Putting it in black and white

I've updated my profile to reflect the changes in our life. Not much different but still different. I decided to really put it out there.

My kids, all five of them have been diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) , Borderline Personality Disorder and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

That's all they've told us for right now. Honestly, we were lucky enough that through this blog a post was left about RAD and I took information in hand to the therapist and they were diagnosed from there. Before that there was truly complete chaos. Not to say that there still isn't.

Many of the symptoms overlap. But I couldn't say that I thought any of these were a wrong diagnosis. They have different levels of each. I've tried everything I can think of but it seems everything conflicts and some things make it worse.

Other times, it works and people, adults, therapists, teachers, those people who have no clue... they frown down on me. They look at me closely and they criticize and judge. They question "How did you come out relatively normal from your own childhood situation?" ," How did you rise above all of that?" Like they think I have some contribution to the children's traumas because after all if my life was crap I've got to pass it on to future generations, right?

I don't tell them what they want to hear. The truth is, I haven't risen above. I deal with it everyday. I think I am an adult with RAD. I can understand their feelings to an extent when they let me in to see it. But still I don't let them in. It's too much. I don't let myself in. I've "risen above" by living in denial and pushing forward and pressing on. I don't deal with my own abuse. I can't deal. I've got Hubs abuse and all five of the kids abuses that I deal with. There's no room for me or mine and I don't want to deal with them anyway. It's the past. I can't change it. I'm still me and I'm still ok and I will be ok.

Most of my stuff is locked tight in a place I can't find, nor do I look for. Sometimes, the kids remind me and I flashback but it's ok. I didn't fail. I'm still a good person. I didn't let those things become a crutch for me. God makes things happen for a reason. I can see the reason is because I needed to be in touch as much as I could with the kids. I needed to be able to share my knowledge to help end the cycle. I can deal with that.

I'm human and I'm a new mom despite how old the children are and I'm going to make mistakes. Tons of them. But they will still never compare to the mistakes my half sister made with these children. I am not her and I refuse to pay for her. We don't even speak. She's everything I am not. My whole family is everything I am not. How?

I've lived alone and raised myself. I did what I thought was right for me and I lived with a mask for all people. There was this poem that described me so perfectly, I loved it and it was the answer. I knew when I was 18 I could be me and until then I crept quietly and led a nonexistence. I made sure no one would notice me so they couldn't get rid of me. I never asked for anything. Never rocked the boat. I had my dreams and my knowledge that I could do whatever I set my mind to. That's all I needed. Just me.

That's the answer. That's all there is to it. I wish people would stop looking for something more, stop questioning my kids and just stop completely.

There are five of them. Not by my choosing. Remember I did not do this. I took this on to keep my family together. These kids are the only family I have. I'm trying my best. I can't be with each of them every second of the day. I don't know why they steal toilet paper or why they lie about whether they blinked their eyes or not. I don't know why they do the things they do. I can't tell you what they are going to do either.

What I can tell you is that I am doing the best I can.

Yesterday I cried...

Well, actually last night when I finally got a chance to check my e-mail.

A person named Christine posted on my blog. A person who is learning and dealing with RAD just as we are.

I visited her blog to find another blog which had links and links of blogs. Reading some of Christine's posts (especially the one with the picture of her living room and description of her kitchen) and reading some of the posts from the Living With RAD blog helped me see I am not alone. The latter blog was like reading someone's notes about our house and the kids. Seeing that the things I've stumbled upon for solutions aren't all foreign and don't make me an ogre, a pig or the worse mother ever.

I've googled RAD, I've searched Blogs for adoption but it never occurred to me to search blogs for RAD. I don't know why.

I've been reading book after book about kids who don't fit ours and how to deal with them. I'm tired.

Thanks Christine for chiming in. You don't know how much it means to me to have this new world opened up.

Yesterday was a good day. I think it was a good day because I spent the whole day at home with my family. They worked in their workbooks and I was there to keep them on task. I made them lunch and I made them dinner. I monitored them the way they needed to be monitored. Plus, we had trouble from the start of the day and I was able to nip that in the bud.

CDQ woke up in a mood. I could tell she didn't get much sleep and everyone else was going to pay for it so I sent her to "rest" some. Well, their equivalent of rest was sleep. So Poufy told CDQ that she needed to scratch up her face and it would look like she slept.

Well what happened was she really did scratch up her face. When I asked her about it she said she was itchy. Her eyes were droopy (because she was pretending to have slept) and I thought she was having an allergic reaction. I busted out with the Benadryl and told her to get some sleep.

Fact is, she ended up with a fever after I gave her the medicine and she was whiny I thought she was getting sick. I told her she needed rest. No outside, nothin'. She kept trying to tell me she was fine. She was sooo whiny until she finally told me the truth before lunch. Good times.

I will never know what is going through their heads.

I'm hoping to post pics of all that I have been working on. It's been a lot. I've kinda been set back because Hubs woke up at 2 am throwing up. EW! I hate that so much. I have to hold the bucket and clean it up. He's ok now but it went on all night up until about noon. I will have to get him up out of bed soon.

I'm tired. How about you? What did you do this weekend? Humor me.

If that's not how a mind#$%^ works...

then please explain to me how it does?

Yesterday I told the therapist I wanted to talk to her about something but not in front of the kids.

I wanted to talk to her about ending therapy because over the last month the kids haven't seemed into it and they seem restless, especially now with the short change in them. I tried to explain to her how I feel like they are reaching out to us and like they just really need us more. Before it was like they hated us and were forced to live with us or something but since the change they want hugs and they want us around and to do things with us.

I've been feeling awful because I feel like I am not home enough. We are not together as a family enough and I can't even get in the appointments that they need or Hubs needs on top of that. I know I've mentioned here that I thought we needed some real bonding time.

When I told the therapist this, she told me that I am with them all the time moreso than someone who works outside the home, but the truth is, I'm not. Yes, we will still have doctors appointments and all those other appointments and I can't explain to her how her 6 hours a week actually take up almost 10 hours, what with driving. It segments up the day to where we are ALL running around.

I tried to keep most of the blame on me because I felt the kids were being honest when they said they liked it at her place because of the toys and snacks but they wanted to do other things with other kids and with us.

I didn't know if it was safe to let the therapist know all that they said. I guess what it boils down to is they feel that she is asking questions of them that she should be asking me and they don't like how she treats them when they tell her they don't know and she tells them they do and they are just saying that as an excuse.

It kinda hit the fan and I hated to do it but I had to put Poufy on the spot yesterday. She went in for her time after I had talked to the therapist and when she came out she looked weird. I asked her what was up and she told me she felt weird but she wouldn't tell me why. I asked her if the therapist had talked to her about not coming back to therapy and she told me no. So, I thought since it was just her and I,I would bring up the subject and see how she really felt. She told me she liked coming to therapy but she wanted to do other things. To me that was telling me she didn't want to be there.

When we were getting ready to leave, the therapist told me that Poufy indicated that she didn't want to stop coming. This puzzled me because I had JUST asked her. I told Poufy she didn't need to be afraid but she did have to tell the truth about what she wanted. Well she told her what she wanted and then some. The therapist seemed flustered and said "Well, they are liars, they lie all the time." I shrugged my shoulders because well, what am I going to do or say.

I'm telling the therapist the truth, why would *I* lie? I'm an adult, don't I make my own decisions?

Anyway, when I was talking to the therapist in the room about stopping therapy she was all over the map with reasons why not and how she wasn't going to take them back and the sacrifice she made by bringing so many on and how she never does that. I wasn't committing to anything because I hadn't spoken to the kids about it. I was just getting hints here and there from them and I wanted to give the therapist a heads up. I actually thought two of the kids did want to continue seeing her. But when I asked them last night none of them want to go back.

At the end of our conversation, she did the weirdest thing, at first I was confused but then I started to get angry. I guess she wasn't happy because I wasn't giving her an answer or something so she decided to threaten me, at least that's how I believe it to be.

She was talking about something that I can't remember exactly because what followed was crazy. She went from saying that she didn't agree with me threatening the kids and that she would never threaten a kid but she went along to support me. This doesn't even make sense. I told her it wasn't a threat, it was truly the end of the rope. Plus, I don't see how she went along with it because it's something that just happened at the dinner table that other night. It wasn't a plan. It was IT. I didn't tell her I was going to do that because I didn't even know I was going to do that.

She said something about being a "pissed off mom" I totally agreed with her it's not what I want to be at all. But then she goes on to say that I would be surprised just how much the kids tell her about what goes on at home. I was about to say I wouldn't because I know they tell everyone everything. That's one of the things they are supposed to work on boundaries and what's appropriate and what's not. But she was talking so quickly I couldn't get that in, she went on to say that her place was a safe place where they could say anything and she wouldn't and hadn't reported it.

I was nodding my head and I stopped there because I was confused by the hadn't part. I mean what was she talking about? I guess I stopped there because she also got this smirk on her face.

I was wondering what exactly because if she feels she needs to report me for cussing, spanking or making them pull weeds to earn money for the things they break than feel free. I mean, isn't that her job to report me if she thinks I am doing something wrong? Isn't that a total threat? Or at least meant to be?

I blew it off because if she wants to report me for the stuff above, then she's got a ton of work ahead of her what with all I see around me. I'm not saying the things I do is right. Cussing is a thing I work on everyday, I confess it as one of my sins and I am not proud of it. I cuss when I hurt myself or get mad and I'm cussing about something not *at* someone or even directly at the kids. I've even talked to the kids about it and told them never to start and that it's not ladylike or intelligent and a bad habit to break. I didn't start until I was in my 20s and I was trying to get my family to hear me. It seemed the only way they knew how to communicate. Unfortunately it stuck as a way to relieve stress, yet it doesn't make me feel better about myself.

Spanking I do not like to do. I haven't spanked anyone in this house for almost two months. It doesn't just hurt the child. It hurts me and probably does more harm to my hand than there bottoms. For some reason the veins or something in my hand burst. It's never happened when I've spanked the kids but I'm always afraid it will. I was just walking through the kitchen the first time it happened. I feel this pressure and than my finger swells and turns purple. I don't know what causes it but I've googled it and apparently it happens to some people.

Them earning back the money (from us) to pay for the things they have broken. I don't see anything wrong with that. I'm not talking about a glass or anything. Pulling weeds from the side of the house to pay for a dishwasher or a faucet or something. C'mon, there aren't enough weeds in the backyard to cover that. You know? When the weeds are gone the debt is paid. I've seen it gives them a sense of accomplishment and even pride. They earned something.

At any rate, I guess I'm stupid because my first inclination was to get up and leave as in that is the final threat that broke the camels back.

The other thing she said about them being liars is that she thought one thing about Poufy and her "drastic weight loss" (it was a freakin' pound!) and then it was all resolved with her condition and than she said they were liars and looked at me like she wasn't sure about the whole family or something. I could be reading into that because of the treatment we were given. She usually gives them crackers and juice and when Poufy started to ask if they were getting any she shook her head, rolled her eyes and cut her off and opened the door and said c'mon. Sent us all on our way, I guess. lol

But still I told her I would speak to the kids because this is really about the kids not me. It's either for their benefit or detriment. Today I go in to tell her what the vote was. See what she throws at me now.

A shot in the dark...

Don't worry, I know this will sound negative but it hasn't really rained on my parade to the point where the parade is cancelled.

We just got back from the therapist. I'm not really sure how therapy is supposed to work, but for us, this is how it's been going recently. I read books about reactive attachment disorder and about attaching in adoption and she listens to the issues we've been having and I tell her what I've read and tried and the way the house works. Sometimes she yawns and asks another question and sometimes nothing.

Anyone--is this the way it's supposed to work?

At first she gave the kids things to try:Angry Monster Game when they were upset, etc... but now nothin'.

I don't really feel like we are getting anything out of therapy. I do not like to hear myself talk. I'm looking for help. I understand there's no cut and dry solution and that there might not even be a solution. But I at least need some support if I am going to be spending chunks of my life in a waiting room.

The therapist has been telling me that I need to take care of myself and I need to do this and that. She's been asking the kids in a round about way how I handle things and if I lose it. I guess she didn't get the answer she wanted.

I wanted to take a week off next week to get the things that I wanted done before it became truly stressful. I started to think about all that needed to be done and came to the conclusion that I should take a week off and be ahead of the game, get some rest, tie up loose ends around the house. Spend time as a family together. One week.

This is truly the first time that I have ever made a decision to do that instead of just dealing with the stress and the crap. In essence, I was asking for help. I need a break to take care of my business instead of letting business pile up. Does that make sense?

I asked her today, a week in advance about taking the week off. She was pissed. She said she gives my family 6 hours a week and that she doesn't think I should take the time because we will get sick and we will have to miss and we already missed a week (hmmm, would that be 1 bronchititis, 2 strep throats and two colds where we missed a day or is she actually talking about the adoption in another state?) She rushed on to say she knows she missed a week. But if we are being exact that's three weeks. She got sick the week before she was going out of town and that became two weeks and then she had a conference a few weeks ago where she was gone a whole week.

I don't want to be nitpicky. But come on. I felt threatened by her response and another time when I had suggested that if a child could not stop tantruming enough to get dressed and get in the car to come see her maybe the child shouldn't come. She jumped on my before I could finish saying that I would switch with another child instead. She said she had to make a living.

I understand these things. But maybe it's time for us to "make a living" by spending our time outdoors, cheering our kids on and helping them make new friends instead of cooping them up with an adult where they play?

I wish I knew someone in a similar situation because I don't know whether this therapy thing is right or not.

I told her that I was just trying to take the week off to take care of myself and to get on top of things before they became huge like she suggested and then she told me that it's still early in the week and I should try to get the bulk of what I needed done and go from there.

Does that even seem right?

Blog...What blog??

The good news or the bad news???

Bad news first, no time to blog!

Good news, family life is finally what we imagined it would be like. Not exactly unicorns, lollipops and rainbows but still livable.

Bad news, I had to give an ultimatum, which I hate and wasn't even sure it was going to work. See the kids were...well, kids when they came to live with us. They got in trouble sure, but it wasn't an all day tantrum and screaming marathon. Someone got in trouble, time out and life went on. Somewhere in between they got this whole tantrum, steal, lie, etc... itch in them and it got out of control.

It felt very much like when their mother was a child and spent her days acting out like that and ruining it for everyone. I could've chalked it up to genetics I guess, but I had already had a taste of kids being kids from these very SAME kids and I didn't want to live my life the way my mother did. Locked up in her house with everything locked away.

Hubs, still clueless as he is about kids and these behaviors that I have lived through, did not want to part with the kids. He still had hope because well, he didn't grow up with their mother. He's only seen the last 7 years and not much of it either.

Me, I was ready to call it quits because I could see the path ahead, it came to a family dinner conversation where I put the truth on the table. Either you guys quit it and move on or I am moving on. I let them know just how dead serious I was because I guess it was just a game to them. I was to the point that if Hubs did not want to send the kids back, I would sign the kids to Hubs and leave.

That's how serious it was.

The very next day things changed...dramatically. That was 10 days ago. Just overnight..POUF!

We've been to the movies, almost all the kids have learned how to ride bikes. There has only been two near tantrum incidents from the boy and NO ONE ELSE! phew!

Don't get me wrong, people have still lied and gotten in trouble, but we move on. I don't think it's all about me saying what I did that made the change. I think it's also what the therapist did when she questioned them about what they eat and Poufy. Somehow, it made them feel closer and more loyal to me because someone was trying to say that I did something bad when I hadn't.

It seemed to make them aware of something. The oldest started hugging me regularly and they just seemed to care. I can see changes in them and the way they treat me and I know it's not all due to the dinner conversation because they came to me and told me something wasn't right. I think the dinner conversation maybe solidified things for them.

So for now things are good, way good and way busy. I'm canceling all appointments for next week and we are just going to chill and finish up some things at home, go to the movies, hang out as a family with no therapy, doctors, dentists, etc... before school starts.

Who knows, I'll probably even get to blog. :-)

Mother knows best...

Well, the results are in...she's being starved.

NOT! She has a hyperthyroid. I mentioned that to the therapist and she looked at me like I was crazy so then I believed I was crazy, because see I was researching thyroids because I think *I* am having a thyroid issue. So then I thought I was just being dumb because I had just read all this stuff about thyroids. Well, you know how it goes? Hypochondriac much?

Anyhow, I can't remember if I ever posted new summer haircuts but just in case I haven't here's Poufy's new do.

I'm still around

So here's my story....lol

I'm still working on the floor. I'm still working on the floor because we decided we had to pull up the baseboards. When we decided we had to pull up the baseboards, we realized we needed new baseboards. I picked new baseboards, turns out the new ones I picked need to be stained. Ok.

Well, hey, since the baseboards are off we should paint because well, you know the baseboards are off and we won't have to worry about lines and stuff and hey since we are going to paint we should take off the ceiling mouldings and the window and door trims and buy the matching trims and stain those too.

Get the picture?

Yesterday I took the kids to the Doctor. Poufy and SS to be exact. Poufy --I think she had a growth spurt because she's almost as tall as CDQ and it looked like all her baby fat fell off her. She's a stick now and she eats like a horse. She eats more than Hubs and I combined! I'm not exaggerating either.

She has her mother's body, no hips, no shape just straight. So what happened is that the therapist saw her and felt she was too skinny. I made the appointment to make sure she was ok. The doctor says he's not worried about her because she's only lost a lb since last November. He doesn't think it's odd. I honestly don't know if it is odd. Is it odd for a child to lose a pound?
But the therapist is persisting. Persisting to the point where she pissed me off. When we were driving home Thursday, the kids told me that the therapist was starting to ask weird questions.

In my house, if you've been having a bad day or just can't deal, we give you the choice to behave and wait for dinner to be ready or to have a peanut butter sandwich for dinner (to prevent any more trouble). If you choose not to behave and choose not to have a peanut butter sandwich, then you choose to go to bed. Because if it's like that there's just no dealing with that child. It gets that bad. The number of times that they have gone to bed without eating can be counted on one hand. Mainly, it's them trying to see if we really would send them to bed.

The number of peanut butter sandwiches would be more. However, they got tired of that really quick and we haven't had to do that in months. Well, if this isn't a leading question, I don't know what is..."You guys have peanut butter sandwiches in your house quite often don't you?" The answer was no but the fact that it was put like that angers me. Why doesn't she ask me? Even so, the kids including Poufy all say she eats A LOT.

I've put everything out there with her. Then she calls my house Friday saying she was calling CYFD and then "Oh is this Sasha?" she dialed my number by mistake. She claims she was calling CYFD to see if they offered respite for me. I told her I wasn't interested. Yet she still called and spoke to our old social worker. That pisses me off too! It makes me want to just call and tell them to pick the kids up. I'm doing the best I can with what I have and what I know.

I don't understand how me saying that if I cannot help the kids I want them to go to someone who can help them. How can I not think that I would be purely selfish to keep them here if they are becoming self destructive and I can't help them. I've done all that I know that I can. The only changes that can be made are by the kids themselves.

I'm not naive to this situation like they want to believe. I may not have biological children but I have raised children. This is not normal for even troubled children and it's not ok. They are out of control.

The therapist said the kids need more attention and hugs. The last session she sort of forced hugs on the kids. I don't know what she thinks. The kids have all our attention and there's five of them so they are never going to be happy with whatever attention we give them. Plus, they aren't lacking hugs. They hugged their previous therapist ALL THE TIME. He had to tell them to slow down.

I have a problem that I'm not sure how to solve and I don't think the therapist would understand. These kids have seen their biological parents fight and argue and then it's all hugs and kisses and making babies. I don't want to reinforce that idea in their mind when they've done something wrong or they've been wronged (because don't you know WE are always wrong) that hugs and kisses are the answer whether something has been resolved or not. Does that make sense? I don't want them to think when someone hurts them as long as they hug them and kiss them that it's all good or if they hurt someone else, if they do that then it's ok. The therapist wants me to do that with them. Maybe for a "normal" child that would work but I'm afraid in this case it would just reinforce what they saw their parents doing.

I'm thinking of dropping therapy with the kids because you know what? She says we have to spend more time as a family and the kids need to be social. Well...maybe if we weren't in therapy three times a week for hours we could actually do things as a family. Kids can join sports or dance or something. You know?

Speaking of family time, we went to the movies today. Our theater has free movies in the summer every week. I couldn't believe how bad it was and how awful people have become. We weren't expecting to be able to sit with the kids but for grown women to be sitting in the handicap section because they have strollers and children when there are handicap people who need the space is just ridiculous.

Squeezing a child out of your twat or having a child cut from you does not grant you special privileges to be a royal bitch. Your stroller does not take precedent over a human. Believe me, if Hubs could be anywhere then stuck in the chair, I'm sure he would surely choose a different seat in the theater.

This bitch did not want to move. She threw a fit and was going to leave and on and on because we needed handicap seating for hubs. I pray that nothing ever happens to her children, husband, or herself. But she needs to feel it.

How can one be so heartless? I understand using the space if no one needing it shows up. But this was a need, not a want. It's amazing to me how awful people can be.