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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.
