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Wow.. I think I might have found a place to chat and get advice where I will not be looked at like a freak of nature...
We were chosen to adopt a 9yo 6 months ago. We did 3 months of intensive visitation and then she has been living with us for 3 months.
Long story short we were not made aware of her intentive RAD and were told it was mild at best. Within 3 weeks of her living with us she had her first of MANY violent tantrums.:grr:
We have had to remove closet doors, repair holes in walls, she has broken our wedding items, bit, hit, kicked and verbally abused my husband and me on many occassions. Locked herself in bathrooms and reecked havoc.
She is an angel with all our family and then as soon as she gets back in the vehicle starts hurling venom from her mouth and throwing tantrums. She is far worse with my DH than me and says she hates him and wants him to leave and he has been nothing but loving and super kind to her. We have had to put security on our doors and windows due to trying to run away in rages.
We try to be poker faced and not react and be soft spoken, but we are overtired, exhausted, emotionally torn to pieces and feel defeated.:confused:
We have in-home services that come and hang with us but we do not see much progress. She is kind one minute and completely psychotic the next.
We have court this week to petition for adoption and to be honest we are nervous. She has gotten so much worse in the past month and she doesn't know about court so it can't be that.
Does this get better? I am not sure as first time parents we are prepared for this. It is to long but DCYF threw us under the bus and this info was not shared as it should have been and now we are here. I told my mom a little after she saw bruising on me and she said "if you don't make this work you will ruin her". My thought is we didn't make this happen and she already was troubled when we got her.
Any and all advice would be appreciated. We want to see her healthy and happy but OH boy are we in the thick of it right now.:hissy:
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Hugs from another RAD mom. We too were not told the truth, though ours was international. To be honest, I am not sure I would finalize if I were you, you might loose some of the services you can get now. Our son gets nothing from the state. Insurance won't cover most therapy and it's been really, really hard. He has been home four years almost and while he is better, he is no where near healed. We still have some violent tantrums. We removed the locking doorknob on our bathroom because of the locking in the bathroom. I thought about just turning it around and then realized he would use that to lock me in there! My son is also an angel around other people, but not at home. Most of his venom is directed at me, he kind of likes dh, or did until he realized that no matter what he said dh would back me up. It's been the hardest thing ever and I am not a first time parent. I have three kids older than him and I had coustody of three of my relatives before that, plus I was a nanny before that. It's still been hard and finding help has been really, really hard. Do you have access to respite so you can have a break to think clearly? I am here anytime you want to vent. The people here and on the main special needs board have helped me sooo much.
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Wow, sounds familiar. At this time we do not have access to respite. We were told to treat her like our own child and use our friends and family for sitters and stuff. We are terrified to leave her with someone else. She has shown a few of her "colors" in front of my parents and I don't want to see her manipulate them.
We have struggled with what to do. She has had a failed adoption and the state said it was due to the environment and the parents not her. She went into a group home for therapy and was an angel there. Now we know it was because she didn't have to attach or love them she was just able to have fun with all the other kiddo's. Once she came to us she started in again.
We can't even get out of the house in the morning without a tantrum. She wouldn't get dressed, eat, or do anything this morning and said that it was my fault because I liked TV more than her. NOTE: I never watch TV and only watch the news for 15min in the morning between finishing her lunch, breakfast, my lunch, dh lunch, dressing and showering and putting her bag together. She has a routine and chooses to blame not doing it on everyone else.
I honestly am not sure how I am even functioning daily :(
She wakes me at night just to ask silly questions and wanders around her room. Then she is a beast in the morning AHHHHH..
More hugs, from another RAD mom. :grouphug:
With the problems that I'm dealing with in my daughter, who was only 2.5 when I brought her home, I can only imagine how much more you're having to deal with. Reminding yourself that she's in considerably more emotional/psychological pain than what she's trying to inflict on you and your husband doesn't really make it any easier, I know.
You definitely need to try to find some kind of trained respite care provider and a support team of people who can be educated to help you out when you need a break. I'm still looking for help after nearly 2 years since getting my daughter's diagnosis. I hope it's ok to post this here, I've started collecting links of RAD and FASD support sites on one of my blogs, [URL="http://christiansinglesadopt.net"]Christian Singles Adopt[/URL]. There's some good information to be found, but not nearly enough. One of the sites, Nancy Thomas' "Attachment Disorders" site, has a page that lists therapists known to treat attachment disorders. The list is organized by state but not every state has someone listed. I think that was the first site I turned to when our therapist suggested RAD as a component of my daughter's issues.
You'll need to pay especially close attention to your own health and well being. Your cortisol levels will very likely rise and your serotonin may seem less than adequate to keep your emotional health stable. You may want to research ways to help your body naturally fight against the effects of stress. Some of the things I've found helpful are melotonin to help me sleep better; Relacore to help deal with the cortisol imbalance; chocolate for just about everything else.
When you need to yell, scream, cry, throw a tantrum of your own, we're here for you. One thing you can count on -- we aren't going to judge you.
Lorie
You aren't going to ruin her if you don't adopt her. I certainly would delay any steps toward finalizing until you feel better about it. Are the therapist working with you and your daughter or just your daughter? Are they giving you ideas and tools to use to help you parent her? If not, you need better therapists who understand attachment.
When she is nasty to your husband, YOU be good to him. And, tell her she may NOT speak to YOUR husband that way. (Don't say your dad.) She needs to know that your relationship with your husband is FIRST and she cannot break that bond.
Does it get better? Tough question. Sometimes it gets better and is wonderful. Sometimes, it stays the same. Sometimes it gets worse. There isn't a clear answer for that.
I do know, you have to make a decision(that doesn't mean finalize, you may need for services or time). If I gave myself an out, I wouldn't have been able to parent my sons. I decided to stick it out. It was hard and it's not been a rewarding experience for me. But, there are people who do this with great success.
If you are not keeping a journal, keep one. It helped to to find triggers for my sons behaviors. Many behaviors are fear based even when they appear to be evil. Finding patterns can help you be more aware of stressful times and intervene before things explode.
Don't let anyone pressure you into a decision. It's a lifetime commitment and not something to be pushed into.
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