Thoughts about Level 1, lying and the "heart" of a child

In the days and weeks following our second version of “Level 1” I fluctuated between awe, worry, and panic. Parenting a traumatized child is a rollercoaster. Parenting a "normal" child is a rollercoaster—one fraught with all of the same feelings but in my experience of Nichole, Josh, and Daniel it’s a quick zooooooop into the bottom of the loop and then quickly back up. Up and down, round and round the track, it’s mostly fun with moments of terror quickly replaced by giggles.

The rollercoaster that I ride with Loreli spends days, weeks, and sometimes months in the depths. Sadness, anger, and so much fear swirling around our lives, sometimes I wonder how we will make it through.

I realized just this morning that part of the reason I get upset when Loreli is in the depths and cheats or lies is because, unlike a "normal" child, it’s not a once in a while thing. It’s a symptom of her biggest fear, abandonment, and it’s not going to stop on it’s own. One lie quickly turns into ten, turns into a lifestyle, turns into feeling so completely, overwhelmingly unsafe that meltdowns and rages are a daily occurrence. She goes back to hurting dogs, hurting Daniel, all behaviors designed to show me how scared she is. 

I'm learning to recognize a child's heart in things. A lie can be "normal" and it can be "reactive attachment disorder". The difference is the liar's heart. When I say, in a wheedling tone, "Now, come on, that sounds like a story...tell me the truth." and the child says with a grin and a flash of giggling eyes, "Okay, what really happened is________," this is what "typical" children exhibit more often than not. A "RAD" lie is something else. When I say, in a wheedling tone, "Now, come on, that sounds like a story...tell me the truth..." a RAD lie sounds and looks like this: "NO! IT'S TRUE!" with angry flashing eyes and maybe a flat, non-expressive face. They are so afraid and that fear feels like a clenched fist in my heart. 

I can only imagine how it feels to be a child from a trauma background. How terrible to feel that your parent is going to abandon you because of a lie. How terrible to feel that your parent is going to abandon you because they love you (Loreli feels that if I love her then I will abandon her--exactly how her birth mother did). How do we, as parents, find our way into the hearts of children who are stuck between the rock of our love and the hard place of their past trauma?