Yesterday*, ah yesterday, it was a day where maybe for the first time I felt like a real Mom.
I mentioned in my last post that we were moving on and boy are we. At least as fast as I can considering my physical condition.
It's been a while since we shut down baby monitors in the house but Tuesday is when I finally shut down the video camera system in the house. It's all or nothing baby, all or nothing... we've waited too long for her to get better and as this post will show it hindered the growth of the other kids.
Let me preface this by saying that as much as it is going to sound like CDQ is a scapegoat, I will kill all that noise right now by saying she truly was the cause. My other kids are by no means saints. They still lie and steal but those weren't the reasons for the monitoring. The monitoring was in place for the safety of everyone.
After all, let me quote a recent conversation I had with CDQ:
CDQ: "I NEVER hurt them. NEVER!"
Me: "really?"
CDQ: (with conviction even) "I NEVER HURT THEM ON VIDEO!"
So, um, yeah.
I take responsibility for the things that happened and basically letting CDQ run the house. I have to, I am the adult. It sounds like a reluctance I know, but it's more confusion. What frustrates me is that I STILL don't know how it all happened. Everything seemed like it was such a little thing to concede for her to get better. But there was a high cost. The sting is lessened by the fact that the therapist told me that he had to have a talk with the RTC staff because they too were becoming confounded by her.
Boy can she play that sympathy card. By that I mean, she works someone...she brings out the weaknesses in you. She twists things so that she is always the victim. She's even brought up the suicide of a cousin who she really had no connection to at all, writes her letters and everything like they were BFFs. She has you share things because you end up thinking, hey, maybe if I tell her this happened to me, etc...she will see that things turn out ok or that I can sympathize with whatever she's talking about. Then when she's got you in deep, she starts the mind games. She starts throwing those daggers of truth you shared with her right at you. Everybody remarks on how they forget she's just a child and how mature she is for her age.
With all that said and hopefully out of the way... I will tell you that things are evening out with the boy. All of his behaviors were and can be attributed to his past traumas which have come flooding and thrashing out of him. We were on the fence when it came to the levels of abuse he might have suffered because he was the only boy and one of the youngest but it turns out it made no difference. He was not spared.
The change in him since he let those truths and feelings out...WOW~! He's very energetic, talkative, willing to help, inquisitive...just....a different boy. Most of the time he is happy and when he's not he comes to ME! He won't look me in the eye but he tells me he is having a hard time and he's sad and he tells me why if he knows why and then....get ready for this...
He rushes to me and throws his arms around me and hugs me tightly and cries. It happens several times a week... and that is so not a complaint.
His heart is healing and he's learning to express himself and that he is safe! He's already come in here several times during the writing of this post to share with me ANY LITTLE THING. LOL! He's so happy and carefree for the most part now.
Yesterday was a great family day. The kids studied the Dire Wolf in homeschool and they made a yummy dinner with Hubbins and helped clean up and clear out stuff. There was no yelling and no fighting and no rages and no behaviors...except...and I wouldn't even call this RAD at all...
Poufy....she has a strong personality and isn't afraid to be bossy and tell people how to do things. In fact, she has a take charge mentality. The boy, he's just coming out of his shell.
Last night, they were helping clean up after dinner while I was trying to rest up so I could transfer Hubbins to bed. In comes the boy...he starts to tell me that he was going to get the plastic wrap and that he decided he needed to shift the step stool to get to it properly and that Poufy reached up to try and get it and the plastic wrap ended up falling and hitting him on the head. Then he told me, she laughed and said his egghead was so hard it would never break. Then came the flood of tears and he crumpled up and said "that hurt my feelings."
I will admit, my jaw probably hit the floor and I stared a little bit longer than I should've but he vocalized his feelings and acknowledged them and well, it wasn't a tantrum or a rage. He was raw and hurting. I asked him if he had let Poufy know that he felt that way and he shook his head that he hadn't then I told him he needed to let people know when they hurt his feelings so they would know they had done it. I was pretty sure Poufy hadn't meant to hurt his feelings. I also told him I could have a talk with Poufy but I thought it was better if he told her when things happened how he felt. Basically I told him he needed to start standing up for himself or it would keep happening.
So, he straightened back up and made his way out of here. I went behind him to have that talk with Poufy and came back to my room, a couple of minutes later Poufy comes in standing by the door (she's the only child left who hasn't broken down and talked about her abuse) stiff as a board.
If I thought I stared to long at the boy.... she started in with how he's always trying to get her in trouble, blah, blah blah... but then I looked at her and told her he was in fact not trying to get her in trouble but was sad because she had hurt his feelings. I explained to her that he felt that she didn't care if she hurt his feelings or not. Because he had basically said he hadn't told Poufy how he felt because she doesn't care.
Well, Poufy's neck was rocking all over the place and her head was bobbling around and her arms were crossed in front of her chest and suddenly her face crumbled. "But I DO care!" Snot dripped from her nose and she cried "I do care but he thinks I don't care about ANYTHING."
I was stunned, honestly, I didn't think she cared either. lol Not in a bad way, just in the sibling way you know...like I said, she's bossy and you know bossy people they tend to focus. :-)
These were real tears and sadness, none of that fake stuff.
I asked her if she ever told him that she cares and she shook her head no. I told her maybe she could tell him. Like if she wanted him to shut up or leave her alone, may be she could say "Hey, I need some quiet time right now, so can you tell me later?" I told her or maybe she could show it by letting him do some of the stuff some time, ya know, like "Hey, why don't you get the plastic wrap this time?"
It's such basic stuff but we've never been able to get to it. With the failure to thrive when they first arrived and then the full on meltdowns and behaviors, they've never been in a place to really hear what I am saying.
It all felt so....normal.
But then my stomach fell. I started to wonder, maybe I was wrong all that time when I thought if we could just get past the RAD then the hard work will be done...what if now, when my kids are all puddles of vulnerability and they are waiting and willing for my guidance to shape and mold them, what if now is when the real hard work begins?
So, I've been re evaluating, all those things I wanted to instill in my children before I ever had children and all those revisions after these kids came along and then the further revisions because of RAD. I've got a lot of thinking to do and I have to admit...I'm excited!
-----
* This post was actually written March 24th. No editing has been done to it save for some quotation marks, the asterisk and this update.
I mentioned in my last post that we were moving on and boy are we. At least as fast as I can considering my physical condition.
It's been a while since we shut down baby monitors in the house but Tuesday is when I finally shut down the video camera system in the house. It's all or nothing baby, all or nothing... we've waited too long for her to get better and as this post will show it hindered the growth of the other kids.
Let me preface this by saying that as much as it is going to sound like CDQ is a scapegoat, I will kill all that noise right now by saying she truly was the cause. My other kids are by no means saints. They still lie and steal but those weren't the reasons for the monitoring. The monitoring was in place for the safety of everyone.
After all, let me quote a recent conversation I had with CDQ:
CDQ: "I NEVER hurt them. NEVER!"
Me: "really?"
CDQ: (with conviction even) "I NEVER HURT THEM ON VIDEO!"
So, um, yeah.
I take responsibility for the things that happened and basically letting CDQ run the house. I have to, I am the adult. It sounds like a reluctance I know, but it's more confusion. What frustrates me is that I STILL don't know how it all happened. Everything seemed like it was such a little thing to concede for her to get better. But there was a high cost. The sting is lessened by the fact that the therapist told me that he had to have a talk with the RTC staff because they too were becoming confounded by her.
Boy can she play that sympathy card. By that I mean, she works someone...she brings out the weaknesses in you. She twists things so that she is always the victim. She's even brought up the suicide of a cousin who she really had no connection to at all, writes her letters and everything like they were BFFs. She has you share things because you end up thinking, hey, maybe if I tell her this happened to me, etc...she will see that things turn out ok or that I can sympathize with whatever she's talking about. Then when she's got you in deep, she starts the mind games. She starts throwing those daggers of truth you shared with her right at you. Everybody remarks on how they forget she's just a child and how mature she is for her age.
With all that said and hopefully out of the way... I will tell you that things are evening out with the boy. All of his behaviors were and can be attributed to his past traumas which have come flooding and thrashing out of him. We were on the fence when it came to the levels of abuse he might have suffered because he was the only boy and one of the youngest but it turns out it made no difference. He was not spared.
The change in him since he let those truths and feelings out...WOW~! He's very energetic, talkative, willing to help, inquisitive...just....a different boy. Most of the time he is happy and when he's not he comes to ME! He won't look me in the eye but he tells me he is having a hard time and he's sad and he tells me why if he knows why and then....get ready for this...
He rushes to me and throws his arms around me and hugs me tightly and cries. It happens several times a week... and that is so not a complaint.
His heart is healing and he's learning to express himself and that he is safe! He's already come in here several times during the writing of this post to share with me ANY LITTLE THING. LOL! He's so happy and carefree for the most part now.
Yesterday was a great family day. The kids studied the Dire Wolf in homeschool and they made a yummy dinner with Hubbins and helped clean up and clear out stuff. There was no yelling and no fighting and no rages and no behaviors...except...and I wouldn't even call this RAD at all...
Poufy....she has a strong personality and isn't afraid to be bossy and tell people how to do things. In fact, she has a take charge mentality. The boy, he's just coming out of his shell.
Last night, they were helping clean up after dinner while I was trying to rest up so I could transfer Hubbins to bed. In comes the boy...he starts to tell me that he was going to get the plastic wrap and that he decided he needed to shift the step stool to get to it properly and that Poufy reached up to try and get it and the plastic wrap ended up falling and hitting him on the head. Then he told me, she laughed and said his egghead was so hard it would never break. Then came the flood of tears and he crumpled up and said "that hurt my feelings."
I will admit, my jaw probably hit the floor and I stared a little bit longer than I should've but he vocalized his feelings and acknowledged them and well, it wasn't a tantrum or a rage. He was raw and hurting. I asked him if he had let Poufy know that he felt that way and he shook his head that he hadn't then I told him he needed to let people know when they hurt his feelings so they would know they had done it. I was pretty sure Poufy hadn't meant to hurt his feelings. I also told him I could have a talk with Poufy but I thought it was better if he told her when things happened how he felt. Basically I told him he needed to start standing up for himself or it would keep happening.
So, he straightened back up and made his way out of here. I went behind him to have that talk with Poufy and came back to my room, a couple of minutes later Poufy comes in standing by the door (she's the only child left who hasn't broken down and talked about her abuse) stiff as a board.
If I thought I stared to long at the boy.... she started in with how he's always trying to get her in trouble, blah, blah blah... but then I looked at her and told her he was in fact not trying to get her in trouble but was sad because she had hurt his feelings. I explained to her that he felt that she didn't care if she hurt his feelings or not. Because he had basically said he hadn't told Poufy how he felt because she doesn't care.
Well, Poufy's neck was rocking all over the place and her head was bobbling around and her arms were crossed in front of her chest and suddenly her face crumbled. "But I DO care!" Snot dripped from her nose and she cried "I do care but he thinks I don't care about ANYTHING."
I was stunned, honestly, I didn't think she cared either. lol Not in a bad way, just in the sibling way you know...like I said, she's bossy and you know bossy people they tend to focus. :-)
These were real tears and sadness, none of that fake stuff.
I asked her if she ever told him that she cares and she shook her head no. I told her maybe she could tell him. Like if she wanted him to shut up or leave her alone, may be she could say "Hey, I need some quiet time right now, so can you tell me later?" I told her or maybe she could show it by letting him do some of the stuff some time, ya know, like "Hey, why don't you get the plastic wrap this time?"
It's such basic stuff but we've never been able to get to it. With the failure to thrive when they first arrived and then the full on meltdowns and behaviors, they've never been in a place to really hear what I am saying.
It all felt so....normal.
But then my stomach fell. I started to wonder, maybe I was wrong all that time when I thought if we could just get past the RAD then the hard work will be done...what if now, when my kids are all puddles of vulnerability and they are waiting and willing for my guidance to shape and mold them, what if now is when the real hard work begins?
So, I've been re evaluating, all those things I wanted to instill in my children before I ever had children and all those revisions after these kids came along and then the further revisions because of RAD. I've got a lot of thinking to do and I have to admit...I'm excited!
-----
* This post was actually written March 24th. No editing has been done to it save for some quotation marks, the asterisk and this update.
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