Well, it took long enough but I finally figured out why B has been so out of sorts the past month. Our therapist sent me the following link - http://www.beyondconsequences.com/asktheexpert/nancyverrier - and I listened to it Friday afternoon. They talked about implicit memory and how we all lived through birth - age three, and even though we can't remember actual events taking place, they are saved in our implicit memory forever. So even though RAD kids can't verbalize what happened, it is remembered. So it got me thinking about B's birthmom, and that night I asked my husband when she left. The answer may shock you - March! Amazing, isn't it? :) So I explained the implicit memory thing to my husband, and he didn't quite believe me. So, the next day as I was driving to work out, he called and asked when we put B in Special Ed last year. I reminded him it was March when her behaviors went completely out of control last year.
So there you have it. Mystery solved. Thank God. I can't believe we didn't think of this sooner, but it never crossed my mind that she would remember the time of year her birth mom left.
I avoided B for the most part this weekend, because any contact I had with her immediately set her off. So, this morning I was a little refreshed from the lack of confrontations. She was giving her dad some attitude this morning, and I stayed calm with her. She was getting nasty with me too, but I kept it together. She got a nasty tone with me about hurting her knee (before she went downstairs she noticed two huge bandaids on my knee, and asked what they were from. i told her not to worry about it. Then, miraculously, she came up from the basement where she was getting socks from the laundry and as soon as she opened the door from the basement, she turned on the tears saying she hurt her knee. It was so fake, I had to call her out on it.), anyways that was the last straw for my husband who got insanely ticked off and left early for work. She was angry then and stormed off to her room. I waited for her to calm down, then asked her to come in my room. I asked if she would tell me what has been bothering her for the past few weeks, and she was quiet for a couple minutes before turning to me and telling me that I wouldn't understand. I told her that I just might understand, but if she didn't talk to me, I couldn't try to understand. She gave me a dirty look, so I proceeded to tell her all the things she was thinking. This is the time her birth mom left. She feels guilty for not being with birthmom, and if she loves me then she can't love her birth mom to. And on and on. She wasn't looking at me, but in the mirror I could tell I was hitting all the right things. So, when I finished I said "Do I understand?" She said yes, then cried about how hard it is. I told her it's okay to love her birth mom and me, and that she will always have a special place in her heart for her birth mom. By the end of the talk she seemed okay. She finished getting ready for school, and was off to the bus. I can't remember the last time she was that compliant.
I'm very interested tonight to see how she behaves. Last time we met with our therapist, she recommended B write a letter to her birth mom, so I think we will do that tonight. She also loves balloons, so I was going to pick one up on my way home from work, and let her decorate it with a Sharpie, and write her feelings on it, then let it go up to heaven. I don't know if the balloon will help any, but I guess we'll try.
Also, my mom was reading on Nancy Thomas' website about Mother's Day Eve. Does anyone do this? The thought of celebrating her birthmom is tough to stomach, and I know my husband isn't a fan of the idea. Personally, I'd prefer to skip the holiday, as my family will all be out of town anyways, so it's just the three of us. But I am curious if it's worth a shot...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Hi Brie,
You may have noticed I became a follower a few days ago but I hadn't commented before. I think you hit the nail on the head both with what is going on with Butterfly and your response to her. Good work! My 8 & 9 year old kids with RAD get really out of control right around the Nov/Dec holidays which were times when critical events happened for them so I think there is alot to these preverbal memories for them. We have our kids write letters/draw pictures to their birthmoms for mothers day along with a couple of other critical times. We have not mailed any of them at their request but it always reveals something important and I have saved them for the kids use in the future. It is a great way for them to unload what they are feeling. My son talked about how much he loved and missed his birthmom and wanted to send her a birthday card/picture when he was 8. I had him do that and it was amazing. The picture was lovely but the words around the picture were telling. He wrote "I love you" several times at the top but then at the bottom he had written "love+hate" about a dozen times! Those were feelings he never articulated but there they were. It opened up all kinds of doors for us. Sorry for the long-winded comment. Just want you to know I am following your journey and you seem to be doing all the right things.
Wow! What a great breakthrough!! You handled it just right, too. I can tell things are slowly starting to change at your house, too. :-)
At least you know what triggers your dauughter this time of year. I have yet to figure out what sets my boys off in the fall, but it's happened big time both years we've had them. I honestly don't think either one of them consciously remember, either. I know for sure my youngest doesn't...but those memories are still alive and well in the subconscious!
One thing that has helped SIGNIFICANTLY in the mother's day/mom issue stuff is to refer to the boy's birth mother by her first name. Even the boys only use her first name. It really helps in forming a separation between me and her. We've started this with several other significant relatives as well.
Wow! Great job with B. We try to honour our sons' birth mom, whom we call their "first mama." I am truly ambivalent about it, because her actions have caused our boys such problems/hurts. But in my rational moments I remember that the fact that our sons worry about her makes my hatred of her sort of irrelevant. Our adoption day celebration always incorporates her, complete with her own candle on our cake. The boys write letters to her whenever they want. There is a lot of mixed emotions that come out in these letters and drawings, so I think the process is therapeutic for them. I do not feel any competition from her, but I do really want the clear separation between her and me in our sons' minds -- I think that's what Diana's getting at as well. I saw that Mother's Day Eve thing on the Nancy Thomas web site just yesterday and am wondering about trying it out this year. Our sons don't tend to sabotage special days on the actual days though. At our house sabotaging happens in advance -- like the five days before the special event will be escalating regression as though they're trying to get us to take the specialness away. When the actual day rolls around it's as though our sons are relieved and thoroughly happy that they made it to it. Lastly, what I call our sons' "sad/difficult anniversaries" all occurred during December through April. The string goes something like this: abandoned by birth mom in a December; surrendered to social services and orphanage system by maternal aunt in a January; separated from brother at that point; we showed up onthe scene in a February; we "abandoned" them for Ukraine's 30-day wait during a March; we reappeared and uprooted them to a completely different setting in an April. And these are just the anniversaries we know about. The events that do not involve us all occurred in our kids' pre-verbal stage. Based on the zoo-iness that goes on in our boys, especially the older one, during the December - April run, I am convinced that there is something to the instictive triggers or instinctive/unconscious memory thing. It's good you were able to make that link with B. We're at the 4-year mark now, and this year we started to talk with our older son about the patterns we'd noticed in past year -- we also introduced him to the idea of self-sabotage and we now always point it out to him when he's doing it. He gets a mad expression when he hears about it, but our mentioning it nips it in the bud about 95% of the time. He's 9.25 years old and is intellectually very able to run with concepts and abstractions. Sorry for the longwindedness.
Post a Comment