I've bit my tongue with the therapist several times today because in her world if she doesn't agree with you, you're the stupid one. How do I know this? Uh, maybe it was the rolling of the eyes or the shaking of the head or her exasperated voice.
We basically butted heads over forced affection today. She feels she knows more than me and that I am projecting my past abuses on the kids. As RAD kids she said they will push away from hugs and kisses when they need it the most.
But where I am coming from is I can see my childs reaction and *feel* what I see on their faces. I feel the fear, the disgust, the uncomfortableness. I know those looks I've experienced them myself.
Today she wanted me to hold the boy in my lap. He's been resistant to me because he's afraid and he doesn't trust me. I want ways to work on the trust issue when the issue isn't really all about me but more about his past hurts. He definitely has mother issues. I feel along with the trust will come the affection and closeness and bonding. It's been working fine with the others so far.
What I wanted to explain to her but knew I would be wasting my time is that, no, the boy may not have seemed resistant to her but she's an authority figure in his eyes. If she had told him to get undressed he wouldn't even question her. Not that she would but that's the extreme I'm trying to show.
My problem with forcing affection on them is that it's not affection when it's forced. For instance, my exstepfather hid behind that affection bullcrap and probably still does. He would force kisses on me even though I DID resist. It's not affection, it's teeth mashed against my lips, it's the taste of him pushing against my closed lips so hard he separates them. It's a violation. To my exstepfather it's "affection". Hugs that pin you down on the ground unable to breath or move under his weight. Biting him as hard as you can when all it does is make him push harder. But that's just "playing".
It started out as hugs and kisses but still felt wrong and like a violation because I didn't want them. I am not going to do that to my kids of course but I know that feeling of not wanting that, not wanting a person to touch or be near you. My kids have that feeling. It's a violation of their space.
I respect their space. They come to me for hugs on their terms and respect that. When I see they need a hug, I offer it without offense if declined. But I'm a bad mother.
At least, the way it was put to me is that there are the mother's that are earth mother's and we know who they are because they are everybody's mother. Then there are the mother's who think with their mind.
I am the mother who thinks with my mind apparently. That's what I have been informed by the therapist. She can't force me to bond with them or be affectionate. But I will only be a caregiver and not a mother and I will have to deal with that if that is what I want.
Yes.
That is what she said to me. Because I wouldn't force my son to sit and cuddle in my lap.
When she left the room, I asked my son if he wanted me to do what the therapist was doing or if he wanted me to wait until he was ready. He whispered looking at the floor "wait until I am ready."
How am I wrong?
I feel this therapist, who has never been a mother, herself has it all wrong. She might think she has the knowledge but I have the experience of certain feelings.
Because the boy didn't stay stiff as a board and because he molded after she pushed him into position she said it was uncomfortable but not resistance. He won't say no to an authority figure!
She likened it to a drug baby with stiff joints that has to be worked. If you are saying WTF? I was thinking it because I've got her down on that one too!
I raised 4 drug babies from when I was 15 until I was 22 with a one year hiatus while I was off at college. I know what it's like to hear piercing screams just because you turned on a light and it was too bright for the baby. I know how to swaddle a baby so tightly it would seem like it was too much but the pressure is just right for the baby. I know how to soothe a newborn who is crying just because it hurts to breathe and be alive. These things are in my heart. I know what it is to see 4 children be destroyed: beautiful, bright, happy, well adjusted children that I made that way be torn down to nothing. I know what it's like to lose a child to suicide. Maybe not my biological child but the closest thing to my own children this far. Moreso than these children who are actually mine now and only because two of them were with me since they were newborn and the other two were 3 and 2 years old.
For her to sit there and tell me I am a cold mother, She's basically saying the same thing my ex-stepfather told me- I don't know how to love, I'm not capable, she's trying to put me back in that victim position.
I am not a cold mother, if anything my own personal life experiences have put me in a position to see some things clearer than other people can. In her world her education and her social position make her better than me. That's also clear in her condescending manner.
That is the bottomline.
I can't wait until we are free from her.
I wasn't sure what my stance on therapy was at the beginning but I'm agreeing more with Kether's comment in the previous post more and more. But there's a part of me that wonders when I read comments or situations like Brenda's.
Who knows?
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