We begin again.

August 23, 2016.

My 47th birthday.

“It’s too big. It’s too scary. It’s been too long. No one will understand. No one cares. It’s waaaaay TMI. Just put it behind you. Move on. I wonder what’s on Netflix that I haven’t seen yet…”
My inner critic has been working overtime and she’s really loud and really persuasive. It IS easier to tune out, zone out, disconnect than have to feel ONE MORE FEELING about this situation.

But then…

My Inner Voice (and yes, I capitalize it because it comes from God, Source, the Divine) whispers, “Just tell the truth.”

My guess is that this story will be somewhat disjointed for awhile. My mind, usually fairly step-by-step and logical in the way I write a story, swirls with PTSD now and my heart jumps between pain so big that I’m scared to let it out more than the tiniest wisps, and relief at being free of the day to day horror. Writing about the past year is excruciating. I'll be writing along and all of a sudden my mind blanks. This has never happened to me before. I know what it is and I know why it is but it's still tough to accept it.

It’s been a bit more than a year since I stopped. I stopped day to day care of Loreli (I've changed both of the kid's names to pseudonyms). It was the end of July 2015 that I gave up. There was nothing more to give her. Every positive interaction she allowed was twisted up and given back to Daniel, the dogs, and me in hate, fury, and abuse. She was ten years old and had been with us for nearly 6 years. I enrolled her in full time daycare. Brad picked her up at 6:00pm. I told Brad that Daniel and I would no longer be in the house alone with her. If she was there, then he was there. Brad didn’t know exactly what was going on but agreed.

(One of the many ways to tell a RAD family is by the family members who do NOT have RAD. The mom is depressed (unexpressed anger), withdrawn, ultra protective of her other children and pets. She treats the child with RAD differently and often insists on structure and line of sight for the RAD child but not her others. The mom, siblings, and pets are targets for the RAD child's abuse and she has to stay on high alert (hypervigilance) in order to keep everyone as safe as possible. The dad, 99.9% of the time, is targeted differently. He is targeted to see the child with RAD in a sunnier way. He almost NEVER sees the abuse, as the child with RAD waits until he is gone before starting in. This is called "triangulation" or sometimes "splitting" and results in the divorce of 80% of marriages with RAD kids.)

Once Loreli was in full time day care, Daniel and I began to have our summer. There was only about a month left of it at that point but we made every moment count. We went swimming a lot, to the museum, zoo, and aquarium. We had fun. It was weird and good and scary, and so needed.

We both let the steam out, one tiny bit at a time. We both were like tightly coiled springs.

As with all holidays with a kid with Reactive Attachment Disorder, Thanksgiving was ruined. Everything was fine until it was time to eat and then the screaming started. I didn’t even try to help her, I knew that as soon as I did and we had a good, bonding moment, she would turn around and hurt Daniel, the dogs, or me. It is the cycle of a child with severe RAD. A tiny part of her wants the love but a bigger part of her is living in the past with the person who hurt her. That part will not allow her to accept love. That’s the part that will insist that harming Daniel, the dogs, or me is crucial for her survival.

After Thanksgiving, a frustrated and defeated Daniel said, “If she’s here for Christmas then I’m going to stay in my bedroom.” So sayeth a child who has no power and no hope.

She was not here for Christmas.

We accepted a spot for Loreli at The Institute for Attachment and Child Development.

The Institute is different from any other program in that they have all of the structure and therapy of a residential treatment center but the children live in an actual home with a real mom and dad (who have both been trained and have their own experience with RAD), their children and several other treatment kids. What this means is that the children with RAD cannot triangulate as easily. In an RTC, which have rotating staff, it is known that the children constantly triangulate (pitting one caregiver against another).

She left on December 9, 2015. Very quickly we were told that Loreli has severe RAD. As with this entire process, I felt relief and grief. What we had been experiencing for 6 years wasn’t “just” RAD (which is bad enough) but severe RAD. I learned that Daniel and I really did have PTSD from living with this abusive child. I learned that they expected to work with her for at least a year.

Daniel and I had a year to heal…from 6 years of abuse.