Introduction

I am a single mom (Georgia) of a little girl adopted from foster care. J was moved to my home on 10/23/06 @ age 5 (6 on 11/9). Adoption was final 11/20/07. J has a sister (H) who is 9 that is living with another family in another state. H has been moved 3 times since J’s placement. J & H were placed together until 2004 when they were separated. (Thank the good Lord!) The trauma bond between them is unbelievable.

Previous history: With the history that I have been provided I believe that I am J’s 27th placement. Before placement she was diagnosed with RAD, ADHD, ODD & PTSD but had never had treatment or therapy so I trained & read aggressively on all each of these diagnosis and set up my home and her room accordingly. Identified AT’s, trained the school, had a Nancy Thomas trained TMR respite provider identified, had a Biology of Behavior vitamin/supplement plan, etc. Prepared myself for battle. Or so I thought….

Two days after her arrival we started 2 weeks of intensive AT. She actually did pretty well then the honeymoon was over with a bang. Days of being covered in projectile vomit, spit on, hit, hours of raging, refusing to eat anything that I cooked unless she was planning to “give it back to me in the form of vomit”, trying to triangulate the school (didn’t work), attempted to kill my dog, sexually abused my dog (my back was turned for literally 2 minutes), beat the walls and tried to tear down her door every day and more that honestly I cannot remember. I hibernated and did not go out in public with her at all unless it was to the store 30 miles away where no one knew me so that I wouldn’t be judged when J totally melted down in the store. It didn’t seem to matter so much when people that I didn’t know looked at me like I had 3 heads. Four weeks into this behavior and feeling like a total failure, I sent J to TMR provider for 5 days. I had lost my voice as I tend to get sick when I am stressed so I had completely lost my voice and I had to have a break. I hibernated some more because now people would wonder why I was out having fun when I just gotten this darling little girl and was a brand new mommy….

TMR helped tremendously and it was the 1st relief that I had. She encouraged me to send J straight back in an instant turnaround the first time that behavior deteriorated. I did, even though it was extremely hard and J stayed 8 days. Then J had some pretty major improvements. By March 07 I was under the impression that J was “healed”. Seriously considered taking in H because she had disrupted again and I wanted to keep siblings together. My therapeutic parenting had worked miracles. Insert snickers here….. We went to a Nancy Thomas camp and I discovered that while J was showing significant improvement she was just upping the ante and had found sneakier ways to “control” me. Disappointed doesn’t begin to cover how I felt. Took me a couple of weeks to recover from the disappointment but ever since then I just try harder to stay 3 steps ahead of her. Easier said than done.

Summer showed great improvements when she wasn’t in school. Back to school and BAM! Over the top aggression and she tried to kill me. She stole a pair of scissors from the knife drawer on Sunday. I knew they were missing withing 5 minutes so I immediately started searching for them. They were nowhere to be found in her barren room. Tuesday evening I was turning her bed down and turned around to find J getting ready to stab me with the scissors. Boy! We're having fun now!!!! ;-) SW required me to take her to the hospital for an assessment. They totally disregarded what J had tried to do to me and wrote up that she was suicidal even though she never made a comment about suicide. Mysteriously the hospital records have disappeared and they have no record of her ever having been there.......Curiouser and curiouser....

At the end of September 2007 with the financial help of Gus I was able to have an au pair for a year. Chrissi (au pair) arrived from Germany on 9/28/07. Chrissi keeps her during the afternoon while I work and a home school teacher works the morning shift from 8-1. I just couldn’t take the daily melt downs or death threats that public school caused. Behavior is improving. 1 step forward 10 back. Regression comes and goes in waves. Financially it is beyond difficult but I am still hanging in there for now. I haven't been keeping up with my Al-Anon meetings to help me practice detachment but I do my daily meditations with Al-Anon literature to keep me mindful that it is not about me.

Thanking God I don’t have her sister too.

I apologize for the length and scope of this post. Thanks to all of you for being here, supporting and not judging. It means so much!

Lisa