Blood runs down his now torn open chin. The father kicks him in ribs and a shot of pain leads the child to yelp the helpless cry of a boy in hell itself. The injured child curls up next to a boxed up Christmas tree that was never opened.

His mother comes bursting through the door with a gun, blood running from both of her swollen eyes. " If I cannot have him, you can't either" she musters from her bleeding, mashed mouth. The father turns around leaving his beaten son crumpled on the floor. His father turns around, and stumbles towards his wife of equal inebriation ready to end her life. Before the little boy loses consciousness, he here's a single gunshot and his father's body hitting the floor.

Your son is stomping his feet after he has just urinated all over your brand new carpet. This of course, two weeks after he tried to burn down the Christmas tree in the basement. 1 week ago, he beat up his sister and lied to his teachers about fighting with another child in school.

In your frustration, you want to yell, you want to scream. You WANT to punish. The anger in your adopted child's eyes is almost scary. You sit him down and you TELL him to talk about what is making him angry, and rightfully so. You want answers. You deserve them. You rescued this child from God knows what in his former life. For the life of you, you just cannot wrench a word from him as he continues his ranting and raving. Frustrated with your adopted child's actions, you want to cry, but the tears just seem fruitless and futile. What's the point. Your child is an enigma.

I receive alot of emails from parents shaken up, fed up, looking for help. Not even help, just a sounding board. Something to lessen the frustration from what their children are doing. Some emails I receive talk more about what their child is thinking. After a few minutes (or hours depending on the offenses) I tell the parents one thing:

Understanding isn't important as listening is.

This is something that I always preach. Think about the story that you just read about the reality of too many adopted children. How could you POSSIBLY understand or related to that kind of experience? Even if you could, what would it lead to? For closed adoptions, you may never even know what happened to your adopted child, at the very least, understanding it.
What would have my adoptive parents understood about a topless babysitter I was feeling up in my bedroom for no apparent reason when I was 6 years old? I was too young to have understood what I was doing, how would they understand it?

In my meager opinion, sometimes, it's better just to listen. I know what your going to say, "My kid doesn't talk about his/her experiences". That's fine, we can address that.

When your child is acting out in any way (Self mutilation, sexual acting out, killing, fire starting) instead of yelling, screaming or playing into the R.A.D. itself, try something different. As long as you, your family and your child are safe this procedure may work.

Diffusion:

1) Diffuse the situation as best you can. Use a soothing voice, remain calm.
2) Remember the action is based on shock tactics and or the perception of loss
3) Ask the child to remain as calm as possible.
4) Get your child to a quiet, safe place that has been established as his/her "safe place"

Interaction:

A) Ask your child why he/she did what she did (Honey, why did you start the fire?)

B) Answer: "I wanted the Christmas tree dead"
C) Question: "Well honey, why did you want the Christmas tree dead"
D) Question: "Did the tree do something to you that you want to talk about?"
E) Answer: "No, the tree didn't do anything"
F) Question: "Were you angry at the tree honey?"
G) Answer: "No I wasn't angry at the tree, I am angry at my dad"
H) Question: "Your dad now, or the dad you had along time ago"
I) Answer: "Dad along time ago, he threw me into a Christmas tree"
J) Question: "Oh, honey I am so sorry. I can't even begin to understand
what that what that was like." "Would you like to talk about it
with me??"
K) Answer: "It just really hurt alot and I was scared"
L) Statement "I will ALWAYS be here to listen to you honey, even if I don't understand
what has happened. You are safe here"

In essence, you have opened Pandora's box. Instead of trying to force your child, you are simply letting the child vocalize through their own shocking acts. R.A.D. is meant of course to push away and shock. If you don't react to your child's actions with shock the act itself has lost alot of "steam". Reacting shocked is the point, the child wants your attention and then he/she wants you to throw them away.

Sometimes, it's better to let the child initiate communication when they are ready. They are ready when they start acting out. Of course, if the action is life threatening intervention, (Police, therapists, rtc, etc.) must be utilized. If the event itself isn't life threatening and is run of the mill acting out, this passive communication just might work.

When I set fires and killed animals I was relating my anger. The problem was my parents were playing into my hands by acting the way they did and calling me the HORRIBLE things they did. They simply played the part that I assigned them. If I acted out, they became the aggressors and I could act accordingly. Without the hysterics, name calling and physical abuse, I would have been immediately disarmed.

Remember he story above R.A.D. parents. How could you understand that kind of hell? Most likely, you can't understand it because it's beyond rational action and thought. It however, was the life of a child for years.

Listen even when you think you can't. It will pay off.

Michael

*Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, these are just my personal opinions based on my life struggling with R.A.D. Use these procedures of course with therapy and if you have questions about the above techniques, please speak with your therapist BEFORE attempting it.

You can trim a tree, but you can't hide it's roots

You can trim a tree, but you can't hide it's roots

I always knew there was something different about me. I always knew that I didn't belong where I was. I didn't feel ANY kind of connection with my adoption family whatsoever. I knew that I didn't belong in the rich town I was in. I felt, deep within myself that all of this was a sham, something that was foreign to me. Even at the age of 13 years old I knew something was wrong.

I couldn't have been more right. My adoptive father, bless his soul always had the greatest hope of me being a successful C.E.O of some giant company, a nice car, a house and a family. I was groomed to be another aristocratic, Catholic and above all upstanding citizen. Somehow, no matter how hard he tried to mold me into something much like himself, it failed. Every attempt to teach me, every attempt to steer towards a path of financial security and success failed with utter misery, which I am sure he took not only personally, but emotionally as well. I was very out of my element, little did I know, this entire manufactured existence would eventually crumble and the truth of my existence would reveal itself whether I liked it or not.

In school, I was quite literally tortured. Because my Reactive Attachment was so rampant at an early age my peers saw me as a defect. I was beaten, spit on and ridiculed day and night for years. I knew all of these spoiled rotten rich children weren't of my sort either. I was totally alone in a sea of people. It got to the point where I no longer cared about school, waking up, bathing or anything else that would require me to be seen in public. My own self loathing and the reinforcement of that image through my peers simply held me down tighter as I reached out to understand something, anything.

I did, however excel in writing and reading. I was alone so often as a child the only thing I did was play with computers and read books about WWII fighters (Which I still do to this day). While other's played and went out on dates I stayed in my dark room, reading or playing a computer game. Those were my two outlets when I wasn't getting drunk, starting fires, killing animals, stealing, huffing paint thinner or sleeping with a teacher. My adoptive parents teachings failed me almost completely and I now know why.

My roots are the complete OPPOSITE of the ones planted for me by the foster care and adoption system. When I learned that my entire family came from the hills of Tennessee and bondage in Georgia the light finally came on. The anger ceased. The need to see the world burn stopped. The want to hurt and kill other's stopped. Everything stopped. All that was left was a huge hole of ashes that was my former life. I quite literally had nothing left, no where to go and no idea what to do. I was a tired, drunken worn out person that lived 28 years in the dark.

What I have come to learn is that I understand now why I love the outdoors. I realize now why I like target shooting and hiking. I realize now why I enjoy so much being in the mountains. When I am in nature I feel as though this is MY place. I realize that the sufferings of my birthfamily cannot be broken by a manufactured existence. I now realize now why money means absolutely NOTHING to me. My entire family has lived their entire lives without it.

Basically, the polars of the true Earnest Stringfield (My real name) and the manufactured Michael clashed. Most of my family has battled addiction and mental illness, all of which carried over to me. My love of solitude, the sound of a running creek make much more sense to me. No matter how hard it was beaten into me to be a big shot running a company or "making something of myself" it always clashed with the true Earnest Stringfield. I always enjoyed being a bit ornery and foul mouthed. I loved working on cars, getting dirty building things and being outdoors, all of those things were considered poor man's job's in the eyes of my family.

This is how PROFOUND my story is to me. Everything I was taught wasn't the REAL me. Everything that was taught to me was material and of little consequence to me. This is no fault of my adoptive parents, they did the best they could for me. I turned out a terrible person and a train wreck of an adult at my own hands and devices. They had NO idea what they were in in for. I feel for them seeing the son they really wanted and the one I actually turned out to be. I still see the hurt in my adoptive parents eyes. My transformation from manufactured Michael into true Michael is still extremely scary and confusing for my adoptive parents. "Why exactly would you want to associate yourself with people like that" they ask. They are MY people.

The real Mike likes to vagabond and explore. The real Mike enjoys everything my adoptive family doesn't. For my birth mother being a drunken, angry, spite filled and sullen person I felt more comfortable when I met her than I did for 28 years talking with my own family. For my birth father who is a father to at least 13 other children and dared calling me "son" when I met him for the first time, I felt more comfortable with him in that same capacity. (However, I maintain almost no contact with either of them) To be honest, I detest the fact that somehow, I have to take responsibility for my own actions that in part they created in the first place with their drunken sexual act in a motel room described to me in gory detail by my birth father. They however escape that responsibility almost completely.

`` I write all of this to address two important adoption players: For R.A.D. parents if you have the opportunity, get as much background information about your RAD child's roots as you can. Absorb yourself into the back story of your child's family as you can. If my parents knew the things that I know about my family and my history, they may have been able to tailor their efforts towards the things that were inherently buried deep within my Psyche. Instead of fighting my nature, they may have been able to nurture it. If they also knew I was bi-racial, ALOT of things would have been different.

for R.A.D. sufferer's young and old. No matter how painful your past may be, you MUST research it. If your anything like me (eternally curious to the point of insanity) you can understand how important it is to learn. Find your roots, find your family and it's story. Close those wounds of the past and you may be surprised what you find. You may find closure, you will definitely find pain but in the end, your life will be yours again. The NEED to destroy yourself and everyone around you may cease because the life you were given in adoption will have been given a new perspective. That light of your true existence will emerge in your pasts darkest corners with the hope of a future that you deserve.

To everyone, I thank you so much for reading!!

A special message to RAD parents

A special message to RAD parents,

Not long ago, my blog has become very active, thanks to some R.A.D. parents that decided to read my meager thoughts. Those thoughts, no matter how shocking, tragic, touching or tear inducing have brought many to comment and say thank you to me.

I need not nor deserve your thanks. My deepest and most profound hope is to continually thank all of YOU for your very generous, thoughtful words of kindness and respect. I have lived a life that is far below honorable and I have engaged myself in acts that would repulse even the lowest of life forms with my struggle with R.A.D. I deserve no thanks, and I have not earned in my mind my restitution for those I hurt, those I killed (animals) and those that I took such advantage of during those horrible years.

My blog is to serve as the beginning of that restitution in hopes that my meager thoughts may serve testament, witness and usefulness to R.A.D. parents, R.A.D. sufferer's both young and old that have so selfishly given their LIVES to help children that their own families tossed aside like garbage. I feel it incumbent upon me to live up to YOUR standards and convictions, as my own have proven truly weak and fruitless upon deeper consideration.

You are the light of your R.A.D. children's lives. I know that the choices you made to adopt, foster or care of a R.A.D child is beautiful, testing, frustrating and sometimes almost hopeless. For those of you that I have spoken with personally, I know that you will not give up on these children. The road you and your child or children has been studded with rocks,
cliffs, beautiful trees, thunderstorms and different paths.

I cannot promise an easy road ahead. This, however, I can promise you. If you see your children to the end (And I know you will) your sufferings and your tears haven't fallen in vain.One day, many years from now, your child will look into your weary eyes and say "Thank you".That may be the ONLY gift they can give back to you for the years they tested both your sanity and your conviction to care to them.

That "Thank you" however, will be the sweetest gift that you have ever received. It will be the gift that your child can't burn, kill, destroy. The nights of confusion, anger, tears and anguish you feel now is something that I truly wish I could share with you. I more than anyone else know's how hard this struggle is.

Just remember this: When your child has their R.A.D. fits, it's not your child you struggling with.It's a disorder. When they act out, they are communicating years of pain and strife they only way that they know how. They truly are talking to you. They are sharing their pain the only way they can verbalize their emotions. To highlight my point: When your child is smiling, laughing with you, wrestling with you or reading with you, THAT is your child.

The pain, the struggling, the yelling doesn't enter your mind. No anger is present and you are enjoying the fruits of your very hard struggle as it was intended. Keep that in mind when things go wrong and the end of the yelling, stomping, acting out. While your children are communicating in ways that you detest, they are still communicating. Remember the times above when you feel like your hanging onto a worn out rope on it's last thread hanging over a large precipice.

Keep the faith R.A.D. parents. This post is for you and you alone. I understand and thank you for your service to so many children that need you, regardless of what they SAY.

Michael

What is suffering with R.A.D. like? (Very long post)

Dear all,

That lost post really seemed to chew at people. It was very, very tough to write. To have to dig through those bloody and terrible days was very difficult. I wrote that post because I layed in my bed all night long listening to those screams. I didn't get a wink of sleep.

Lisa asked me to write a bit about what it was like to have R.A.D. that's a long story, so I will do my best to keep it as short as possible. I wanted to thank Lisa for posting my story on her page.

My life with R.A.D.
____________________________________________________________________

Reactive Attachment Disorder for me was the total emotional disconnect from the rest of the world. My life, even as a child was studded with physical, sexual and emotional abuse that lasted through my teens. That damage still exists today in many forms, but for this blogs sake, I will keep it to my early childhood.

I didn't feel connected to the world. I didn't care about the world and I didn't care about anyone else either. The first animal I killed was in response to my adoptive sister (Who left for Greece in college) departure was slamming her cat into a wall, killing it immediately. I would spend hours building lego castles, (Which I loved to do) and then immediately destroy them with a terrible violence. Both of these acts travels to the core of what Reactive Attachment Disorder for ME was. It was the perception of loss. That was the theme of my life and what it meant.

I had no reason to get close to anyone because in the end, they would be taken from me. While other children played outside, I sliced my arms open to make sure I was bleeding red. I felt like the devil. With one animal already killed, a suicide attempt and the constant need to destroy left me feeling like the devil himself, literally. This was around the age of 11.

The therapists told me I would be this way forever and that I would never change. Bear in mind, gentle readers that R.A.D. wasn't even a diagnosis yet.

I felt that the world around me wasn't mine. The family that was "given" to me I had to reason to connect with. I didn't know them, I didn't share their beliefs and I surely didn't understand why they would love the devil. In my mind, they were just as bad as I was. No one wants a devil. I did my best to push them away from me. I killed their animals, I tried to burn their house down twice and I did every in my power to make them hate me. My adoptive mother said (And this will sting, just as it did me) "If we knew how much trouble you were going to be, we wouldn't have adopted you". That's how bad it was. My parents were so afraid of me, they locked their doors at night.

By the time I was 12 I was already in a hospital for severe depression and suicidal ideation. I wanted to die. To live in a world at such a young age not able to connect to anyone was too much. Something, however happened in this hospital in Kentucky. I met other troubled children like myself and I for the first time in my life, these children wanted to know me, including the girls in the unit! Finally, I found other children that accepted my bad behavior as nothing more worse then they had done themselves. I had found a common bond with these people.

After two weeks in the hospital, I was discharged, and once again I lost my friends. Another loss that was an actual one, not a perceived one. I spiraled out of control. The death's continued, and I started experimenting with inhalants and drugs to alleviate my pain.

Being so different from other kids, looking much different then other children (I am bi-racial), not having alot of money I was ruthlessly beaten and spit on many, many times in school. The teachers took sexual advantage of me of me. (The female teachers) and by that time, I was no longer a human being. I was a punching bag and a sexual device for horny older women. My transformation was complete. I no longer lived as sweet Michael with the beautiful smile and full of hugs (Which was one of the pretexts of my adoption) but some "bad kid" with no future whatsoever.

I had learned my worth. I also knew that if I killed an animal, started a fire, lied, cheated, stole or slept with teacher I would get the attention that I needed. I was able to express my unspeakable pain through acts that would get attention, no matter what the attention was.

For many R.A.D. sufferer's it's not that they (myself included) that we particularly enjoy what we do/did. It's our ONLY way to communicate with those around us the pain, the happiness that we feel. I never connected with ANYONE. I had no way to verbalize and vocalize my feelings and even if I did why would anyone care what I had to say? I burned every bridge with my family that I had left (or so I thought).

I was a very, very lonely child. I was so different, many nights I just sat in my room burning something, getting high on paint thinner or crying myself to sleep. I had no way to communicate my sadness and my family was so angry and frustrated with me, they wanted nothing to do with me anymore My sister to this day hates me to this day with a passion that I can only describe as "unfettered". All of this for a 13 year old child was alot. There was no rhyme or reason to the violence, drug abuse, sexual abuse and the killing in my mind at the time.

It was just something that I did and I didn't understand why. I was angry and I didn't know why. I just wanted it to stop and if it meant my death, that's what it meant. I still remember the nights of looking in the mirror and seeing the devil himself.

That emotional disconnect allowed me (in my mind) to act in ways that most children wouldn't dare. That was the hook. I could kill, get high and destroy because I was already dead. I was put on this earth to destroy and be a sexual device for teachers and I simply accepted that fact. The rest, is of course shattered history.

I hope that this post gives Lisa and all of my readers a bit more insight into a fraction of what I went through as a child. I am sure over the coming days I will talk more about Cathargic Reaction, Suicide Attempts and other issues that deal with R.A.D. but this is enough for now.

Michael