I agree with the previous poster about being prepared for others to think you are the one with the problem. We have struggled with this a lot. Our family, who really has no reason not to believe us, seems to think we are overreacting to "normal" kid stuff. We get that a lot. "Oh, that's normal", people will say. While some of hte behaviors might seem normal, they are always done with not normal intentions. There is ALWAYS a motive with our son. Nothing is ever done innocently. That was hard to get used to. But now that we know it, we call the behaviors out. Before he would try and make me think I was crazy and would look all sad acting as if I was mean to insinuate that he was doing things on purpose. But he did actually confess some of the things that he had been doing on purpose. Asking questions to be annoying. Staring at me in the mirror (he sits behind me in the car and would stare into my mirror at me...kind odd/creepy). Our son is more passive aggressive, at least for now. He does have meltdowns but they have not been destructive in our home. In the previous home he was more destructive. So I was kind of waiting for that. He has a lot of school behaviors and his teachers really coddle him. It's nice to have teachers that care but we have to spell out why he is doing things at school. And he misbehaves a lot more at school because he gets away with it there. But overall the most frustrating thing is having family act like we are the ones who are crazy. It has also been hurtful. He will go over to my parents house and talk baby talk and try to be so cute and innocent and make us look like we are so mean or something. My mom thinks we are hard on him. But we have to be very strict with him. Any variance in the schedule or expectations and he is showing behaviors. So we very much stick to the straight and narrow for him. I was trying to explain to my mom that when she fed into his behaviors she was just being manipulated. And she told me she didn't want to feel like she couldn't be herself or change how she interacted with kids so she would just be a part of the manipulation. So in doing that, she is kind of hurting us and playing into the behaviors we are trying to stop. So we have had to limit our times over there. And I pretty much don't expect much family support anymore. Which is sad. So I think RAD can definitely be isolating unless you have understanding support.
I have pretty much lost all hope. Feel completely isolated as almost 100% of the world knows nothing about RAD. Over the years I have briefly explained things here & there to others…only to have people quickly just say “ya that’s a normal teenager”, “yeah my kids did that too” etc etc, not understanding, listening or willing to learn more but instead they just assume my kids are like thier normal kids. I give up talking about my kids, my life, cause no one understands other than my wife & my kids attachment specialist. Without the specialist over all these years, I think I would have truly lost my sanity by now, but I only get to unload my stress here & there but so thankful to have at least 1 person in my life who gets it. I also go to forums to read articles from others as I’m sure everyone here feels same way I do when reading most post….it feels like the person who wrote the post is living your life. Almost every post reminds me almost exactly to what my life is like. We adopted 5 kids all with RAD, some with ODD as well, along with many other diagnosis including probably soon to be a conduct disorder or socialpath. We have had all kids for about 12 years, they all 16-18 (2 differs boo groups). I at one time thought I would write a book about our life/family one day, however I think all the stress, mental abuse, physical & just day in day out craziness has taken a toll on my memory. I’m 48, but feel like my kids have really aged both myself & wife. We always said no matter what, how bad it gets we keep the kids vs terminating our parental rights. No doubt this has been the hardest thing we have ever dealt with in our lives times a thousand. I worked 10 years prior managing group homes for dual diagnosis with adults on all levels of mental health issues as well as disability. This was one of the reasons we were able to adopt so many kids at once, but I never worked with a RAD child prior & the state hid these diagnosis from us. We were so desperately wanting children & a big family & we’re willing to do whatever took to get it. Looking back was clearly worst decision of our lives. Between the 5 children we have seen just about everything u can imagine & the severity & frequency of issues goes way up with more children in home with same issues. I remember days where truthfully the kids would probably do maybe 100 plus bad things in a day & do this many times over when they all were like 8-12. I do feel like frequency has improved as they have gotten older to maybe half of that however the severity of issues are worse. I could just go on and on in my post. I just want to tell you who is reading this…,Don’t give up in life, life is hard, taking care of these kids are beyond difficult & thank God we have each other in forums/post like these to draw courage/strength or just feel like we are not alone. I can’t talk to friends, well I don’t have many anyways as I have no time to give them as I dealing with my 5 all the time & the very few times I’m not, I have no desire or energy to want to do anything else. My therapist says we probably have PTSD & I would imagine many parents raising kids with RAD do as well. I know the joy of life has been sucked away, the kids have really tested my marriage of 23 years. I hate it when I go to work or run into someone I have not seen in a long time cause they always ask how my kids are doing & then immediately in that moment I think “If I told them the truth they would not get it or understand & then they end up pissing me off LOL, so I just lie & say fine, change subject or ask about their kids. Then if I’m lucky I can hear how great there family is which then reminds me how bad mine is or I hear them complain about things thier kids do & I think to myself how much I wish my kids worst behavior would be like that as what they are describing is nothing remotely near to my best day. I pray that one day the world will get educated & respect us parents better & recognize the burden we carry in isolation.