When I asked my daughter if she would like to do this she said she would but was not sure about the topic. I suggested she write about our day on Sunday when we got to visit with a few other kids healing from RAD because I knew she had really enjoyed herself. She thought that was a great idea and asked if she could write it the way she does her daily writing prompts (so it will probably also appear on her blog) and off she went to do her writing. As I was waiting for her to complete this I began to think about all the ways in which we witness healing in our kids. It doesn't happen in the way that taking medicine works on a sick kid who is stuck in bed for a while where you generally "see" the impact relatively quickly. It happens in a much more subtle and gradual way and sometimes you don't realize there's healing until you stop to think "wow, that hasn't happened in a long time!" or "I cannot remember the last time she did ____." Sometimes it's a more dramatic revelation such as "Did she really just stop and tell herself OUT LOUD to tell the truth even if it was hard and she knew she was going to get in trouble?"
With Corazon we have seen more healing in the past few months and about a week ago we were having some control issues and I had her pull out a sheet of paper and take a "pop quiz" with no right or wrong answers. I have found that these "pop quizzes" really help us process stuff in the moment and lest you think it was my idea I actually stole it from an awesome mom who blogged about it here a while ago in her blog Welcome to my Brain. Here's what we did and remember this is in the MIDDLE of a control "struggle":
Me: "When you think about me being in control and acting like the mom
with you how does that make you feel?"
Corazon: Happy
Me: "Why happy?"
Corazon: Because then I can have more fun when you decide things.
AND I don't have to think so hard.
Me: "So, if that is true, why do you do it? You like to have fun."
Corazon: I don't know.
Me: What did you mean by "think so hard"?
Corazon: (after a long pause she wrote:) because there is alot to have to remember when
I have to decide if I want to do it or not and when I don't do it the right way!
Me: "So, are you saying that when you are fighting me and not doing things the way you are supposed to do them you KNOW you are not doing them the right way and you are thinking about how to NOT do them the right way?"
Corazon: (with a smile on her face she writes:) YES!
Me: "Does this work out well for you?"
Corazon: No.
Me: "Has it ever worked out well for you?"
Corazon: No.
Me: "But you keep doing it. Do you think it will work for you in the future even if it has never worked for you before?"
Corazon: Yes
Me: "How many RAD kids do you think this has worked for?"
Corazon: Zero
Me: "But you still think it can work for you?"
Corazon: Yes. Maybe.
Me: "Let me get back to what you said in the first question. You said it made you "Happy" to think about letting me be the mom and be the one in control. Do you still believe that?"
Corazon: YES!
Me: "So even if it makes you feel happy to let me be in control and be the mom, you still don't do it. I don't understand. What do you think will happen (good and bad) if you let yourself be the kid and be happy letting me be the mom?"
Corazon: 1. Good things will happen to me. 2. I will be mad when you go away. 3. I don't know.
Me: "Do you still think I will leave you after 4 1/2 years together?"
Corazon: (she wrote this and the caps are hers) NO but sometimes it FEELS like, when or IF you leave me or die then I should not let me feel happy now because it is easier to feel mad all the time.
This led to a discussion of how disappointing it can be after having fun and feeling happy to have a let down of some kind and how it is "easier" for her (I suggested it was more comfortable rather than easier because they both work too hard for it to be easy) for her and her older brother to feel miserable and unhappy because it was predictable. It also surfaced something that seemed much more like regular kid feelings rather than RAD kid feelings: her classmate/gymnastics friend just lost her father in a sudden car accident a couple of weeks ago and she was scared that could happen to me too. We talked about that as well.
I had been trying to figure out how to write about this on my blog but until just recently I realized that the fact that we can have these conversations now is part of the healing. It used to be just me SAYING, YELLING, SINGING, CRYING at the top of my lungs: "I am not going to send you away!" over and over again and now she knows it but still has the fear that was put there by her experiences with all the other people that came and went in her life before me. She just has to figure out how to make herself believe that she is safe and that even when she does get hurt that I will be there to help her pick up the pieces. She has gotten it that things go better when she just lets herself trust yet those little voices and experiences inside of her keep the doubt very much alive so she still struggles for control in those areas where she can be in control even if she makes the wrong choices and knows it. It is so complicated and so hard yet I am ever so grateful that we have gotten to this point in her healing.
I will try to post her post later today or tomorrow. Thank you for
Posts
7 comments:
What a great post! Thanks for the reminder to look for the healing because it IS happening ever so slowly! can't wait to read Corazon's post!
Thank you for that. It is nice to read other perpectives. I actually follow your blog now because I read about you here on Lisa's blog. My daughter is slowly healing as well and sometimes it is an absolute AHA moment to figure out she is! :) Our bad days are getting fewer and far in between, but she still has them. It was nice to read that today!
What an insightful post and so helpful to read. Though none of my kids have an official dx of RAD, I suspect that trust issues still abound for Rob. Part of it gets enhanced by the normal hormone stuff that starts to happen at this age too. But I think at his core he is waiting for me to prove to him that he can't trust me.
Hot dog for getting to the root of it!
So true. Sometimes it's hard to see the healing when we are in the middle of it all. Thanks for reminding me to step back and get some perspective on my kid's personal growth.
Wow! I came over here fully expecting no newness, and look what I found. One of my favourite bloggers (I lurk at your site, Dia). So two pieces of luck for me: newness, and a great guest blogger. What a lucky day I'm having.
Yes, our noticing of the progress in the healing is exactly as you describe it. I would add in that, at least in my experience, we also get a chance to register awareness of the healing during the regressions. Our son regresses, but each regression seems less onerous, shorter-lived, and we are gradually building up longer times between regressions so they are less frequent.
I LOVED the dialogue between you and Corazon. I am going to copy you on that. It must have been so gratifying to find Corazon able to talk that out with you.
Thank you for posting, and thank you to Lisa for arranging a guest blogger to give me my fix in her absence!
Thank you for the nice comments! It was alot of pressure to blog here but I am glas Lisa asked. I did this post because we are in such RAD-h*ll with my son these days and I am not ready to write about it. It forced me to step back and look for the healing in him. That made me realize that I was taking my daughter's healing for granted even when she is working so very hard!
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