RAD don't live here anymore...

(Click picture to enlarge) 

I know some of you will think I am foolish. You will think it is a honeymoon period or just one of the ebbs and flows of the Radtastic Journey.

I have vacillated so many times about my kids diagnosis. When they were diagnosed with RAD. I was relieved. An answer! As we went forward with play therapy... I started to feel like my kids were taking on symptoms and behaviors. (I should note they were very susceptible to suggestion and eager to please) Sort of like Munchausen .

The previous therapist was great. I understood he was trying to move the children forward and out of their victim status and into their new lives. But the kids didn't get it and they didn't get him. Truthfully, sometimes  *I* didn't get him. That is why I moved the kids to a play therapist.  I thought we were going to move closer to what the first therapist was working on. Instead this play therapist tore us apart. Literally, she dissected us and told us our flaws. She verbally attacked us and rolled her eyes. I should've ended it sooner.  In the end, we were stronger as a unit when we left because we all felt betrayed by her and as if she attacked us. 

She undermined me in that room. She put it in their heads that they weren't getting enough love and attention from us because there were so many of them. She expressed this belief to me before she even met the kids. Then she parroted it to me while questioning the kids in front of  me. My kids looked at their shoes and agreed with her. I was an awful mother. SHE was bonding with my kids. Only the oldest disagreed with her and she hated her. The therapist said mean things about the oldest and even went so far as to say that I was wasting my money paying for the oldest to go to private school because she is lazy --right in front of the oldest.

Afterwards, on the way to the car my kids would tell me they were getting enough love and attention, they would tell me she was wrong  and I just assumed they were saying that because they felt bad or were scared.  Because of the RAD, I thought my kids had used triangulation on the therapist and me.  But I've come to think that they just felt bad about themselves and it showed. I'm ashamed I didn't get it because I was so blinded by "THE RAD! " I reinforced everything that bitch therapist put in their heads because I believed what she said and repeated it to them ever since on a daily basis even after we parted ways. 

That is until 3 weeks ago when I decided in our house RAD is a bullshit excuse and none of them have it.   I was out of line. I shouldn't have used those exact words.  But the bottom line is, in our house it is truth.  

I don't think I am crazy. I don't think I have to accept my kid's limitations because I don't think those limitations are real. Yes, my kids have PTSD and yes I think 1 of them is having a real hard time moving on but I think it's because she's a narcissist not because she has RAD.  I know  I'm not a professional but I know my kids and what I read about others with RAD kids.   My kids don't have it. It's not denial. 

Since my "declaration", Poufy gained 5 pounds and grew an inch... her meds for her thyroid were reduced.  She's thriving. Same with SS, not the weight gain but she's definitely happier and doing extremely well in homeschool.   The boy is being a normal lazy 7 year old boy trying to get out of any work.  He's pushing his limits.  And CDQ, she's still trying to draw attention to herself and make everything about her. But it's not because of RAD, it's because of the bitch of a narcissist she had for a mother.   I know my sister and that is what she is and her and my mother did this to this child with all their "special" crap. CDQ is not used to NOT being the golden child that can do no wrong and it's tearing her apart because without it, I can tell she knows she just like everyone else and she can't take that. 

This is CDQ EXACTLY, all 1-9. No kidding. 

The DSM-IV Diagnostic Criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder are: 

A pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, lack of empathy, as indicated by at least five of the following:

1. a grandiose sense of self-importance

2. is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love

3. believes that he or she is "special" and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)

4. requires excessive admiration

5. has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favourable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations

6. is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends

7. lacks empathy and is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others

8. is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her

9. shows arrogant, haughty behaviours or attitudes 

I can give a million examples of these things. 

So I'm taking my kids off the RAD train. We'll see if we need to board again, but I wouldn't be surprised if we never did again. 

Because I am such a bitch apparently...

So, CDQ has really had it in for me these last several weeks. I finally had enough and flew into her room, gratitude journal in hand and told her to write down what her issues were with me.

To say I was pissed when I read it is an understatement. She was so smug about it too. 

List

1. Throw what you give me in your face. 

2. Lie cause I think I'll get in trouble (so therefore she's almost always in trouble for lying.-- this in itself is a lie because we have told her over and over again to recognize that she is getting in trouble when she lies.)

3. Steal cause I want to get you mad because you get me mad. (Apparently my breathing pisses her off.) 

4. Slam doors cause I think you stole my life (W!T!F!)

5. Talk about you because I get mad because I don't understand why I get in trouble. (huge lie because she knows...you should see the looks that go along with this one when she knows she's caught and still denies it.)

6. Talk back because I get out of control with madness. 

7. Cry out of nowhere because I don't get what I want or think I deserve. 

8. Be lazy because I don't like it when I think I do too much.

9. Give you looks because you talk about me and I remember it all the time and mostly do it for being picked on all the time and being called ugly and lonely misfit. ( I don't know who she is talking about because I don't waste much of my time talking about her because she gets off on it in a very weird way that frankly scares me,  but if ANY one says anything about her or Poufy like at the dinner table, I AM the one who gets the dirty looks even though I may not even have heard or been in the convo where it was said AND just their name needs to be said i.e. the boy might say CDQ doesn't like bread crust, she never eats it. All of a sudden, I am a bitch and everyone hates her. Ugh) 

10. Throw stuff around to make it look dirty cause you say we're never going to change, we're trash. (yeah, sure, whatever. Maybe she's onto something there on her own.)

11. I don't control myself cause I think I should be mad because you got me mad. 

So after reading this list and wanting to tell this self entitled little shit where to go and how to get there. I calmly presented her once again the very next day with two questions. 

1. What was your life? Give Examples

2. How did I steal it specifically? Give Examples. 

Ok... if you are drinking something you might want to swallow and put it down because the bullshit that's about to fly might make you spit it out. 

Note the manipulation.

1. Like I was getting what I wanted but had been abused along the way and got taken by a woman and got the opposite. By not getting what I want and making you the blame and acting wrong on purpose cause I want to get what I want to make it out of you so when I do get what I want I really want I'll go back to what I was before (meaning no RAD at all). I was this.  You give me stuff but just not what I really want. I really dream of having to own and keep inside my heart (I warned you.) of all the people I love. 

Sometimes I wish I could leave but I know if I change then probably I'll get what I want but I already know you'll say that having my own cd player or stereo I'll have to get older so I'm upset and acting out cause I want that only besides from me being an actress  and a pop star or dancer. But if I don't act out would I get what I want? Would I get a cd player or what I really dream of having, a stereo?

Little does she know that the answer was when she got older and now became she will get one when she buys it her damn self.  Really...are you f'in kidding me?  This sounds more like blackmail then anything else.  Do your RAD kids sound like this?  Because she really does sound just like her psycho mother. EXACTLY. Her mom does not have RAD she's just self centered. 

But that's not the best of it...

2. By taking me from (previous foster parents). The abuse wasn't bad bad. But you took music and Disney channel and normal life. I had a mirror.  

Since I left (parents), you took me away from bouncing around Arizona, California and (city in CA) living in a car. I think you stole my good life to make it yours, so now my life feels ruined and bent up and bumpy and empty like I was the one who did something wrong to get here to get what I love taken away from me since then I feel lonely wondering if I did something wrong (before you start shedding tears or feeling sorry...keep reading) My heart isn't empty it is full of music, camp rock (I watched the movie), my stars I love and family members but that's how I think you took my life. 

I clarified with her...whether it was parents (family members?) but no...here's who she is talking about Aly and AJ, Jonas Brothers, Demi Lovato, Taylor Swift, David Archuleta, Vanessa Hudgins, Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, My Chemical Romance, Green Day. (Oh and lest I forget) Diana Louis (and in tiny letters under it Bleeding Love.  Seems like a x-mas list doesn't it?)

But she's deprived.  First of all I totally regret ever playing radio Disney.  I know for a fact their mother never played it for them and we have never had anything but regular rabbit ears tv in the house since they've been here. So I guess the Disney channel came in pretty clear in that car or something. Also, they actually are still allowed to listen to radio Disney if they are behaving and being civil in the van.  So deprived, but she can practically list everyone on Disney's payroll. 

I think I've decided that we are going to be one of those families who FULLY stays away from licensed stuff. That's how I wanted it to begin with but I didn't think even Disney couldn't be trusted. I've learned since the kids have been here.  I broke and did let them see Camp Rock and bought Disney's Sing It for the Wii. I guess for normal kids that would be cool because the other kids aren't obsessed. 

As for a mirror... no mirror came in her belongings from the foster family and there's a huge mirror in the bathroom. She doesn't need a personal one and she is 9. She already loves herself waaaaay too much. 

If you think I am ignoring the way she claims to feel. You are right. I fell for that bs hard. I used to cry about it.  But not anymore because the fact is for most of the stuff she no longer enjoys, she has done something wrong and lost the privilege. (See #'s 1 and 10). She has choices. She can choose to take care of her stuff or not have stuff at all.  She can choose to follow rules or have a consequence.  The choices are all hers and we remind her of that whenever she starts her crap. 

The other thing, I talked to her at dinner and because I feel like it's throwing it in someone's face I blatantly said that was not what I was doing but I wanted her to be aware of the way things really were around here, I asked her if she's ever had the Disney channel? If she's ever had a tv where just she decided what was going to be on it, if she's eaten at a table off of real plates regularly, if she had a bedroom, if she had clean clothes, or even a light up Hannah Montana shirt, or how about those shoes that fit? What about that bed you sleep on and if you don't get to do things, how is it you have seen Camp Rock and you know all these Disney singers (some of them she knows from before...My chemical romance, greenday) , did your mom play that stuff for you, did you guys have a gaming machine, did you have a computer, did you have a toothbrush and tp and did you take showers. Did you have light and water? Yet, we give you nothing and we've taken EVERYTHING, your whole LIFE from you? 

Well, then I got silence, and then a weird smile and later that night I got a hug.

But the very next day, as soon as she woke up the lies started and the roller coaster ride began. 

Can you believe it? Anybody have anything similar?